Thoughts of a Freethinker

Data on religion in most of Europe is different than that in the U.S. because it involves tax records.  People can check if they want a bit of their tax money to go to a denomination. In the U.S. a lot of church numbers are provided voluntarily by denominations. In the case of Catholics in Germany, those choosing for the government to take their donation and turn it over to the church is declining at a million people every two years. Protestants are losing about 400,000 per year.  There are about 20 million Catholics in Germany and a similar number of Protestants.  All of Germany has about 85 million people. Loses of 5% every two years is slower than the loses in the U.S. of Southern Baptists which is 10% per year. Perhaps the Southern Baptist losses are not all loses to the faith because some churches merely vote to no longer affiliate. The actual losses may be 2 1/2 to 5%.   I recall watching Pat Robertson years ago when a listener asked, "Why do you have revi...

A few years ago a guy in a coffee shop wanted to argue religion with me. His deal was that Christians were better than Jews. This is because Christians just admit the truth and let the chips fall where they may while Jews, I think he was referring to Jews as they were portrayed in the Bible, were always trying to cover up their wrongs or mistakes. I don't recall much else of the conversation except I wanted to get away from this know-nothing. I don't know of a better example of the practice of papering over problems with denial they exist than Christianity. In fact, the entire enterprise seems to be about hiding things. The God is hidden. And, so is the enemy, Satan. Heaven and hell are hidden. Every Sunday millions go the churches to hear clergy tell them again, "All that stuff exists, you just can't see it." The Catholic church has many rules all aimed at presenting itself as a unified institution. All the faithful are to regard the Pope as its authority on all ...

For many decades, someone who was known to be homosexual was charged by the U.S. military with a crime. There were 2,000 cases. The President has  pardoned them all.  I pulled down a book from my shelf, Honor Bound: A Gay American Fights for the Right to Serve His Country by Joseph Steffan. I knew Joe when he was briefly at NDSU getting a degree in economics. While his story is not about the pardon issued by President Biden, it reflects the terrible history of how gay people were treated in the military. Joe grew up in Warren, MN. He was an outstanding student and athlete and was admitted to the U.S. Naval Academy. He thrived there as well but days before he was to graduate and receive a commission a classmate told authorities Joe had confided to him he was gay. The navy cancelled his degree and he was ordered to immediately leave the Academy. He had invested four years of his life at the Academy but was forced out without any degree. A court ordered the Academy to issue him h...

The conservative Christian Reformed Church does a lot of media work where I live. It is able to attract candidates for President to its political forums and its statements get in the news. More than anything else, it is anti-gay.  According to Wikipedia, the denomination has about 1,000 churches and 189,000 members. I assume this means it has a few large churches in larger cities and many tiny and declining ones in rural areas. The denomination is holding a conference just now and debating what to do about the "sinful" congregations who hold gay marriage ceremonies. Apparently, there are 20 congregations that are now or anticipate doing gay marriages and they are demanding denomination approval. Predictably, a large majority of those at the conference voted to uphold the prohibition.   Does it matter if 20 churches out of 1,000 leave? These 20 are probably urban churches, larger than the average size. They may represent 40 churches if we used average data. Total membershi...

  Pope Francis seems to know his denomination has to change but wants the rate of change to be at a pace those in the pews can tolerate. Thus, we read the Pope decrees something kind of "liberal" followed by something considered "conservative." For example, he has decreed men and women who are same sex couples can be blessed but the wedding ceremony cannot be blessed. This was followed by a statement against trans. And so it goes on and on. Look for more of this during the rest of the Francis years.  Navigating all this requires skill by the Pope. One would surmise it also requires collaborators to bounce off ideas and draft language to be considered. The Pope's enemies said one man is the chief collaborator of liberal ideas and wants this Cardinal gone . I'm referring to Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernandez whose nick name is "Tucho."  The Pope did not recruit Fernandez until former Pope Benedict was dead. Only then did the Pope make what one U.S. pro...

All the Forced Birth groups have to say something now when they are losing elections across the board and the number of abortions has gone up. If we were in their shoes we would see a bleak future where supporters are feeling disillusioned and wonder why they should donate money to a cause with no hope of success.  The Forced Birth groups seem to have agreed on a message . It is that "much work remains to be done." This is code language for "keep sending us money."   All of this goes back to the period before Roe was overturned. During those decades the people making money from Forced Birth donors wanted Roe overturned because it represented years of political activity and employment for them. They envisioned going from state to state achieving one victory at time over several years. Each victory would bring donations for the next. The gravy train would flow for a generation or more. Probably it never occurred to any of them there would be loss after loss instead of...

Ever since Roe made abortion legal across the U.S. a big chuck of U.S. voters cared only about stopping abortions. It appears that number may have been about 30% to as high as 40%. Polling, and of course the seven recent elections, signaled a change. Now a climbing percentage of pro-choice voters have become single issue and single issue pro-life voters have declined.  The few times I have participated in a "voter telephone poll" which seemed legitimate, all the old polling techniques came up. There were questions like "Do you usually vote for Democrats or Republicans?", "Is the country going in the right direction or wrong direction?', etc. These questions do not get to the heart of feelings and change churning in U.S. society. The issue churning is about women's rights and religion in government.  A lot of big political theories center of employment, prosperity or inflation. The press like to discuss how candidates do in debates. Lots of articles are ...