Author: Adam Lee

The CEO of Twitter, Dick Costolo, made headlines last week when he admitted in a leaked memo that his service has a serious harassment problem which they’ve done a terrible job of dealing with: We suck at dealing with abuse and trolls on the platform and we’ve sucked at it for years. It’s no secret…

This past weekend, I spoke at the University of South Alabama in Mobile, courtesy of the local Secular Student Alliance affiliate, SSA at USA. This was a milestone for me: the first time I’ve ever been invited to speak about atheism in the Deep South! Making a public case for atheism in Alabama may seem…

Atlas Shrugged, part II, chapter IX I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating: Hank Rearden is an awful human being. He’s jealous, possessive, self-centered and misogynist. He has a short fuse and a violent temper. He makes a point of never caring about anyone’s welfare but his own. He feels contempt and disgust for…

This is part 10 of my “Think! Of God and Government” debate series with Christian author Andrew Murtagh. Read my latest post and Andrew’s reply. Hi Andrew, Well, this little conversation of ours is titled “Of God and Government”, after all, and so far we’ve focused more on the God part than on the government…

Last week, I wrote about the crushing burden of fear and guilt about sex that women labor under in Orthodox Judaism. Taught to fear pleasure, to shun knowledge and to regard their own bodies as sinful vessels, they often end up in loveless and unhappy marriages, trapped by religious rules that bar them from happiness…

Johanna and Klara Söderberg, two sisters from Stockholm with amazing voices, make up the indie-folk duo First Aid Kit. I’ve been listening to them around the clock since coming across them late last year. Here’s a track from their lush, orchestral, country-influenced 2014 album, Stay Gold:

Atlas Shrugged, part II, chapter IX While Francisco is being cryptic at Dagny about the disappeared capitalists, their conversation is interrupted by a surprise visitor: The sound they heard was the turning of a key in the lock of the entrance door. The door opened and Hank Rearden came in. …Francisco had risen to his…

This week, there was a lengthy profile of Bat Sheva Marcus, a Jewish sex counselor who helps Hasidic Jews with intimacy problems in their marriages. Marcus is merely Orthodox, rather than ultra-Orthodox like most of her clients: she “sometimes wears pants”, and though her synagogue has segregated men’s and women’s sections, they’re side-by-side rather than…

I came across an essay by Peter Daly, a Catholic priest, that I wanted to address: “An attempt to answer the question: Where are the young adults?” It’s notable for being the frankest admission I’ve seen from a Catholic of the demographic crisis the church is facing, as well as a bracingly honest study of…

Last night, I participated in an online panel on secular cults as part of FtBCon 3. I discussed Ayn Rand and Objectivism, and how a philosophy purportedly based on reason became a rigid ideology the equal of any fundamentalist religion. Together with Russell Glasser, Karen Stollznow, Vyckie Garrison and Angie Jackson, we also talked about…