Thoughts of a Freethinker

There are fewer atheists than there are Christians. It's amazing there are any atheists. Christianity, and some other religions, have sales pitches that run circle around atheists. We all know some religions sell themselves as outsmarting death. They tell us, ""Look, we have this death thing figured out. All you have to do is give yourself to religion and you don't have to die. We guarantee it." Atheism, however, tells you this is the only life you get. Our competition, religion, can't prove they deliver what they sell you.  We can only offer truth. Most of the time, religion wins. The link makes some interesting (to me) observations on all of this. The author points out the pleasure from learning what one believes is true and verifiable. This makes out one life better because we are not wasting it going down rabbit holes of gods and fake news. Doubt, reflection and critical thinking should be part of every educated citizen's makeup. Christianity discour...

Someone who gave $2 1/2 million to prove there was fraud in the election of Joe Biden now thinks he was taken for a ride and wants his money back . Dishonesty in the Trump scheme is being exposed. Ever since the election Trump, Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell have said in interviews and speeches there was widespread fraud. In court they said there was not. As the USA link says about court appearances, "..the Trump campaign did not allege widespread fraud, despite public claims to the contrary." Polls have shown 70% of Trump supporters believe to this day there was fraud. The Trump team implies it has a powerful case to make and will make it as soon as they are allowed into court. Do they have something powerful they have yet to reveal? My assumption is anyone who gave $2 1/2 million would have access to whatever inside and powerful cases were yet to be made. When Fred Eshelman, who gave the $2 1/2 million, inquired as to the progress being made and what expectation was reason...

Thank goodness for billionaires who are secular and interested in using technology and research to make humans' lives better. These include the Gates and Kennedys. Even though the Catholic Church and parts of Protestantism want to keep women pregnant in the summer and barefoot in the winter they will be unsuccessful ultimately. One of the things I learned in the exhaustive study of pregnancy and abortion, The Turnaways,  is that women sometimes do not take birth control properly, run out/or and cannot get replacement easily. The long standing products have uncomfortable side effects. Drug companies have seen the market of out of date products rise even though women are unhappy with them. The research for new products is expensive and firms are subject to litigation. Many unwanted pregnancies happen because of stalled birth control technology. On the horizon are better products.  Worldwide about half of all women use birth control. Yet, there is a lot of dissatisfaction with t...

When missionaries go to countries that already have some kind of religion, or, have none, what do they accomplish by starting Christian churches? I know they provide a sense of accomplishment for themselves and those back home who send money to support them. But, precisely what to they do for the citizens of the countries they travel to? I know that in recent decades lots of missionary posts have stressed service to local people. They are somewhat like the Peace Corp. Peace Corp people are to teach and provide assistance not available otherwise to local economies. Those Christians who go to poor countries with the narrow intention of replacing an indigenous religion with Christianity, however, are still there and get in the headlines often. The days of missionaries seems to have hit hard times. The Southern Baptist Convention has cut back its missionary program. Young people around the world, including Africa, are skeptical of all religions including Christianity. They have cell phone...

Columnist David Brooks addressed the problem that has become common in the U.S. It is huge numbers of people believing information that is not true. While the problem has many sources, it has happened significantly because of  what I have always thought is a driving force cultural change, the demographic variable called urbanization. Everyone knows this is the continuous migration of people from rural areas to cities. People in cities tend to have higher education and the majority do not to feel as left behind by economic and technical advances.  Brooks discusses how a great funnel of information should work. In a society with freedom of press and speech, all kinds of information, both true and false, float around. Through debate, forums, universities, political campaigns and all the rest ideas completely false fall over the side and mostly sound information gets through the funnel.  This funnel worked to some extent when attorney Sidney Powell's completely false accusati...

God is angry with the election results an evangelical preacher announced this week. God has dispatched angels to correct is incorrect vote count. What a relief this must be to Trump supporters. It was fun to scroll through comments of religious whackos during the week. Pat Robertson was especially animated. He has been saying for weeks God told him Trump was going to win. Now he is saying Satan is causing Biden to appear the winner and is imploring believers to pray that Satan's scheme will not be successful.  Other conservative pundits have written that every voter who voted for Biden has the blood of abortions on their hands. We have to remember that if voters were united against abortion they would have voted overwhelmingly for Trump. They were told time and again by Catholic clergy and others this election was about abortion.   What will be great political theater in the next year will be government's role in health care. The balance of power in the House and Senate w...

When Trump is finally gone, there will remain a substantial set of voters who believe, and have no doubt whatsoever, there is another Presidential candidate out there who will govern from a direct pipeline to God. They believe that about Trump. They believe our country was destined to be governed under principles of Christian nationalism. While other false religions can exist within the U.S., our founders intended Christian nationalism to dominate in government.  Polls show this group to be around 1/4 of all voters. Thus, when the political stars are aliened in a certain way, the right personality on the Christian nationalism side and the wrong personality on the other, we have seen and may see again sometime a Donald Trump type Presidency.  This is frightening to a set to those of us the Christian nationalists dislike. Those disliked will lose rights they are supposed to have. Yet, those who are determined to destroy rights of women and minorities live in the same country as...