Touch, All the Way Down: Qualia as Computational Discrimination
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...Theism, Naturalism, and Explanatory Power
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...What If We Reimagine ‘Nothing’ as a Field-State?
Yesterday I published my take on a recent debate I had with Andrew Loke, before an audience of philosophers, on whether my conclusion is sound that We Should Reject Even the First Premise of the Kalam Cosmological Argument. I took the stance of a nothing-first...We Are Probably Not in a Simulation
‘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...Is Science Impossible without God? The Argument of Tomas Bogardus
Yesterday I surveyed a whole category of arguments for theism, the “Science Needs God” complex. And I concluded by mentioning a (sort of) new one, by a well-credentialed professor of philosophy, Tomas Bogardus (another fashionable Protestant convert to...The Myth That Science Needs Christianity
Years ago I wrote several articles debunking the commonplace claim that Theism (or indeed even Biblical Christianity) was necessary for modern science. It’s time for an updated round-up, particularly in preparation for a recent new attempt to argue this that I...All the Laws of Thermodynamics Are Inevitable
A lot of what happens in the universe is caused by the Laws of Thermodynamics. Christians often wonder where these laws come from. What explains them? Well, the interesting thing is that nothing explains them. And I mean that in the literal sense: the absence of...Christianity Is a Conspiracy Theory
There is a much overlooked late-20th century polemical satire of Christian apologetics by the Russian writer Kirill Eskov called the Gospel of Afranius. Award-winning and popular in the slavic world, from Russia, Poland, the Baltics, and Ukraine (even once having been...Three Common Confusions of Creationists
In response to some recent queries, and being reminded of some things in an old slideshow of mine, which accompanied a talk I gave in Humboldt some years ago (which was supposed to be my opening for a debate with a creationist; but the creationist bailed as soon as...The Argument from Reason
In 2004 I composed for The Secular Web a detailed Critical Review of Victor Reppert’s Defense of the Argument from Reason. I still reference it whenever the “Argument from Reason” comes up. But anyone who visits it will notice it’s quite long....Justin Brierley and the Folly of Christianity
This is the final entry in my series on Justin Brierley’s book Unbelievable? Why After Ten Years of Talking with Atheists, I’m Still a Christian. You can read my general summary of this book; where also at the bottom is a TOC linking to all the follow-ups, in...How I’d Answer the 2020 PhilPapers Survey
After reviewing the new 2020 PhilPapers Survey, I can say none of my views have changed; while philosophy as a field has slowly crept more toward my views than not (see my previous article, The New 2020 PhilPapers Survey, which also covers my thoughts on some of the...The Argument to the Ontological Whatsit (and the Foolery of Frank Turek & Tricia Scribner)
Time for some traditional counter-apologetics this holiday season. Today I tackle a dumb Christian argument atheists often have a hard time even understanding (because it’s so dumb, they aren’t thinking dumbly enough to get it). Frank Turek (of I...Oh No! Biogenesis Is Impossible?? A Case Study in Creationist Lies
I’ve written on biogenesis before (and before that). It’s even one of the subjects in philosophy in which I’ve had peer reviewed research published. And I have a whole section on it in Sense and Goodness without God, my survey of naturalism as a...How My Philosophy Would Solve the Unsolved Problems
Tooling around looking for lists of “unsolved problems” in philosophy I must admit the best list that’s most easily found online is Wikipedia’s. I realized for general benefit I should write up how my worldview addresses these. I’ve...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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