Sheep and Goats

Author: tomsheepandgoats

  • 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, 15 years after devising hypotheses which were all lame, I asked newly developed AI why Carroll said “denyers” throughout his book. AI’s answer was that he didn’t.

    I was not prepared for such an outright denyal. I pressed it. It pressed back. Maybe he said it once or twice for some quirky reason, it said, but in general, he didn’t. I told it to get off its fat transistors and do a little digging. Whereupon, it said:

    “I checked available sources, including excerpts from the book. A widely circulated PDF version of The Making of the Fittest (from around the original 2006/2007 Norton publication) explicitly uses phrases like:

    • “denyers of evolution today”
    • “evolution’s denyers”
    • “The principal means for evolution’s denyers to circumvent…”

    This matches what you’re describing—it appears repeatedly in discussions of anti-evolution arguments, tactics of denialism, and contrasts with DNA evidence.” (The source AI cited was pdfcoffee*com)

    I believe this is called a vindication. Can any lessons be learned?

    To a people who are accustomed to pulling lessons out of anything, the answer is yes. First, note that the answer was almost lost to history, Inaccurate PDFs have a way of being taken down in time. Had I made my inquiry just a few years later, maybe AI’s answer would have been ‘He never sad it! What have you been smoking?’

    Moreover, though I had been asking questions—was it an offbeat Scrabble variant? a British spelling? a mutation itself? a taunt on those he considers dummies, as though putting words in their mouth—I had not asked the right question. The right question was, ‘Am I actually reading a true copy of his book?’ I mean, it was a “widely circulated PDF version of The Making of the Fittest.” Who would have imagined it would be wrong? I’ve produced PDF versions of my books. They faithfully reproduce every word. So even this AI answer 15 years later is a little squirrelly, but I guess I will accept it as what actually happened.

    The problem wasn’t what I thought it was at all. The problem was the medium. Maybe there are other areas in which the problem is the medium. Maybe there are other areas in which the correct questions have not yet been asked, and the hazy questions that have been asked produce nonsense. Over the past 100 years, the gaps of science from which the credulous, it is charged, create a “god of the gaps,” is not shrinking. It is growing. Or perhaps it is shrinking, but only if you accept seeming nonsense as the proper fill of those gaps.

    ..to be continued.

    ******  The bookstore

  • 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, Sean Carroll is, author of The Making of the Fittest. Nobody here is saying otherwise. I’ve said kind things about his  book, for the most part, and may in time say more. But—hang it all—how come he can’t spell deniers? He takes aim in the latter portion  of his book at those who deny evolution, and again and again he misspells the word.

    It’s not d-e-n-y-e-r-s!

    It’s d-e-n-i-e-r-s!

    Any schoolboy knows this. Why doesn’t he? 

    Check it in your shelf dictionary. Check an on-line dictionary. Check a Scrabble dictionary: if anyone can stretch a word for acceptable spelling variations, it will be a Scrabble player. Google the odd spelling, if you like. It doesn’t matter where you check. One who denies something is a denier, not a denyer! Let’s be honest. You can’t read that word without thinking…… “den’-yer? ‘What the heck is that?”

    Well, maybe denyer is the British spelling of the term (notwithstanding that Carroll hails from Wisconsin) – I admit I’m grasping at straws. We all know Brits can’t spell properly, just as they can’t pronounce properly. Or maybe, in that rarefied scientific world Sean inhabits, they have dispensed with plebian spellings, in favor of lofty revisions more appropriate to their scientific status. Or maybe it’s a deliberate misspelling, his attempt at tweaking the idiots, those, in his view, who do deny evolution. But that seems a bit mean-spirited, and I don’t think he’s that kind of guy. Plus, it seems an inside joke that even most insiders would miss. Or—you don’t suppose that Carroll’s quirky spelling is just an application of his own theory? Has the ‘i’ mutated into a ‘y’?

    None of these hypotheses make much sense. They’re all lame. And don’t misunderstand.  It’s just spelling. It’s not that big of a deal. It really isn’t. But—blast it all—IT IS! It’s like the pebble in my shoe that doesn’t seem big at first, but drives me crazy (is that the purpose?) the more I walk on it. Sean Carroll’s been to college. And grad school. And doctorate school. How come he doesn’t know to spell? And what about his editors? What good are they if they can’t catch something so blatant? The Ministry School guidebook counsel keeps nagging at me: if you are incorrect in some detail, no matter how obscure or irrelevant, invariably someone will pick up on it and say “Huh! He doesn’t know that?” And from there it’s just a tiny hop to “Maybe he doesn’t know anything else, either.”

    When I go to his web page, I see he introduces himself with the same Michael Ruse snippet with which I introduced him: “Of all the scientists in the world today, there is no one with whom Charles Darwin would rather spend an evening than Sean Carroll.” The first thing Charles Darwin would do is tell him what a donkey he is for not spelling the word right! Evolution books like his written post-genome-mapping advance their case in a powerful way. Why mess it up with a spelling blunder that any orangutan would get right? This makes no sense at all.

    Ah well, Harley, get over it. Figure it’s a mystery. Like the Trinity. Just accept it.

    Okay, I will. Enough said.

    But it’s HARD to just get over it because he repeats the error so many times! Carroll likens his book to a full course meal, served in courses (just like Jehovah’s Witnesses are wont to describe their meetings as “spiritual meals,” their assemblies as “spiritual feasts!”). His after-dinner dessert conversation, it turns out, consists of a strategy session on how to counter the denyers, some of whom (gasp!) are to be found within his own ranks: “There are some individuals with scientific credentials who doubt or deny certain elements of evolutionary science that are widely accepted by the scientific community; some may even doubt the entire theory,” he observes. “But getting a doctoral degree and making negative arguments are relatively easy – making new, verifiable discoveries is an altogether different matter. The denyers specialize is rhetoric and the mining of quotes, not in laboratory research. (pg 218)

    I’m not so sure I agree with his premise. Note how not going along with the crowd is portrayed as traitorous. Anyone else can be dismissed as suffering from Dunning-Kruger—just call them stupid and be done with it—but one with “scientific credentials” must be dealt with separately. Even if making “negative arguments” really is “relatively easy,” that does not mean those arguments are not useful. Must everyone be out turning over rocks and growing stuff in petri dishes? Is there not a place for someone to review the conclusions of the discoverers, much as attorneys review evidence collected by the police? They don’t just accept police conclusions. Frankly, whenever folks are running herd-like in any discipline, the arguments of those who oppose are always worth looking at closely. You don’t just sneer at them because they are the minority.

    I’ll bet he’s taking aim primarily at Michael Behe, king of all the denyers with scientific background, who was even interviewed by Awake! magazine back in September 2006. Behe certainly has “scientific credentials,” and he “doubt[s] or deny[s] certain elements of evolutionary science that are widely accepted by the scientific community.” Behe doesn’t doubt that the mechanics of evolution took place, and are taking place still. He has no problem with mutation and gene duplication and fossilized genes. It’s hard to have a problem with these since scientists today can grow goo and slime and algae, life forms which reproduce very quickly, and can track each and every gene. They can spot which ones reproduced faithfully, and which ones did not. They can spot which ones build with successive generations, and which ones do not. They can then compare with the genomes of prior life forms and try to piece together how evolution has progressed through generations.

    Michael Behe endorses all of this. He simply maintains it doesn’t add up to what Carroll and most others say it adds up to, that there’s an edge, the “Edge of Evolution,” per the title of his 2007 book, beyond which pure Darwinian randomness cannot carry developing life. And—man!—is he ever castigated for not holding the party line! His book, critics rail, is a blatant attempt to bypass scientific peer review! He takes his case directly to the unwashed masses, unlearned dolts who are in no way qualified to render an opinion! No such objection is made to Carroll’s own books, since his represents the majority view.

    Now, you know I’m going to be sympathetic to Behe’s position, since it is much like Jesus’ position. Jesus didn’t first present his case to religious leaders of his day to secure their prior approval, since he knew their only interest would be to shoot it down. He went over their heads, directly to the common people. And did he ever catch heat from those leaders! Listen to them grouse (and note their contempt for the regular folk):

    “Not one of the rulers or of the Pharisees [us] has put faith in him [Jesus], has he? But this crowd that does not know the Law are accursed people.”

    Look what happens when one of their number—a first-century Behe counterpart?—breaks ranks:

    Nicodemus, …..who was one of them, said to them: “Our law does not judge a man unless first it has heard from him and come to know what he is doing, does it?” In answer they said to him: “You are not also out of Galilee, are you? [a big-city Jerusalem slur against the stupid bumpkins from the rural hills of Galilee]  John 7:48-52

    Now—15 years later—I have solved the mystery. What is it? Please forward me 100 dollars and I’ll tell you. Or stay tuned till tomorrow.

    ******  The bookstore

  • The Reproach of Child Sexual Abuse Falls on the Abuser

    In Jehovah’s Witness congregations, victims, parents, or anyone else, have always been free to report allegations of child sexual abuse to the police. The troubling reality is that many chose not to do it. They alerted congregation elders and went no further. Why? Because they thought that by so doing, they might be bringing reproach on God’s name and the Christian congregation.

    That situation was resolved in 2019. The May study edition of the Watchtower for that year, reviewed via Q & A participation at all congregations of Jehovah’s Witnesses—it would escape nobody—addressed it specifically: 

    “But what if the report is about someone who is a part of the congregation and the matter then becomes known in the community? Should the Christian who reported it feel that he has brought reproach on God’s name? No. The abuser is the one who brings reproach on God’s name,” stated the magazine.\*

    The problem is solved. Can one bring reproach on God or the Christian congregation by reporting child sexual abuse to police? No. The abuser has already brought the reproach. There would be many who had long ago come to that conclusion, but now, unambiguously, in writing, for elders and members alike, here it is spelled out.

    From the beginning, child sexual abuse controversies as related to Jehovah’s Witnesses have been markedly different from those of nearly anywhere else. Incidents have mostly been within the ranks of the general membership, come to light because the Witness organization takes seriously passages as Romans 2:21-22, and investigates wrongdoing within its midst so as to “keep the congregation clean” in God’s eyes, something that they think He demands:

    “Do you, however, the one teaching someone else, not teach yourself? You, the one preaching “Do not steal,” do you steal?  You, the one saying “Do not commit adultery,” do you commit adultery?” (Romans 2:21-22)

    Elsewhere it is the leaders being looked at exclusively. Usually, no mechanism at all exists that the wrongdoing of religious members comes to light. When the police nab John Q. Parishioner, it is as much news to the church minister as it is to the public. When was the last time you read of an abuser identified by religious affiliation unless it was a person in position of leadership?

    As I write this \[2019\], it now appears that the time has come for Southern Baptists to take their turn in the hot seat. Just eight days prior to this writing, a Houston Chronicle headline (February 10, 2019) announces: “Abuse of Faith – 20 years, 700 victims: Southern Baptist sexual abuse spreads as leaders resist reforms.”

    Who are the victims? Entirely those who were abused by leaders. The latter “were pastors. ministers. youth pastors. Sunday school teachers. deacons. And church volunteers.” Were any of them just regular church members abused by other regular church members? No. There is no apparatus for that to ever come to light. The church preaches to them on Sunday but otherwise apparently takes little interest in whether they actually apply the faith or not. Doubtless they hope for the best, but it is no more than hope. Only a handful of faiths make any effort to ensure that members live up to what they profess.

    It has always been apples vs oranges. That is what has long frustrated Jehovah’s Witnesses. With most groups, if you want to find a bumper crop of pedophile abusers, you need look no farther than the leaders. With Jehovah’s Witnesses, if you “hope” for the same catch, you must broaden your nets to include, not just leaders, but everybody. It is rare for a Witness leader to be an abuser, though there have been notable exceptions. It is more common elsewhere. A recent Witness legal case, involving a lawsuit in Montana, involves abuse entirely within a member’s step-family that did not reach the ears of the police, which the court decided was through leadership culpability. The verdict was reversed by a higher court.

    To account for this marked difference in personal conduct from leaders, this writer submits a reason. Those who lead among Jehovah’s Witnesses are selected from rank and file members on the basis of moral qualifications highlighted in the Bible itself, for example, at Titus 1:6-9.  In short, they are those who have distinguished themselves in living their religion. Leaders of many denominations have distinguished themselves in knowing their religion, having graduated from divinity schools of higher education. They may live the religion—ideally, they do, but this is by no means assured—the emphasis is on academic knowledge.

    Add to the mix that Jehovah’s Witness elders preside without pay, and thus their true motive is revealed. Most religious leaders do it for pay, and thus present conflicting motives. One could even call them “mercenary ministers.” Are they untainted in their desire to do the Lord’s work or not? One hopes for the best but can never be sure.

    Confounding irreligious humanists who would frame the child sexual abuse issue as an exclusive of religious institutions, two days after the Southern Baptist exposé, there appeared one of the United Nations. On February 12, 2019 the Sun (thesun\*co\*uk) reported that “thousands more ‘predatory’ sex abusers specifically target aid charity jobs to get close to vulnerable women and children.”

    “There are tens of thousands of aid workers around the world with paedophile tendencies, but if you wear a UNICEF T-shirt nobody will ask what you’re up to. You have the impunity to do whatever you want,” Andrew Macleod, a former UN high official stated, adding that “there has been an ‘endemic’ cover-up of the sickening crimes for two decades, with those who attempt to blow the whistle just getting fired.” Sharing his data with The Sun, Mr. Macleod “warned that the spiralling abuse scandal was on the same scale as the Catholic Church’s.”

    All things must be put into perspective. Child sexual abuse is not an issue of any single religion, much less a tiny one where otherwise upright leaders are perceived to have bungled reporting to police. It occurs in any setting in which people interact with one another. The legal system being what it is, one can prosecute child sexual abuse wherever it is encountered. The tort system being what it is, one prosecutes primarily where there are deep pockets. Arguably, the child sexual abuse issues of the Southern Baptists have taken so long coming to light is because that denomination is decentralized in organization, with a scarcity of deep pockets.

    With the May 2019 Watchtower mentioned above, finally the reporting issues of Jehovah’s Witnesses are fixed. Anyone who knows of abuse allegations may bring those to the attention of the police, and regardless of how “insular” or “no part of the world” Witnesses may be, they need not have the slightest misgivings about bringing reproach on the congregation. Both goals can proceed—that of societal justice and that of congregation justice—and neither interferes with the other.

    Witness opposers were not at all gracious about this change, that I could see. Many continued to harp on the “two witness” rule of verifying abuse, for example. It becomes entirely irrelevant now. Were it a “40-witness” or a “half-witness” rule, it wouldn’t matter. It is a standard that guides congregation judicial proceedings and has absolutely no bearing on secular justice.

    “Well, it only took a landslide of legal threats around the world to force their hand on this,” opposers grumbled, as they went on to claim credit. Why not give them the credit? Likely the is something to it. Everything in life is action/reaction and it would be foolish to deny the substance of this. Organizations of every stripe have increased vigilance due to troubling cases coming to light. Once ones leave the faith, people within lose track of them. It is easy to say: “Out of sight, out of mind,” and opponents did not allow this to happen. They should seriously congratulate themselves. Many have publicly stated that their opposition is only so that Jehovah’s Witnesses will fix their “broken policies.” Now that they have been fixed, one wonders if their opposition will stop.

    With a major “reform” making clear that there is absolutely no reproach in reporting vile things to the authorities, some of the most virulent of Witness critics lose something huge to them. One wonders what they will do next. A few face withering away like old Roger Chillingsworth of the Scarlet Letter, who, when Arthur Dimmesdale finally changed his policy, “knelt down beside him, with a blank, dull countenance, out of which life seemed to have departed. ‘Thou hast escaped me!’ he repeated more than once. ‘Thou has escaped me!’

    This will not be the journalists, of course. Nor will it be the legal people. Nor will it even be Witness critics in the main. But for some of the latter, former members who are vested in tearing down what they once embraced, it will not be an easy transition. They almost have no choice but to find some far-fetched scenario involving “rogue elders” that could conceivably allow something bad to yet happen and obsess on that. There are always going to be ‘What ifs.’ At some point one must have some confidence in the power of parents to be concerned for their children, and for community to handle occasional lapses, particularly since governmental solutions have hardly proven immune to abuse and miscarriages of justice themselves. It is not easy to get between a mama bear and her cub.

    *This point is not absolutely new, but it has been made more prominent by being included in the weekly Watchtower Study meeting. A similar point is made in the Appendix of ‘Keep Yourselves in God’s Love,’ a 2008 book, which formed the basis of study in the Congregation Book Study format, and is presently one of two books studies by each person in the course of presenting themselves for baptism:

    On page 223, the book reads: “In rare instances, one Christian might commit a serious crime against another–such as rape, assault, murder, or major theft. In such cases, it would not be unchristian to report the matter to the authorities, even though doing so might resort in a court case or a similar trial.”

    (February 2023)

    ***

    Out of nowhere a scholar has appeared who talks dispassionate sense on the subject of child sexual abuse as it relates to Jehovah’s Witnesses and is unswayed by secular jingoism. Are/were you a Jehovah’s Witness who was abused as a child? That is very bad, Holly Folk agrees, but she cautions that such ones must be on guard against not being abused a second time, at the hands of those who mostly feign interest in their trauma so as to enlist them in their greater goal of taking down a religion they dislike. “All I ask is that you consider, for a moment, that you might be being used again, by people who care little about achieving justice for victims,” she says. 

    “Both official reports and media often confuse ‘institutional’ abuse in religious settings and abuse happening in families that happen to be religious.” It is a statement as pithy yet complete as I have ever made.

    She pinpoints the flaw of the ARC’s Case Study 29, which I also attempted, but did not put it so concisely. Every other case was an investigation of institutional abuse within an agency, sometimes religious, sometimes secular. Case Study 29 was the only investigation of a religion itself. It is unique. It was rammed into the ARC agenda mostly at the behest of ex-Witnesses who hounded them relentlessly until they overrode their normal judgment. It plainly doesn’t fit into the overall program. JWs have no institutional settings, as did all the other agencies on the hot seat. Next move will be to hold Walmart responsible for abuse that has occurred among its shoppers

    It’s why you don’t sign on to a redress scheme tailor-made for situations of institutional abuse that you don’t have. You wait for a redress scheme tailor-made for situations of abuse that occur among Walmart’s customers. That you can sign onto, if you like, as a reasonable parallel.

    In a second article of a four-part series she criticizes the studies of the Netherlands and Belgium. I hadn’t gone there, assuming they would be no more than a rehash of the ARC. They were all that and less, she writes, so slipshod and lacking in any sound methodology of social science that it will be a scandal if they are relied upon for policy. Yet they might be, she opines, goaded on by the sheer noise that comes from Witness detractors, mostly ex-Witnesses settling the score, and given false credibility by the prestige of the Atlantic journal.

    As a dispassionate outsider, not a Witness herself, she can do what is very difficult for any Witness to do, self included. She can bypass the reputation of a religion as something immaterial and focus on the greater affront to fight child sexual abuse. It is all diluted, she charges, when ex-members redirect rage against child sexual abuse to a target that is essentially a non-factor. The Witness religion overall does pretty well at fighting the perversion, she writes. I mean, who else [my contribution, not hers] gathers every member in the world (at the 2017 Regional Conventions) to consider detailed scenarios in which child sexual abuse might occur so that parents, obviously the first line of defense, can be on their guard? If there are sleepovers, if there are tickling sessions, if there are unsupervised trips to the restroom, if anyone displays unusual interest in your child—all these things were identified as potential red flags, not conclusive in themselves, but things to keep you eye on.

    Witnesses will find her tack hard to copy. Their first response will be violent indignation at these patent efforts to undermine the religious organization they hold in high regard, and in the process, they are likely to come across as tone-deaf to the suffering of victims. But Ms. Folk has no skin in the game, so she can focus directly to how this vendetta of ex-JWs undermines efforts to fight child sexual abuse. She can express dismay that those with an anti-religious agenda squander resources that could be far better employed elsewhere.

    Holly Folk also carries the “advantage” of being a survivor herself. “How would you know what it feels like to be abused?” people can (and have) said to me. I don’t. But she does. It gives her a freeness of speech that no non-victim will possess.

    The closest I ever came to abuse was when I was walking up and down auto dealer row prior to my 16th birthday, anticipating the used car I might buy once I had my license. A certain slimeball approached and tried to befriend me. “They keep the really good cars in back,” he told me, eager to go there. Even as I evaded him, it was not due to my street smarts or lack of naïveté. I was as sheltered a lad as ever existed, with no specific knowledge of even what a child abuser was. It was an ignorance common at the time. I just knew that you don’t put the really good cars in the back—you put them up front where people can see them.

    They are very thorough articles that Holly writes. Press on the links:

    Part 1

    Part 2

    Part 3

    Part 4

    I like it also that Holly Folk does not fear to take on the “money tree” that is lawyers. This doesn’t speak for or against victims in itself, of course, just the inherent possibility for abuse of such as system. In my community, there are no less than 7 accident injury firms that constantly advertise. Not to mention about twice that number that advertise over various carcinogens, medical treatments, devices, and of course, sexual abuse claims. Almost always the Catholic Church is targeted, and the Boy Scouts. Sometimes I hear a catch-all of any abuse in any religious setting.

    I get it that injured people seek redress. Still, the sheer cacaphony of legal noise will strike most as overkill—a massive societal transfer of funds with lawyers netting a third. Don’t think the profit motive is absent with the Witness situation, Ms. Folk says, just like it is not in any other. It is no different than defense companies cooking up scenarios of peril so as to sell their goods, or pharmaceutical companies overplaying threats to our health for the same reason, or for that matter, any merchandiser doing whatever it must to expand the market for its goods or services. 

    She speaks at a conference, recorded here: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=E26NT72LZ6g&feature=youtu.be 

    ******  The bookstore

  • We Must Not Make a God of the Gaps

    We Must Not Make a God of the Gaps

    “It was a dicey proposition introducing a monotheistic God in a polytheistic world. Could it be that the early Hebrew writers softened the blow by telling their tale in terms of already existing accounts? If so, this would be exactly what the apostle Paul did at the Areopagus in Athens, as related in Acts chapter 17. There, he too embarked on introducing a monotheistic God to a polytheistic people, which was also dicey and possibly illegal. He did it in terms of referring to a certain statue in their midst dedicated “to an unknown god”—they had gods for everything and didn’t want to miss one. ‘This is the god I am here to tell you about,’ he said. It was such an adroit approach that by the time his audience figured out that they didn’t like it, some of them did, even if it did imply changes to their way of life.

    “We need not second the explanation above, but perhaps we can roll with it if need be. It would explain some Genesis similarities to the legends and histories of other peoples. Borrow from their language, dress it up a little, update this or that, and you are good to go. Is that what happened? Maybe. On the other hand, academic opinion can turn rapidly. Maybe everything is just as written. One must always be ready for the next headline proclaiming, ‘Everything you thought you knew about such-and-such is wrong!’ But, for now, the time has long passed for scholars to take ancient Bible history literally. Instead, they regard it as though a product of an ancient Mark Twain turned deist: religious men telling tall tales. Can they be accommodated?” (From: A Workman’s Theodicy: Why Bad Things Happen)

    In the same speculative vein, let us suppose, just for the sake of argument—you don’t have to believe it, we’re just playing here—that with God it is not the Michelangelo painting of Him stretching out to touch Adam’s finger, thus imparting life. Say instead it is like Tom Cruise lighting the fuse that sparks Mission Impossible, the mission in this case to establish life in all the earth. Say it unfolds the way the evolutionists insists it does, like one of those books featuring a 3D pop-up diorama. A lot of work goes into those books so that when you slowly open the page you behold the layered scenes sequentially unfolding, rising, and coming raging at you. Say life came about like that.

    Then, at a certain point, God says of the seeds he planted long ago, ‘Okay, how did that garden turn out? Hmm. Here’s one I can work with”—at which point he elevates, enhances, upgrades—call it what you will—a certain Adam, and loads him up with all the additional accoutrements to decisively separate him from the animals and enable him to respond to more intense cultivation.

    Any evidence for this? None. But then, people are enthralled with the Space Odyssey movie these days in which beneficent aliens did the same, so we cannot treat this speculation with less open-mindedness. One of the theories taken seriously today to account for the infinitesimally small likelihood that the universe would have developed to be amenable to life is that we are living in but one of a virtually infinitesimal number: a “multiverse” I mean, if this crock of insight is taken seriously, there is no reason that mine should be laughed off the table. “Can’t we all just get along?” Rodney King pleaded to the LA rioters before their continued actions indicated they couldn’t. That’s all I’m trying to do here. Besides, maybe my suggestion will soften out with context the brother at the Kingdom Hall razzing his Esau-like counterpart behind the now-phased out literature counter: “George, George, we try so hard to teach our kids that we didn’t descend from the apes, we read scriptures, we explain the pictures. We works so hard and we just about have them convinced—and then they look at you and they’re not too sure.”

    Still, as farfetched as the multiverse theory may seem, it is an attempt to come to grips with the crazy odds that would favor nothingness over the present universe. Even if it represents a solution more crazy, it is still attempt to solve a problem. You don’t want to be like the guy before the firing squad of 100 crack riflemen, all of whom miss, and you never stop to think that circumstance a little odd. With many scientists, that’s exactly what they have done. “Ah, well,” they say, “if they didn’t all miss, I wouldn’t be here. Let’s just leave it at that.” It is a remarkably incurious attitude from those who are supposed to have boundless curiosity. It is as though they take an original miracle for granted, then endeavor to explain everything from that point on.

    So then, at a certain point, per my musings, Jehovah injects some leaven into the top results of his evolution experiment, the hominids, and infuses all the additives to make the Adam and Eve scenario hold up. Work it through. Do what the mathematicians do in proving the square root of 2 is an irrational number. They start by assuming just the opposite!—that it is rational. Then they work it through to see if contradictions arise. One does. So they conclude the opposite of their initial assumption must be the answer. So work this revised Adam and Ever scenario out, too. Do contradictions arise? No. Does it leave plenty of gaps? Oh, yeah!—you can drive a truck through some of them. But gaps are perfectly permissible in science. You are not allowed to make a god out of them. Very well. Neither can they make a god out of ours.*

    *”the god of the gaps”—what a stupid expression! It doesn’t occur to these characters who employ it that one can turn it on its head and apply it the opposite way. Or insert it in a totally different context. Let’s say you are trying to prove your case in court but it is overruled because it has significant gaps in it. Trust me on this: it will not advance your cause if you ridicule the judge for making a god of those gaps.

    ******  The bookstore

  • Who Needs a Trillion Dollars?

    Days ago. (June 2026) Elon Musk touched trillionaire status, the first one ever to do so. This inspired on social media the observation (even if with shakey math) that if he gave a billion to every person alive, he would still be a billionaire. I couldn’t believe that he was so selfish so as not to do that—I could use a billion.

    Others wished him well. Here he is creating the technological companies that will save the planet, if anything can save it. Humanists one and all once hailed him as a hero, even a savior. Then he began to weigh in on politics contrary to what many expected, so it became necessary to recast him as the Devil. 

    I’ve heard him likened to Nimrod, which I don’t think is fair. Nimrod was mean. Elon is nice—unless you work for him and don’t put out 200%. In that case, he will fire you in a heartbeat. But he won’t push you off the mountain like Nimrod did. I was explicit with my cover designer that the depicted Tower of Babel for ‘In the Last of the Last Days: Faith in the Age of Dysfunction’ feature a small figure pushing another off the tower to his death in the exact place that the ‘My Book of Bible Stories’ picture about Nimrod (Genesis chapter 11) does the same.

    Moreover, Nimrod is described as “a mighty hunter in opposition to Jehovah.” Musk is not that. He said nice things about our Lord and the Bible when he was interviewed by the Babylon Bee host who asked him to do [From: ‘In the Last of the Last Days’]: a “‘quick solid and accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior . . . Personal Lord and Savior. It’s a quick prayer.’ You have to admire them for it—even as you reflect that absolutely no groundwork has been laid. Just how does the richest man in the world  deal with that one? It’s a complete non sequitur from anything they have been talking about in a one-hour interview. . . . Musk is a great guy and all—don’t get me wrong—but he plainly has no background to commit. And he knows it. You can’t just dive into something knowing nothing about it. . . . He pauses. Upon processing the request, he allows how he ‘agree[s] with the principles that Jesus advocated, there’s some great wisdom in the teachings of Jesus, and I agree with those teachings.’ He mentions a few. ‘But hey,’ he adds, ‘if Jesus is saving people, I mean, I won’t stand in his way. Sure, I’ll be saved. Why not?’ Close enough, the host seems to feel. It’s not an out-and-out bullseye, but it satisfied him.”

    See? So he’s “not in opposition to Jehovah at all.” Frankly, I’d like to get him on our side. After all, there will be a need to get things up and running quickly in the new system and he might be just the ticket. Yeah. Get him onboard—though I admit, I can’t quite see him sitting quietly as Oscar Oxgoad is stumbling his way through the meeting for field service, let alone taking part in it. It would be like Dwight D. Eisenhower (who was raised a Witness) holding aloft the Watchtower and Awake magazines in front of the White House, their covers emblazoned with ‘Can Politicians Bring Peace?’

    Say, you don’t think he got that idea of sleeping on the center factory floor under a tent from Moses doing the same in front of the tabernacle, do you? (If he demands 200%, it is not as though he doesn’t give the same.) Could he be sued for copyright infringement? I mean, Moses did it first.

    Nonetheless, he IS running six cutting edge companies, all for the direct benefit of humanity, all of which could be likened to building a tower in the heavens—with some exaggeration, doing what no man has done before, encroaching on the territory of the gods. It IS a lot in that respect like Nimrod building his tower to the heavens.

    Watchtower publications seldom name names. Again, with some exaggeration (but not much), Elon Musk will be reduced to “one American businessman,” Donald Trump to “one American politician,” Vladimir Putin to “one Russian politician.” It used to frustrate me until I discerned the reason. It is the play they are watching. You don’t have to know the actors to follow the play. It can even be a distraction if you do. Moreover, naming the actors creates the illusion that taking out a hero or a villain would change the narrative. Instead, another actor who knows all the lines steps into the role and the play goes on. 

    Of course, another reason they don’t name names is that they don’t know them very well, that they follow names to an astonishingly small degree. Indeed, the one who likened Musk to Nimrod, though very perceptive, is outside the U.S in a developing country, fully engaged in the Christian disciple-making activity there. She will not be one to follow personalities closely.

    So the actors are not the ones followed. But man-oh-man! are they ever larger than life today. Both the heroes and the villains (it will ever be in the eye of the beholder who is who) jump off the page today, perhaps in itself a commentary of where we are in the stream of time. 

    As for trillionaire Musk? A trillion’s small potatoes to him. He just posted:  “In the future, a trillion times a trillion dollars will be spent on making antimatter to travel to other star systems.” Yep. big spending ahead, if the future goes his way. You’re not going to the stars on impulse engines, anymore than the forces that enable micro evolution to reach target are going to do the same for macro.

    ******  The bookstore

  • Alan Greenspan Dies at 100–Mentioned in Tom Irregardless and Me

    No ax to grind here. It is no small feat to live to 100 years of age. He was a wit in his day, looked up to by all, until it all crashed. The debacle he presided over made an apt addition to chapter of ‘Tom Irregardless and Me,’ which I wrote in 2016:

    “An observer might well suppose that the entire purpose of the [2007] meltdown was to chastise Alan Greenspan. As head of the Federal Reserve for 19 years prior to the 2007 economic collapse, did he not, per Ricky Ricardo, have a lot of ‘splainin to do? He attempted it before Congress:

    “‘We are in the midst of a once-in-a-century credit tsunami. Central banks and governments are being required to take unprecedented measures. You, importantly, represent those on whose behalf economic policy is made, those who are feeling the brunt of the crisis in their workplaces and homes. I hope to address their concerns today.’

    “This is the same Alan Greenspan whose voice to the financial community was once as that of God. As chairman of the Reserve, he’d issue statements regularly about interest rate policy. He’d make the statements incomprehensible; it was almost a game. He’d rehearse them in his head. If they could be understood, he’d rework them. Finance people would strain to discern his real intent, but of course, the task was impossible by design. Far from becoming fed up with such obscuration, they took it all for brilliance! Whereas any street person would instantly recognize a con, the bankers hailed it all as wisdom from on high.

    “Mr. Greenspan’s successor, Ben Bernanke, left to clean up the mess, was more straightforward in his speech. Mr. Greenspan himself became that way addressing Congress. He dropped the smart-alecky double talk. His words were clear. And not pretty:

    “‘Given the financial damage to date, I cannot see how we can avoid a significant rise in layoffs and unemployment. Fearful American households are attempting to adjust, as best they can, to a rapid contraction in credit availability, threats to retirement funds, and increased job insecurity. All of this implies a marked retrenchment of consumer spending as households try to divert an increasing part of their incomes to replenish depleted assets, not only in 401Ks but in the value of their homes as well.’

    “No more smug cuteness, building indecipherable word castles. For, alas,

    “‘those of us who have looked to the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholder’s equity (myself particularly) are in a state of shocked disbelief.’

    “Mr. Greenspan went on to discuss what had triggered the collapse:

    “‘In recent decades, a vast risk management and pricing system has evolved, combining the best insights of mathematicians and finance experts supported by major advances in computer and communications technology. A Nobel Prize was awarded for the discovery of the pricing model that underpins much of the advance in derivatives markets. This modern risk management paradigm held sway for decades. The whole intellectual edifice, however, collapsed in the summer of last year because the data inputted into the risk management models generally covered only the past two decades, a period of euphoria.’

    “Note the absolute failure of the best and the brightest, the cream of the crop of human experts. A Nobel Prize was even awarded for the economic model that would ruin everybody!

    “Not everybody, Tom,” Mr. Strawman observed. “My portfolio recovered. I held on.” True enough: When Bob Pittance saw his net worth chopped in half, he panicked and sold all his holdings, saying that half is better than nothing. When Billy Banks saw his net worth chopped in half, he said: “Well, I guess if I have to, I can live on a half billion,” and snapped up Bob’s fire sale stocks. (and boasted about it afterward!) With wealth transfer complete, it was ‘pedal to the metal!’

    “Mr. Greenspan’s final statement is breathtaking for its admission of stupidity: Nobody thought to test the model outside of party time,“a period of euphoria.” Nobody thought the real world might differ from the party world. Isn’t there some scripture somewhere about how you can’t trust nobles as far as you can spit?

    “As with the opioids that killed Prince, there is a fatal flaw. It is a flaw that would instantly be spotted by any commoner were the scoundrels not so deliberately intent upon muddying the waters for reasons of greed. The opioid company wanted a grand slam with their new drug. The finance people wanted to party on with other people’s money. They should have had Bible education, but they had only the world’s university education.

    “Does this again not validate how Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t bow and scrape over today’s higher education? They use the world’s education system to acquire the skills necessary to make a living. But as for acquiring wisdom from that source, they’re not keen on it. Within their congregations, they defer to training that addresses the more important moral concerns. For them, that goal is achieved in the context of Bible education.”

    ******  The bookstore

  • ‘The God of Truth Always Fulfills His Purpose’-Part 3

    If the Holy Writings are in the language of poetry, [see Part 2] not the precise critical thinking language demanded by science, why is that? Possibly because poetry reaches a broader spectrum than does science. Jesus reduces the Mosaic law to two commandments, the first of which is “you must love Jehovah your God with your whole heart and with your whole soul and with your whole mind and with your whole strength.”* (Mark 12:30) The language of science may fully occupy the mind, but it leaves larges swaths of heart, soul, and strength untouched. The ones who so cultivate the mind need to do the same with heart, soul, and strength. But to do so, they need learn a language that many see no point in learning. Call it what Dobzhansky does: the language of poetry. Or call it the language of “spiritual words” by which we explain “spiritual matters.” (1 Corinthians 2:13) Not that the two languages are the same, necessarily, but they dovetail. Moreover, both languages hide many secrets from those who refuse to learn them. It is as the apostle goes on to explain in the next verse: “But a physical man does not accept the things of the spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot get to know them, because they are examined spiritually.”

    Dobzhansky’s not making that mistake of ignoring needed languages. He knows that often scientific theories are originated in languages that, if you want to capture every nuance of them, be it German, Russian, Chinese, whatever, you make yourself fluent in those languages. He doesn’t just say, “if they can’t explain it in my language, it’s not worth knowing.” No. He explores that new language that so aptly expresses a concept his own language fumbles.

    Scott Solomon, in his Great Courses Lecture Series ‘What Darwin Didn’t Know’ (Don’t worry; it’s not his fault he didn’t know, he just lived too early), who presumably doesn’t speak the new language—if he does, he gives no indication of it—tells of why he’s so enthralled with evolution: “What I think is most exciting about evolution is the why. other sciences, genetics Physiology chemistry, you name it, they give you a how, but what makes Darwin’s ideas and the ideas from the modern science of evolution so exciting is they help us understand why. Why our bodies the way they are? Why are there so many insects?”

    These are not the ‘why’ questions that those who become Jehovah’s Witnesses once tossed and turned over, why questions that even begin with a big what—what is the purpose of life? These are not the questions that did it for Dobzhansky, either, though he explored them. They’re not nothing, but they are definitely not the “more important” things involving God that he highlights in his ‘Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution Essay.’ For the less material person, the ‘whys’ that count might include, ‘Why is there injustice, evil, and suffering?’ ‘Why, when almost everyone says they want peace, is strife such a constant feature?’ ‘Why do we die, when there are trees that live thousands of years and even a tortoise outlives us?’ It could be a symptom that I have been in the faith too long, but any epiphany to the effect that the present life is all there is and that it’s permanent curtains in just a few decades strikes me as Belshazzar pumping his fist ‘Yes!!!’ upon reading the handwriting on the wall that says his goose is cooked.

    Now, it might occur to someone that if “the man of God” ought be “fully competent, [and] completely equipped for every good work,” (2 Timothy 3:16-17) surely that competence will include mastering the “poetic symbols” of the Holy Scriptures. It will not depend upon mastering the precision expressions of those who eat and drink science. He does well to take a stab at those too, probably, for there are a lot of such people around and he wants to relate to them. But it is not essential that he do so.

    In fact, if Christ left us “a model for you to follow his steps closely,” (1 Peter 2:21) surely that model will include learning to speak as he did. His communication tread upon the toes of the precise-minded. He routinely broke their rules. He would answer questions with questions. He did odhominem attacks—if not of individuals, certainly of classes such as Pharisees and scribes. He spun complex parables that he declined to explain—to his disciples he would, but not to his detractors. Let the heart figure it out.

    Go precise if you can but upon perceiving the difficulty lies in challengers refusing to step outside of their narrow language, where they must step out so as to grasp certain points—well, there’s not much to be done about that. Play the game by their rules and you find that their first rule is you can’t move any of your pieces.

    ******  The bookstore

  • ‘The God of Truth Always Fulfills His Purpose’-Part 2

    See: Part 1:

    The article appeals to those who like simplicity, who instinctively know that things reduce to simplicity. The common farmer knows it. The common factory worker knows it. But Einstein also knew it, with his E=mc2. Newton knew it, with his f=ma. Kepler knew it, with his laws on the planetary orbits. Smack dab in the middle of his scientific treatise, he burst out in praise of God, as though one of the psalmists:

    “The wisdom of the Lord is infinite; so also are His glory and His power. Ye heavens, sing His praises! Sun, moon, and planets glorify Him in your ineffable language! Celestial harmonies, all ye who comprehend His marvelous works, praise Him. And thou, my soul, praise thy Creator! It is by Him and in Him that all exists. that which we know best is comprised in Him, as well as in our vain science. To Him be praise, honor, and glory throughout eternity.”

    Even Theodosius Dobzhansky knew it, the fellow who corralled all American education onboard with evolution. His essay for American Biology Teacher (March 1973) titled, ‘Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution’ set the permanent course for those teachers to follow—no ifs, ands, or buts. Yet even in that essay, important though he thought his topic was, it plays second fiddle to one he considers more important. The lesser dominates the greater, of course, since the five page essay is dedicated to the lesser. But that does not change what he considers the greater.

    The problem is that people mistake the Bible (and the Koran—Dobzhansky opens his essay by considering the objections of a sheikh) for primers of natural science. Are they? No. The idea is “ludicrous,” he asserts. (This is not too far from what Watchtower sources have long stated: that the Bible is not a scientific textbook; only that it is accurate when it happens to touch on matters of science.*)

    Instead, those Holy Scriptures “treat of matters even more important: the meaning of man and his relations to God.” Okay? The “meaning of man and his relations to God” is not less important than the considerations of evolution. It is “more important.” Though education since has blown away this aspect of Dobzhansky’s essay, as though a sign of his “irrationality,” it should not be so blown away. Irrationality is on the number line, plain for anyone to see. The hypotenuse of a right triangle with legs of 1 is √2, an irrational number. Pi (π) is an irrational number. The Golden ratio (φ) is an irrational number. Irrational numbers are by far the most numerous of real numbers. The underpinnings of science depends upon them. You miss a lot if you blow them off as nothing.

    That is why Dobzhansky states in his essay: “It is wrong to hold creation and evolution as mutually exclusive alternatives,” before declaring, “I am a creationalist and an evolutionist.” He is not being “irrational” in saying this. He is being real. “Evolution is God’s, or Natures’s method of Creation. Creation is not an event that happened in 4004 BC; it is a process that began some 10 billion years ago and is still under way,” he afterward states. And again, it is not too different from the Watchtower acknowledging years ago that the creative days of Genesis can be viewed as “epochs,” with the earth and heavens themselves established “eons” ago.

    An important qualification from Dohzhansky follows on the nature of the Holy Scriptures: “They are wrote in poetic symbols that were understandable to people of the age when they were written, as well as to peoples of all other ages.” The first phrase of the sentence is obvious. The second is as necessary, but more subtle; the poetic symbols are also understandable “to peoples of all other ages” (such as ours).

    In stating this, he is assuming people will not make themselves obtuse. He is assuming that people will not ban irrational numbers from the real number line, thus undercutting the science on which they claim to depend. He is assuming that people will not say, “since it is poetry, it is valueless.” Rather, they must incorporate such poetry into their lives if they are to be complete. You shouldn’t have to be a microbiologist to know and serve God—just as you shouldn’t have to be a mechanic to drive a car. It is a specialized field in which not everyone need go.

    Thus, we are in position to tackle the asterisk following the Watchtower statement regarding the Scriptures being accurate should touch upon science, though that be not their specialty. The Holy Writings” are in language “poetic.” Alas, some become so demanding of precision in their language as to be impervious to poetry. Ideally, when they read the exhortation to not “beat around the bush,” they do not go demanding evidence of the bush. When they read the expression “crocodile tears,” they do not conclude that the one so emitting them is a crocodile. But they do take the biblical “pillars of the earth” as literal, “four corners of the earth,” and the “days” of creation. In their own way they are just as dense as religionists who take as literal texts that, if seen in any other context, they would instantly dismiss as figures of speech. Most support for the trinity and hellfire teaching is of this nature. Indeed, most church doctrines are not taught in the Bible. It is the effort to read them in that causes people to abandon the book in frustration, for some, in disgust.

    ******  The bookstore

  • ‘The God of Truth Always Fulfills His Purpose’-Part 1

    The Watchtower Study for June 14 (2026), ‘The God of truth Always Fulfills his Purpose,’ was everything in a nutshell, a good overview of God’s purpose towards the earth. That aspect of living forever on a paradise earth resonates with some. It is a major drawing that few others have. We are to believe that God put humans on an earth tailor-made for them because he wanted them somewhere else? No. For all but a handful, earth is the intended home.

    It is the truth in a nutshell. It doesn’t just happen. In the absence of loyal men to keep one focused, there are too many rabbit holes to veer into. The brotherhood that is JW is refreshed weekly by this regimen. Don’t overcomplicate it. Don’t muddy the waters. Don’t get consumed with trivia. There may be tees to cross, i’s to dot, and stray items to be uncovered. But the gist of it is simple and should not be obfuscated.

    There is the simple statement (paragraph 3) that God is the Maker of the heavens and the earth and the Source of all life, backed with a few supporting scriptures. Also, that he is the Sustainer of life—yes, capitalized in the article. It is not like when my wife set up a bird house but it blew down in the storm and as she was setting it up again the mama wren was perched a few feet away chewing her out for not doing it right in the first place: “Chip chip chip pip pip pip pip pip pip pip pip pip pip pip pip pip pip pip pip pip pip pip pip pip pip pip pip pip pip pip pip pip pip pip pip pip pip!!!!!” No. Unless the human wrens foul their own nest, God’s home for them endures. Alas, they do fowl the nest, in ever-increasing ways, enough for the Bureau of Atomic Scientists to set the Doomsday Clock, not at 10:30 AM, but at 85 seconds to midnight.

    Be that as it may, paragraph 4 relates what God had in mind putting humans on earth. It’s simple. “Jehovah created humans because he wanted to share the beautiful gift of life with them.” That’s it. Don’t overcomplicate it. Then there is the added proviso that “he gave us free will,” and the reiteration of “He created a beautiful home just for us.”

    The free will was abused early on. “Adam and Eve rebelled” is how it is stated, imposing upon themselves “the sentence of death,” throwing a significant wrench into the works. Not to worry. “Jehovah did not create the earth ‘simply for nothing, but formed it to be inhabited.’”—Isaiah is cited. (Para 5) Though “it might have seemed as if God’s purpose were being derailed . . . Jehovah is the Fulfiller of all that he promises”—again Isaiah is cited. That sentence of death is not immediate; it is just a curtailment of the non-ending life they would otherwise have enjoyed. Children are produced (who will also die, having inherited that defect.) In time, God “provided His only-begotten Son as a ransom to save Adam’s descendants and to give them the marvelous hope of living forever”​— and of course, the well-know John 3:16 is cited.

    Then follows a disclosure of the one who caused the problems to begin with, his own ambitions thwarted, and his ultimate outcome: From Revelation: “Down the great dragon was hurled, the original serpent, the one called Devil and Satan, who is misleading the entire inhabited earth.” (12:9) It may be trendy to call those “brainwashed” who stay the Christian course today, but the reality is just the opposite. The Devil misleads, not the Congregation, but “the entire inhabited earth.” It is “the entire inhabited earth” that is victimized, as monitoring news media will suggest to any one of common sense. The ones most virulently attacked will, quite consistently and a few verses on, be those who “observe the commandments of God and have the work of bearing witness concerning Jesus.” (vs 17) Indeed, they are attacked. If they so much as scratch their rear ends, it’s all over the internet.

    Then there was “By preaching the “good news of the Kingdom,” we obey Jesus’ command and, at the same time, fulfill prophecy. (Matt. 24:14; 28:18-20) It’s simple. One need not know everything as to how it all turns out. Take part in the ministry and you know you’re not spitting into the wind because you have a few million spiritual brothers and sisters saying exactly the same thing. If you don’t reach a given person, they will, with the same message. It’s not just everyone giving their own personal testimonies, as though everything was about us.

    Meaningful work to do. Not unduly worried that we don’t know everything. Nobody has to. Most thought the system would have already ended, yet every day is more crazy than the day before. If your wife sails past her due date, that doesn’t mean she’s not pregnant.

    We live in a world where people aspire to be whistleblowers. It is almost a sacred quest, to be a whistleblower and dig up dirt on someone else. Nobody deserves to have the dirt dug up on him more than the Serpent, so in that sense Jehovah’s Witnesses are the greatest whistleblowers of all. When you lead off your presentation observing that ‘the world’s crazy,’ nobody (n the Western world) challenges you on that point. Indeed the intention of the entire article was “This discussion will help us to be bold and fearless Witnesses of Jehovah.”

    ******  The bookstore

  • Tartarus: The Fourth Instance of Hell

    Tartarus: The Fourth Instance of Hell

    Sometimes when discussing hell, I open with: “With a single exception, all instances of ‘hell stem from only one of three original language words. Find the meaning of those words, and you’ve found the meaning of hell.”

    Tartarus is the single exception. It occurs just once in Scripture, which is why it is the single exception. For the sake of simplification, one can temporarily shelve it. But so as to be complete, here it is as one of the four words translated “hell”:

    “Certainly God did not refrain from punishing the angels who sinned, but threw them into Tartarus, putting them in chains of dense darkness to be reserved for judgment.” (2 Peter 2:4)

    Some equate it to “prison.” That it should be escalated to “hell” by most translations is purely a matter of interpretation. Better to play it safe, as the NWT does, and just use the actual ‘Tartarus’ word, so as not to insert what is really just interpretation as though it were actual Bible teaching.

    The NWT is not the only translation to recognize this pitfall. Others do it too, though they are in the minority. For example, the NTFE (New Testament for Everyone), which I picked from Biblegateway, reads: “God didn’t spare the angels who sinned, you see, but he threw them into the pit, into dark caverns, handing them over to be guarded until the time of judgment.” It works. One must not assert hell when it’s not there.

    Certainly one must not assert it with terms such as the ‘Lake of Fire’ from Revelation. That passage has never been translated as hell. However, the idea is invariably used to support a fiery hell. It makes no sense. Logically, the Devil would have a summer cottage on the Lake of Fire. We are to believe that fire would trouble him? No.

    Sheol and Hades both mean the Grave, widely recognized today. Whereas older Bible translations would frequently translate these words as hell, newer translations rarely do. When they do, one should not only discount it, but perhaps look askance at the entire translation. The word means Grave, not what they are trying to escalate it too.

    This leaves only Gehenna. It was an actual place, a valley outside of Jerusalem, once the site of child sacrifice. “In later years, Gehenna continued to be an unclean place used for burning trash from the city of Jerusalem” says GotQuestions.org. It “became a place where corpses of criminals, dead animals, and all manners of refuse were thrown to be destroyed.” (https://www.gotquestions.org/Gehenna.html)

    That’s all it was: a garbage dump with a sordid past. Nothing more. Just because fires were kept burning there and “the maggot did not die”—there were always plenty of them—does not mean that what was thrown into that place did not die. It would have been dead already. The bodies of ones thought so despicable that they didn’t even merit a resurrection were tossed there. They weren’t buried with respect in tombs. In short, there is nothing about Gehenna to suggest everlasting torment. Closer to the point is final destruction from which there is no return.

    In recent months, I’ve come to think of AI as my research assistant. It sifts through a lot of stuff in a short time. Also in recent months, congregations of Jehovah’s Witnesses have been considering Isaiah, and now Jeremiah, next Ezekiel and so forth, in their weekly Bible studies. AI will direct me to commentaries, sources like David Guzik, who in turn quotes Charles Spurgeon (1834-1892) a lot, and some of these sources are very very good, with sublime powers of expression. Not to worry; this is not “cheating” from the JW point of view. The JW app itself will feature an option on all Bible verses to link directly to the internet, usually to Bible dictionaries and encyclopedias.

    Good as these sources are, they are all contaminated by a preexisting ‘eternal torment in hell’ dogma completely unsupported by the underlying original-language words discussed above. Thus, good as they are, many Witnesses will prefer to stay “in-house” where you don’t have to sift through the chaff.

    Why is it there, when the underlying words don’t support it? Even the afore-mentioned GotQuestions asserts that Jesus used Gehenna “as a symbolic depiction of hell: a place of eternal torment and constant uncleanness, where the fires never ceased burning and the worms never stopped crawling.” He didn’t. He used it only as a symbol for what it actually was, a place that destroyed permanently whatever what heaved in there, stretching the word only to include the notion that, if it was people, they must not be deserving of a resurrection if their consigned there.” Jesus could make that judgment. We can’t.

    Got it that also that while Isaac Asimov was a brilliant science fiction writer, his atheist views will be repugnant to those taking their cue from the Bible. Yet, when reviewing the notion of hell, he nailed it. Hell, he said, was the “drooling dream of a sadist, crudely affixed to an all-merciful God.” It is as plain as day to anyone approaching the topic without blinders. What first draws our eye is that is is the “drooling dream of a sadist.” However, equally important is that it is “crudely affixed.” It doesn’t fit. It’s enough to make anyone turn atheist. Not that they all do it for this reason, but it sure is a powerful shove in that direction. They are looking for things that make sense, not for things that are “crudely affixed” and make none.

    Where does it come from? It is an import from Greek philosophy. “The western notion of the soul was a philosophical invention defended by Plato that got integrated into Christian theology by the likes of Augustine [who] studied Plato and liked what he said about the soul and so incorporated it into his Christian theology,” says David Kyle Johnson in his 36-part Great Courses lecture series, The Big Questions of Philosophy. It’s not original! It is “affixed.” Moreover, it is sort of a bolloxed job. Johnson continues: “In fact, belief in the resurrection of the body doesn’t make any sense if you believe in souls. At best it is superfluous. There is no need for a resurrection of the body if the soul survives into the afterlife without it.” Not only is it “affixed,” it is “crudely affixed,” as Asimov said, whose star is rising for this reason alone.

    One can only envision as to how people inclined to be cruel would be attracted to this doctrine. It would even give them license for further cruelty, and the history of the church abounds with cruelty. After all, if you think your enemies are going to a burning hell, there can hardly be an objection to giving them a little foretaste of it now. Perhaps you can dissuade them from carrying on as you don’t like, and if not, well, they’d better get used to the heat.

    It doesn’t help that the master of Matthew 18, provoked to wrath at a slave’s ingratitude (he had forgiven the fellow a million dollars, only to find him beating a fellow slave over the $20 owed him) handed him over to the “jailers.” (18:34) Older translations render that word “tormentors,” for that’s what jailers did back then, especially the ones charged with debt repayment. In some convoluted way that makes no sense, this passage too is taken to support hell, since the Devil is also one who torments those who run up a “debt” of sin. But you can write off anyone who so insists. You know that if they read of “crocodile tears,” they will take it as proof that the one shedding them was a crocodile.

    ******  The bookstore