A blog by Tom Sheepandgoats (aka Tom Harley)
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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.…
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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…
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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…
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‘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…
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‘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…
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‘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…
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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…
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Macro and Micro-Evolution: From Where do the Terms Arise?
The terms “microevolution” and “macroevolution” were coined by an evolutionist. They were not coined by a creationist in an attempt to “divide and conquer.” It was an evolutionist who first suggested that you can’t take the abundant evidence supporting micro and assume that it proves macro. The chasm is too wide. The variation it must account for is too great. In short, macroevolution is not…
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Substituting God for Aliens
Twice aliens have intervened in human affairs, according to the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. Once they did it to jump-start evolution, to implant the notion in a certain famished apeman that he could weild an animal bone as a club to wallop the daylights out of a competing clan. Put to that use, the struggle to survive leapfrogged countless generations of natural selection in…