A blog by Tom Sheepandgoats (aka Tom Harley)
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Weapons of Math Instruction
Whereas religious experts are a dime a dozen at the Whitepebble Religious Institute, there really is only one science and math authority: Tom Tombaugh. And even his credentials are modest: he claims to be a distant cousin of Clyde Tombaugh, discoverer of disgraced wannabe planet Pluto. Nevertheless, he’s all we have, so if he doesn’t show, it really creates a void. Truth be known, Whitepebble keeps Tombaugh around…
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The Helix and the Cross
I traded e-mails with someone who extols the scientific method. He favors evolution. I favor creation. We both liked the result. Did I mind if he posted the exchange on his website? No, I did not; it’s two different views expressed clearly and with mutual respect. I positively like this fellow, and may post the exchange myself, someday when I am too lazy to think…
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Belief over Bureaucracy
The race is on to see who can rebuild flattened Lebanon after the 5 week war. (assuming that war is really over) The international community hopes it will be the Lebanese government. The smart money, though, is on Hezbollah, the grass roots guerilla group that provoked the war in the first place. Onlookers wish it were otherwise, but Hezbollah represents people with convictions, while the…
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Horses in Water
Ever since I was a kid, Durand Eastman beach has been closed. With much hoopla, the new administration vowed to open it. Opening day came and their first action was to close it. The bacteria count was too high. Really, for 40 years you would never had known the beach was closed. Come warm weather, swimmers flocked to it, almost as much as to the…
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Understand the Bible in 24 Hours
At a certain airport, two elderly women stand against a corridor wall. They offer literature to passerby who approach them. At their feet is a sign: Understand the Bible in 24 Hours. Is that possible? It depends. Do you mean 24 consecutive hours? In that case, probably not. Picture a water cooler jug. It can hold a lot. But the neck is small; you have to…
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The Practice Gets it Right on Blood Transfusion
When TV writes Jehovah’s Witnesses into the plot, look out! We get clobbered. It not malicious, usually. They just don’t have a clue as to what we’re about. Nor are the hatchet jobs confined to us. Religious folk never fare well on TV. There’s just not that many TV writers with religious backgrounds out there and they can’t picture the other side. Not that they…
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Remodeling at the Whitepebble Institute
When prospective clients visit the Whitepebble Research Institute they are not impressed. They see the long folding tables covered with pizza cartons and sports pages, and they begin thinking they’ve stumbled into the Home Depot break room, not the office of a prestigious thinktank. Of course, our people are real smart. But to reel in the new business, they and their surroundings have to look smart. That’s…
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Another Farewell to Mickey Spillane
Here’s the first. Click here. Mickey Spillane’s Black Alley…a book review: If private eye Mike Hammer takes some lead in the gut and needs a doctor to patch him up, will he get a loving sincere TV doctor? Or will it be the fallen skid row bum type… some has-been doctor clawing his way back to respectability? (Hint: Mike likes to swill beer with his…
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Charles Darwin – a Letter to Asa Gray
Two spiritual threads can be traced in the life of Charles Darwin, originator of the natural selection evolution theory. Had those threads turned out differently, one wonders what effect it might have had on science interpretation. The first has been dealt with in a previous post. Here is the second: In a letter to American colleague Asa Gray, Darwin stated: ….I own that I cannot…
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Disabled Kids and Three Aborted Planets
For whatever is hidden is meant to be disclosed, and whatever is concealed is meant to be brought out into the open. Mark 4:22 NIV A long-dark secret of school textbook publishers has, at last, come into the glaring light. When you see a kid in a wheelchair in your school textbook, interacting with other kids, he is actually able-bodied and doesn’t need a wheelchair…