The Moral Bankruptcy of Divine Command Theory: Matthew Flannagan’s Failed Defense
Theology has no salvageable theory of morality. Theists complain atheists have no reason to be moral. But in fact theists have no reason to actually be moral, as in: to elevate compassion, honesty, and reasonableness above all authority, even the authority of their...Did Muhammad Exist? (Why That Question Is Hard to Answer)
I get asked this a lot. “Why not apply your methods and skills to the question of whether Muhammad actually existed or not?” My answer is always the same: I will not likely ever be able to do that, because it would require getting a whole second Ph.D. in...In Which James McGrath Reveals That He Is a Fundamentalist Who Has Never Read Any Contemporary Scholarship in His Field
The title of this article is a joke. Sort of. But maybe not as much as you think. As I’ll show. Because James McGrath has added another entry to his bizarrely uninformed critique of On the Historicity of Jesus, and this time is the most...Tim Hendrix on Proving History
Tim Hendrix wrote a critical analysis of my book Proving History two years ago, and recently made it available online. Coincidentally I also just discovered a review of the book in College & Research Libraries Reviews, which had been published in June of 2012 (pp....Okay, So What about the Historicity of Spartacus?
It’s always something. First it was, “We have better evidence for Jesus than for the contemporary emperor Tiberius.” Matthew Ferguson annihilated that one. Then it was, “We have better evidence for Jesus than for Alexander the Great.”...Is Evidence for Jesus Really as Good as for Caesar?
No. If you want to know why, read on. A reader emailed me a brief article by Darrell Bock called “Sources for Caesar and Jesus Compared,” asking me to please point out the thousand things wrong with it. I don’t really have to, because (at least de...What Dawkins Is Proposing Is the Suppression of Free Speech and the Acceptance of Sexism in Science
Hyperbolic whining when criticized is the male analog to the trope of women crying when criticized. So it’s ironic to see Richard Dawkings “crying” (over and over again) about a male peer being criticized for saying maybe women should be segregated...Fantastic Study of Gender Differences Finds White Privilege Instead
This is one of the most excellent must read articles ever sent to me (by a girlfriend who does this sort of thing for a living. You know who you are, Girl. Thank you!) I’m talking about David Roberts, “There’s a Gender Divide on Nuclear Power, but It...Myths of Charity: The Enduring Sham of Arthur Brooks
Six years ago Arthur Brooks published Who Really Cares (which has gone through several subtitles, from America’s Charity Divide to Who Gives, Who Doesn’t, and Why It Matters to The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservatism). This book is still triumphantly...How To Do Wrong Right
After my post last month asking for a date the following week, many very positive and some slightly negative things transpired in result. The date went well. I chose a very lovely person who replied to my advertisement awesomely. We hit it off very well and are now in...Epistemology without Insurmountable Regress or Fallacious Circularity
A correspondent (code name emergence) sent me a letter asking an interesting question about epistemology… Hey Dr. Carrier, I realize that this might be kind of off-topic, but I was talking about philosophy in the Thunderdome on Pharyngula, and you were...41 Reasons We’re, Like, Totes Sure Jesus Existed!
People often ask me about Christian apologist James Bishop’s “41 Reasons Why Scholars Know Jesus Really Existed.” Because it’s the highest number of reasons anyone has attempted to claim (apart from the 10/42 apologetic, which Matthew Ferguson...Katherine Cross on Tone Policing
Katherine Cross has written an excellent piece on distinguishing legitimate from illegitimate tone policing: Words for Cutting: Why We Need to Stop Abusing The Tone Argument. The article is a valuable read all through. Do not regard my summary here as its replacement....Defining the Supernatural vs. Logical Positivism
In working slowly through a gigantic backlog of blog comments, I met with one that goes back to an old school question, about my project to demarcate the natural and the supernatural. The comment by Enlightenment Liberal is here. He is asking questions about the...Everyone Is a Bayesian
Greg Mayer posted at Jerry Coyne’s blog on “Why I am not a Bayesian.” In his explanation, he goes wrong at three key points. And they are illustrative of common mistakes people make in trying to understand or apply Bayesian reasoning. In reality,...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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