Author: Adam Lee

Welcome, one and all, to the 12th Carnival of the Liberals! Today we have a selection of some of the best liberal and progressive writing on the Internet for your reading pleasure and consideration. My name is Ebonmuse, and I’ll be your host for this edition. My weblog is called Daylight Atheism, and my primary…

Daniel Dennett has written about free will, consciousness, the mind, evolution, and natural selection. In his latest book, Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon, he turns his attention to a new topic, the origin and role of religion in the human species. Although Dennett is avowedly an atheist, this book is not about…

A common accusation leveled against science by its enemies is that it is too closed-minded, too dogmatic, too authoritarian. From creationists to “alternative medicine” advocates to New Agers, the defenders of pseudoscience argue that science is closed to new ideas, set in its ways, unwilling to challenge conventional wisdom. If only science would examine our…

Never satisfied with compromise, never willing to accept anything less than complete dominion, the forces of theocracy are again on the attack against the constitutional guarantees that have made the United States of America what it is. In particular, there has lately been a rash of cases targeting those who are most vulnerable – the…

The great Library at Daylight Atheism has been outfitted for an auspicious occasion. Merry bunting drapes the tall shelves of books, balloons congregate near the ceiling, and waiters quietly circulate bearing trays of drinks. Already the symposium is in full swing, and philosophers from every era and society in human history are circulating around the…

Once the party of small government and fiscal conservativism, America’s Republican party has in the past few decades been hijacked by an unlikely coalition of religious extremists and big-business interests. This coalition has risen to power by cynically exploiting people’s fears, courting the support of minority special interest groups, and attacking its opponents’ patriotism as…

Marc Gellman, a Jewish rabbi and one-half of the “God Squad“, has recently written a solo column titled “Trying to Understand Angry Atheists” in which he takes up one of the oldest religious clichés – that atheists are “angry”. It starts out well enough: I think I need to understand atheists better. I bear them…

While browsing Usenet some time ago, I came across this post on the newsgroup alt.religion.christian. It appears to be an excerpt from the book Drawing Near, a collection of 365 “daily readings for a deeper faith” by Christian pastor John MacArthur, whose ministry Grace to You claims a worldwide radio program, eleven million audiocassettes sold,…

Thanks to a Google news alert, I recently became aware that the evangelist Billy Graham has a syndicated newspaper column, entitled “My Answer”. Graham addresses both theological queries and requests for advice, both of which he typically answers by quoting Bible verses and ending with a standard invitation for the reader to convert to Christianity.…

Business & the Market In matters of economic organization, as in other areas, atheists should be guided by the evidence. One thing history has shown is that state-controlled economies simply do not work. The Soviet Union, the largest experiment in communism in human history, ultimately collapsed under the weight of its own failed economic structure,…