Tom Krattenmaker

1 month ago | onlys.ky | Tom Krattenmaker

Loading the Elevenlabs Text to Speech AudioNative Player... I am studying the evolution of the universe in an online course that started this week.  At Tuesday’s opening session and over the weeks to come, three dozen of us are exploring scientific discoveries about the origins and development of the universe and the epic story they tell. Why would a responsible citizen take his eyes off the devastating headlines to study something so distant in time and space?

Dec 4, 2024 | thehumanist.com | Tom Krattenmaker

Reassurance awaited me at every turn during my recent three-day backpacking trip on the Appalachian Trail. The ancient forest dazzled on the stretch of trail I covered along the Connecticut-New York border. The sun-dappled, luxuriant green exuded a sense of health and flourishing. Vistas beckoned to the east and west. My alarmingly close encounter with a rattlesnake—they’re rare but still present in this part of the country—woke me up to the enduring wildness of the place.

Aug 27, 2024 | thehumanist.com | Tom Krattenmaker

Reassurance awaited me at every turn during my recent three-day backpacking trip on the Appalachian Trail. The ancient forest dazzled on the stretch of trail I covered along the Connecticut-New York border. The sun-dappled, luxuriant green exuded a sense of health and flourishing. Vistas beckoned to the east and west. My alarmingly close encounter with a rattlesnake—they’re rare but still present in this part of the country—woke me up to the enduring wildness of the place.

Jun 20, 2024 | thehumanist.com | Tom Krattenmaker

What’s so great about the natural world? It’s violent, I’m told. It’s cruel. Its driving force, evolution, gives no quarter to the small and weak. Unlike in the celestial realm, all things must end in the natural world. And they do. How could anything so harsh—so finite—stand as adequate basis for anyone’s values or worldview? As a source of inspiration? As a foundation on which an ethical and spiritual life can be built?

Jan 17, 2024 | thehumanist.com | Tom Krattenmaker

IF YOU’RE LIKE ME, you’ve been hearing it for years but haven’t known what to do with it: the idea that we’re made of stardust—“star stuff,” as Carl Sagan described it. There’s no doubting the truth of it, the fact that debris from exploding stars littered the earth with the ingredients that would combine and coalesce and conspire to create life. So what?