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,...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...The False Trichotomy of Lord, Liar, or Lunatic
C.S. Lewis may have been the worst philosopher of the twentieth century. Worse even than his contemporary Ayn Rand. And that’s saying something; because she was pretty bad at it. Weirdly, he was an even worse historian. As Bart Ehrman put it, “The problem...A Psychology of Men? A Critical Review of Robert Glover’s No More Mr. Nice Guy
Today I will be reviewing a book by, about, and for men. It was written by Robert A. Glover, a real psychotherapist—presumably; his bio attests a PhD in family and marriage therapy and years of clinical practice, although I found no appreciable research...That Jordan Peterson Is a Crank: A Handy Guide
Jordan Peterson has already become a joke in many circles. But enough remain mesmerized by his shtick to warrant a survey of why he’s just another pseudoscientific guru running a con. He is, essentially, the Deepak Chopra of the Nones; and his books, akin to The...The Real Basis of a Moral World
What worldview is better for the world? That’s a question I debated with Joel McDurmon of American Vision just the other day in Houston. I’ll announce the video when it goes live. But one of the matters that came up centrally in that debate was moral...Plantinga’s ‘Two Dozen or So’ Arguments for God: Moral & Other Arguments
Part 3. I just addressed Plantinga’s ontological and metaphysical arguments (A through I) and his epistemological arguments (J through Q). Here I conclude with his moral and other arguments (R through Z; and finally, his whopper of all arguments, the Argument...Plantinga’s ‘Two Dozen or So’ Arguments for God: The Epistemological Arguments
Part 2. I just addressed Plantinga’s ontological and metaphysical arguments (A through I). Here I cover his epistemological arguments (J through Q). Next I’ll cover his moral and other arguments (R through Z). I’ll link those in when they go up. For...Plantinga’s ‘Two Dozen or So’ Arguments for God: The Onto-Metaphysical Arguments
Famously, Christian apologist Alvin Plantinga once posted a lecture guide online outlining dozens of arguments for the existence of God (which was built-out a little bit in a book, and will evolve soon into an edited volume of its own). I’m often pointed to it...Why Plantinga’s Tiger Is Pseudoscience
You remember a while back when I dared to call Alvin Plantinga a terrible philosopher spewing pseudoscience? (Plantinga’s Tiger and Other Stupid Shit) Soon after, the Christian presuppositionalist Josh Sommer was having none of that. So he wrote three whole...Timothy Keller: Dishonest Reasons for God (Chapter 8)
I began my critique of Keller’s The Reason for God with an exposé of everything up through Chapter 1, then Chapter 2, Chapters 3 through 5, Chapter 6, and Chapter 7. Here I will cover Chapter 8—and some material he adds in between Chapters 7 and 8. Next...Poly Family, Poly World…and Poly Among the Poor
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...Atheistically Speaking: Does EvoPsych Suck?
A good interview with me has gone up at Atheistically Speaking with Thomas Smith (“Taking a clear, rational look at atheism and surrounding issues!”). It’s episode 202, “Dr. Richard Carrier on EvoPsych.” The description: Is 90% of all Evo...Is 90% of All EvoPsych False?
Evolutionary Psychology is the study of how attributes of human psychology evolved biologically by natural selection. I and others have averred many times that it is mostly a pseudoscience. EvoPsych proponents balk and take offense. We cite numerous papers by experts...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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