Red River Freethinkers

I can’t tell you the number of times people stood at the audience podium in Fargo’s City Commission Chamber and said something like, “This is dangerous what you are doing.  God will take his vengeance on Fargo.”

The reasons included our Police keeping protesters from blocking entrance to the Women’s Health Clinic, my Gay and Lesbian Awareness Week proclamations and a few other issues that came along.  And, I have to admit a lot of storms and bitter cold have punished Fargo since I did these things.

Now that Minnesota has passed a gay marriage bill, someone is predicting cold winters.

Many comments have been made here about the miserable eternity that awaits me.

The problem with these is they get lost in the blizzard of predictions that are made every day about countless sins pointed to by the faithful knowitalls.  Some of those predictions are in the attached link.

If Obama is elected, pundits said before both of his victories, all guns will be taken from the public and one in five Republican said the after Christ will be in the White House.  Need we forget, Pat Robertson thought God had told him Romney would win two terms.

If Obamacare was pasted, it was predicted old people would be allowed to die en masse because they were not productive.  Then, if the military was secularized, Christians would be expelled.

Is it any wonder atheists do not worry about predictions of their pending future in hell?

http://www.christianpost.com/news/minn-gov-signs-gay-marriage-bill-some-brace-for-gods-wrath-96163/

http://www.alternet.org/belief/10-ridiculous-christian-right-prophesies?akid=10448.292072.UycOQy&rd=1&src=newsletter841592&t=10&paging=off

I attended a funeral today in a small town in Iowa.  It was at an Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA) congregation.

There were lots of things I expected.  We did the Lord’s Prayer twice, once with the family before the service and again in the service itself.  The Apostle’s Creed was recited.  There was scripture and the Pastor’s message about victory over death–the departed is alive and those at the service would live in eternity as well.  It was all followed by a lunch that included jello salad.

The widow and the departed had been married for 54 years.  The Pastor made much of this.

This topic of marriage is, as everyone knows, so much in the news these days one can hardly escape it.  A few miles north is Minnesota that approved gay marriage.

The ELCA has been had deep divisions over the issue of marriage.  Many have left the denomination over its approval of gay pastors and formed what might be called protest  denominations.

So, when the pastor began discussing marriage by saying, “Let’s discuss the three most important reasons for marriage and apply it to this couple,”  I knew what was coming, the most important reason for their marriage, and every marriage, is to have children as this couple did.

So, it was a surprise when she said, “The first and most important reason for marriage is companionship.”   The widow had cared for her husband through ten years of illness.

Some surprises are good ones.

I remember in the middle of the Clinton/Monica scandal, a conservative talk show host said, “Hey, Mr. President, cut it out.  We’re trying to raise children out here.”

He’s still a talk show host, but he doesn’t use that line anymore.  His own party has a host of not-for-family-viewing issues.

The Mark Sanford turn around has become commonplace.  Newt Gingrich operates in the top circle of Republican Party politics. Larry (wide stance) Craig served out his term after being arrested for solisciting gay sex.

This is not to say Republican politicians have worse track records than Democrats.  It’s that Republicans claim to be the “family values” party.

That Republicans make such a dubious claim takes cheek.  It is a meaningless term.  It could have many meanings including endorsement of gay marriage.

The reelection of South Carolina’s Mark Sanford gives us an insight into the term “family values”.  It doesn’t really mean stable family life with one man and one woman and children.

Instead, it is code language for the idea, “We’ll always vote for a Republican and never for a Democrat.”  It is the code language of a clan.

The only consquence of Republicans reelecting and supporting liars, cheaters and adulteers is that they need to stop referring to themselves as the “family values” Party.  They need different code language.

If Democrats used as their code, “We are the Party for liberatarians,” they would have the same problem.   Fortunately,  Democrats have not been that dishonest.

http://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/09/mark-sanfords-god/

The Methodist denomination of the Christian church keeps hanging back on approving gay marriages.  When I was a Methodist back in the 60′s I remember the Methodists were among the last of the mainlines to approve Sunday openings and consumption of alcohol.  Their slowness on the gay issue is not so surprising.

Nevertheless, I’ve been a little taken aback by the aggressiveness of criticism of pastors who have broken ranks and performed gay marriages.  A prominent pastor in Nebraska was defrocked about 20 years ago for refusing to conform.

Now, an ordained Methodist minister who is also Dean of the Yale Divinity School, 79 year old Thomas Ogletree, performed a gay wedding for his son.  He said having a gay son brought him a new understanding of the gay issue and he was pleased when his son requested he do the ceremony.

It strikes me as mean and cruel to criticize Dean Ogletree for performing this ceremony. But, it also highlights how ridiculous it is for anyone in the Methodist church to challenge him for doing it.

Are we to suppose the Dean of the Yale Divinity School at 79 years old is going to regret being a part of his son’s life.  I can imagine him saying privately, “See if I care.”

The critic of Dean Ogletree said the ceremony, “Injures the Church.”  While rules of the Methodist church do not approve of his doing this ceremony, to say it injures the Methodist denomination is questionable.

What injures the Methodist Church is its policy of discrimination.

http://www.christianpost.com/news/umc-pastor-performing-sons-gay-wedding-was-injurious-to-the-church-says-good-news-leader-95686/

Today it is widely believed “conservative” churches are thriving and liberal ones are not.  According to this link, that is not true.  So called conservative churches are suffering declines as well.

There is a catagory of U. S. Christianity that is growing, it is called Pentecostalism.  Broadly defined, it is a belief each person has his own relationship with God and Jesus.

But, Pentecostalism taps into a notion that has been in all of Christianity since the beginning, empowerment.  If you make people believe they are important and your faith can further success in their lives, you have the makings of a growing church.  This is Pentecostalism.

One might take note, the successful message is not about peoples’ sins or that there is some super natural person being providing a pass on sins.  That is not important in this branch.

The irony is pentecostalism is closer to the liberal branch than the conservative.  In liberal Christianity, there is less emphasis on dogma passed down from the church hierarchy and more on the individual’s efforts to plot their own path to faith.  This is a form of empowerment that might bode well for its future.

Empowerment can be seen in the long pattern of church support.  People in occupations that have uncertainty, like agriculture in rural communities, has always been more attracted to the empowerment message of religion than their urban counterparts.

The question, “What’s in it for me?”, decides what and how much religion people choose.

http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2013/05/08/3754700.htm

As the average person can see climate change right before their eyes, and the evidence our carbon footprint is contributing becomes better understood, the Republican Party is losing ground within its own ranks in denial.

People can see the cost of doing something about climate change is not nearly as big as the damage caused by it.  The majority is turning against the know nothing, do nothing attitude that prevails within the Party.

The relationships between cause and effect in science is often not simple and, even more often, difficult to explain.  This is especially  difficult when several variables are changing at once and some are potential causes and others are not.

From what I understand in the field, the weather we find on any particular day is influenced by a host of variables.  All weather, I have heard it said, is ultimately caused by the heating and cooling of air.  But, how much and where this happens is how complexity is introduced.

Carbon in the air influences the heating and cooling process.  Our atmosphere and environment handles the volume of carbon produced naturally.  Even with this ability, there are long term changes in weather patterns.

Humans’ recent introduction into the environment has jacked up the amount of carbon by multiple amounts.  This has tipped the balance and influenced the amount and locations of the heating and cooling.

The rate of change is increasing. Democrats and a majority of Republican voters are now asking, why should we fiddle while Rome burns?

http://mobile.nationaljournal.com/magazine/the-coming-gop-civil-war-over-climate-change-20130509?page=1

Many conservatives see W. Bush as a better President than Obama.  But, Bush’s invasion of Iraq, instead of looking better through the lens of time, keeps looking worse.  He was not a person who pondered and reflected on possible consequences.  As he said himself, “I don’t do nuance.

Nuance would have served him well.  While Bush said he wanted democracy in Iraq, and there is some of that, other things have gotten worse.  One is treatment of the Christian faithful.

According to the link below, a member of the Catholic clergy with experience in Iraq pleaded with the Bush Administration not to invade.  He predicted anti Christian sentiment would be unleashed.  This has now come to pass.

Christians are now being chased out of several Middle East countries.  The irony is some Christian commentators are blaming President Obama for the plight of these Christians.

In fairness, we don’t know what would have been the fate of Christianity in Iraq or the other countries experiencing the “Arab Spring” without the Bush invasion.  Saddam, like all humans, would eventually have died and unexpected things might have followed.  We don’t even know the future of Islam.  We only know is Christianity was harmed by the invasion.

Christian leaders have had an apcolyptic view of Islam for a long time.  It is often claimed the Crusades, a Christian invasion of the Middle East, was a necessity to stop the spread of Islam.

Both the Crusades and invasion of Iraq remain mistakes by Christians.

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/how-the-iraq-war-became-a-war-on-christians/

I’m far from an expert in the U. S. Federal government, but if I were to study one part of it more, it would be the Department of State.  Even though State does not have the budgets of others like the Department of Defense, it deals with intellectual topics that most others do not.

In lay terms, State’s goals have to do with guiding international relations in a direction that is in the interests of the U. S.  There is a constant debate as to what those interests are and how the diplomatic arm of government can achieve them.

The role of religion comes up often.  President Carter, it was said, got on well with religious regimes because leaders with deep faith understood each other, even if they did not have the same faith.  How well he got along with them is probably disputed.

Hillary Clinton is reportedly very religious, a Methodist.  What she worked on while Secretary of State might have reflected her Methodism.

Instead of the traditional State Department policy of dealing almost exclusively with national officials, or, their political opponents, she placed staff in embassies who were specifically tasked with reaching religious leaders in various countries.  These religious leaders are sometimes at odds with a country’s government so the practice is a delicate one.

Nevertheless, from this distance is seems like a good way to keep a finger on the pulse of a country.  Perhaps we will not be blindsided with 9/11′s and such under her new practice.

http://religionandpolitics.org/2013/05/08/since-hillary-clintons-tenure-the-state-department-pursues-greater-religious-engagement/

Mark Sanford is rich.  His exwife is rich. He rose to become Governor of South Carolina.  Then he told lies of his whereabouts with a young Argentine beauty.

All the while he professed his faith and hung out with Washington’s Christian politicians.   When he was caught cheating, they dropped him.

When I learned he was about to be elected again to his old House seat, I was sure he would attribute his come back to the Almighty God.  He did not disappoint.

He not only attributed it to God, he went on to say God had forgiven him for his fall into sin.  I tried to remember how many Republicans have used this line.  Newt Gingrich said it over and over.  Now, there are plenty of Democrat politicians who cheat in their marriages.  I don’t remember any who claimed God has forgiven them.

But, Sanford went further.  He went on to attack those who might doubt God had passed along the message of forgiveness.  He challenged such skeptics by saying, in effect, “You were not there when God told me this.  You did not experience it.  You have no business doubting the message I say God gave me.”

There will be many Christians who doubt Sanford’s message from God.  But, many of them make the claim of a personal relationship with God, ”If you have not experienced it, you cannot understand it.”

We’ll hear more about Sanford’s, and other politicans’, forgiveness from God.

http://news.yahoo.com/mark-sanford-redeems-career-heading-congress-081931073.html

The Catholic icon,  Mother Teresa, had much in common with sleazy evangelist, Franklin Graham.

After the disastor in Haiti, agencies were rushing supplies and medical help to Haiti.  I remember being astounded by a press release in ChristianPost from Graham’s organization bragging that his trip to Haiti was to save souls for Jesus, not to delivery anything else.

Mother Teresa was a public relations gift to the Catholic hierarchy.  When it was bogged down with sexual scandals, it could divert attention from that to this saintly woman.

The real Mother Teresa was more complex.   Like Franklin Graham, she was obsessed with life after death.  She felt is was more important to save the souls of the poor than help them leave poverty.  She was also very concerned about her own future after death.

The attached link is an interview with a former member of Sister Teresa’s Order.  Her assessment is Teresa had good traits, but her focus was not on addressing the problems of being poor.

I know there are large and successful programs sponsored by the faith to both aleviate hunger and help lift people out of poverty.  It’s unfortunate there are also parts that have little interest in anything other than the myths of heaven and hell.  People of faith, and everyone else, are at their best when they do good deeds leave it at that.

Mother Teresa is a lesson in both the good and bad of religion.  All of us can learn from her story.

http://www.salon.com/2013/04/30/love_to_be_real_has_to_hurt_the_masochism_of_mother_teresa_partner/