Sheep and Goats

Category: Humor

  • Tom Sheepandgoats Rated R!

    In the time-honored bloggers' way of wasting time, I discovered a colleague bloggerwho's blog is rated G. He crows about it. And he gives the website where you can rate your own blog.

    Of course, this is irresistible, so I entered my own url. Surely, if this fellow gets a G, then my blog….pure and clean and beautiful….will also score a….

    I'm rated R!  R!!!! Me! Righteous, pious, loveable Tom Sheepandgoats!!! Surely this is a ruse of the devil, and I only wish that nonsense about him having horns and pointy tail was really true and that I could trade places for a moment because then I would hunt down those internet clowns and jab them in the tush with my pitchfork!

    The rating is based on key words and how often those words appear. I had some shockers:

    death  (8x)
    hell (2x)
    murder (1x)

    Look, this is a blog that deals with religious notions. Sure, "death" and "hell" have been mentioned. I don't quite recall where "murder" was used, though. Before logging on to a certain web rating service, the notion of murder had never occurred to me.

    Now, in this politically correct age, before anyone take that last remark seriously, allow me to point out that it should not be taken seriously. It's a joke. Ha ha.

    Which, incidentally, reminds me of the time in my youth (late 50's, early 60's) when it was routine for someone to say "I'll kill you," or "I'll kill you for that," as a means of expressing disapproval, or even in jest. Reacting to some childhood shenanigans, I vividly recall my mother saying "I'll kill you." It was said almost approvingly, with affection, as if acknowledging that "boys will be boys." She never did kill me, because if she had, then I wouldn't be here wri….well, she just never did.

    Take, for example, that 1957 movie Twelve Angry Men, which I highly recommend. The twelve jurors are ready to quickly convict a kid for murder. ("Murder" again! Rats! There goes any hope of cleaning up my blog rating!) It seems an open-shut case, with eyewitnesses! But in deliberations, one juror votes "innocent," not because he thinks the kid is innocent, but only because he thinks anyone on trial for his life (yes, these were the days of the electric chair) deserves to have testimony patiently reviewed. Discussions uncover some things not given due weight during the trial. By degrees, the jurors all come over to the acquittal side. The 2nd last juror is tough to sway, and the last is next to impossible. Emotions are high, overshadowing (as the frequently do) reason. In frustration, the last guy shrieks "I'll kill you!" "You didn't mean that literally, did you?" comes the retort, and the stubborn fellow crumbles. There goes the last piece of substantial evidence, for the kid had been heard to say "I'll kill you!"

    How far we've come through the years. Now, no one would ever say such a thing as "I'll kill you"….you'd have the hate-speech police all over you. But people have fewer qualms about doing it, something infrequent in the old days.

    Rated R, my rear end! This system is almost as hokey as the movie ratingsystem.

     

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    Tom Irregardless and Me                 No Fake News but Plenty of Hogwash

  • Cashing in on Safety

    When life hands you lemons, make vinegar!

    Many people do that. I used to do it myself, but at long last, I've seen the light. Now I make lemonade. This stems from contemplating the experience of a former associate, Tom Whitepebble.

    It came about years ago in an unusual way. Whitepebble was assembling a 6 shelf wood cabinet for his wife, Mrs. Whitepebble, when he came across the chilling instruction that he had to do such and such just so. If he didn't the unit might tip over, causing injury or death! (He showed me the instructions – the caution was highlighted.)

    This scared the ever-loving daylights out of him. He called a state-certified carpenter right away. While the carpenter assembled the cabinet (doing exactly what Whitepebble had been doing) Tom watched from a safe distance, in a nearby chair with hard hat on and seat belt fastened. He was safe, and this truly was lemonade. But then the carpenter handed him the bill. It was more than the cost of the cabinet! That was vinegar. And yet it stimulated some soul-searching.

    It must be admitted that we don't pay a lot at the Carriertom Into-Wishen Research Institute. Our associates scrape by any way they can.  So Whitepebble, for a time, delivered newspapers. Now the scripture is true:

    Have you beheld a man skillful in his work? Before kings is where he will station himself; he will not station himself before commonplace men.     Prov 22:29

    Because Tom worked hard at his craft, he became an internationally known newspaper carrier, which surprised all of us. He was followed everywhere by the paparazzi. While you might imagine this would bring him satisfaction, he reports it was a pain in the neck. Checking into the Hyatt or someplace, he dreaded being recognized by staff, because invariably they would pester him to deliver the courtesy newspapers. But he didn't want to deliver courtesy papers. He wanted to sleep in late with his pretty wife, Mrs. Whitepebble.

    But his cabinet experience and the current safety obsession got him thinking, and he launched Safe Courtesy, Inc, the billion dollar enterprise, which you have no doubt heard of and are jealous over. No?  Well, is it Whitepebble's fault that you don't keep up?

    You see, these same hotel people that he used to hide from, he now approached aggressively,  just as if he were in the ministry! They were crazy to deliver courtesy papers themselves! Did they have any idea how dangerous it could be? Suppose you tripped climbing the stairs. Suppose the newspapers caught fire! That could easily be curtains for you. His sales pitch caught on. He would ensure safe delivery of  the courtesy papers! Tom scoured the very earth for expert carriers, certified triple-80, each one of them. (80 decibel payload on the storm door, at 80 paces, with 80% accuracy)  It is fair to say that he has the courtesy delivery field wrapped up, and now, when he (infrequently) visits the Institute, he does nothing but brag about his money. He then proceeded to buy up the Carriertom Into-Wishen Research Institute and rename it the Whitepebble Institute!

    There's money to be made in today's safety craze. It's not vinegar. It's lemonade. Drink up!

     

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    Tom Irregardless and Me               No Fake News but Plenty of Hogwash

  • Monkeys, Typewriters, and Shakespeare

    The driver behind evolutionary change, we are told, is mutation. Genes foul up in replicating, the theory goes, and the result is a slight tweak on life. Add up enough tweaks, millions upon millions, and look! an amoeba has become an orangutan. 

    Most mutations, though, are bad news.  And so, natural selection emerges as the determinant of which ones die out and which ones are preserved, to be passed on to the next generation. Only a beneficial mutation is preserved, since only that variety gives one an advantage in the “fight for survival.”

    Gene replication is amazingly accurate. “Typically, mistakes are made at a rate of only 1 in every ten billion bases incorporated,” states the textbook Microbiology. (Tortora, Funke, Case, 2004, pg 217) That’s not many, and, remember, only the tiniest fraction of those mutations are said to be any good.

    Since gene mutations rarely happen, and almost all that do are neutral or negative, and thus not enshrined by natural selection,  a student might reasonably wonder if he is not being sold a bill of goods by evolutionists. Can benevolent mutations possibly account for all they are said to account for?

    Enter Thomas Huxley, a 19th-century scientist who supported Charles Darwin’s theories of evolution. Huxley came up with the pithy slogan: “If you give an infinite number of monkeys and infinite number of typewriters, one of them will eventually come up with the complete works of Shakespeare.” Surely you can understand that!

    Nevertheless, his assertion had never been tested. Until 4 years ago, that is.  Evolutionists at England’s Plymouth University rounded up six monkeys, supplied them with a computer, placed them on display at Paighton Zoo, and then hid behind trees and trash cans, with notebooks, breathlessly awaiting what would happen! They were disappointed.Four weeks produced page after page of mostly s’s. Not a single word emerged. Not even a two letter word. Not even a one letter word. Researcher Mike Phillips gave details.

    At first, he said, “the lead male got a stone and started bashing the hell out of it.

    “Another thing they were interested in was in defecating and urinating all over the keyboard,” added Phillips, who runs the university’s Institute of Digital Arts and Technologies.

    They didn’t write any Shakespeare! They shit all over the computer!

    Alright, alright, so it wasn’t a real science experiment. It was more pop art. And they didn’t have an infinite number of monkey or computers (due to budgetary constraints). Surely, if you had a infinite number, groused the guardians of evolution, then you would end up with Shakespeare.

    Hmmmm. Well, maybe. But wouldn’t you also need an infinite number of shovels to dig through an infinite pile of you know what?

    University and zoo personnel defended their monkeys. Clearly, they didn’t want them held responsible for sabotaging science. Geoff Cox, from the university, pointed out that “the monkeys aren’t reducible to a random process. They get bored and they shit on the keyboard rather than type.” And Vicky Melfi, a biologist at Paignton zoo, added “they are very intentional, deliberate and very dexterous, so they do want to interact with stuff you give them,” she said. “They would sit on the computer and some of the younger ones would press the keys.” Ultimately the monkeys may have fallen victim to the distractions which plague many budding novelists.

    It’s true. I often get distracted working on my book and when that happens I will sometimes shi……no, no…..some secrets are too dark to reveal!

    ******  The bookstore

     

  • Carriertom Solves Identity Theft

    Howard Slickbottom, Transportation Security Administration employee, was lounging around at Starbucks when he got up to use the restroom. Upon returning, his laptop was gone. On it was every conceivable bit of information of 100,000 TSA employees.

    Perhaps it didn't happen just that way or even close, but it did happen. Didn't his brother Elmodo the same dumb thing last year?

    And it happens a lot. T J Maxx, the big retailer without a single Slickbottom employee that I know of, lost up to 200 million credit card numbers to high tech thieves a couple years ago. That's the record so far. But what about their own advanced security? Shouldn't that have stopped the bad guys? Nah, you probably have better security on your home network, said the Wall Street Journal (5/4/07).

    Of course, it's not that way anymore! The company has beefed up their system. And the TSA director Kip Hawley not only apologized; he profoundly apologized!

    "We profoundly apologize for any inconvenience and concern that this incident has caused you."

    Even with such apologies, Congress vows to investigate. But it seems clear with all these breaches that serious measures must be taken and so authorities turned to the Carriertom Into-Wishin Research Institute for recommendations on how affected persons could safeguard themselves against identity theft. As usual, the Institute completed its report in no time flat.

    Spokesman for the Whitepebble Religious Institute, Tom Whitepebble, held a news conference to outline his top two recommendations.

    1. Have lousy credit.

    2. Have a police record for child sexual abuse. Then, if you fear your identity has been stolen, phone the cops and report “yourself.” A week later, go visit “yourself” at the lockup.

    Of course, with regard to the second recommendation, you don’t want to have earned your record the traditional way. That’s why the business wing of the ever-agile Institute, for a reasonable fee, will forge such documents into the public record.

    When reporters pointed out that such a record would be of benefit only if one’s identity was stolen, whereas otherwise it would be an absolute liability, Whitepebble bristled. You know how he is.

    Rome, he correctly pointed out, wasn’t built in a day. All great ideas have a few bugs initially. And if the doom-and-gloom media couldn’t find anything nice to say, then he‘d thank them not to say anything at all.

    It may be that Pophad it right all along. He still pays cash for most things, the old sage. Cash on the barrelhead! he says.

     

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    Tom Irregardless and Me                        No Fake News but Plenty of Hogwash

  • Tiny Funnies? That’s Not Funny!

    When the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle shrunk the Sunday comics to microscopic size, it made Edward P Curtis, Jr. hopping mad. He fired off a sharp rebuke to the offending paper, but they didn’t print it. So he sent a copy to rival City! newspaper. They did.

    Why shouldn’t he be mad? Is there a newsprint shortage? Will tiny funnies house the homeless? Feed the hungry? Support the troops? No, no, no and no. It will help the shareholders, saving a fraction of a cent per hundred papers.

    Truth be told, we were all furious that horrible Sunday morning when we saw what the misers had done. We all wanted to give them a piece of our mind, but we were afraid to. This type of letter is tricky.

    Deep down in our heart of hearts, we all know that the funnies aren’t too important. Maybe our letter of protest will hit on a heavy news day. The Opinion page will be stuffed with gut-wrenching letters about genocide, AIDS, earthquakes, stock market meltdown….and smack dead center will be our silly little letter sniveling about the funnies.

    It can be done, but you can’t be clumsy. You must saturate your letter with humor, self-deprecation, and mock outrage. That way, if it appears alongside weighty stories, it is the editor who looks like a dork, not you.

    Mr. Curtis has brilliantly met the challenge. Thank you, sir, for you did what we all wanted to do, but didn’t have the guts.

    Unfortunately, Mr. Curtis’ letter reached the D&C too late. They had already published a letter of protest from a less experienced writer, who fell headlong into the above trap.

    Dear Ms. Editor:
    How truly tragic that a feature which brings all of us so much joy each week, the Sunday funnies, has been reduced in size. It’s now so hard to see the detail in drawings that I so cherish. Of course, we all must cut costs, but surely not at the expense of the uplifting Sunday funnies! I am not angry, and I can forgive, for I feel you do not know what you do. But please, please, oh please, Ms. Editor, reconsider and restore our beloved Sunday funnies.

    The letter was printed on a day of heavy news. They sandwiched it between a letter from Osama Bin Laden and another from a tsunami survivor. That night, the embarrassed author left town, and hasn‘t been heard from since.

     

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    Tom Irregardless and Me                No Fake News but Plenty of Hogwash

  • New Two Tier Meeting Prep Service Announced

    There's no sense in donning sackcloth of false modesty. Fact is that the Whitepebble Religious Institute is revolutionizing the world of religious study preparation, just like Apple revolutionizing the field of anything they touch with cool gadgets.

    The Institute launched two exciting new services recently, and held a news conference to maximize momentum. To the oohs and aahs of thrilled reporters, spokesman Tom Wheatandweeds demonstrated a new two-tier underlining service. The news media was spellbound. Why had no one thought of such a convenience before?

    Far and away the best method to prepare and to let others know you have prepared your religious instruction is to underline the material. The lazy students read but do not underline, which accomplishes the first goal but not the second. The really lazy students do neither. These are the students who gripe how boring this or that meeting is, when they themselves are the hangup. The same principle of preparation applies to any learning setting – college, for example.

    Nevertheless, it is not for the Institute to lecture or moralize, but only to capitalize on trends. So for a flat yearly fee, a subscriber will receive all study materials already underlined.

    Of course, this is not new. Other such services exist. But the brilliance of the Whitepebble method lies in the realization that, whereas people are always looking over your shoulder to see if you’ve prepared or not, they’re not looking too closely! Therefore, underlined study material is satisfactory; there is no need for the lines to be in the correct places! Thus, the subscriber choosing this service recognizes significant cost savings, since any donkey at the Institute can prepare these “close-enough” lessons, and do so while he or she is working on other projects! (multi-tasking)

    They’re always innovating, those Whitepebble people!

    The meetings of Jehovah’s Witnesses are all educational in nature. They thus differ significantly from most church services, which may feature
    (depending on the specific church) new-age pep talks, politics, hooting and stomping, raising money, concerts, and tearjerker (or hellfire) preaching. The Watchtower study, for example, consists of a one-hour Q&A session. Material prepared in advance and available to all (in the Watchtower magazine) revolves around such themes as practical application of Bible principles, family life, the ministry, prophetic patterns, maintaining faith, Christian morality, theocratic history, and the like. The conductor, ideally, does not make speeches of his own, but serves only to moderate comments and keeps the lesson on track. You glean insights from the study material and from each other’s comments. It is spiritual education which you can prepare for, and it helps one to keep heart and mind straight in an ever sickening world.

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    Tom Irregardless and Me       No Fake News but Plenty of Hogwash

  • Tombaugh Quits: A Blow for Science

    The Whitepebble Religious Institute sadly announces the departure of Tom Tombaugh, it’s most prominent (and only) staff scientist, whose most notable credentials consisted of a claimed relationship to Clyde Tombaugh, founder of the disgraced wannabe planet Pluto. His resignation leaves the institute top-heavy with religious nuts.

    It was top-heavy before. That’s why it was common knowledge that Tombaugh felt increasingly out of place among the pious ones. Did they even speak the same language? Tombaugh would sit in the lunchroom and long for intelligent discussion on some learned matter of science, for example, how boisterous belching or earth-splitting flatulence evolved over the eons, since our ancestors who didn‘t carry on in that way failed to scare away predators, and got eaten, but his lunchmates would attribute it all to Adam and Eve and our fall into sin! Or he’d tell us the latest scientific research, like how scientists succeeded in placing a person in a state of suspended animation by gradually lowering body temperature five degrees per hour, all the while carefully monitoring vital signs in real time hyperstasis homeovention….and kept him in such a state for almost 25 years…. and, amazingly, that man still did not lose his government civil service job….and these holy characters would nod at each other knowingly and quote some scripture about laziness, maybe this one from Prov 26:14.….A door keeps turning upon its pivot, and the lazy one upon his couch….. or they’d utter some pious intonation about how sloth is a sure sign we’re in the last days!

    So he’s gone. The prestige Tombaugh leant the Institute cannot be overstated. Three years ago he presented groundbreaking research on the socially embarrassing phenomenon of sock-eating shoes, for which he was awarded the No Bell prize. Ignorant ones have long supposed this self-esteem deflator (the socks, not the prize) to be caused by defective socks sliding deeper into the shoe with every successive step, but Tombaugh proved scientifically that such was not the case!  Using scientific methodology far too complex to be revealed here before you, mere dunces who are thoroughly unqualified to understand it, Tombaugh established the prime determinant was the viscosity of the individual foot, some persons and professions being naturally more slippery than others.

    The No Bell scientific competition, though inspired by it’s better known homonym, has procedural rules more akin to TV’s old The Gong Show. The contestant presents his research before the judges, and if he doesn’t get “gonged,” well….he has won the prize. Our boy didn’t get gonged, and he’s been crowing about it ever since.

    The Institute’s religious members urged Tombaugh to start his presentation with “Everybody knows that….” but Tombaugh would have none of it. He insisted on using the scientific method. Normally, we wouldn’t care, except we knew his financial resources and so we knew that the study groups and control groups would all be various permutations of us! Yes, we would be the guinea pigs and it would be a major pain trying to research God with this character sneaking up behind to apply double blindfolds, seemingly at random, as far as we could tell, and placebos. Nor were our fears unfounded. In hindsight, it seems beyond dispute that, when we showed up at the Judge First, Ask Questions Later religious convention wearing mismatched socks and sneakers, somehow deemed essential for his stupid research, the judges were so distracted that they completely overlooked our very worthy discoveries, namely, the Gospel of Howard and the Acts of the Pioneers. Some other clown, since recruited by the Institute, captured top billing for research on the exothermic nature of hell, research that has been embroiled in plagiarism controversy ever since.

    On second thought, we’re all glad he’s gone.

     

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    Tom Irregardless and Me                   No Fake News but Plenty of Hogwash

  • No, Virginia, Douse the Firecrackers

    Virginia O’Hanlon asked her Dad if there really was a Santa Claus, and Dad wasn‘t sure he wanted to lie to his own child. So he did what parents have done since the beginning of time when they’re stuck. He passed the buck.

     

    Why don’t you write the newspaper, he advised. If they say it’s true, then it is.

    Editorial page      The New York Sun      September 21, 1897

    "Dear Editor–I am 8 years old.
    "Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus.
    "Papa says, 'If you see it in The Sun, it's so.'
    "Please tell me the truth, is there a Santa Claus?
    Virginia O'Hanlon
    115 West Ninety-fifth Street

    Probably, Virginia’s old man was hoping the paper would do what he was too chicken to do….tell his daughter the truth. Instead, they cooked up some sentimental answer that folks gush over to this day.

    But sometimes you have no choice but to pass the buck. Like when my own son started pestering me about fireworks, for example, harassing me day and night. Do you think I could persuade my own child that fireworks were not legal in New York State? Not just dynamite, but also cherry bombs and even ladyfingers. They are illegal. You can’t blow them off in New York. Yes, they are legal in some states, but New York is not one of them. Tired of arguing with a boy who showed every sign of becoming just as pigheaded as the old man, I sought a way to pass the buck.

    Talk to a cop! What a brilliant idea! I drove to the area police station. Were fireworks legal in New York State? No, they were not. What about ladyfingers? No they were not. What about on holidays and special events? No, that made no difference! What about…..LOOK, said the cop, you got a listening problem?! NO means NO.!! Now if you want to break THE LAW, go right ahead, but we’ll be coming after you!! All that was lacking was for him to draw his gun!

    Elated, I skipped home to grab my son and return. Yeah! Tell the boy what you just told me! Scare the everlovin daylights out of him!

    But Joe Friday wasn’t there!! Instead, it was jolly Officer O’Malahan! Well….he patted my boy on the head, with a twinkle in his eye, just be careful, and don’t set them off too much!!

    Thanks a lot, copper!!! If this kid grows up to be a pirate, I’ll know who to blame!

    991AB8D0-FBE9-4A60-BDD3-3CCD0D9EF2C9

     

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  • Xerox and Erasable Paper

    Rochester’s own Xerox Corporation just came up with a great new invention: erasable paper, for those you-only-have-to-read-it-once messages. Within a day, the paper erases itself and you can reuse it! Thrilled, the cutesy Rochester Democrat and Chronicle used a fading headline to announce the innovation. No, they’re not going to sell it right now, it will take a few years to get to market. But when it does, just think of all the paper it will save!

    There was a time when a more naïve Sheepandgoats would have lapped up every word of this hype, but no more. Weren’t PCs supposed to bring about this same huge paper saving? Yes they were, and, spurred on by anticipated savings, companies which once distributed documents only to those two or three who needed to see them instead sent an e-copy to every employee who could read, only to find that each recipient promptly printed out a hard copy.

    And what about the internet? Wasn’t that also supposed to conserve paper? Alas, starry-eyed scientists discovered too late that there is no joke too asinine, no story too sappy, to not copy and paste and send to everyone in your address book, each of whom also must print a  hard copy.

    Sheepandgoats predicts that this invention too will squander paper, not save it. Exactly how he can’t yet say, he just has faith in man’s infinite capacity to screw things up. Perhaps, as with PCs, the new paper will spur ever more messages. Why not, since the cost is negligible? “So-and-so is going to the bathroom.”  No announcement will be too trivial! Then, after messages have proliferated, some recipients will complain that they’ve missed some, since not everyone reads incoming drivel right away, but puts it aside till they get a minute, which may come days or weeks or months later. Missed messages! We can’t have that. The obvious solution: don’t use the newfangled stuff, but use good ‘ol chop-a-tree-down paper that doesn’t go belly up on you.

    That’s not all. There‘s no end to potential abuses. Already, that lazy lout Tom Pearlsandswine has exploited the new technology, and its not even out yet.  He bought a few reams of blank paper, distributed it via office mail to coworkers and supervisors alike, claimed to have done a ton of work, and, when informed he’d only sent blank sheets, blamed a defective beta version of the new erasable paper, which wiped out his work prematurely! But we’re all wise to that skunk by now. His incoming phone call was traced to the golf course.

    Indeed, the only permanent customer Sheepandgoats can envision is the Impossible Mission Force, (IMF) which will use the new paper to give Tom Cruise his assignments.

     

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    Tom Irregardless and Me               No Fake News but Plenty of Hogwash

  • William Paley and the Watchmaker Analogy

    Just as the apostle Paul dodged the ruling Sanhedrin by exploiting internal bickering, transforming that august group into a free-for-all catfight, so Tom Weedsandwheat scored an important victory in his ongoing dispute with the ruling committee of the Judge First – Ask Questions Later religious conference. That committee has put Weedsandwheat’s grand prize for his groundbreaking research paper on the exothermic nature of hell under review, while they examine the ugly charge of plagiarism. You may recall that the losers were murmuring even when the prize was initially given to Weedsandwheat. In spite of Weedandwheat’s earnest and repeated entreaties to that prestigious body that they should “get a life,” the controversy has not abated; rather, it has intensified.

    Now when Paul took note that the one part was of Sadducees but the other of Pharisees, he proceeded to cry out in the Sanhedrin: “Men, brothers, I am a Pharisee, a son of Pharisees. Over the hope of resurrection of the dead I am being judged.”  Because he said this, a dissension arose between the Pharisees and Sadducees, and the multitude was split.  For Sadducees say there is neither resurrection nor angel nor spirit, but the Pharisees publicly declare them all.  So there broke out a loud screaming, and some of the scribes of the party of the Pharisees rose and began contending fiercely, saying: “We find nothing wrong in this man; but if a spirit or an angel spoke to him,—.”  Now when the dissension grew great, the military commander became afraid that Paul would be pulled to pieces by them, and he commanded the force of soldiers to go down and snatch him from their midst and bring him into the soldiers’ quarters.        Acts 23:6-10

    The clever Weedsandwheat adapted a page from Acts 23 into his own drama with the Judge First committee. At the hearing, his situation was looking increasingly bleak, since the committee was unimpressed with his explanation of his blatant plagiarism being, in reality, commendable recycling. Displaying remarkable agility, he abruptly changed tactics and cried out that he was merely following the course laid down two centuries ago by William Paley. Of course, this brought the hearing to a standstill, for William Paley is a most highly regarded figure. He is the originator of the watchmaker analogy.

    Watchtower publications, and probably creationist publications, sometimes make use of the watchmaker analogy in refuting evolutionist claims. If you were to stumble across a precise watch, so the analogy goes, with it’s intricate internal mechanisms for keeping time, you would never under any circumstances conclude that it had just come about on it’s own. Instead, you would deduce from the product that there must have been a designer, and an ingenious one at that, even though that designer is nowhere to be seen. Readers may imagine that The Watchtower just dreamed up that illustration, but in fact, the watchmaker analogy is as old as ….um….time. It is credited to William Paley for his 1802 publication Natural Theology.

    Paley authored his tome as the evolutionist view was rapidly gaining ground among the avant garde religious intelligentsia. He “took them on” with some success, due, not so much to his originality, but to his formidable reasoning ability. His book is still regarded as a substantial bulwark to those in the “God” camp.

    Shortly after publication, however, Paley was accused of plagiarism, just like Weedsandwheat. The watchmaker analogy was not his, it was charged, but had been used by many prior writers. Yet, it is precisely in this fact that Paley’s (and Weedsandwheat’s) salvation lies! To wit, the analogy was no longer the intellectual property of any one person! Obviously, it was at one time, but in Paley’s day it was so familiar and so commonly employed, that it could be incorporated in a book without attribution, which, in any case, would be difficult to trace. Paley’s contribution was not so much in originating ideas as in organizing them.

    This is precisely the essence of Weedsandwheat’s argument over why he should be given a free pass regarding his exothermic nature of hell research. Since that research has bounced around on the internet for years and is familiar to every online nerd out there, why shouldn’t he appropriate it for his own use? Besides, he cleaned it up for submission to the conference, the original version being of dubious moral merit.

    Of course, the rest of the Whitepebble Religious Institute is standing behind their guy. His grand prize brings prestige for the entire Institute. Besides, there’s not much else in the pipeline. Tom Pearlsandswine for years has been immersed in research attempting to prove the Trinity, but that project is not going too well.

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    The theme of [P D Q Bach’s musical score] for band instruments and piano bears a certain kind of resemblance to the theme of [Beethoven’s] eroica symphony variations. The name of the certain type of remembrance that it bears is “identity.”      Professor Peter Schickele

     

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