Author: Adam Lee

Regular readers of Daylight Atheism may recall how this site became involved in the U.S. Senate race in North Carolina last October. Trailing in the polls and running low on money, Republican senator Elizabeth Dole quoted Daylight Atheism in anti-atheist smear ads in a last-ditch attack aimed at her Democratic challenger Kay Hagan. Thankfully, Dole’s…

To those who are following the continuing genocide in Darfur, every day brings grim headlines: Fighting has prompted thousands of people in the southern part of Sudan’s Darfur region to seek security and shelter at a refugee camp in the northern part of the war-torn area, according to the United Nations. …An estimated 300,000 people…

One of the more tiresome parts of being an atheist is having to deal with preachers who drag out the old apologetic cliches and convince themselves that they’re being clever. Just so is this piece from one Rev. Eric Strachan: [I] like to ask every atheist, “What percentage of the total knowledge that one could…

(This essay was originally published in issue #1 of the AHS newsletter, Secular Future.) As the New Atheist movement grows in size and influence, we’ve been assailed by pundits and theologians who say we ought to be more respectful – that we need to choose our words carefully and afford religious believers the courtesy they…

If we’re going to create a world more friendly to reason, we need to raise our voices and speak out for the atheist viewpoint. This week, there are several ways in which you can help: • Two Texas state legislators have been courageously fighting back against creationism by proposing legislation to increase oversight and disclosure…

As any regular reader of Daylight Atheism knows, the topic of morality is a major concern of mine. In essays on Ebon Musings, I’ve sketched out a secular moral theory I call universal utilitarianism. Here on this site, In the past, I’ve written about the roots of this morality and the virtues that can be…

Past entries in “The Contributions of Freethinkers” have discussed nonbelievers and dissenters whose lives made a direct and lasting impact on the world in any number of ways: in politics, in science, in the arts and culture. But it’s worth remembering that sometimes – in fact, often – our greatest effects on the world are…

Evangelical pastor Ray Stedman knows the root cause of everything that’s wrong with the world: It is not nationalism, it is not racism… it is the human heart. It is the pride of man that fancies he can get along without God. But not to worry, because he advises us how we can conquer this…

Today’s Poetry Sunday introduces a new poet: the freethinker, civil libertarian, and Renaissance man extraordinaire, Charles Erskine Scott Wood. Born in 1852, Wood graduated from West Point in 1874 and served as an infantry officer in western campaigns, including the Nez Perce War. He was present at the surrender of Chief Joseph and transcribed (or…

Last week, James Adkisson was sentenced to life in prison. Adkisson was the right-wing terrorist who went on an armed rampage against the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist church in Knoxville last July, killing two parishioners, Greg McKendry and Linda Kraeger. He had intended to kill many more, but the people of the congregation, showing uncommon…