Confessions of a Conservative Atheist
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Other than the candy, it seemed to Otto, who was a simple man, that Halloween was an entire holiday devoted exclusively to fear, well beyond mischief night or the day itself, and being frightened was something he spent his entire life avoiding. Otto had a big problem with Halloween. He liked the candy well enough,… Continue reading Otto and the ghost that cried, being a fictionalized account of a man who was scared of Halloween
Love can sing to us, sweetly, and we can build an edifice upon it for that special choir, an edifice composed of both the joy we have in our lover and the fears of how it will end, for everything is ultimately “ruin’d” in this world, but in Shakespeare’s, even a single intentionally shortened syllable… Continue reading Shakespeare’s Sonnet 73, the “Bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang,” and the meaning of love itself
Being a fictionalized account of a future where nothing grows for over twenty years and humanity, or at least the less than five percent that survived, subsists on manufactured foods in a secure colony at an undisclosed location. It was mid-May, but nothing grew. The grass outside Otto’s kitchen window was as dreary, desiccated, and… Continue reading A world without spring
There’s no doubt fall can be beautiful and the first arrival of cold weather invigorating, but trees don’t lose their leaves because they want to. Energy is scarce in winter, and all living things have been shaped by the timeless evolutionary challenge of how to spend it wisely, even ourselves. Unlike many, I can’t bring… Continue reading The increasingly cold grip of fall and the horror of near endless winter
The natural world is reborn every spring as flowers bloom and animals return like clockwork, but beneath the surface each species’ unique evolutionary history gives this rebirth an endless, almost magical variety. In New Jersey, there are some 2,100 varieties of plants alone, each similar and unique in how they respond to the coming of… Continue reading The miracle of spring and the endless beauty of evolution
Confessions of a Conservative Atheist 