Raphael Lataster and I will be on the Mythicist Milwaukee Show next week to talk about many things to do with the mythology of Jesus, including my upcoming debate with Justin Bass in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the following week (that debate will be this March 19th, and...
I’ll be debating renowned New Testament scholar Dr. Craig Evans at Kennesaw State University in Kennesaw, Georgia, this April 13 (2016) at 7pm in the Social Sciences building, room 1021 (parking in the West Parking Deck). Co-hosted by Ratio Christi and the...
Polyamory solves more problems than it causes. And all the problems it causes aren’t really unique to poly. All the reasons people might think monogamy is better (and not just for them, but for everyone), turn out not to be true, or lack evidence. And like...
Is moral truth a priori and not a natural property of the universe? So says Dr. Russ Shafer-Landau (as articulated in Whatever Happened to Good and Evil in 2003; and Moral Realism: A Defence in 2005). Even though I’m sympathetic to his project, he’s just...
My brother-in-law Brian Parra has come out with several more episodes of his new podcast There’s No Time to Explain, and they are all awesome. He is getting some great guests and ranging over some really diverse topics. So I just had to talk about it! I was his...
Why be moral? What is moral? Does atheism have a rational foundation? If we are just atoms in motion, how can anything be right or wrong? How can rationality even exist? Christians and Muslims have been challenging atheists with these questions lately even more than...
James McGrath wrote a couple of years ago about Paul’s Human Jesus as an argument against mythicism—in particular against the Doherty thesis, which in stripped down form is what I find most likely to be true in On the Historicity of Jesus. I have noted...
I will be in South Carolina this February 21st (Sunday) speaking on the subject of applying Bayesian reasoning to the question whether someone existed…you know, someone like, say, Jesus. I’ll be speaking at 4pm in Gage Hall (4 Archdale Street, Charleston,...
As I recently mentioned, a Harvard University philosopher, Aviezer Tucker, just published a review of my book Proving History for the academic journal History and Theory (Vol. 55, February 2016, pp. 129-140), titled, The Reverend Bayes vs. Jesus Christ. Tucker is an...
Last month I caught up on an old thread with On the Bayesian Reversal of the Fine Tuning Argument by Sober, Ikeda, & Jefferys (against Barnes & Lowder). Luke Barnes has now thrown up a bunch of responses that are even more bizarre. One of the things I observed...
Two things happened recently. I was thinking about better ways to teach Bayesian thinking with minimal math in my upcoming class on historical reasoning (which starts in two days; if you want in, you can register now!). And I just finished reading an advance copy of...
My brother in law, Brian Parra, has launched a groovy new podcast, There’s No Time to Explain. And I was his first interview subject (episode 1). It’s an example of my favorite kind of podcast, where we both chat about all kinds of things that mostly...
I shall again be teaching my online course on historical methods in the coming month (February 2015): Thinking Like a Historian: Historical Methods, Practice and Theory. Why not join in! Or recommend it to anyone you know who might be interested. Learn how to question...
I was going to do a news roundup of several new developments in ancient manuscript studies, until one of them turned out to be a roller-coaster ride down a rabbit hole filled with all manner of twists and turns. The subject? The Gospel of Jesus’s Wife. The other...
Clearing the dusty shelves of old unanswered things. One such is the Lowder-Barnes critique of my application of Bayesian reasoning to reverse the fine tuning argument into a case against God, rather than an argument for God. Actually this is not my argument. It is...
I made an error in the use of data yesterday. Sincere apologies to Thunderf00t. And kudos to his fans who finally sussed it out. My post has been revised, with all substantive corrections and additions made clear within the text. The background section is unaffected...
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.