Thoughts of a Freethinker

Former President Trump grabbed this opportunity to play to the religious right. He noticed today, Easter Sunday, fell on the day that for several years has been Trans Visibility Day. Trump's chorus of empty heads joined in criticizing Biden.  Every week there is a murder of a trans person. This is a verifiable fact. There has never been verification there was a Jesus or that the Jesus character in the Christian narrative died on a particular day. Easter is a good marketing day for Christianity. Those in the faith probably feel they need to protect its popularity.  What we can celebrate today is that we have a President, Biden, who is unafraid of the religious right. He carries out his duties as if the religious right does not exist. While we know it exists, the less attention paid the better.  Trump cannot stop parents from taking their children to see the Easter Bunny nor search for colored eggs. The important part of Easter goes onl

The head preacher of a church that has several locations says he does not want to be off putting or make nonmembers feel like outsiders. So, in Easter advertisements he leaves out the bloody and magical stuff.  In what has become comical, the internet lit up with outrage. Many shouted Easter is about sin, blood, death and a magical resurrection. How can you have Easter without the gruesome stuff? The head preacher published a statement assuring everyone the story will be told in their Easter services.  It's smart to market Easter as about dressing up, bunnies, baby chickens and colorful eggs. At its roots, that is before Christianity, spring was a time of optimism. Its roots were not dead people hanging from poles. Today's Christianity is driven by the capitalistic market. If those who buy the product, people in the pews, want Easter to be about colorful eggs and bunnies instead of murdering people, it's going to be about the former. Year after year, I read Christian pundit...

While no one will claim to be a source for this, word about DC is that anyone who works for the Republican National Committee and applies for a job there must say he/she believes the 2020 election of Joe Biden was a fraud. I wonder if the RNC woman dumped by Trump agreed to this or refused? This plays precisely into the hands of Liz Chaney. Chaney gave a talk a few blocks from where I live here in Des Moines, IA. News accounts say there was a big crowd. Apparently, she is touring to promote her new book.  Chaney's message is aimed at Republicans. It is genius. She says, "Joe Biden is terrible. But we can survive four years of him. Trump is throwing out the Constitution. He is worse than Biden. You must not vote for Trump." That Trump and his appointees continue to say the 2020 election actually elected him makes the case Trump and his cabal are a group separate from U.S. society. If Joe Biden forgets some things, his weaknesses are manageable. Whatever problems they cause...

I remember as a graduate student another student from the deep south saying, "Don't Democrats understand they will lose the entire South?" She was referring to Democrats at the time, including JFK and Lyndon Johnson, who were forcing nation-wide integration on a resistant South. As the young woman predicted, Democrats have been losing the South ever since integration.  The Republicans, however, have had to swallow a poison pill to hold the South. That pill is a total ban on abortions. Could it be the proper question for Republicans hanging on to anti-abortion for dear life is "Don't Republicans understand they will lose the entire South?"   While, of course, one small election does not mean widespread change it certainly is something new to wonder about. An open seat in the Alabama legislature was just won by a woman who campaigned almost exclusively on abortion rights. She, herself, had an abortion earlier in her life.  The ironies about Forced Birth politi...

Polls and surveys seem like a growth industry. There is more news about them each year. I get calls regularly wanting me to answer polling questions. I mostly hang up because they often turn into campaign calls. I have done surveys myself and know some about random sampling. How, I have wondered, do researchers today get random samples when people do not pick up calls or, like me, do not answer? Every month a new poll is published saying there is an increase in the number of "Nones", those who claim no particular religious affiliation. There is a category called "agnostic" which usually means one thinks there is an invisible being of some kind but does not claim it is one or some other. I don't understand the difference between a None and an agnostic.  A further question is whether an agnostic thinks there is evidence of some unknown being or whether there is none but simply "believes" there is such a supernatural being. The atheist, if I dare speak f...

The internet is alive with speculation on Supreme Court Justices' comments to the anti-abortion lawyers. It could be the conservative members wanted to help anti-abortion, but the anti-abortion case was so far-fetched court watchers thought the judges wanted to toss them out. Of course, with this whacko Supreme Court majority even the most absurd religious right case may be a winner. From what I could gather, the argument from some Forced Birth doctors went like this: "We Forced Birth doctors do not want to find ourselves in a situation where a woman arrives next to death and we are forced to do an abortion that is against our religion. This situation could happen through widespread use of the drug that causes abortions, mifepristone. It is being used at home by millions of women. While it is used almost completely without problems, some problem could come up. If a problem came up, a woman might be sent to one of us. If we had to save the woman's life by doing an abortion ...

There is still a significant part of the Forced Birth group who thinks the way to stop abortions is by prosecuting women who get them. Their view is that Christians who do not want to prosecute women, and, of course, all employees to abortion clinics, simply do not take "sin" seriously. If all Christian took sin seriously laws would be passed penalizing, and thereby stopping, sin. The link quotes a good summary of how the pregnant woman seeking an abortion sees herself and her circumstances. She is not someone sitting around lamenting her pregnancy and feeling sad and guilty. Instead, she is like a trapped animal, pacing and looking for an escape. She sees herself as having no alternative but to escape and will keep pacing and looking until she finds one. I will say this for those who want to prosecute women who seek or get abortions, they recognize where the decision lies. It is ridiculous to prosecute abortion providers.  Even though this group of Forced Birthers recognizes...