Adam Lee
Big Think Contributor, Daylight Atheism Blog
Daylight Atheism advocates secular humanism as a positive, uplifting and joyous worldview that deserves a larger following and wider recognition in the marketplace of ideas. Original posts and essays explore atheism and humanism, science, politics, philosophy, and the ever-present threat of fundamentalist religious darkness.
Coming very soon: Daylight Atheism: The Book! Click here for reviews and purchase information.
In the Book of Exodus, there’s a bizarrely out-of-place story that I’ve always found hilarious. This is immediately after God has told Moses that he’s going to be God’s messenger […]
(Note: This review was solicited and is written in accordance with my policy for such reviews.) Summary: A memoir of escape from the overbearing, oppressive life of ultra-Orthodox Judaism, but […]
You may have noticed that, according to the counter on the sidebar, I just passed 100 posts on Big Think this week. This is a milestone, but I hope it’s […]
I wanted to pull this exchange out of the comments, because I thought it was worth highlighting: “Science is constantly evolving and improving on itself”. I AGREE. The same as […]
The Christian right, both Catholics and evangelicals, wants to outlaw birth control. This isn’t a new revelation, but in the last few weeks, they’ve been saying it so often and […]
This weekend, I spoke at the University of North Dakota, courtesy of an invitation from FUND, the local SSA affiliate. Yes, there are atheists in North Dakota! For those who […]
My post from last week, “The Abraham Test“, provoked a vigorous discussion (225 comments and counting as of this writing) about the morality of committing violence in God’s name. Since […]
LONDON, February 22 – It’s been a rough week for Richard Dawkins, prominent evolutionary biologist and noted God-hater. Our reporters can reveal that on Monday, while Dawkins was ordering breakfast […]
Via Slacktivist, I came across a post on the Christian blog Exploring Our Matrix that asks a perfectly reasonable question: Why Doesn’t the Bible Contain Superior Medical Advice? …you will […]
In my past writings, I’ve made it a hobby to call attention to potent, but often overlooked, reasons to believe that atheism is true. Two of these that I’ve written […]
Summary: The Roman Catholic equivalent of Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s “Infidel”. A luminous, extraordinary account of one woman who devoted her life to Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity, saw the organization […]
As NPR recently reported, there’s a high price to pay for being a black atheist in America. African Americans who come out of the closet as nonreligious may be cut […]
I don’t think I’ve ever written this sentence before, but here goes: There’s been so much good news on the pro-choice front lately, it’s hard to keep up! Since my […]
The story of Abraham’s near-sacrifice of his son on Mount Moriah is one of the formative myths of Western monotheism. And most theists of the Jewish, Christian and Islamic traditions […]
As I’ve often mentioned, religion has a set of cognitive tricks – unconscious ideas, prejudices and habits of thought it tries to instill in believers – which shield their minds […]
Some days, I hate writing about atheism. I want to tell you why. Two weeks ago, I was watching a PBS show called Inside Nature’s Giants, about a team of […]
It’s been a while since I last did one of these, but I want to start making it a regular feature. This thread is for you to tell us about […]
When it comes to reproductive health in America, progress often seems like a one-step-forward-two-steps-back kind of situation. But let’s start with some rare good news: in January, the Obama administration […]
We’ve been discussing Islam a lot on this blog in the past few days, and much to my amusement, I’ve seen two different commenters promoting diametrically opposite distortions of my […]
For those who are interested, here’s my schedule for the next few months. I’ve got a few SSA speaking events, a conference or two, and one big announcement! • On […]
I’ve had a busy last few months, and I confess I’ve fallen behind on my book reviews. (If you’re not familiar with these posts from the old site, I sometimes […]
In 2009, the Roman Catholic church convened an “apostolic visitation” – a sort of modern-day auto-da-fe – a rare step taken when the Vatican feels that a church-affiliated institution has […]
My latest article has been posted on AlterNet, Once Again, Believers Have it Wrong: Atheists Don’t Just Want Sex, Drugs, and Lack of Morality. As you might have guessed, it’s […]
I originally got this idea from Feministe, and I used to do it every couple of months on the old site. I think it’s about time for another. This is […]
This essay was previously published on AlterNet. Last November, I attended a debate in the NYU Intelligence Squared series on the topic, “Would the World Be Better Off Without Religion?” […]
Via Dangerous Intersection, I saw this TED lecture by Daniel Kahnemann, based on his book Thinking Fast and Slow, about the conflict between the “experiencing self” and the “remembering self”. […]
This week, there’s been a flurry of stories about Muslim groups trying to suppress criticism of Islam, both by law and by force. It’s worth summarizing them briefly to show […]
The world is increasingly taking notice of the turmoil brewing in Israel, where a growing culture war between the rest of Israeli society and the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community, or “haredim”, […]
Guest post by Samantha Eliza Benten The Law of Non-Contradiction, as stated by Aristotle: “One cannot say of something that it is and that it is not in the same […]
• Here’s the top story for this week: After Jessica Ahlquist’s court victory over illegal state-sponsored prayer in her high school, she’s been receiving a torrent of vicious hate mail […]