Richard Carrier Blogs

The Last Three Objections to Jesus Being a Myth

Richard Carrier — Thu, 23 Apr 2026 19:34:10 +0000

In my recent update on the “Jesus Myth” debate, in The Obsolete Paradigm of a Historical Jesus, I note that, now, the best reason to be sure Jesus didn’t exist is that everyone who insists he did has to strangely ignore a lot of evidence (even pathologically avoid it), or else make up fallacious arguments […]

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Is God Needed to Collapse the Wave Function?

Richard Carrier — Thu, 16 Apr 2026 19:42:29 +0000

No. (Drops mic.) But, hey. If you really need to know why that is absolutely and indisputably the answer, read on. In my recent article Is God Needed for “Information” and “Laws”? I pointed out how a lot of god-belief—and even slick Christian apologetics—is built on science illiteracy, making belief in God, really, an artifact […]

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Three Unexpected Recommendations in Philosophy

Richard Carrier — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 18:17:27 +0000

As always, I get a commission on anything you buy on Amazon after clicking any link on my website, here or elsewhere. Heck, I get a commission on everything in your cart when you check out within 24 hours after following a link from my site, even if you don’t buy the item you clicked […]

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The Earth Will Be Destroyed Very Soon

Richard Carrier — Wed, 01 Apr 2026 20:43:07 +0000

The gargantuan amounts of money that are vanishing into the mysterious black hole of private equity (which is now collapsing because all that money has indeed vanished…somewhere) and AI (which is also vanishing…somewhere, because the data centers it was supposed to have been spent on don’t actually exist) cannot be explained. The disappearance of trillions […]

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Recommendations for Getting Up to Speed on Ancient Israel, Ancient Forgery, and Ancient Society

Richard Carrier — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 14:31:02 +0000

I’ve been running a series reviewing my three recommendations lists, and today I’m switching again to Origins of Christianity. And check this out, because if I can bring Amazon over three grand in sales in a month I get a bonus (alas, yes, Amazon; but only they pay commissions enough to meaningfully earn, so rake […]

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Ken Dark on the Historicity of Jesus

Richard Carrier — Thu, 19 Mar 2026 21:25:26 +0000

In my last article (on The Historicity of Nazareth) I mentioned in the course of a mostly positive review of Ken Dark’s new book (Archaeology of Jesus’ Nazareth) that he completely shits the bed when it comes to arguing that “surely” Jesus existed to contemplate as a Nazarene. You get a foreshadowing of this when […]

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The Historicity of Nazareth

Richard Carrier — Mon, 16 Mar 2026 20:22:57 +0000

Just a couple years ago, secular archaeologist Ken Dark published Archaeology of Jesus’ Nazareth (Oxford University Press 2023), a summary of his own archaeological survey of Nazareth, going over all the previous archaeology there (even admitting its flaws and biases), and updating it with a variety of new and current findings. It is not flawless. […]

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Is God Needed for “Information” and “Laws”?

Richard Carrier — Thu, 05 Mar 2026 22:26:36 +0000

I’ve been getting a lot of questions lately about “where the laws of physics come from.” Of course I’ve already covered this from the angle of “where do all the physical constants come from” in The Utter Destruction of the Fine Tuning Argument and from the angle of “where do spacetime and its properties come […]

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[CLOSED — AND THANK YOU ALL!] Close to Underwater on Bills = Hire Me to Speak or Teach?

Richard Carrier — Fri, 27 Feb 2026 19:23:59 +0000

Thank you to everyone who helped. My wife and I are immensely grateful. Sincerely. We’re now good as far as the budget emergency goes. So you can disregard this post now. But I always welcome hosts hiring me in for interviews and discussions on their channels, and having students in my online courses. So you […]

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Comparing Apologetical Methods: Jonathan Sheffield vs. Michael Licona

Richard Carrier — Mon, 23 Feb 2026 17:46:46 +0000

There is a largely overlooked internal debate among Christian apologists about approach. The gist of which is how much Christians should allow fudging, omitting, spinning, and overreach (though the pro side would never describe what it’s doing that way, which is part of the problem). A paradigmatic example is with the authorship of the Gospels: […]

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