Reading Time: 3 minutes Being that we are happily debating the definition of naturalism on various threads here, after various posts, I thought I would defer to a post on Richard Carrier’s old old blog (H/T Jim Baerg). I like his definition that I will admittedly decontextualise and paste here because it strips it of a lot of semantic guff […]
Richard Carrier
Posted inEthics and Morality
Morality: Goal Theory vs Desirism
Reading Time: < 1 minute Here are two atheists, Richard Carrier and Mike McKay, debating morality some time back. I am showing this because I think I will be doing a post or two on desirism at some point, a la Alonso Fyfe. I do have fairly similar views to Carrier’s on morality but desirism looks an interesting project. The videos […]
Posted inUncategorized
Everything You Wanted to Know about Judas but Were Afraid to Ask
Reading Time: 6 minutes Some years ago, I read Richard Carrier’s excellent book “Proving History” which essentially sets out a case for the use of Bayes’s Theorem (BT) in historical contexts in order to work out the most probable explanation for a given event, or the relative probabilities for alternative explanations. In his first book, Carrier sets out the […]
Posted inReligion
Lydia McGrew’s Argument from Miracles, and How It Fails
Reading Time: 10 minutes I recently ran across an essay by Lydia McGrew. She claims to be making a no-fail argument for Christianity’s validity. As we’ll see shortly, however, it is neither unique nor successful. Today I’ll show you her weird take on the logical fallacy called the Argument from Miracles, and also how it fails on an almost comical scale.
Posted inHistory
My Views on Jesus Mythicism Revisited
Reading Time: 5 minutes I recently expressed my views on Jesus mythicism and my position was quite robustly critiqued, which is great. I mean, that’s why I do this. However, I was only expressing my conclusions rather than giving a full run-down of my analysis. Let me, for those who missed it, remind people: To give a massive subject a very […]
Posted inPolitics
Christianity Is Fundamentally Opposed to Freedom of Speech
Reading Time: 4 minutes I thought I’d resurrect this one from a few years back. In reading Richard Carrier’s excellent chapter in John Loftus’ superb Christianity is not Great in which I have a chapter myself, there is much to glean concerning matters of democracy and the American Constitution in the context of the Bible and religion. It is funny […]
Posted inUncategorized
Joseph of Arimathea as Fictional
Reading Time: < 1 minute Joseph of Arimathea used to be used by William Lane Craig as a pillar of his truth claims for the Resurrection, itself one of the four cornerstones of his apology. Richard Carrier, amongst others, has provided some very interesting viewpoints on the historicity of this figure (or lack thereof). Craig no longer seems to reference […]
Posted inReligion
How Christianity’s Golden Age of Coercion Began.
Reading Time: 10 minutes We’ve been talking lately about the origins of Christianity and how it retains power even today. There’s one truth above all others, as far as I can see it, regarding this religion: without coercion, Christianity never would have gotten big.
Posted inHistory
Joseph of Arimathea As a Rich Prophecy Fulfilment
Reading Time: 4 minutes I have spoken about Joseph of Arimathea before, in the videos linked below. Just reading a chapter by Robert M. Price in The End of Christianity, I came across this very simple aspect which shows, to me at any rate, that Matthew’s sole job seemed to be to contrive as many random prophecy fulfilments from the […]
Posted inPhilosophy
Naturalism vs Supernaturalism: In Defence of Methodological Naturalism – Which Horse Wins?
Reading Time: 4 minutes I once had a debate elsewhere with a fellow Tippling Philosopher and rushed out this response. He was arguing that science might not have the answer, that a supernatural explanation should not be ruled out. He stated: Then, there you go again JP with your “there is shed loads of (presumably scientific) research” to back up your […]