A blog by Tom Sheepandgoats (aka Tom Harley)
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Everlasting Life: A Bore? Part 1 and 2
Part 1: When they asked physicist Robert Jastrow about living forever—would it be a blessing or a curse?—he said ‘it all depends.’ “It would be a blessing to those who have curious minds and an endless appetite for learning. The thought that they have forever to absorb knowledge would be very comforting for them. But for others who feel they have learned all there is…
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Conscience, the July 19 2026 Watchtower Study, and Child Sexual Abuse
Prior to the meeting, I met up with the Watchtower Study conductor in the parking lot. He told me of the Jiminy Cricket tune from 1940, Always Let Your Conscience be Your Guide. He had somehow run across it as something that fit in well with the Study to come: Your Conscience—Use Bible Principles to Train It. During the Study, he might just show snippets…
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Endless Grad Students to Propel Evolution
Endless graduate students propelled by endless grant dollars explore every vestage of evolution theory. No nook is too obscure for someone to make a doctorate out of. All are programmed in the purely material Few thing to break from the mold. All are proclaiming their quest for truth. All equate their decisions to chemical reactions and somehow imagine such chemical reactions can discern “truth.” Not…
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You Get to Comment at Witness Meetings
You get to comment at Witness meetings. You can prepare for them. This is a very unusual norm for a religious gathering, where there is usually no point in preparing, nor anything to prepare for: they are just in-the-moment experiences. Not so with the Witnesses. One can comment. So, in connection with this week’s Bible reading (Jeremiah 16-17), I made a comment on 17:10: “I,…
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Science without Religion is Lame. Religion without Science is Blind
Science without Religion is Lame. Religion without Science is Blind Albert Einstein wrote: “Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.” Science provides the how of the universe, but religion provides the why, along with the morals and purpose. Given a choice of unknowns, most people will choose the why questions over the how questions—unless you include such questions as ‘How do I…
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Retrieving the Ruined Belt
Retrieving the Ruined Belt If Jeremiah shows deep emotion in the book bearing his name, so also does God, who says: “And if you refuse to listen, I will weep in secret because of your pride. I will shed many tears, and my eyes will stream with tears.” (Jeremiah 13:17) Why would one choose a course of revolt against God? Occasionally, yes—we are flawed and/or…
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Darwin’s Bulldog
This book I have in mind, attempting to reconcile Genesis with evolution, will not be anti-science. But it will be taken that way by mainstream science because of its ever increasing “my way or the highway” attitude. “Can’t we all just get along?” I will plead like Rodney King. No, will be the answer. We can’t. ‘All or nothing’ thinking, it is called. It is…
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If You Get Tired Running with Footmen, How Will You Run a Race Against Horses? (Jeremiah 12:5)
So here Jeremiah is complaining about wickedness—why is there so much of it? why do the perpetrators do just fine?—and suddenly he goes full-on harsh: “Single them out like sheep for slaughtering! And set them apart for the day of killing!” (Jeremiah 12:3) No turning the other cheek here!—that teacher wouldn’t come along for hundreds of years. Of course, the WERE trying to kill him,…
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Sean Carroll and the Den Yers – Mystery Solved After 15 Years: Part 2
(See Part 1) After 15 years I solved the problem of why Sean Carroll again and again calls those who deny evolution “denyers.” I did it, not the science way of devising hypotheses and then testing them. I did it the religious way, by awaiting new light from a higher authority. In this case, the higher authority is AI. 15 years after the dilemma appeared,…
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Sean Carroll and the Den Yers: Mystery Solved After 15 Years: Part 1
It took me 15 years to solve this mystery! 15 years of constant toil and nighttime tossing and turning! 15 years trying to solve the conundrum of the ages. At long last, i have solved it. Sometimes you find yourself asking the wrong questions. Sometimes you must wait for new light. The vexing question unfolded thus, in my post of 2011: He’s a smart fellow,…