Was Christianity Too Improbable to be False? (2006) [See Introduction]   Richard Carrier   5. Who Would Join a Moral Order? Every scholar of antiquity has noted the broad interest among the ancient Greeks and Romans in philosophies that promoted a strong moral order. Every great philosophy was morally demanding—in fact, that is precisely why […]

Was Christianity Too Improbable to be False? (2006) [See Introduction]   Richard Carrier   18. How Successful Was Christianity? 18.1 Assumptions 18.2 Numbers: What the Christians Say 18.3 Numbers: What the Experts Say 18.4 With Whom Did Christianity Begin? 18.5 The Rise of World Christianity 18.6 Conclusion   18.1. Assumptions In previous chapters, we have sufficiently demonstrated that there was nothing […]

Was Christianity Too Improbable to be False? (2006) [See Introduction]   Richard Carrier   6. Who Would Join an Intolerant Cult? James Holding quotes DeSilva’s comment that “the message about this Christ was incompatible with the most deeply rooted religious ideology of the Gentile world, as well as the more recent message propagated in Roman […]

Was Christianity Too Improbable to be False? (2006) [See Introduction]   Richard Carrier   9. Was the Idea of an Incarnate God Really Repugnant? James Holding cites Earl Doherty for the argument that Jews would never believe “that a human man was the Son of God,” much less deserved “all the titles of divinity and […]

Was Christianity Too Improbable to be False? (2006) [See Introduction]   Richard Carrier   14. Was the Apparent Ignorance of Jesus a Problem? James Holding argues that “if you want a decent deity, you have to make him fully respectable,” yet “ignorance of future or present events” is embarrassing and would be a big hurdle […]

Was Christianity Too Improbable to be False? (2006) [See Introduction]   Richard Carrier   12. Did No One Respect the Opinions of Uneducated Laymen? James Holding argues that “Peter and John were dismissed based on their social standing,” citing Acts 4:13, which “reflects a much larger point of view among the ancients,” of hostility to […]

Was Christianity Too Improbable to be False? (2006) [See Introduction]   Richard Carrier   2. Who Would Follow a Man from Galilee? 2.1 Two Key Problems 2.2 Getting the Context Right 2.3 Working Class Rabbi 2.4 The Galilean Connection 2.5 The Gospel of John 2.6 The Role of Messianic Prophecy 2.7 Why a Virgin Birth? 2.8 Conclusion   2.1. Two Key Problems James […]

Was Christianity Too Improbable to be False? (2006) [See Introduction]   Richard Carrier   7. Was Christianity Highly Vulnerable to Inspection and Disproof? 7.1 General Argument 7.2 The Problem of Differing Research Paradigms 7.3 The Problem of Luke’s Methods as a Historian 7.4 First Example: Luke on Paul’s Trial 7.5 Holding’s Argument Backfires 7.6 Second Example: Luke on Agrippa’s Cause of […]

Was Christianity Too Improbable to be False? (2006) [See Introduction]   Richard Carrier   1. Who Would Buy One Crucified? 1.1. Precedents and Distinctions 1.2. How Converts Differed from Critics 1.3. How Things Really Looked 1.4. Many Converts Expected a Humiliated Savior 1.5. Conclusion   1.1. Precedents and Distinctions James Holding asks: “Who on earth would believe a religion centered […]

Was Christianity Too Improbable to be False? (2006) [See Introduction]   Richard Carrier   17. Did the Earliest Christians Encourage Critical Inquiry? 17.1 Holding’s Bogus Evidence 17.2 Method as Revealed in Paul 17.3 Survey of Passages Relating to Method 17.4 Conclusion   17.1. Holding’s Bogus Evidence Holding claims that “throughout the NT, the apostles encouraged people to check” and […]

Was Christianity Too Improbable to be False? (2006) [See Introduction]   Richard Carrier   10. Would Groupthinkers Never Switch Groups? 10.1 Getting it Backwards 10.2 What Do Malina & Neyrey Really Say? 10.3 How Christianity Fits the Malina-Neyrey Model 10.4 Malina & Neyrey on the Role of Revelation 10.5 Lack of Evidence for Holding’s View 10.6 Conclusion   10.1. Getting it […]

Was Christianity Too Improbable to be False? (2006) [See Introduction]   Richard Carrier   15. Who Would Follow an Executed Criminal? Not much needs to be said about Holding’s next point, which simply duplicates what he already argued earlier: that “Jesus endured disgrace–and thereby also offended the sensibilities of his contemporaries” by being mocked and […]

Was Christianity Too Improbable to be False? (2006) [See Introduction]   Richard Carrier   13. Would the Facts Be Checked? 13.1 Boiling away the Hyperbole 13.2 Evidence from Acts 13.3 Evidence from Early Apologists 13.4 Conclusion   13.1. Boiling away the Hyperbole Revisiting an earlier argument, James Holding contends that “Christian claims would have been easy to check out […]

Was Christianity Too Improbable to be False? (2006) Richard Carrier   Not the Impossible Faith: Why Christianity Didn’t Need a Miracle to Succeed Now available as a book, fully updated and reorganized. This is the definitive edition of “Was Christianity Too Improbable to Be False?” Even better than online, improved and revised throughout. Available at […]

What Do We Do When Some Theist We Don’t Know Sends Us E-mail? (1997) Richard Carrier   The Basic Guidelines 1) Always respond. 2) If the letter was abusive or childish, politely but curtly say so, and that you wish to have no further contact with such a rude and immoral person, or else you […]

Review of The Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark (by Dennis R. MacDonald; Yale University, 2000) By Richard Carrier An Incredible Book This is an incredible book that must be read by everyone with an interest in Christianity. MacDonald’s shocking thesis is that the Gospel of Mark is a deliberate and conscious anti-epic, an […]

William Lane Craig, Herodotus, and Myth Formation (1999) Richard Carrier This essay addresses one specific argument made by William Lane Craig, to the effect that “tests” from Herodotus demonstrate that myths or legends (such as resurrection appearances or an empty tomb) cannot grow within a single generation. A great deal more could be said about […]

The End of Pascal’s Wager: Only Nontheists Go to Heaven (2002) Richard Carrier   The End of Pascal’s Wager: Only Nontheists Go to Heaven The following argument could be taken as tongue-in-cheek, if it didn’t seem so evidently true. At any rate, to escape the logic of it requires theists to commit to abandoning several […]

Kersey Graves and The World’s Sixteen Crucified Saviors (2003) Richard Carrier [Editor’s note: This is a conflation of three responses which were made by Richard Carrier to feedback and e-mail involving questions about the scholarhip of Kersey Graves, in particular, and about scholarship, in general, in the subject area about which Graves concerned himself in […]

Generalia (Bibliography of Skepticism in the Ancient World) (1998) Richard Carrier (copyright 1999)   Generalia Alexander, Loveday, “The Living Voice: Scepticism Towards the Written Word in Early Christian and in Graeco-Roman Texts,” in The Bible in Three Dimensions: Essays in Celebration of Forty Years of Biblical Studies in the University of Sheffield, D. Clines, and […]

Bad Science, Worse Philosophy: the Quackery and Logic-Chopping of David Foster’s The Philosophical Scientists (2000)   9. The Odds of Life Evolving by Chance Richard Carrier   Advance to: Shuffling Cards Advance to: Typing Monkeys Advance to: Hemoglobin and the T4 Genome I have surveyed most of the strangeness of Foster’s book. But I have […]

Bad Science, Worse Philosophy: the Quackery and Logic-Chopping of David Foster’s The Philosophical Scientists (2000)   8. Misrepresenting Darwinism Richard Carrier   Foster’s main enemy is Darwinism, which he claims to have ‘refuted.’ But he seems to have no proper idea of what Darwinism actually is. Some of his misrepresentations may be polemic. Take for […]

Bad Science, Worse Philosophy: the Quackery and Logic-Chopping of David Foster’s The Philosophical Scientists (2000)   7. Why Foster Needs to Take a Basic Thermodynamics Course Richard Carrier   The Second Law of Thermodynamics, or ‘The Law of Entropy,’ is a common feature of creationist arguments. More often than not it is totally misunderstood. Even […]

Bad Science, Worse Philosophy: the Quackery and Logic-Chopping of David Foster’s The Philosophical Scientists (2000)   6. Why Foster Needs to Take a Basic Physics Course Richard Carrier   On page 158 Foster demonstrates a very strange confusion. He begins with the seemingly innocent statement that in chemistry “the most economic and efficient processes are […]

Bad Science, Worse Philosophy: the Quackery and Logic-Chopping of David Foster’s The Philosophical Scientists (2000)   5. Why Foster Needs to Take a Basic Statistics Course Richard Carrier   Foster’s book is entirely dependent upon statistics, and his equations and calculations look impressive. But how he came about the use of them is a serious […]

Bad Science, Worse Philosophy: the Quackery and Logic-Chopping of David Foster’s The Philosophical Scientists (2000)   4. Why Foster Needs to Take a Basic Biology Course Richard Carrier   Now, I have already surveyed a hodge-podge of strange notions that threw me for a loop when I read them. But Foster’s mistakes extend beyond mere […]

Bad Science, Worse Philosophy: the Quackery and Logic-Chopping of David Foster’s The Philosophical Scientists (2000)   3. Exercises in Self-Refutation Richard Carrier   Some of Foster’s philosophizing can be used against his own position. Chapters 4 and 5, for example, are the only good chapters in the book, in my opinion, though they do not […]

Bad Science, Worse Philosophy: the Quackery and Logic-Chopping of David Foster’s The Philosophical Scientists (2000)   2. Some of Foster’s Strange Notions Richard Carrier   I will begin with examples of the more trivial of Foster’s strangeness, simply to prepare you for the worst. To begin with, Foster makes several amateurish philosophical errors that betray […]

Bad Science, Worse Philosophy: the Quackery and Logic-Chopping of David Foster’s The Philosophical Scientists (2000)   11. Conclusion Richard Carrier   Religionists are faced with the daunting sophistication, accuracy, and success of science, which can predict and explain everything it can study in terms so mathematically precise that nowhere can be found those ambiguities which […]

Bad Science, Worse Philosophy: the Quackery and Logic-Chopping of David Foster’s The Philosophical Scientists (2000)   10. Foster’s Biggest Blunder Richard Carrier   I have refuted Foster’s first argument, his claim that life is too improbable to have evolved through natural selection. But about half of Foster’s book is concerned with establishing or drawing conclusions […]