Author: Adam Lee

As a wedding present to ourselves, my wife and I bought the DVDs of the original Star Trek, and these past few months, we’ve been working our way through them. For myself, it was a test: I hadn’t seen most of these episodes since my childhood, and I was curious to see if they held…

Apparently, all it takes for a crack at privileging religion is 25,688 individual signatures. The North Dakota Family Alliance is working toward that magic number in order to get the Religious Liberty Restoration Amendment before North Dakota voters this November. If passed, this amendment to the state constitution raises the burden a governmental entity must…

As you’ve surely heard by now, Judge Vaughn Walker issued a ruling last week striking down California’s Proposition 8 on equal-protection grounds. You might also have heard that Argentina has legalized same-sex marriage and that a Mexican court upheld a marriage-equality law in Mexico City, rejecting a challenge by the conservative Calderon government. Of course,…

In an old essay on Ebon Musings, “Finding Beauty in the Mundane“, I wrote in a contemplative mood: Have you ever considered the trees? Though their kind of life is far grander, slower and more patient than ours, they are each individuals, as different as human beings are. They add beauty to the world, give…

Tulips, Central Park, June 2010. Photo by the author. Camera details: Canon PowerShot SD1200 IS. Click for larger version.

By B.J. Marshall In The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief, Francis Collins presents what he believes to be the strongest arguments for theism: what he calls the “Moral Law,” the origins of the universe, and life on earth. In a nutshell, Collins sees the ubiquity of morality to be the work…

Last month, I concluded my post series of chapter-by-chapter responses to Lee Strobel’s The Case for a Creator. I’m happy with the way this project turned out, and I’d been wanting to do it again, but I wasn’t sure if I had the stomach to tackle another apologetics book in such detail so soon. Well,…

As a neutral observer of religion, one of the most striking characteristics I find is the rampant misogyny in nearly every religion in the world. Worldwide, women are denigrated as lesser beings, barred from positions of leadership, commanded to be subservient, and told that they’re weaker or more sinful than men. Even in the relatively…

It’s said that nothing is harder to kill than an idea. Trying to stamp out a deeply felt belief by force, especially a religious belief, not only makes its followers cling to it more tenaciously, it gives them an aura of martyrdom that makes the belief look even more attractive to outsiders. And when the…

Are there any circumstances under which an atheist can support a religious group doing social work, even if doing so may advance a religious message we disagree with? This is on my mind because of the post I wrote last month about the Foundation Beyond Belief supporting a Quaker charity, and because I just finished…