Ross Douthat’s Worst Argument for God
I’ve written before about the recent decline of Christian apologetics (e.g. Addressing the New Christian Apologetics and Ben Shapiro’s Worst Argument for God and Another Two ‘Best’ Arguments for God?)—a trend that is illustrated by the enthusiastic revival...How Not to Be an Idiot: Lessons from Elon Musk
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...Defining Naturalism: The Definitive Account
Years ago I wrote on how ‘natural’ and ‘supernatural’ should be defined based on how those words are actually used in practice. And I developed from that a more useful ontology of naturalism and the supernatural, and a more apt scientific...
On Getting Confused by the Idea That Atheism Predicts Nothing
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...A Primer on Actually Doing Your Own Research
Here I shall assemble some advice I now realize I always take for granted, but that I find even well-meaning people sometimes don’t know, yet will definitely benefit from. The idiom “Doing Your Own Research” has become a joke largely because the...A Quick Brief on Identity Theory
Just for utility’s sake, I will organize some of my past comments here on identity theory. By that here I mean one’s ontological model of “identity” (not sociocultural identity): that which makes one thing different from another, or unique...My Monthly Recommendation: Ayer and Polanyi
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...A Simple Thought Experiment That Destroys Plantinga’s Free WIll Defense of Evil
Yesterday I dealt with Bernardo Kastrup’s weird Idealism. Today I have just a simple thought to offer on why the equally weird theology of Alvin Plantinga is fatally incoherent, building on two prior articles of mine: Is a Good God Logically Impossible?, where I...Bernardo Kastrup’s Attempt to Bootstrap Idealism
It astonishes me that anyone can still get articles through peer review defending the dead philosophy of Idealism. As I documented before in my series testing the standards in academic philosophy, the field’s reliability is not that great. Which is inexcusable....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...Which Is ‘Rational’: Theism or Atheism?
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...You Know They’re a [Good|Lousy] Philosopher If…
I’ve been working in the field of philosophy for decades. It has literally been my religion. I spent half my life researching it and developing my own comprehensive, coherent, evidence-based philosophy, which became my 2005 book Sense and Goodness without God: A...Why I Think Theology Is Ridiculous: A Look at Thomas Ward’s Ideas about Divine Ideas
Baylor Theologian Thomas Ward has published and promoted a nice little book on an obscure niche of metaphysical theology called Divine Ideas. Ordinarily I wouldn’t waste a minute on this (because usually intersectarian debate is my idea of wasted lifespan). But...The Argument from Non-Locality
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...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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