A blog by Tom Sheepandgoats (aka Tom Harley)
Search topic, word, or Bible verse (Bible books may be abbreviated)
-
In Defense of Shunning
When my pal Keith, became interested in Jehovah's Witnesses, he thought he'd test them out. So he thought up a series of questions and posed them to someone in the local congregation. Why does God permit this, what is He going to do about that, what happens at such-and-such, why do you say this is true and that is not true? Those kinds of questions.…
-
We Love Our Kids and are Crying
There were nine of them. They were best of friends. They were all girls. They were all graduates – class of 2007, Fairport. Before going their separate ways for the summer, and then off to this or that college, they'd planned this one last outing. One of the girls' parents had a cottage on Keuka Lake. A great place to lounge and relax and swim…
-
Pool Alarms and Parkinson’s Law
The legislators of New York, eager to safeguard us all, have decreedthat, from now on, any new swimming pool deeper than 2 feet must come equipped with an alarm that will raise all hell inside & outside the house should someone (or something) fall in. Thus, Rochesterians who live in the poverty zone (trust me, there are many) who have no air conditioning but several…
-
Clamdiggers – Didn’t Prostitutes Wear Those?
In the early 1960's, if you wanted to be cool, you wore clamdiggers. A blip in the adolescent fashion world – did they last more than a season or two? They were, nevertheless, a necessary item. See, they weren't shorts. And they weren't full pants. Neither were they jeans. No, they were sort of cotton, light green or blue, if I remember, with a stripe…
-
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…
-
Common Sense and the Trinity
Every Witness has, in his ministry, run across the person who will speak of only one thing: the Trinity, and whose capacity to speak of it is inexhaustible. Think we're tenacious? We can't hold a candle to these guys, at least not on their favorite topic. Jehovah's Witnesses do not believe in the Trinity; that is, they don't believe that the Father, Son and Holy…
-
Pop Goes to the Movies!
Pop hadn’t seen a movie in thirty years. We had to act. No one should be so culturally deprived. He would, no doubt, thank us later. Oceans 11 was playing at the time. At the theater, we kept darting Pop sidelong glances. Afterwards came the verdict. Pretty violent, he began. Seconds later: Pretty loud. And why all that cursing? Why is there so much cursing?…
-
Richard Dawkins and the Lineage of Jesus
Richard Dawkins is the grand old man of atheism. He's been around forever and he's articulate. His book "The God Delusion" sells heartily. Even Sam Harris (I think) emulates Mr. Dawkins and hopes to grow up just like him. But I am not happy with Mr. Dawkins. I almost lost a spiritual brother to him, not for any noble reason, but because he tried to…
-
Violet in the Old Folks Home. A Dirty Trick
They like Violet at the nursing home. She's good natured, always says "hi," and doesn't complain. She's lived there four years. Once she presided over her own country farmhouse kitchen table, peopled with family and neighbors. Though they might not get along in all contexts, the table bonded them, cementing various degrees of familiarity, love, and dysfunction. Over the stove hung a plaque that read…
-
Life Saving and Life Threatening Blood Transfusions
In all history, there's never been a JW detractor who's used the noun blood transfusion uncoupled to the adjective life-saving. Thus, from time to time we hear of so-and-so, who's health is in jeopardy because he refuses a life saving blood transfusion. Always, the message is the same: what kind of a crackpot religion would persuade its members to decline a life saving blood transfusion?…