Author: Adam Lee

Atlas Shrugged, part III, chapter V It’s now been two months since Dagny returned from Galt’s Gulch. Taggart Transcontinental is suffering through an agonizing, protracted collapse, with breakdowns halting trains and snarling schedules all across the country. The few spare parts they can get are being stolen and sold on the black market by Cuffy…

Earlier this week, I wrote about Pew’s latest American religious landscape survey, which revealed the continuing rise of secularism among the “nones”. But what are we to make of the unaffiliated who don’t consider themselves atheist or agnostic? That’s the subject of my latest column on the Guardian, Many non-religious people still believe in God…

When I see a story that promises evidence for something I’d very much like to be true, I try to apply an extra measure of skepticism. That’s why I’m hesitant to believe a new study in the journal Current Biology which claims that children raised in atheist households are more altruistic and less judgmental than…

• A Texas homeschooling family has been taken to court after allegedly refusing to teach their children anything at all since “they were going to be raptured”. Of note, the family’s 17-year-old daughter ran away from home because she wanted to go to school. • Violence in the Name of the Messiah: Ultra-Orthodox Jewish fundamentalists…

Atlas Shrugged, part III, chapter IV While his wife is away, Jim Taggart has a caller. It’s Lillian Rearden, and she’s come to plead for help. Hank is pressing ahead with a divorce, and by means of rampant subversion of the legal system, he’s winning: “It’s set for next month. And when I say set,…

A hero’s work is never done. I’ve been recapping Atlas Shrugged, including the movies, for over two years, and the end was finally drawing into sight. But now I’ve found out that yet another adaptation is being planned, this time a TV series. The new producer, Albert S. Ruddy, plans on taking some liberties with…

In September, Bernie Sanders made a campaign appearance at Liberty University, the Jerry Falwell-founded college and incubator for the religious right. Sanders’ speech emphasized themes of social justice in the Bible and other religious traditions, although without downplaying the obvious differences in how he thinks they should be applied. By all accounts, the response from…

Happy Halloween! Because it’s the season for tricks and treats, I’ve got one to offer. For a brief time only, I’m making my first novel, DARK HEART, available for free (update – see below). It’s a fantasy epic set in a world where mortals rose up, overthrew the old gods and took their places, only…

Atlas Shrugged, part III, chapter IV Here’s this chapter summarized in two sentences: Jim Taggart’s wife Cherryl finds out that he’s not the great businessman she thought he was, but one of the worst of the looters, and that he married her for the sadistic pleasure of crushing her spirit. In despair, she commits suicide.…

I have thoughts about this essay in the Guardian about extreme altruism, seen through the life of an atheist named Julia Wise: Julia believed that because each person was equally valuable, she was not entitled to care more for herself than for anyone else; she believed that she was therefore obliged to spend much of…