Cosmic Connection

Far out on a country hill I place my blanket on the grass and lie flat. Above my head to the north is steady Polaris. Off my left arm the gas giant Jupiter rises silently. Off my right, Mercury Is settling into the deep blue twilight. As velvet black of true darkness comes, the majestic backbone of night appears – the Milky Way. Its angle from my right foot across to my left shoulder orients me, and I tilt my … Read on…

From Atheism to Ethics

Perhaps the greatest obstacle faced by atheism to becoming popular, or to becoming even palatable, is that most people associate it with amorality, even immorality.  That is because ethics and religion are so closely linked in people’s minds, despite the fact that there really is no reason to believe that religious people are more ethical than atheists. (Christopher Hitchens’ God is Not Great gives some compelling reasons in support of this idea.)   Why is atheism linked to the alleged … Read on…

A Funny Thing Happened

Jesus, Buddha, Yahweh (aka Allah), the Pope, Zeus, Odin, and Mohammed walk into a bar…. You don’t hear too many jokes that begin this way.  Religious icons have been fodder for humorists and novelists for centuries, though much of the mockery has stayed underground until the 20th century. Good-natured (and bad-natured) humor directed at gods and their prophets could, and often did, result in slow death. A single death was usually sufficient to slow down the person so bold as … Read on…

Amen

The Reverend in his quick, excited tongue, proclaims the end times are near.  Every headline becomes an affirmation and a warning.  As his excitement grows, he slams his fists on the lectern, stomps across the stage, his pacing accelerates in volume and pitch, until his vaulted voice builds to a battle cry of fire, brimstone, and redemption. The congregation nods their heads, stoically looking to their sleepy Bibles.  Few follow the Reverend’s sermon, but all agree with its immanence. A … Read on…

One Cheer for Faith

The change winds* are blowing, are blowing – do you feel them? They are bringing to us a new zeitgeist. Suddenly, atheism is almost mainstream.  Look: Militant atheist authors on best-seller lists and talk shows: Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, Richard Dawkins. Atheist comedians on major network media: Julia Sweeney, George Carlin. Popular atheist TV characters: Lisa Simpson, Dr. Perry Cox on Scrubs. Even atheist politicians: the late California Assemblyman B.T. Collins, Rep. Pete Stark. And now, amazingly, atheist comic book … Read on…

Getting To The Poetry

Snug in the cockpit, I go by the numbers – Pre-taxi checklist complete, altimeter to three zero point zero five, rpm to seventeen hundred, check carb heat, mags, vacuum and mixture; flaps to fifteen, radio to one-two-one point nine and transmit:. “Ground control, this is niner-eight-three-two Uniform, departure heading two-niner-zero for twelve-thousand five hundred, ready for taxi”.

The Eloquent Engineer: The Dark Side of DNA

The rate of scientific discoveries has been increasing exponentially for centuries and we are on the leading edge of that vast wave. New technology comes at us so fast that most people have become numb to it. New electronics? Ho hum. A revolutionary physics theory, another extraterrestrial planet, or uncovering the bones of a hitherto unknown ancient ancestor, nothing fazes us any more. We accept world-changing discoveries matter-of-factly, that is, if we notice at all. However, something special is happening … Read on…

The Hole of the Fox

Mo didn’t think that it was a foxhole, really, but  more of a shallow depression left when a recent mortar misfire had landed in the soft, moist, often-tilled black earth of this poor farmer’s field. The ground itself was dismally flat, even this close to the river, as was most of the land in this country. But the hole itself was very difficult to see, surrounded as it was by the withered tall stubble of common wheat that littered the … Read on…