Thoughts of a Freethinker

I enjoy reading writing by those who claim their is reliable evidence the Bible's main character, Jesus, died for our sins and literally came back to life. The reasons they give for believing all this is historical fact are  dubious . None of those who claim the be the Biblical authors were alive at the time all of it was supposed to have happened. No one wrote, "I saw Jesus alive after he died." Paul wrote he saw Jesus but it was in a dream. He wrote others were present but none of those people ever wrote they were there and saw what Paul described. Certainly it appears a story began circulating some decades after the alleged event that Jesus came back to life. That does not mean it actually happened. Based on nonreligious sources, the entire tale of a body taken to a cave or tomb is most unlikely. Bodies of political protesters were routinely left hanging in public view for a long time as a deterrent to others. This was the same practice used in the U. S. by wh...

A well know priest in Maryland says Catholics, and all Christians I suppose, are making a mistake in the most popular format at funerals. His complaint is that funerals today discuss and celebrate the lives of the dead. The most prominent topic of a funeral, he advises, should be punishment in hell or reward in heaven. He goes on to quote Catholic doctrine with makes it clear right after death each person is confronted with judgment and is sent off to one of the two. If Catholic, and much of Protestant, doctrine is punishment or reward in a life after one dies why has it become out of style to discuss it at funerals? Could it be the literal heaven and hell are not discussed so much today because people think it is nuts? Maybe because no one has ever come up with a convincing way to show there is a literal heaven and hell so it is wise not to bring it up? I have not heard a preacher talk in this way for years: Grandpa is dead but we don't know if he is in heaven or hell. W...

Watching a magician's show is seeing what we believe to be real but what is not . Nonbelievers see religious people as believing something is real which is not. Religious people see nonreligious as having disabilities because they cannot sense the presence of something the the religious know to be real, the god. In Christianity there is even a diagnosis for those who cannot sense the presence of an invisible being, nonbelievers suffer from a "hardened heart." In an article a magician tried to understand why people think that when he tosses and catches a ball two times, people believe he tosses it a third time when he does not. He thinks that because his eyes pretend to follow the ball upwards and he produces the ball which he has hidden in another hand under a table people believe they saw it tossed in the air. In the Old Testament it was promised God would send a person who would free the Jews from domination by the Roman Empire. Several Jews went about the countr...

So far as I know, every religion has a myth that explains "where we came from." Everyone of them is different. A priest friend told me once, "Every good religion is organized from beginning to end." He was criticizing Islam which he thought was incomplete in this way. He was, in turn, proud of how the Catholic branch had explanations for most everything. These explanations, of course, were made up by Catholic clergy. In Exodus it is claimed God created the earth, its animals and man. The religious writing which makes these claims started between two and five thousand years ago. Human-like creatures have existed for two hundred thousand years. If man is the master of all the earth why did creatures other than man run the earth for 500 million years before there were humans? Of all the reasons not to be religious this is one of the best. Man has ruled beasts for only a tiny period of the universe's existence. The new items found from the time before hum...

What human beings do inside their heads is a topic that will never be answered completely but will be studied forever. Religion is much about the insides of peoples' heads, but so is my field, economics. Most of the time, economics is regarded as folly by the general public and those Ph D's in the field are paid only nominally. But, there are times when economists are placed in the highest of posts. Such a moment is now. I read recently that Amazon has hired over 150 economists. That is the second largest number in any institution behind the Federal Reserve. They were hired by Amazon, not to assess interest rates or inflation, but to get inside peoples' heads. Amazon wants to know why people buy things and how much they will pay. The success of Amazon speaks well for the advice it received from its economists. Macro economics, the big picture of unemployment, interest rates and inflation is what the famous John Maynard Keynes worked with. Micro economics, why peo...

Some years ago when I began blogging a reader warned me I was close to committing "blasphemy." I did not know what he meant. The word is common but I had never paid any attention to what it referred to. Looking it up I learned it referred to specific scripture like Matthew 12:31-32 which says (paraphrased) "...all kinds of sin and blasphemy will be forgiven except one. That is blasphemy against the Holy Ghost. That will not be forgiven in this life nor in the life after death." This idea is genius in the realm of controlling people. If authorities who make up this writing are the ones who design a fictional "Holy Ghost" they are also in a position to define what constitutes "blasphemy." Authorities are playing with the minds of people who believe such ideas. The idea of blasphemy reaches even deeper. Blasphemy which can be forgiven requires going to other unseen and unknown beings and begging. This concept, blasphemy, is a tool of oppress...

One of the reasons anti abortion advocates are trying to pass "heartbeat" bills is because they have run out of silly restrictions to make abortions more difficult. They need to keep legislation coming to keep their cash flow solid. Now there is only one choice left, eliminate abortions entirely. That is what the "heartbeat" bills do. Heartbeat legislation makes  abortion not legal. It's as simple as that. Roe v Wade made abortion legal. This is an effort to make it not legal. Anti abortion operatives have tried everything else. They have persuaded legislators to pass bills requiring women to view the fetus on a screen, required waiting periods, required doctors to have emergency arrangements, required women know of other options, held state wide votes and forced women to hear anti abortion propaganda. All of these ridiculous measures did not move the needle against abortion. Now they have no options left but to overturn Roe. They are going for broke. ...