Author: Adam Lee

He was a worshiper of liberty, a friend of the oppressed. A thousand times I have heard him quote these words: “For Justice all place a temple, and all season, summer.” He believed that happiness is the only good, reason the only torch, justice the only worship, humanity the only religion, and love the only…

The Roman Catholic church is the oldest and largest Christian denomination on the planet. Although its influence in the Western world is declining, it still exercises great power over the lives of millions of people every day. All too often, that power is used in the service of superstition, of perpetuating irrational and dogmatic beliefs…

Greta Christina recently wrote a wonderful review of the book Mistakes Were Made (But Not By Me), an analysis of the unconscious defense mechanisms people use to rationalize their bad decisions. She’s absolutely right that this is a book everyone ought to read (I need to find a copy myself), and her review makes some…

Last month, in “An Impoverished Infinity“, I wrote about the strange limitations that many Christian believers impose on God. These theists believe that God was not wise or powerful enough to create a world with intelligent beings that did not also include earthquakes, diseases and other disasters – as if the infinite space of possible…

I first posted “The Theist’s Guide to Converting Atheists” on Ebon Musings in June 2001. At that time, I promised that I would cite any theist who prepared an equivalent list and posted it on the internet. In the six and a half years since, I’ve had a total of two responses to that offer.…

“Contraception is wrong because it’s a deliberate violation of the design God built into the human race, often referred to as ‘natural law.’ The natural law purpose of sex is procreation. …sexual pleasure within marriage becomes unnatural, and even harmful to the spouses, when it is used in a way that deliberately excludes the basic…

I’ve finished chapter 8 of my book. (It’s considerably longer than the last few chapters, which is why it’s taken so long.) The chapter is titled “Universal Utilitarianism” and addresses the basis for an atheist’s morality and the flaws in divine command ethics, drawing on my essays “The Ineffable Carrot and the Infinite Stick” and…

One of the most common tenets of Christian faith, believed by denominations across the spectrum, is that Jesus Christ taught and displayed some kind of unique, superlative moral virtue, unmatched by any other individual from myth or history. I’ve also heard this belief advanced as a counter to the argument from religious confusion, claiming that…

In February of 1906, Pope Pius X issued an encyclical titled “Vehementer Nos“, which denounced France for its passage of a revolutionary law establishing the separation of church and state. This document contained a blunt insight into the Catholic view of the relationship between religion and government: That the State must be separated from the…

In my essay “Those Old Pearly Gates” on Ebon Musings, I raised what is, to my mind, one of the strongest moral arguments against the traditional monotheist conception of the afterlife: The point is this. How can anyone enjoy Heaven, knowing that while you have eternal bliss there are people experiencing eternal suffering? Unless you…