Author: Adam Lee

Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, Episode 11, “The Immortals” As the new Cosmos approaches its final episode, it’s about time that the series started looking back on the ground it’s covered and drawing some larger lessons. This episode accomplished that, and while it treads into more speculative territory than earlier outings, I think that’s appropriate. But…

I would have thought some facts were too obvious to need proving, but if these past few years of atheist blogging should have taught me anything, it’s that no excuse is too far-fetched for those who bend over backwards to excuse religion from blame for every evil it gives rise to. Such is the topic…

Atlas Shrugged, part II, chapter II Because of the looters’ Fair Share Law, Hank Rearden can no longer choose his customers. In particular, he can’t legally sell to Ken Danagger, the owner of Danagger Coal in Pennsylvania, who badly needs Rearden Metal to brace the shafts of his coal mines. But Hank knows that Danagger…

I realize that Patheos has to pay the bills somehow, but lately I’ve noticed a definite uptick in complaints about the intrusiveness of the advertising on this site. I plan on taking this up with the management, but I want to know what the general sentiment is, so here’s an open thread. Are Patheos’ ads…

I wanted to write about something important this week, like the Greece v. Galloway decision, but events have conspired to thwart me. The story I covered earlier has had some dramatic new developments that cry out for a followup. So: Satanism. On Monday, I wrote about the Harvard student club that wanted to stage a…

Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, Episode 10, “The Electric Boy” Up till now, Cosmos has used historical sequences as an adjunct to the science, just as a way of giving credit to the men and women who brought us the discoveries we now take for granted. But this time, the writers made the interesting and daring…

As I’ve written in the past, I find Satanism silly and juvenile. If you’re an atheist, as most of them say they are, then call yourself an atheist, and don’t wrap yourself in the mythology of a religion you don’t believe in. The only reason I can imagine to identify as a Satanist is as…

Atlas Shrugged, part II, chapter II The decay of Colorado is accelerating. Men that Dagny knows personally, men who love their jobs and swear that they’ll never leave, that they’ll resist whatever blandishment or temptation is claiming their fellows, or at the very least that they won’t disappear without an explanation, are vanishing one after…

Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, Episode 1, “Standing Up In the Milky Way” When I first heard that Carl Sagan’s Cosmos was being rebooted, I was thrilled. As much as I loved the original, even the best science series inevitably becomes dated sooner rather than later, as our knowledge advances. And this was a great opportunity…

Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, Episode 9, “The Lost Worlds of Planet Earth” At the beginning of its run, Cosmos tended to alternate excellent episodes with mediocre ones, which made me wonder if that would be the pattern for the whole series. But I’m happy to say that the show has hit its stride: the last…