Author: Adam Lee

The Fourth of July should be a time for patriotic Americans to reflect on the progress our country has made and to rededicate ourselves to the cause of making it better where work still needs to be done. We can find material for both of those avenues in this article by Katrina van den Heuvel…

This post isn’t for confirmed atheists, nor for confirmed theists. It’s not for people who’ve already made up their minds, one way or the other. No, this post is for the seekers, the in-betweeners, the tormented doubters. It’s for the uncertain agnostics, people who aren’t certain what they believe; it’s for people who feel like…

Most religious people believe in the soul, an ethereal locus of consciousness that separates from the body upon physical death and travels elsewhere to receive its reward. To people who hold this belief, it’s a natural next step to guess that the soul or spirit could sometimes leave a person’s body while they’re still alive…

The Case for a Creator, Chapter 3 Ernst Haeckel died a hundred and fifty almost a hundred years ago [fixed – thanks, Alex!], but the creationists won’t let him rest in peace. In this section, Wells again exhumes these old bones and takes a few kicks at them, and imagines that by doing so he’s…

In April, I wrote a piece chastising Madeline Bunting for her willful invocation of the Courtier’s Reply, in which she attacks atheists for criticizing the beliefs actually held and practiced by billions of people, rather than the beliefs of a tiny minority of theologians and pundits like herself. But let it not be said that…

The nineteenth-century German theologian Rudolf Otto, in his book The Idea of the Holy, popularized the term “numinous”, an adjective describing the sense of mystery and wonder that purportedly stems from the presence of a deity. According to Otto, the sense of the numinous had two main characteristics: the mysterium tremendum, the sense of fear…

Via Making My Way (a great atheist blog, although its author doesn’t update often enough!), this amazing historical fact. I wrote in “Red Crimes” about how communism, demonized by religious apologists as an atheistic ideology, was more in the nature of a political system: willing to work with anyone who supported its goals and to…

In a comment on April’s Poetry Sunday, Eric suggested another post featuring Wallace Stevens. I wanted to reprint Wilfred Owen’s poem last month in honor of Memorial Day, but I’m always open to requests. Today’s post, like my previous selection from Stevens, highlights the poet’s naturalistic, humanist views. According to Alan D. Perlis’ book Wallace…

I’m thrilled to announce that 3 Quarks Daily has officially chosen the winners of their 2009 Science Prize, and their first-place award, the Top Quark, has gone to Daylight Atheism! Here’s what 3QD’s celebrity judge, Professor Steven Pinker, had to say: Daylight Atheism’s Bands of Iron is my top pick. He starts with an something…

The Case for a Creator, Chapter 3 Jonathan Wells’ second “icon” is Darwin’s tree of life, which he says is a “dismal failure” [p.43] as an illustration of the fossil record. With a lead-in like that, you’d expect a typical creationist jeremiad against transitional fossils. In fact, that’s not what we get. The focus of…