There is a new book published by Oxford University Press that is a travesty of Christian apologetics undeservedly snaking the respectability of, well, Oxford University: T.C. Schmidt’s Josephus and Jesus: New Evidence for the One Called Christ. The rhetorical objective of this book is to convince people that the Testimonium Flavianum, a fawning paragraph about […]| Richard Carrier Blogs
There is a classicist named Ammon Hillman (a.k.a. David Hillman) who wrote a decent dissertation on ancient pharmacology and then went on to make absurd claims about the Gospels and early Christianity that verge into pedophilia and an obsession with genitals. And yes, your intuition is working here: all his weird theories about this are […]| Richard Carrier Blogs
Biblical historian Nina Livesey has produced one of several recent mainstream studies questioning the authenticity of all the letters of Paul: The Letters of Paul in their Roman Literary Context: Reassessing Apostolic Authorship (Cambridge University Press, 2024). The others are by David Trobisch (for Fortress) and Markus Vinzent (also for Cambridge University Press), neither of […]| Richard Carrier Blogs
One of the big issues in epistemology is the problem of infinite regress. “I believe the sun will rise.” “How do you know that?” “Because it always has.” “How do you know that?” “Because my memory and human records confirm it has.” “How do you know that?” “Because I’ve examined those memories and records.” “How […]| Richard Carrier Blogs
After ten years of pretty much ignoring the arguments in the peer-reviewed studies on the question of Jesus’s historicity, Bart Ehrman has tried again to “respond” to their findings—and again proves he never really reads these studies and doesn’t know what they say. Indeed, he is stalwartly refusing now to read the actual studies and […]| Richard Carrier Blogs
Elon Musk is an idiot. He has never accomplished anything by himself in his life and has no remarkable competencies. He could be the most incompetent person on the planet. Like most rich people, he’s just lucky. And Luck Matters More Than Talent. He fell ass-backwards into big money, and our system protects big money. […]| Richard Carrier Blogs
One of the most persistent reasons any Christian remains stuck in that delusion is that they are really bad at thinking their way out of any false position. Christians are prone to deciding what to believe based on groupthink, cult-think, and intuition (otherwise known as emotion in lieu of reason). But they are very good […]| Richard Carrier Blogs
With the loss of a family member our income took a hit. My Patreon supporters ensure I will never employ paywalls or intrusive third party ads here, and I always benefit most from more Patreon patrons. And there are other ways to tip me or support my work (like buying my books, and more: see […]| Richard Carrier Blogs
Today I am going to offer a naturalist theory of qualia—the particulars of “what it is like” of conscious experience, like the redness of red or the floweriness of a flower’s scent or the twanginess of a guitar, or even what love or fear, or deliciousness or pain, “feel” like. My model can’t be tested […]| Richard Carrier Blogs
Last week I published an eristic analysis of an exchange of videos between Rationality Rules and Capturing Christianity, on Which Is ‘Rational’: Theism or Atheism? This time I will analyze a previous Capturing Christianity video, “Why Theism Best Explains Reality (philosophy nerds, get in here!)”, featuring the content creators Tim Howard and Kyle Alander defending […]| Richard Carrier Blogs
Of course, atheism. But in any debate with the deluded, they will claim it’s the other way around. Flat Earthers will claim the rest of us are deluded, that believing in a spherical Earth is irrational, and so on. So someone not already up to speed might not be able to tell which is which. […]| Richard Carrier Blogs
It is common to just assume God is timeless and spaceless. But I aver that’s logically impossible. You Have to Exist Somewhere to Exist at All If God has no location, then by definition there is no location at which God exists. And if there is no location at which God exists, then by definition […]| Richard Carrier Blogs
Did you know we’re all pagans? That’s right. America is majority pagan. We worship Ishtar and the Onion God and have cool-ass pagan festivals featuring palm fronds and sacred orgies. Public feasts in every town distribute meat and mead, blessed by pagan priestesses in ancient regalia, to all the townsfolk, at public or patriot expense. […]| Richard Carrier Blogs
The mainstream consensus is that only seven letters of the thirteen attributed to Paul in the New Testament are authentic: 1 and 2 Corinthians, 1 Thessalonians, Romans, Philippians, Galatians…and Philemon; while the rest are either forgeries (Ephesians, Colossians, 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus, and 2 Thessalonians) or misattributions (Hebrews is often listed as a fourteenth […]| Richard Carrier Blogs
The great cognitive scientist and philosopher Daniel Dennett passed away this year. And shortly after, Cameron Bertuzzi interviewed a Christian apologist, Bob Stewart, on his channel Capturing Christianity, regarding “Daniel Dennett’s Philosophical Legacy,” titling the show “Wrong in Creative Ways.” In which they almost never discuss Daniel Dennett’s philosophical legacy, or ever show that he […]| Richard Carrier Blogs
There are thousands of crappy videos in aid of dubious projects. So I generally have to be paid to care about any of them. And lo, my latest hire: to examine what’s going on with Stardusk’s half-hour video Protectors, Providers, Nazis and Prostitutes on his channel Thinking-Ape. Considered one of the founding members of the […]| Richard Carrier Blogs
We are here debating the Kalam Cosmological Argument from a deistic rather than theistic perspective. Carlo Alvaro is taking the affirmative; Richard Carrier the negative. See our initial entry for all the details, including an index to all entries yet published. -:- Dr. Alvaro’s argument is indeed formally valid: But is it sound? Are these […]| Richard Carrier Blogs
‘Simulation Theory’ is popular lately so I am building a new summary piece on it. The following article repeats material elsewhere on my site but in scattered places, and with some new and connecting material, to provide a thorough and current treatment of the question. -:- Are we and the universe just a giant computer […]| Richard Carrier Blogs
While preparing next year’s book and reading and thinking about the one I just reviewed (Margaret Williams on Early Classical Authors on Jesus), I have evolved in my thinking about the rhetorical sense behind the “persecution” section in the Epistle of 1 Clement, and realized I should spell this out more coherently in an article, […]| Richard Carrier Blogs
There is a fabulous ancient treasure still buried at Herculaneum in the Bay of Naples. It is an actual ancient library that has been locked under a veritable rock of volcanic ash since 79 A.D. It likely contains thousands of scrolls, comprising hundreds of books. As I’ll explain shortly, a few hundred were recovered in […]| Richard Carrier Blogs
