Thoughts of a Freethinker

There are problems anti abortion politics needs to solve if it is ever going to amount to anything. So far the strategy is to never discuss these problems and hope no one else brings them up. Let's bring them up today. One is the hundreds of thousands of frozen fertilized human eggs stored facilities that provide this service. Only a tiny fraction of them will ever be placed inside women attempting to become pregnant. The link , written by an anti abortion zealot, refers to each of these microscopic bits of  tissue as "individual human beings." Eventually, those who have been paying for the freezer space will die or stop paying. Besides shouting protests, what are anti abortion cranks doing about this? I've not read of any fund drive to pay for the freezer space. Maybe instead of protesting at women's clinics anti abortion operatives could get jobs to pay for this service. An endowment for hundreds or thousands of years is needed. Of course, it is more fun ...

A religious person recently speculated that the exodus from the faith is being caused by hypocrites and the self-righteous. He speculates if more knew about the quiet good works within the faith this would turn things around. He is talking, of course, about those we all know about. Priests who look down on the divorced and the same sex attracted. Also the evangelicals who praise morality but endorse a President who embodies the worst of the worst. Although the author does not mention them, those who commented noted his list should include the self righteous protesters at abortion clinics passing moral judgement on the women entering while pretending to pray. These top my list of hypocrites. They pray out loud to be certain others can hear them. Then they support politics that harm instead of help women with unwanted pregnancies. A large staff of public relations experts, implied in the link, will not fix Christianity. It has not helped Catholicism. There is a big staff or su...

I've found it entertaining to keep track of the most terrible sins. When I was a farm boy it was working in the fields with a tractor. That one is long forgotten. Bart Ehrman followed the sins deserving the harshest after-life punishment in ancient times. Like today, the importance of various sins reflected in the punishment after societies changed in the first centuries. That has never stopped. Ehrman found there were various punishments in hell for various sins. There was adultery and theft. Add to that not paying homage to the invisible Holy Ghost. Lying was, of course, a big sin in the ancient world. Since we know various parts of the Bible were written by impostors we can be sure there was plenty of lying in the neighborhood. Today it is said our President lies several times a day. No one mentions penalties for lying any more. Best not to get too specific when we're talking of family. If political rhetoric from pulpits is any judge, the greatest sin today is ab...

I like reading the history of Chicago. I lived there for a while and been there so many times. It's raw size and violent history right here in our backyard give us a look at the place of urban life in the U.S. I've had encounters, direct and indirect, with its Mayors over many years. Just now I'm reading City of Scoundrels,  a history of the city around the time of WWI which was also the period of Prohibition. One of the lessons of that period in Chicago and many other large cities was the immediate blossoming of ways to acquire alcoholic beverages in spite of a law making them illegal. To pass the legislation, certain exceptions had to be made. Alcohol could be acquired and served by churches. There were some medical exceptions. Pharmacists and doctors along with Catholic Bishops made considerable sums selling alcohol. Also, it was legal to make some kinds of beverages at home (bath tube gin). A large number of illegal bars opened in Chicago. They were supplied throug...

We have increasing amounts of knowledge. Mistakes are still being made about what it means. While the link is about an area in science, the difference between knowledge and understanding applies to many areas, including religion. Many Christians pride themselves with the volume of scripture they have memorized. Others know from memory where in the Bible to find various topics. Such people have knowledge of the Bible. Understanding the Bible, however, is something else entirely. To understand the Bible it is necessary to know what was going on in the tribal or secular world during the ancient times when writers committed their thoughts to paper. It also requires one know about the changing world which played out in the centuries that followed. The original writing was recopied countless times and whenever it was edited the changes would have represented whatever changes in thinking had occurred. Christian people my age have spent their lives hearing the Bible explained by sc...

A Southern Baptist Convention spokesperson said, "People need Jesus now more than ever," when asked about falling Southern Baptist numbers. His view , apparently, is people will return to church when they recognize the "need." Sometimes atheists are chided for seeing themselves as intellectually superior to believers. That may happen from time to time. Christians defeat atheists in looking down on others. The Christian message is quite consistent, "We have a superior view of reality. There is something wrong with people who do not believe there is an invisible god, an invisible life after death and rules that came from unknown sources." They believe, as the Baptist official above, everyone will come to realize what they see in real time is not reality but all the invisible stuff is reality. To paraphrase him, "People need a divorce from reality now more than ever. They need to believe in invisible beings and places." Instead of believin...

The word, "narrative", has become one of my favorites. In my own particular definition the word refers to a billboard that can be understood by drivers in cars passing by at 80 MPH. The perfect advertising narrative is a picture of an ice cream cone beside the message, "Exit 263". It's entertaining to watch Democratic Party candidates develop his/her a narrative. For Biden the narrative is roughly, "you know me."  For Sanders it is "take from the rich." For Warren it is a little less clear and increasingly uncertain moving down the field of candidates. Pamela Harris told a New Yorker writer weeks ago she knows she needs a narrative but cannot come up with one. She is fading. I, myself, can't figure out why she is running. There are lots of billboards advertising Christianity. I can't remember any of them except, "Christ died for our sins." In my view, that is the most popular narrative for selling Christianity. It im...