Author: Adam Lee

If you’ve got an ugly or uncomfortable historical record that you’d like to have whitewashed, then Christian fundamentalists are the ideologues for you. Here’s their latest bit of doggerel: Christians deserve the credit for abolishing African slavery! Slavery is one of the best examples — far from being a Western Christian invention, it was ubiquitous,…

Autumn raindrops on leaves, Hudson Valley, autumn 2009. Photo by the author. Click for larger version.

The Case for a Creator, Chapter 6 For those who accept the premises of the cosmological fine-tuning argument – that the physical laws of the universe could have been different, and that there’s only a small prior probability they would have taken on the values to produce intelligent beings – there are two possible explanations.…

Here are a few edifying, inspiring, or (alas) infuriating stories that are making the rounds this week: • First up, this truly outstanding piece from Wired on the anti-vaccination movement, An Epidemic of Fear: How Panicked Parents Skipping Shots Endangers Us All. This is what journalism is supposed to do: listen to the experts, survey…

By Sikivu Hutchinson In mainstream media, public conversation about the intersection between atheism and what I will loosely term third world feminism is as rare as Halley’s Comet. In the corporate media universe, the groundbreaking work of feminists of African descent like bell hooks, Angela Davis and Patricia Hill Collins remains largely unknown, relegated to…

I’m especially pleased to be able to showcase this new poet in this week’s edition of Poetry Sunday. In the past, I’ve highlighted the lives and the accomplishments of famous African-American freethinkers like W.E.B. DuBois and Zora Neale Hurston, showing that religious skepticism and freethought have always played a lively role in the American black…

The Case for a Creator, Chapter 6 The cosmological fine-tuning argument is one of the more interesting claims in the intelligent-design movement’s toolkit. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that it’s the best argument they have. I’ll let Robin Collins make the point as strongly as he can: “Over the past thirty…

In their never-ending quest to elevate every ranting wingnut to the same status as genuine experts, the Washington Post has given a guest column to Bill Donohue – the extreme right-wing Catholic bully whose sole purpose in life is seeking out things to be offended by. Whether it’s The Simpsons, the “secular Jews” who run…

During World War II, American forces fighting in the Pacific set up bases on remote islands whose people had had very little prior contact with other civilizations. These people, with technology at a Stone Age level, were amazed by the strange visitors and the almost miraculous cargo they brought with them – chocolate, cigarettes, radio,…

I should have mentioned this story much earlier, but better late than never. If you’re an atheist and a regular reader of sci-fi and fantasy, you probably know the name Terry Pratchett – and if you don’t, you should. He’s the award-winning and much-loved author of Discworld, a series of fantasy novels set in a…