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...Correcting 5 Mistakes Atheists Make About Epistemology
The title of this article is a double entendre. I’m responding to a pretty good video by Emerson Green (“atheist, non-physicalist, and host” of the podcasts Counter Apologetics and Walden Pod) titled 5 Mistakes Atheists Make About Epistemology. In...Daniel Bonevac’s Bayesian Argument for Miracles
I was privileged to be able to sit in on some of a private virtual Q&A with Christian philosopher Daniel Bonevac regarding his peer-reviewed paper “The Argument from Miracles,” Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Religion 3 (2011), pp. 16-40. Many...Another Two ‘Best’ Arguments for God?
Last time I analyzed YouTube’s “best” argument for God: Ben Shapiro’s, which tops the YouTube “influence” list with six million views. I also briefed a really terrible argument for God second on that list by Jordan Peterson, at...Ben Shapiro’s Worst Argument for God
Yesterday I asked YouTube what the “best argument for God” was; and I limited the results to those published within the last twelve months, and ranked them by view-counts (looking for the most viewed and thus most influential and thus most crucial to...The Methodological Application of My Theory of Humor
In interviews and hangouts I’ve often discussed my theory of humor and its importance to how we interpret humor, from how we use comedy to understand things about history, to how we decide whether a joke is actually racist or offensive rather than simply funny...Twelve Books at Herculaneum That Could Change History
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...Addressing the New Christian Apologetics: The Embarrassing Follies of Conway and Ferrer
Every few years I check what the top ten books are in Christian apologetics (by Amazon ranking). And what I have recently noticed is that Christian apologetics is in a state of intellectual stagnation or even decline. Seven of the top ten are old, long-refuted,...Bayesian Analysis of the Barkasi-Sant’Anna Defense of Naive Memory Realism
Last month I launched my three-part series on analyzing peer-reviewed philosophy papers with my Bayesian Analysis of Faria Costa’s Theory of Group Agency, where I explain my process and how I selected the articles for review. I followed that with my Bayesian...Bayesian Analysis of Shelley Park’s Uncanniness Thesis
Last month I launched my three-part series on analyzing peer-reviewed philosophy papers with my Bayesian Analysis of Faria Costa’s Theory of Group Agency, where I explain my process and how I selected the articles for review. Second up is “Uncomfortably...Bayesian Analysis of Faria Costa’s Theory of Group Agency
Last September I ran a project testing the merits of peer-reviewed history articles, by selecting three articles at random and analyzing their methodology and its underlying Bayesian logic (because, really, all sound epistemic reasoning is Bayesian: see A Bayesian...The Scary Truth about Critical Thinking
The fundamental goal of legitimate critical thinking (as opposed to the fraudulent kind) is to ascertain what is true, about yourself and the world. So the tools that constitute critical thinking must be tools for finding the truth. And that means tools for...How A Personal Fear of Death Might Also Be Driving the Anti-Abortion Delusion
I had a thought recently about abortion ideology that I wanted to explore. I used to think the only prime driver of anti-abortionism is literally just Christian patriarchy (predominately in the West at least; elsewhere it might be Islamic patriarchy). In other words,...Gun Control That’s Science-Based & Constitutional
As a veteran, and yet hard-core lefty with an obsession for evidence-based policy, I’m often asked what my position is on gun control; which is to say, in my country (because that subject isn’t as much of an issue in other developed nations—we are...Antinatalism Is Contrafactual & Incoherent
Antinatalism is the view that the human race should let itself go extinct; more particularly, it should do so because that outcome is “better”; and therefore having children is immoral (there is a decent entry on this in the Internet Encyclopedia of...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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