Richard Carrier Blogs

How Many Ancient Books Did the Christians Throw Away?

Richard Carrier — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 20:39:35 +0000

How much have we lost? That’s a question I get asked a lot. I have often ballparked it at over 99%. But I decided to dig in to some real numbers to see what percentage can actually be backed by evidence. And I found we can actually calculate, by multiple converging lines of evidence, that […]

The post How Many Ancient Books Did the Christians Throw Away? appeared first on Richard Carrier Blogs.

Christians vs. Atheists: What Are We Actually Arguing About?

Richard Carrier — Sat, 30 May 2026 15:04:19 +0000

I’ve made the point before that really, Christians and Atheists are only arguing over one single thing: whether the ground of all being has thoughts and feelings or not. Otherwise atheists already agree there is a ground of all being, and that everything that exists does have a causal explanation without thoughts or feelings at […]

The post Christians vs. Atheists: What Are We Actually Arguing About? appeared first on Richard Carrier Blogs.

Distinguishing Awareness, Intelligence, and Consciousness

Richard Carrier — Wed, 27 May 2026 15:01:03 +0000

There is a rash lately of sensationalist claims of proving consciousness in everything from fungus to plants and even bacteria. All bullshit. But not of the usual woo variety. This time the bullshit is semantic. At least, at the origin of these ideas in actual research papers—never mind The Internet of Dumbery that exaggerates it […]

The post Distinguishing Awareness, Intelligence, and Consciousness appeared first on Richard Carrier Blogs.

Three Recommendations in Godless Epistemology

Richard Carrier — Wed, 20 May 2026 20:01:28 +0000

Godists have their own bogus epistemologies, designed to rationalize believing in gods. But rational people use only godless epistemologies, which aren’t rigged to favor any conclusion. I have long advocated Bayesian Epistemology as the correct logic for knowing what to believe and how confidently to believe it. So I realize I need to add a […]

The post Three Recommendations in Godless Epistemology appeared first on Richard Carrier Blogs.

Hardback Edition of Hitler Homer Bible Christ

Richard Carrier — Mon, 11 May 2026 19:08:10 +0000

In preparation for a new anthology I have coming out later this year, which will be available in all formats, I just created a hardback edition of its companion volume. So if you want a complete set of my anthologies in hardback, you can start collecting now! The old book coming into hardback is Hitler […]

The post Hardback Edition of Hitler Homer Bible Christ appeared first on Richard Carrier Blogs.

Problems with the Bilby Thesis

Richard Carrier — Fri, 01 May 2026 15:22:30 +0000

Historian Mark Bilby is proposing a new thesis about dating the Gospels (and other NT texts) in an experimental study that, as of this publication at least, is at Zenodo (an open research archive), titled Neologismata, Volume 1: Proofs of New Testament Redactions between 138 and 249 CE (he also promotes it in a video). […]

The post Problems with the Bilby Thesis appeared first on 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 […]

The post The Last Three Objections to Jesus Being a Myth appeared first on Richard Carrier Blogs.

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 […]

The post Is God Needed to Collapse the Wave Function? appeared first on Richard Carrier Blogs.

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 […]

The post Three Unexpected Recommendations in Philosophy appeared first on Richard Carrier Blogs.

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 […]

The post The Earth Will Be Destroyed Very Soon appeared first on Richard Carrier Blogs.