Part 3 of my series on the new Macmillan reference Theism & Atheism: Opposing Arguments in Philosophy: my discussion of the Argument from Science, which holds that the collective consequence of the advance of the sciences is the substantial reduction in the...
Part 2 of my series on the new Macmillan reference Theism & Atheism: Opposing Arguments in Philosophy: my discussion of the Argument from Miracles, which turns that argument on its head. Far from being evidence for theism, the collective evidence regarding miracle...
This year Macmillan produced a peer reviewed collection of position papers between atheists and theists titled Theism and Atheism: Opposing Arguments in Philosophy (2019), in which I contributed several chapters. Like most academic monographs these days it’s...
Christian historian Dr. Wallace Marshall and I are debating whether or not enough evidence points to the existence of a god. For background and format, and Dr. Wallace’s opening statement, see entry one. For subsequent entries, see index. Now we are focusing on...
Joel McDurmon is an odd fellow. Founder of American Vision, he is simultaneously an old school arch-conservative who thinks all taxation is theft and public schools must be abolished, and a passionate, well-reasoned advocate for liberal talking points like that the...
What worldview is better for the world? That’s a question I debated with Joel McDurmon of American Vision just the other day in Houston. I’ll announce the video when it goes live. But one of the matters that came up centrally in that debate was moral...
I’ll be debating Which Worldview Produces the Best World? in Houston, Texas, on 10 November 2018. The theme: Does atheistic Naturalism or biblical Christianity offer true help for the world? I’ll be defending naturalism; Dr. Joel McDurmon will be defending...
I’ve argued before that if we presume there was once absolutely nothing, we actually end up with an infinite multiverse (Ex Nihilo Onus Merdae Fit). Which eliminates the fine tuning argument, by statistically guaranteeing any universe will randomly exist, no...
A new study that ran the Drake Equation with a proper sampling of uncertainty (something no one had done before, oddly) has found there is credibly a 38% chance humans are the only civilization in the entire known universe; and a 52% chance we are the only...
In a recent issue of Philosophy Now, Christian philosopher Grant Bartley argues “Why Physicalism is Wrong.” In which he exemplifies why it is the critics of physicalism who are wrong. Because Bartley commits basic fallacies in understanding the issue....
Creationists may have bitten their own head off with their idea of specified complexity. Because there is a case to be made that if specified complexity can exist, the supernatural cannot. The creationist William Dembski famously contrived the concept of...
My last article refuting Feser’s armchair metaphysical arguments for God briefly asserted that modern scientific Superstring Theory actually answers all his requirements for a godless substrate for all reality, and answers the Principle of Sufficient Reason, and...
Years back George Dvorsky wrote a popular article at io9 titled “8 Great Philosophical Questions We’ll Never Solve.” It’s interesting because all eight are triggers for the same cognitive biases sustaining irrational theistic belief. Is it true...
You remember a while back when I dared to call Alvin Plantinga a terrible philosopher spewing pseudoscience? (Plantinga’s Tiger and Other Stupid Shit) Soon after, the Christian presuppositionalist Josh Sommer was having none of that. So he wrote three whole...
In the course of composing my critical series of Timothy Keller’s Reason for God, I noticed his reliance on that awful philosopher Alvin Plantinga at a key point, warranted an article all it’s own. It’s an argument you’ll have heard many times...
I began my critique of Keller’s The Reason for God with an exposé of everything up through Chapter 1, then Chapter 2, and Chapters 3 through 5. Here I will cover Chapter 6 (and next 7). I’ll continue to other chapters in future installments. In these two...
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.