Author: Adam Lee

A popular notion in traditional Asian cultures, as well as the garbled versions of Asian culture imported into the West by the New Age movement, is the idea of qi (or chi), the vital energy that permeates the universe and flows through living things. A wide variety of pseudoscientific beliefs are based on qi, and…

Among the band of philosophers who hold that free will is supernatural, one of the reigning ideas is called agent causation. This hypothesis states that volitional acts are a special category of event, one that is caused not by any other event but – in some deeply mysterious way – by the agent itself. Philosopher…

Slacktivist, a progressive Christian blogger whom I read regularly, has some words of advice for the new atheists on how best to win converts. You’d wonder why a Christian would want to give advice to atheists about how to do this – indeed, such “advice” is usually just concern trolling when it comes from the…

Although the success of the feminist movement has secured equal legal rights for women virtually everywhere in the West – a guarantee de jure, if not always de facto – there are still pockets of institutionalized sexism that survive. The Catholic church is the most obvious example, but other Christian denominations also deny the equality…

Following up on my earlier post about Obama’s choice of the disgraceful bigot Rick Warren to preside at the inauguration, this news: In a response to progressive anger, the transition team has announced that V. Gene Robinson, the openly gay Episcopal bishop, has agreed to appear as well. (Obama’s spokespeople said this was not a…

With the American presidential inauguration soon to arrive, this seems like an opportune time to say some words on patriotism. Is love of country an emotion that can be felt by a freethinker? Is this an allegiance as irrational as the tribalisms of human prehistory, or can there be something about one’s country that makes…

For today’s Poetry Sunday, I’m featuring the American poet A.R. Ammons, who was first showcased last year for his poem “Gravelly Run“. Born in North Carolina in 1926, Ammons grew up on his family’s farm during the Great Depression and attended a Pentecostal church, whose hellfire sermons terrified the young man. He first began to…

A much-heralded study in the January issue of the journal Pediatrics has concluded that the premarital “abstinence pledges” so beloved by evangelical Christians are ineffective. Teenagers who sign up for religious programs such as True Love Waits or Silver Ring Thing, in which participants pledge to remain abstinent until marriage, are just as likely to…

It seems that the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission, which apparently exists, has released a list of the top ten instances of “Christian-bashing” in America in 2008 (HT: PZ). Taking a bold stand, this group has announced, “It is time for… Christians to no longer be treated like second-class citizens”. Perusing the list, you’ll soon discover that…

Last summer I wrote a post, “Why I’m Skeptical of the Singularity“, which gave some reasons for doubting that godlike machine intelligences will ever come into being. Today I’ll discuss another idea popular among enthusiasts of transhumanism, namely life extension through cryonics. Here, too, I intend to offer a qualified skepticism. Overcoming Bias presents a…