Thoughts of a Freethinker

I don't need to tell readers the death of Jimmy Carter has brought an avalanche of media attention. So much of it is not interesting to me--was he a successful President, why was he defeated, what did he do after his Presidency, etc.  I was so invested in him these issues are old ground. I chatted briefly with him and my wife and I spent several hours in Plains, GA and the Carter Center a few years ago. What is interesting ground to replough is his religion and his devotion to it. I've restated several times that Protestants were in favor of abortion rights prior to the Roe decision decades ago making it legal. This included Carter's church, the Southern Baptist Convention. Then his denomination changed its position, but Carter did not. He grew up in the rural countryside surrounded by black families and their children. They were his playmates, welcomed to the Carter home by his mother.  Later, when he took over the family's business of buying and processing peanuts, th...

In spite of some Christians saying "This is impossible" there are clergy willing to go inside clinics and offer Christian blessings. These are not Satanists, but credentialed Christian clergy.  While this seems unusual today, it is not unusual when considered over time. We have discussed here many times that nearly the entire Protestant faith endorsed abortion rights before the Roe v Wade decision. Anti-abortion was considered a Catholic thing, not part of traditional Protestsm. A study of the effectiveness of propaganda would have to rank the broad conversion within Protestantism to anti-abortion as an astounding success. Theologically, however, there is nothing there. God finds a way to bless just about everything. I was raised in a no alcohol church. It was the only church in our town and there was no tavern. Beer was at the top of the sin list like trans is today. I did not drink in college because it stuck with me the any alcohol was a really terrible thing. Eventually, ...

  I'm reading a book about how information is passed along among humans. Part of the message stems from a Supreme Court Judge many decades ago who ruled in favor of free speech. The Judge declared, "More information is better than less information. Good and factual information crowds out false and misleading information." The author of the book I'm reading says it is naive to believe good information crowds out false or bad information. Often just the opposite has occurred.  A couple of examples not mentioned in the book come to mind. One was called "The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution" promoted by President Johnson. President Johnson used an attack in the Gulf of Tonkin to justify diving into what became the Vietnam War. The Resolution said there was an attack on a U.S. ship and the President was given authority to take action against any country which attacked a U.S. vessel. No attack had taken place, all made up. We now know bad information prevailed for decade...

  While "the talk of the town" these past many decades has been about computer technology including artificial intelligence, what I find equally exciting is evidence about human lives and human ways of organizing themselves, including new technologies, while leaving no written records. In the last few years, parts of dugout canoes have been found in Michigan and Minnesota. These mean large trees were felled and formed into canoes with sharpened stone tools. Steel was other places but not here. It is evidence there were settlements that existed for considerable periods of time and were organized and skilled.  From the material found it is evident locals had experience and knowledge about the wood from different species of trees. I have split elm for firewood and know it to have strong fibers. Native knew this, too, and used it in their canoes.  Several of the canoe parts have been found where rivers meet. Later, these became to sites for cities because of the commerce goin...

The old word, "agnosticism" to me covers the wide range of people who wonder about something, anything, beyond what can be seen. It seems to cover all the kinds of things people carry in their minds to explain what may be beyond the reach of understanding. However, the term "agnosticism" has gone out of style and to some extent replaced by the word "spiritual." Even the word "spiritual" is not preferred by some who have figured out a way to navigate their own personal journey through life. There is nothing wrong with making up new ways or words to deal with the unknown or not understood. For myself, it's easier to fall back on old words. The link is about a young mother who left Mormonism and Christianity but wants something to replace it.  Paraphrasing the link, her form of agnosticism includes a "box", I guess in could be literal or imaginary, and one puts all one's religious deceased ancestors in the box. The box is treated w...

The King's belief all major faiths have much in common and his long standing concern about the environment is causing a ruckus . Conservative Christians posted on a Christian site that King Charles, head of the Church of England, does not understand Christianity.  It seems to me the King, like the Pope, realizes the public is not very interested in theology and certainly not interested in a wrestling match about which branch is "right." Members of the public, if they have any interest in Christianity at all, want to believe it is a general force for good and are sick of self serving pompous blowhards. Many of us would say the King's generalization about "good" in Christianity and in other faiths is an inaccurate generalization. Nevertheless, taking down a notch the arrogance of some parts of Christianity is a good first step. History and pre history tell us many of the belief and rituals of various religions were passed down from far distant humans. This is ...

The Attorney General of Michigan is working with the Diocese of Lansing to unravel 70 years of sexual abuse. According to the report , some cases were horrific. There are 56 named abusers. Among them 48 priests. Every other month I receive a publication from the Freedom From Religion Foundation. This organization, in Madison, WI, is the largest atheist organization in the world. The publication has pages of tiny print listing charges and convictions of clergy. An alarming thing is the frequency of youth pastors who are caught abusing young people. In the Protestant denomination these are usually not ordained clergy but young males. Perhaps the job of "youth pastor" is low paying and not supervised in some churches as it should be. It is obvious Catholic Clergy in past times were not watched carefully either, This included Bishops who transferred accused priests from one parish to another instead of turning the issue over to law enforcement.  There is an irony in the way Chris...