A blog by Tom Sheepandgoats (aka Tom Harley)
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Science without Religion is Lame. Religion without Science is Blind
Science without Religion is Lame. Religion without Science is Blind Albert Einstein wrote: “Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.” Science provides the how of the universe, but religion provides the why, along with the morals and purpose. Given a choice of unknowns, most people will choose the why questions over the how questions—unless you include such questions as ‘How do I…
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Retrieving the Ruined Belt
Retrieving the Ruined Belt If Jeremiah shows deep emotion in the book bearing his name, so also does God, who says: “And if you refuse to listen, I will weep in secret because of your pride. I will shed many tears, and my eyes will stream with tears.” (Jeremiah 13:17) Why would one choose a course of revolt against God? Occasionally, yes—we are flawed and/or…
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Darwin’s Bulldog
This book I have in mind, attempting to reconcile Genesis with evolution, will not be anti-science. But it will be taken that way by mainstream science because of its ever increasing “my way or the highway” attitude. “Can’t we all just get along?” I will plead like Rodney King. No, will be the answer. We can’t. ‘All or nothing’ thinking, it is called. It is…
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If You Get Tired Running with Footmen, How Will You Run a Race Against Horses? (Jeremiah 12:5)
So here Jeremiah is complaining about wickedness—why is there so much of it? why do the perpetrators do just fine?—and suddenly he goes full-on harsh: “Single them out like sheep for slaughtering! And set them apart for the day of killing!” (Jeremiah 12:3) No turning the other cheek here!—that teacher wouldn’t come along for hundreds of years. Of course, the WERE trying to kill him,…
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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,…
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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,…
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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…
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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…