Author: Adam Lee

My latest column has been posted on AlterNet, How Religion’s Demand for Obedience Keeps Us in the Dark Ages. It’s about the religious worldview that sees human existence as a strict hierarchy of commandments and submission, how this belief has been used by tyrants and autocrats throughout the ages to justify unaccountable power, and how…

Sometimes, when a comment thread bogs down in a long and protracted debate, highly enlightening comments can get lost in the heap. In the cause of preventing one such comment from being lost to obscurity, I’m giving it its own thread so it can receive the degree of respectful attention it clearly deserves. There’s a…

Bloggers like me are faced with an eternal dilemma. When we write something controversial, people who disagree usually let us know loud and clear, and often with creative speculations about our mental state, dubious parentage, and so on. On the other hand, people who agree rarely speak up in similar numbers – and I don’t…

After writing my previous post chastising the National Atheist Party, I thought (and hoped) that I’d be done writing about Reason Rally drama. Alas, it was not to be. Apparently, the organizers are now getting an earful of complaints about the speakers list: partially with reference to Bill Maher (who’s supported deplorably irrational anti-vaccine kookery),…

In my essay “Into the Clear Air“, I wrote about how people leaving religion often go through a stage of profound darkness. In the end stages of deconversion, there’s acceptance and peace – even a sense of joy at rediscovering the world. But to get there, people from intensely religious backgrounds often have to leave…

Well, this business with the NAP notwithstanding, the Reason Rally is swiftly approaching, and it still promises to be awesome. On March 24, atheists and freethinkers from all across the country – possibly as many as 30,000, by one estimate – will converge on Washington, D.C. to send the message that we’re proud to be…

There’s a heap of news I didn’t get to write about in greater depth this week, but all these stories deserve at least a look: • Remember the Anglican church, that blandly, Britishly polite bastion of modern liberal Christianity? So it turns out that they’re officially against same-sex marriage. In a hilarious piece whining that…

I’m getting excited for the Reason Rally next weekend in Washington, D.C., which promises to be the largest and most spectacular atheist gathering in recent history – possibly the largest ever. Given the numbers of people likely to show up and the corresponding amount of media coverage it could receive, it’s to be expected that…

Last month, I posted my review of “An Unquenchable Thirst”, Mary Johnson’s luminous and enlightening memoir about the twenty years she spent as one of Mother Teresa’s nuns. After writing that review, I reached out to her to ask if she’d be interested in an interview. To my delight, she was! Please welcome Mary Johnson…

In November, I wrote about Aliaa Magda Elmahdy, the Egyptian student and atheist who posted nude photos of herself as a protest against Islamist suppression of women’s bodies and voices. Her explanation of what she was seeking to achieve is so perfect, I have to quote it again: “Put on trial the artists’ models who…