It’s scandalous to say, because so much pop theorizing about early Christianity is anchored to it, but it turns out, Gnosticism was never actually a thing. It was an invention of modern scholars; an interpretive category, it turns out, that refers to no actual...
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....
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...
I’ve now added “Critical Thinking in the 21st Century” to my monthly class roster. You can register now and join us starting 1st of next month or any subsequent month. Register anytime ahead of the month you want—for this or any of several other courses...
Para una edición en español del siguiente artículo, consulte El regreso de Piñero. -:- Last month I found serious faults in Antonio Piñero’s mistreatment of my book On the Historicity of Jesus and its thesis, including his lack of basic knowledge in subjects...
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...
Para una edición en español del siguiente artículo, consulte Antonio Piñero: El historicista vehemente at Mitos o Historia. -:- Antonio Piñero is sort of the Bart Ehrman of the Spanish-speaking world. He has made a public spectacle of attacking Jesus mythicism and...
I’ve now added “The Historicity of Jesus” to my monthly class roster. You can register now and join us starting the 1st of next month or any subsequent month. Register anytime ahead of the month you want—for this or any of several other courses I’m...
For the gist of this two-part series see the intro of Part I. That part covered the first of two videos spanning the 2018 debate between YouTubers Godless Engineer and Michael Jones. Here I dive into the second of those (you can watch them online: Part 1 and Part 2)....
In March of 2018 the NonSequitur show hosted a debate between two YouTubers: Godless Engineer, who runs the popular eponymous atheist channel, and Michael Jones, who runs the popular Christian apologetics channel Inspiring Philosophy. The topic was whether evidence...
In On the Historicity of Jesus I cite the Revelation of Moses establishing not only that Jewish lore held that the Garden of Eden was located in outer space (roughly in the vicinity of, if not in fact on, Venus or the Sun, depending on which geocentric scheme they...
I am now offering ten online courses, starting on the first of any month! Some are video courses, some are online forum courses. All are intended to take one month, are learn-at-your-own-pace, and involve as much or as little work as you want to put in. You’ll...
Upon request I am creating an open thread here for any continued scholarly Q&A on my book On the Historicity of Jesus (published under peer review by Sheffield-Phoenix) and its thesis—that at best there is only (but still possibly as much as) a 1 in 3 chance...
People denying racism is a systemic problem in American policing repeatedly cite as “proof” a study published by Roland Fryer, which they particularly love citing because Fryer is black. The thing is though, Fryer’s study proved systemic racism in...
I’ve now added “Ancient Atheism” to my monthly class roster. You can register now and join us starting next week or any subsequent month. Register anytime ahead of the month you want—for this or any of several other courses I’m offering. In Ancient...
On the Ask NT Wright Anything show, Justin Brierley recently read a write-in question that challenged Anglican apologist N.T. Wright on a claim he’s made that I’ve thoroughly debunked: his claim that women would never be invented by the author of Mark as...
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.