Last year I gave a presentation for the GCRR conference on atheism (Come See Me & Others Speak at the 2020 International eConference on Atheism!). This year I will be reprising that appearance on another subject (Come See Me & Others Speak at the 2021 International eConference on the Historical Jesus!). Both are related projects: in each case my talk is about methodology and what a better attention to it can do for us. Last time I spoke on how Bayesian methodology can be used to empirically demonstrate the overwhelming probability of atheism and deconstruct every theistic apologetic. I have written on that before of course, but this time I developed my talk into a formal, peer reviewed research paper that has now been published in GCRR’s flagship journal SHERM (Socio-Historical Examination of Religion and Ministry). This new paper is:
- Richard Carrier, Ph.D., “Bayesian Reasoning’s Power to Challenge Religion and Empirically Justify Atheism” in Socio-Historical Examination of Religion and Ministry 3.1 (Summer 2021): 75–95.
I am allowed to disseminate that article for free but I want to encourage all interested readers to purchase it from the GCRR website, and to try and keep that the principal way anyone accesses the work, because they are charging hardly two dollars for it, which is an outstandingly reasonable price, and covering that will help them pay for the operation of their website and their journal’s editorial and peer review system. That they are using such a humanitarian price point makes it well worthwhile to support that. Indeed your showing that support may help encourage other journals to drop their outrageous article download fees into far more affordable ranges, which behavior (other journals’ currently outrageous pricing, often $35 to $45 or more for a single PDF article, any author of which will see not a dime of) I consider a censurable injustice. Two dollars is entirely reasonable and does not rake any profit for them. It just helps fund their servicing it.
So if you want to read or recommend my article, please use and share my article’s standardized DOI link: https://doi.org/10.33929/sherm.2021.vol3.no1.04.
I’ll likely repeat this process for my next conference presentation later this month on methodology in Jesus studies. You can experience that live, complete with Q&A, in just a couple of weeks. The resulting peer reviewed article, if such I do produce, will come the following year.
Thanks for bringing SHERM to our attention. I subscribed.
From a trance state, I realized — in a flash — the answer to questions that challenged humanity for ages. For example, by what mechanism did God create the universe? The answer: mumbo jumbo. How does the Bermuda Triangle suck in planes and ships? Mumbo jumbo! How do bread and wine transubstantiate into the body and blood of Christ? You got it: mumbo jumbo. Remote viewing? Salvation from sin? Spoon bending? The power of prayer? In each case, mumbo jumbo, that great and wonderful force.
However, MJ cannot explain such phenomena as the Trinity, psychic detectives, and prophecy. In another trance, I discovered the answer: hocus pocus. You want I should explain clairvoyance, miracles, and telekinesis? No doubt the energy of hocus pocus. How does Superman fly? HP.
How can I tell the difference between mumbo jumbo and hocus pocus? Intuition. Or sometimes it comes to me in a dream. Occasionally, I can feel it in my heart or read it in tea leaves.
Oh, the versatility of mumbo jumbo and hocus pocus. I have found nothing inexplicable using that dynamic duo, mumbo jumbo and hocus pocus. Exactly how do mumbo jumbo and hocus pocus work? Voila! By mumbo jumbo and hocus pocus.
Now to show what MJ and HP can predict…
Okay, I’m reading your book On the Historicity of Jesus and I have a question:
Why is there no conflict between Paul’s view (Jesus died in outer space) and the historical view of the gospel writers?
I mean, back then, in the first few decades, Paul’s view of Jesus must be the same as that of other members of the sect. Therefore, almost every church on that date must think of Jesus as a demigod who died in outer space. But if a few decades later (a lifetime) some of them began to write Jesus as a real person, we should expect there to be some conflict between the historicals and the mystics, like some letters from the mystics saying, “There are heretics who think the Lord came to Earth, “or in the gospels we should expect some of them to try to criticize the view of a heavenly Jesus as a parable saying that “Who thinks of a Jesus as a heavenly being are the Jews trying to falsify the true story” and so on ..
I confess I haven’t read the entire book yet (English isn’t my first language so it’s not that fast), but a “nobody” named Jesus seems more natural to me as a development of a Christian myth.
That’s covered in the book. For a summary and citations to the book see How Did Christianity Switch to a Historical Jesus? Which content was also adapted and expanded into a chapter in my more general summary Jesus from Outer Space.