Author: Adam Lee

In all of human history, the invention of vaccination should be classed as one of our greatest medical triumphs. This innovation has saved millions of lives and prevented untold suffering and misery; it has brought many once-epidemic diseases under control, and eradicated others altogether. Tragically, our era has seen a dangerous new strain of pseudoscience…

Ask any observer of American politics today to name the most influential figures of the religious right, and some familiar names are likely to come up – Pat Robertson, Tim LaHaye, James Dobson, John Hagee, Tony Perkins, Roy Moore, and others. But one name that’s not as likely to appear is Francis Schaeffer. That is…

A common argument made by religious apologists is that atheism is unreasonable because, to exclude the possibility of God, a person would have to have total knowledge of all that exists in the universe. Otherwise, we might overlook a deity hiding in one of the gaps in our knowledge. As one Christian put it to…

I have to admit, I cringe when I read quotes like this: Max may be a long way from his old home, but he plans on going a lot further than America. Extropianism is a “rational transhumanism”, he explains. There may not be any supernatural force in the universe, but pretty soon, suggests More, once…

In Christian theology, God is presented as the omnipotent creator, able to bring about literally any world it is possible to imagine. His power has no limits, he never suffers from weakness or fatigue, and he possesses the omniscient knowledge necessary to shape the world according to his overarching plan. Or so Christian apologists say,…

In the last few days, both Ed Brayton and Glenn Greenwald have written about the story of Ezra Levant, a Canadian conservative who’s currently under investigation by the Alberta Human Rights Commission. Levant’s “crime” was republishing the Mohammed cartoons first printed in 2005 in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, which spurred the filing of a complaint…

The Washington State Tri-City Herald ran a lovely story last month profiling a local atheist: Atheism – A belief in the here and now. Fernando Aguilar, the story’s subject, is the kind of person every atheist should strive to be like: a dedicated and courageous humanitarian, an outspoken activist, and a loving family man. When…

Today’s edition of Poetry Sunday introduces another freethinking poet, the American A.R. Ammons. 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 write poems while serving on a destroyer in the…

(Author’s Note: The following review was solicited and is written in accordance with this site’s policy for such reviews.) Summary: Not “essential” as its title claims, but a usefully broad sampling of atheist thought for the reader who wishes to be better versed in the voices of nonbelief. The Portable Atheist, edited by Christopher Hitchens,…

I wasn’t going to post today, but I was going through my Google news alerts and what do I find: The Daylight Atheism author states, “Over the past several years, I have observed to my dismay the forces of militant religious fundamentalism gaining in strength, both in my home country, the United States of America,…