You may have heard a lot about a thing called “quantum consciousness.” Most of what you’ve heard is bullshit. The Not Bullshit First let’s discuss the bit that isn’t bullshit. Many papers in various sciences that have words in their...
As another outcome of my recent debate with Andrew Loke (see We Should Reject Even the First Premise of the Kalam Cosmological Argument and What If We Reimagine ‘Nothing’ as a Field-State?) I have here engaged to debate a professor of philosophy, Dr. Carlo Alvaro, on...
I still hear the myth repeated that “scientists” proved the ancient city of Sodom was in fact destroyed by a meteor, and this therefore became the basis of the Sodom & Gomorrah legend in the Bible. But that never happened. The science has been proved...
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...
After an exchange of articles with Andrew Loke (see Why Nothing Remains a Problem: The Andrew Loke Fiasco and his reply) we were asked by a private professional forum to debate the topic of the Causal Principle, which anchors the first premise of the Kalam...
I was hired recently to look into the claims of the German philosopher (really, now, theologian) Holm Tetens regarding why Naturalism has to be false because it can’t explain conscious experience. There’s nothing new about the idea. The Argument from...
I am often asked what the best Bible translation is. My usual reply is that there aren’t any. All translations are biased, they merely differ as to how or where. The best you can do is to read it in the original language (and I teach a course with a lecture on...
In 2020, Christian philosophers Kenneth Boyce and Philip Swenson presented a thesis at a conference, which has yet to appear under peer-review (though a version is in review), arguing that “fine tuning” is actually evidence against a multiverse. This is...
A new law of nature has been fleshed out and proposed, in a research paper by Wong, Cleland, Arend, and Hazen, which theory I will just label for convenience the Wong-Hazen thesis. To read the original paper, see “On the Roles of Function and Selection in...
I’ve long defended an argument theists seem to have no ability to escape: The Problem with Nothing: Why The Indefensibility of Ex Nihilo Nihil Goes Wrong for Theists. Robert Koons couldn’t get around it (Koons Cosmology vs. The Problem with Nothing). And...
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...
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...
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...
There are two new books assessing the intersection of religion and astrophysics. Both are fantastic reads. First is Aliens and Religion: Where Two Worlds Collide, by Jonathan MS Pearce and Aaron Adair (Onus 2023), which explores the philosophical problems that...
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...
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...
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.