Author: Adam Lee

The previous post in the Observatory, “On Presuppositions“, discussed a few of the many ways in which bias has been shown to affect our decisions. When we expect or believe something to be true, we very often act as if it is true, and disregard contradictory evidence. Given these undeniable facts, what hope is left…

Ed Brayton at Dispatches from the Culture Wars has drawn my attention to a story I’ve been meaning to post about for some time: Tom Monaghan, the founder of Domino’s Pizza and a wealthy far-right Catholic, is financing the construction of a new town in Florida to be named Ave Maria. Controversy has ensued because…

There has been considerable buzz in the blogosphere lately about a bill pending in Missouri that would supposedly make Christianity the “state’s official religion”. When I first heard this news, suitably apocalyptic thoughts occurred to me, as I’m sure they did to many of you. Declaring an official state religion is the essence of theocracy,…

Daniel Dennett is one of my favorite philosophers. Few write with his clarity or liveliness, and the topics to which he turns his attention – evolution, religion, free will, the human mind – fall squarely within my area of interest. His explanations are often brilliantly clever, and his conclusions are ones I can usually agree…

One of the most fundamental differences between atheism and religion is that a religion is, by definition, a group of followers, while atheism is a collection of individuals. Each religion is built on some body of myths and rules that was compiled long ago and is now set in stone, inviolate. Membership in that religion…

Malcolm Gladwell. Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking. Little, Brown and Company: New York, 2005. D.L. Rosenhan. “On Being Sane in Insane Places.” Science, vol.179, no.4070, p.250-258 (19 January 1973). In 1973, the peer-reviewed journal Science published a now-classic study in psychology. In its introduction, the study’s author, D.L. Rosenhan, pointed out that the…

One of the questions I am frequently asked is how I came to be an atheist. Personally, I don’t place a high emphasis on the details of deconversion – whether it happens gradually or in a Damascus Road-like flash is not relevant to me – and since I did not have an intense religious upbringing…

John Loftus of the blog Debunking Christianity has very kindly linked to my recent post, “An Inspiring Story“, with a post of his own, “Ex-minister Walks Atheist Path“. However, it seems that his much-appreciated courtesy has attracted attention from a different direction. Specifically, the Christian site Triablogue responded with a post titled “The ‘Inspiring Story’…

A Response to John Searle’s Chinese Room Analogy John Searle. “Minds, Brains, and Programs.” Behavioral and Brain Sciences, vol. 3, p. 417-424 (1980). In a famous 1980 paper titled “Minds, Brains and Programs”, the philosopher John Searle proposed a notorious thought experiment, now known as the Chinese Room, relating to the possibility of artificial intelligence.…

Sheryl Kay. “Ex-minister walks atheist path.” The St. Petersburg Times, February 17, 2006. His message is clear: Jesus is not coming. Not today. Not ever. At 59, James Young has spent almost a decade sharing his atheist beliefs with the public, driving every Wednesday morning from his home in Lithia to set up a tent…