Author: Adam Lee

This weekend, I went for a walk at a nature center in the Hudson Valley. The weather was quintessential summer – warm, brilliantly sunny and clear – and the forest was alive with life: swarms of bees, butterflies and moths doing the daily work of pollination, dragonflies darting over the water, a symphony of birds…

• Despite the good sense shown by the British Medical Association in lambasting homeopathy at their annual conference last month, the UK National Health Service has announced that it will still pay for water and sugar pills passed off as medicine. • A court in Utah has thrown out the rape conviction of Mormon cult…

Guest post by Peter Nothnagle On June 30, someone stole a piece of the True Cross (you know the one I mean) that was enshrined in the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Boston. It had been kept in a small compartment in the base of a crucifix hanging on a wall in a chapel.…

The Problem: Human beings are stubborn creatures, set in our ways, resistant to changing our minds once we’ve made a decision. Religious groups publish creeds which they believe must be taken on faith and should be maintained against all contrary evidence – and they consider the ability to do that a virtue, rather than a…

If you’re an informed observer of media, you may have heard of the so-called Bechdel test, popularized by cartoonist Alison Bechdel, that’s used to judge the female-friendliness of movies and other media. For a movie to pass this test, it has to have: (1) two or more female characters; (2) who talk to each other;…

Editor’s Note: Back in March, I wrote an essay encouraging atheists to join the Foundation Beyond Belief, a new charitable group doing good for human beings and the world in the name of freethought. I also offered to write a front-page post interviewing anyone who agreed to join the Foundation as a result of hearing…

Earlier this month, Greta Christina published a piece on AlterNet, based on my essay “The Theist’s Guide to Converting Atheists”, that listed things that would convince her of God’s existence. She also repeated the challenge I posed to theists – prove that your beliefs are falsifiable by posting a corresponding list of things that would…

‘– by Brittany Meyer It’s that time of year again — time to revamp the “religious winter holiday display on public property” debate. It’s a discussion that never seems to take a holiday of its own. This week, Leesburg, VA decided to decide and then decided to decide later whether holiday displays would be allowed…

Well, it looks like we can add Russia to the list of countries where it’s illegal to criticize religion: Two Russian museum curators were found guilty of “inciting religious hatred” for displaying a painting of Jesus Christ with Mickey Mouse’s head superimposed.     A Moscow court ordered the two men, Yuri Samodurov and Andrei Yerofeyev, to…

Evolution is a blind tinkerer, lacking the foresight of human engineers. Rarely, if ever, does it discard established designs and start over fresh, even when that would be more efficient. Instead, it builds on and around past adaptations, using the old as a foundation for the new. This is true throughout the biosphere, and it’s…