literature

Nature and Religion: A Palindrome

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Literature Text

"Seth," said Hop, "There. God, No?"



Hop faced Seth as trees waited outside.

Nature confronted Hop and Seth.



Seth and Hop confronted nature.

Outside waited trees as Seth faced Hop.



"...No god there, Hop," said Seth.
Hop David and I together run the M-C-Escher-Style club on deviantArt.
Hop is quite religious; I'm profoundly Atheist. We're like binary stars pulling in opposite directions yet in orbit around one another. Our center of gravity is between us and outside of us as we circle one another.

It's the art that is at the focal point & which pulls us together, not the religion that would otherwise push us in opposite directions. So, the center of the club is this style of art we love, outside of ourselves and neatly placed between us. Everything's in harmony because neither of our religions pulls the club away from its focus.

In the spirit of Escher-style art, and in celebration of the differences between Hop and I, I wrote this palindrome-style essay. As far as I know, Escher didn't write palindromes nor dabble in ambigrams, but I'm sure he must've enjoyed them because they belong to the same sort of trick perspective and puzzle art genre to which he contributed so much.

In a traditional palindrome, each letter appears twice, once near the beginning and again near the end. The occurrences are quidistant from the center. Here's an example: "Madam, I'm Adam."

I did something a little different: each WORD appears twice, equidistant from the center of the essay, but its letters aren't reversed, as in this simple example: "Cain killed Abel as sheep frightened and Eve watched tigers. Tigers watched Eve and frightened sheep as Abel killed Cain."

The result is a short essay describing how a religious mind sees proof of his god in nature, whereas an Atheist sees in nature a proof that there is no god.

Take it in the fun puzzle-loving spirit in which it was written.
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Hop41's avatar
Thank you, Seth. Nice symmetry! I don't think I've seen a word by word palindrome before.

Escher liked to explore dualities and opposites. I think he would have enjoyed seeing faith and skepticism contrasted in such a playful manner.