Thoughts of a Freethinker

It's seldom one gets to see the inside of the mind of a vast political/religious operation. This link is a great example.  It is about a fictional woman, "Susan," who speaks up in Catholic churches. I'm not sure where "Susan" fits in with "Karen", another fictional female character who is regarded as annoying. "Susan" is the reason liberal thinking carries the day in so many aspects of culture, including among Catholic church members. Nearly all Catholics practice birth control. The majority of Catholics favor abortion rights. This, in spite of Trump holding up a Bible in front of a church.  The fictious "Susan" in the Catholic link is a member of the "parish council." She knows the pressures her Priest/Bishop are under and knows the buttons to push. She knows well how the culture has changed and where it is headed. She tells the priest to lay off condemning birth control and go light on abortion. She reminds the bisho...

The famous columnist, David Brooks, penned a long article in the NY Times lamenting the ceremony for the shooting victim, Charlie Kirk. Brooks is referred to as a moderate Republican and his piece went in that direction. He thinks of Christianity as a force for good in U.S. society but he did not like merging the Republican Party into a Christian denomination. This is what he saw in the Kirk funeral.  Brooks, however, went off the rail when he wrote that the founding fathers advocated a nation with Christian values but one that is open to all beliefs. In the comments following the article a gazillion posters pointed out his misunderstanding of the diverse group called the founding fathers. There are many books available, and will be for centuries, debating the role the so-called founding fathers envisioned for religion. To begin with, they themselves were of several branches of the faith and, one could reasonably conclude, we not as a group very religious. Aside from the Constituti...

The Archbishop of New York kissed behinds during the time of right wing Pope Benedict. He got promoted from the backwater of Milwaukee to the bright lights of New York City. Then came Pope Francis who saw through Dolan and had little use for him. This past week, before doing home work on Charlie Kirk, Dolan spoke glowingly about Kirk. The prominent Sisters in NYC set Dolan straight . That the sisters are totally unafraid of Archbishop Dolan, even treat him as an uninformed dolt, illustrated how far his star has fallen.  Dolan's rank allowed his expenses to be paid to Rome to select a new Pope and the death of Fransis. Some fans, perhaps at his suggestion, lobbied for Dolan to have a vote even though he had aged out and is ineligible. Those who could have granted him this waver passed. The Sisters who blew off Arch Bishop Dolan understand well the harm done the Catholic denomination by Pope Benedict (preceded Pope Francis). Not only did men like Dolan who are on the edge of shady an...

  National Geographic posted an article about the Garden of Eden. I did not look into back years but I would guess it republishes stuff about this topic periodically.  The article says two or three times that most scholars who study this topic do not believe there ever was an actual Garden of Eden. The article goes through the various theories Christians have put out there about where it was. The Bible gives some information about a location but the landmarks are not present today and may never have existed.  So if the Garden of Eden is unrealistic, why does it remain within Christianity? I think one reason is that the story put men in the driver's seat of the religion and keeps women as only passengers along for the ride. The tale begins with Eve being created from a rib of Adam, not the other way around. A rather contemporary preacher in the Lutheran Missouri Synod used this as a reason there are only male preachers in that denomination. "Men came first." he said. ...

Obamacare has an option allowing those who sign up to have coverage for abortions. If others are opposed to abortion they can choose the no abortion option. For those in Congress who treat anti-abortion as a religion in its own right, this is unacceptable. They say they are willing to not approve a budget if this option remains.  Readers know shutting down large parts of the government has never resulted in good results for the party blamed in the next election. This fact is of little interest to the anti-abortion religion.  One would think that if "life" is important, accessible health care would also be important. That is not the logic of anti-abortion. Like Trump, it is about revenge. As commenters here on this blog have said many times, the intent of women who have abortions is to kill. Punishment of these women, and abortion providers, is the important issue. This publishment is all that fills the heads of those involved in anti-abortion. The lives lost due to unavailabl...

I was never aware of the back story behind rapture. It has been used, at least in the U.S., consistently for one purpose and over a long period of time, to gain the upper hand over groups being demonized . I should have understood this earlier. When I started this blog, it was early in the debate about gay marriage. Gay marriage was such a taboo it set off panic and alarms in the Christian right. This included the right of both Catholics and Protestants. There were articles all over the Christian press and I received countless posts by readers that gay marriage was the final sin, a motel sin, that would trigger the return of Jesus.  I could not understand why it was thought gay marriage was the reason for the coming rapture. Where does the Bible say this is the most terrible of sins and will trigger the big return with the holy riding up with Jesus and the unholy left in misery? The link provides an explanation using the rapture against gay people. It explains that rapture is a way...

As the faith gets smaller and Christians experience people they know and respect leaving, there is search for an argument that holds up. I've found the favorite one, the one the faithful think is always a winner, is that Christianity is the source of objective moral values and there is no other such source. This is completely bogus in so many ways. Because they define the term "objective" they erroneously conclude they have a point. I engaged on-line with a retired professor of religion, a believer, about this issue. He wrote in his blog he has never seen a non Christian source of morality. Thus, he concluded, non believers have none. I posted on his discussion page that what non believers consider moral rules are the rules that allow a productive and successful society the flourish. These are adopted in our laws. It includes don't kill, rob, lie or other such behavior harmful to others except as limited circumstances require. Self defense, for example, is allowed. Th...