American Atheists is putting on an excellent conference in Puerto Rico this August (21st-23rd, 2015). And I’m one of the honored speakers. Atheists in Puerto Rico wanted me to speak on my work on the historicity of Jesus, and so I will. I’ll also be attending the whole convention and happy to converse with anyone there, so feel free to say hi! (Although, alas, I don’t speak Spanish, I’m pretty sure plenty of folks will speak English well enough to chat or translate.)
I will also be staying in PR after the conference for about a week to do more events locally (whether casual or formal), but for news on that, keep your eye on the Facebook wall that week of Humanistas Seculares de Puerto Rico.
American Atheists may or may not be selling some of my books that weekend. I haven’t gotten confirmation on that, but I’m sure they are making an effort. But no matter what I’ll happily sign anything you buy or bring.
And it’s not just me there. There’s an awesome lineup!
Read on…
Also speaking will be Cara Santa Maria, Indra Zuno, David Tamayo, Yolanda Arroyo Pizarro, Mariana Nogales Molinelli, Eva Quiñones, and Tom Doyle, and also Greta Christina and Matt Dillahunty. The convention also has a shareable Facebook page. And there’s also a great YouTube video (in Spanish) promoting the convention. For those who speak it, check it out! An English version is also up, so check that out too!
My own talk will be on…
Talk: How Christianity Began without a Real Jesus
Description: Richard Carrier (Ph.D. in ancient history, Columbia University) will discuss evidence in his book On the Historicity of Jesus (published at the University of Sheffield) that Christianity probably began by worshipping a heavenly archangel named Jesus, who spoke to his followers in visions and dreams and hidden messages in scripture, and that the idea of him being an actual man who preached in Jerusalem and Galilee arose decades later, as myths originally meant to teach the gospel symbolically, but then marketed as literally true.
In contrast to previous talks on this subject, I will actually be focusing most on the actual theory (the minimalist Doherty thesis) and how it fits into the context of ancient religions of the time, and in history generally, and how it makes sense of the evidence we have (especially the Epistles of Paul). In other words, assume everyone accepts this is true. Then what did the origin of Christianity actually look like and how did it evolve?
