Shaun Skills: How to Learn from Exemplary Cases
Shaun is a YouTube critic who composes a lot of excellent videos critiquing various other YouTube content, from social commentators to entertainment media. He does a good job of summarizing, fact-checking, logic-vetting, and illustrating his finds in the video medium....Advice on Probabilistic Reasoning
The most important advice you could ever get for becoming a reliable critical thinker are the following three tips, each of which depends on probabilistic reasoning. You might want to take my online course in Critical Thinking for the 21st Century to really dive into...Come See Me & Others Speak at the 2020 International eConference on Atheism!
The Global Center for Religious Research (GCRR) is hosting the 2020 International eConference on Atheism next month, September 3–5. I will be among the presenters. Registration is super affordable, only $15. In fact, if you use the promo code...PragerU to The Internet: Science Proves God, You Pinko Commies!
PragerU claims in multiple conservative propaganda videos that science has proved God exists and atheists should just go stuff it already. I’ll tackle this nonsense today—just to be useful, since most of PragerU’s critiques online target its lies,...Dumb Vegan Propaganda: A Lesson in Critical Thinking
I noticed some fake news spreading on Facebook last week. Like usual. But then I noticed what a great example it provided of how to defend yourself against just this kind of politicized fake news, with just a few basic principles of critical thinking. This time the...Pascal’s Wager and the Ad Baculum Fallacy
I’m sure you’ve all heard of Pascal’s Wager. The gist of it is that if you bet on there being a God (meaning, to Pascal, the Medieval Catholic God), you have an infinite expected return on investment, because at worst it costs you nothing (or at...Tips for Debate: How to Be More Effective Engaging with Demagogues & Dogmatists
Here I’ve collected a variety of general tips you may find useful for debating, whether you are doing a live formal debate, a formal written debate, or anything more informal online. It’s not a comprehensive tutorial. Just some of the first things you...This Is How We Know Christianity Is a Delusion
In researching another article I came across an old piece by Mark McIntyre. On his blog Attempts at Honesty, back in 2011, he wrote a brief piece dismissing New Atheism with the argument that “their unbelief is not due to the lack of evidence but the suppression...Disarming the Motte and Bailey in Cultural Discourse
In aid and honor of my one-month online Critical Thinking Course that starts this weekend (Register Now!), I want to introduce you to a rhetorical (or indeed psychological) tactic that is found everywhere but you probably didn’t know someone had a name for it. I...Boost Your Real IQ! Immunize Yourself against Fake News and False Beliefs with My Critical Thinking Class This September!
I’ll be teaching critical thinking next month (September). Learn some easy tools of Bayesian reasoning, how to spot and correct for cognitive biases, how to reason more logically and evade fallacies, and how to better question your decisions and beliefs...There Are No Muslim “No Go” Zones
There is no such thing as a “No Go Zone” in any Western country. And this is a conspiracy theory that needs to stop in the so-called Skeptic Community. Skeptics are supposed to know better than to fall for specious abuses of evidence and fallacious...How the Right and the Left Nuked Atheism Plus
Though I rarely have time, I occasionally check out what’s being produced in atheism. And thus I went on a binge of Noel Plum videos recently. My entryway was researching what happened to The Atheist Conference, which collapsed almost as soon as its planning began,...The Mummy Gospel Isn’t Even a Mummy Gospel!? Updates on That Supposed First Century Manuscript of Mark
Remember that dubious claim going around for years now that a first century manuscript of the Gospel of Mark had been found? Well, there’s news! Last year I gave advice on how to vet suspicious claims about ancient Jesus literature before asking me about it (see...A Primer on Islamic Counter-Apologetics
Islamic apologetics bears many similarities to Christian apologetics, both in content (similar arguments for God; similar excuses for evil; etc.) and method (same fallacies; same dishonesty; same disrespect for the facts). But there are distinctive features to be...The Difference Between a Historian and an Apologist
Larry Hurtado’s latest foot-in-mouth affords a good opportunity to explain what the difference is between an apologist and a historian. Not in respect to their goals (apologists need to defend a position even when it’s false or indefensible; historians...Get Dr. Carrier’s Latest!
About the Author
Richard Carrier is the author of many books and numerous articles online and in print. His avid readers span the world from Hong Kong to Poland. With a Ph.D. in ancient history from Columbia University, he specializes in the modern philosophy of naturalism and humanism, and the origins of Christianity and the intellectual history of Greece and Rome, with particular expertise in ancient philosophy, science and technology. He is also a noted defender of scientific and moral realism, Bayesian reasoning, and historical methods.
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