Thoughts of a Freethinker

The concept of sin is the Achilles Heel of Christianity. Think of what is in our recent news. According to the news a police officer murdered a black man. If this death was completely unprovoked (maybe we'll learn more ultimately), the police officer committed a heinous crime. Surely in Christianity it would be considered a sin. What can the officer do to erase this sin? Merely ask for forgiveness. He has not committed the most serious and unforgivable sin of all. A Christian parody site has a thread that has been going for years entitled, "You can kill almost anyone and still get to heaven." Even though the purpose of the thread is to ridicule Christianity, it seems to have much truth to it. A far more serious sin according to the Bible is not believing in the Holy Spirit. That is blasphemy.  Why is it believers allow themselves to be painted into a corner like this? Why cannot they see whoever wrote the Bible had bad intentions? Haven't they ever heard, and can'...

A familiar but still terrible practice of forcing children into full-immersion baptism thus "converting" them saw justice recently. A couple and their church agreed to pay the parents and their handicapped child an undisclosed sum for a forced baptism.  It reminded me of a story in my extended family. A few decades ago when my nephew was a little boy he was invited to another boy's birthday party. During the course of the party all the little boys underwent a full immersion baptism ritual. I don't know religion well enough the say what this accomplished. Is it that  this nephew, whom I think is not a believer, will go to heaven in spite of his non belief? Maybe if I fill my bath tub  and do full immersion can I go to heaven too. Do I need to do immersion with my clothes on? The Bible said Adam and Eve needed to cover up so I suppose that applies to me as well. Literature about Christianity is full of intense disagreements about how and when to properly baptize. On the...

There are stories about atheists and Christians, Jews and Christians and in the Bible Pagans and Christians. A major world religion older than Christianity is Hinduism. I seldom read their stories of encounters with Christians. I've known dozens of Hindu, been a guest at Hindu celebrations but the experience of their lives in a Christian country I know little about. Apparently, it is often unpleasant . Apparently the Christian narrative about Hinduism is one of Christian Triumphalism. That is, a common experience of Hindus is being told Jesus won contest and Hindus should give up. Rather like Jews often hear no doubt. The link by a Hindu man tells of an invitation to a Christian church while the two were lifting a weight together. When and Hindu man declined the Christian was disgusted and stomped out leaving the weight on top of the Hindu. Hindus have their own history of intolerance. Prime Ministers of India have been assassinated by other branches of the faith. Mahatma Gandhi wa...

The Disney Corporation's Pixar division will release an animation film for children with a gay main character. Disney was early in acceptance of gay customers in its theme parks and now leads with this project . Sony pictures is working on a gay themed film for children as well. With gay films and books booming we live in a new era. Disney had unofficial gay days at it amusement parks going back to the 1980's. In 2005 the Southern Baptist Convention and Family Values groups announced a boycott of Disney due to its ownership of the network that broadcast the TV show Ellen.  The show made Ellen an attractive gay character played by real life gay comedienne Ellen Degeneres. Disney continued to thrive and a few years later I recall a Southern Baptist official being asked about the boycott. It had been called off he said. I've read there have been several other "boycotts" of Disney for various films and for its policy of employee family benefits for gay employees. It s...

There has been an unbroken thread of atheists and agnostics as far back as there are records of the written word. It is popular to talk about ones during the last 2,000 years because there have been so many attempts to stop them. A block from where I live is a prominent street named, "Ingersoll Avenue." It is named after one of the most famous non believers in history Robert Green Ingersoll. He died in 1899. I would say there is no non believer today that is as prominent as he was during his lifetime. His quotes that ridiculed Christianity are still used frequently today. Ingersoll was a self educated lawyer. He practiced in Chicago and later New York City. Apparently he was very successful at law. While practicing law, he has another successful career on the speaking circuit. People paid good ticket prices to hear him bash Christianity. It is estimated in today's money he earned one million dollars as a speaker some years. He had audiences as large as 50,000. I ...

For several years here in this blog I've argued that liberal versions of Christianity ultimately would survive while conservative ones would fall by the wayside.  When I first started saying this conservative numbers, especially among the Pentecostal branch, held their own or were rising while liberal branches were rapidly falling. Numbers back seemed unsustainable to me. I remember asking how irrational thinking could outrun rational? That is, how could more belief in invisible beings and in magical thinking outrun information and religious practices aliened with current reality? It seemed  inevitable survival in the faith would remain people who were casual about religion and who enjoyed its social life. Emotional ties to irrational thinking would slowly fall. Over time years numbers in conservative and Pentecostal churches began to fall like those of the liberal branches. Now, there is the first glimmer that a small sliver of conservative church attendees  is s...

A wise Chinese philosopher in about 300 BCE  expressed atheism in a way as fresh and modern as anyone today. Paraphrasing, "Don't waste you time praying. It will get you nowhere. If you think it rained because you prayed it would have rained anyway. Instead, study, work and be lucky and you will have a better life." We know from surviving writing there were atheists all over the world at that time. And, there were 100's of religious people cancelling out each other's gods. While not about what we call ancient times, I have on my shelves books by recent authors who combed through newspapers and letters, 1600's and 1700's,  in the U.S. and Europe to find references to non belief. The books were written in response to conventional wisdom that the U.S. was packed with fervent Christians from the Pilgrims to today. Today's conventional wisdom comes from history books written by the winners, not by the losers. Christians won the cultural wars during...