O’Connell’s Closing Statement (2008)   Response to “On Over What?” Of course, I think that the alternative explanations I propose are not just possible, but probable. However, the audience will have to decide this for themselves. According to several prominent lexicons, the normal meaning of “ependyomai” is “to put on one garment over another garment.” […]

O’Connell’s Second Rebuttal (2008)   The Meaning of “Resurrection” First, to clarify my original point, the word anastasis does not always refer to resurrection. It can simply mean “to rise up” in a mundane sense (e.g. rising up out of bed). But my intended point was that in those cases in which anastasis does refer […]

O’Connell’s First Rebuttal (2008)   Response to “What Paul Said” Carrier here throws out a number of passages which he thinks make better sense if Paul accepted a two-body theory of resurrection (hereafter 2BT). But it can be clearly demonstrated that all of these passages are either better explained on a one-body theory (hereafter 1BT), […]

O’Connell’s Opening Statement (2008)   The Meaning of “Resurrection” Whenever the word “resurrection” (anastasis) occurs in Jewish sources within and around the first century A.D., it always denotes a “one-body” notion of resurrection. This fact has been amply demonstrated by N. T. Wright’s thorough examination of the sources.[1] Although there were disagreements over the details […]

What We Are Debating (2008)   Welcome to On Paul’s Theory of Resurrection: The Carrier-O’Connell Debate. Here Richard and Jake co-wrote and approved a joint statement stating as clearly as possible what claims each intends to defend here. JOINT STATEMENT In this debate Richard Carrier will defend the thesis that the Apostle Paul probably embraced […]

Carrier’s Closing Statement (2008)   The Stronger Case Prevails   I remain convinced. More likely than not, Paul did not believe the corpse of Jesus rose from the dead, but that Jesus left his corpse behind and rose from the dead in an entirely new body. Therefore, Paul did not need to believe the tomb […]

Carrier’s Second Rebuttal (2008)   Possibly is Not Probably   O’Connell’s general mode of argument is to propose possible alternative explanations for everything. But possibility is not probability. And some of his arguments (like those repeating his seed-plant analysis) I already refuted in my first rebuttal, so I will only address here what’s new. 1. […]

Carrier’s First Rebuttal (2008)   A Weaker Case Cannot Defeat a Stronger   O’Connell makes five arguments. None establish his case. I will treat each in turn, then reiterate my conclusion.   1. Vocabulary Argument O’Connell: Whenever the word “resurrection” (anastasis) occurs in Jewish sources within and around the first century A.D., it always denotes […]

Carrier’s Opening Statement (2008)   Two Bodies: One in the Sky, One in the Grave   1. Basic Argument When the Apostle Paul was asked “How are the dead raised? With what sort of body do they come?” he answered “that which you sow is not the body that will come to be” but “God […]

Who We Are (2008)   Welcome to On Paul’s Theory of Resurrection: The Carrier-O’Connell Debate. Here Richard and Jake explain who they are. Richard Carrier: Richard Carrier has a Ph.D. in ancient history from Columbia University. He specializes in ancient science and religion, and has written on early Christianity both online and in print. He […]

I Was a Big Bang Skeptic (2002) Richard Carrier The ultimate resource has now become available online surveying all the evidence supporting the Big Bang theory, compiled by professional cosmologists: Evidence for the Big Bang (2006), by Bjürn Feuerbacher and Ryan Scranton, in the Talk.Origins Archive. For readers interested in why we should believe the […]

You are probably looking for the article “Was There a Big Bang? I Honestly Don’t Know” by Richard Carrier. It has been removed from the web because I no longer agree with its argument. I have now stated and defended my new position in the essay ” I Was a Big Bang Skeptic” (2002). The […]

Two Examples of Faulty Bible Scholarship (1999) Richard Carrier   In response to remarks by Douglas Wilson in a debate with Ted Drange (see Wilson’s first rebuttal), I have written on two examples of how some Christians don’t understand the importance of scholarship in truly understanding the New Testament, centering around 1 Timothy. The first […]

What Can We Infer from the Present about the Past? (2006) Richard Carrier   In “Do No Miracles Today Imply None in the Past? A Critique of Richard Carrier’s Methodology,” Amy Sayers responds to an argument in my collection of essays “Why I Don’t Buy the Resurrection Story” (6th ed., 2006). In particular, she responds […]

Isaiah also says this Servant will be “cut off” though “he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth,” then Daniel later says the Messiah will be “cut off” though “there is no legal judgment against him.” These sure sound like the same man. In fact, it sounds like Daniel is alluding […]

Bad Science, Worse Philosophy: the Quackery and Logic-Chopping of David Foster’s The Philosophical Scientists (2000)   Addendum H: The Reality of Viral Evolution Richard Carrier   Richard Daniel has pointed out that the picture is more complex than this. First of all, “evolution doesn’t go in a straight line from simple to complex; it wanders […]

Bad Science, Worse Philosophy: the Quackery and Logic-Chopping of David Foster’s The Philosophical Scientists (2000)   Addendum G: Microbial Replication Richard Carrier   Hoyle says in Our Place in the Cosmos: The Unfinished Revolution that “a typical time for replication under favorable conditions would be two or three hours” (p. 35) so that in a […]

Bad Science, Worse Philosophy: the Quackery and Logic-Chopping of David Foster’s The Philosophical Scientists (2000)   Addendum F: Hemoglobin Protein Specificity Richard Carrier   Foster claims originally that hemoglobin consists of 574 proteins and that all must be specific, but later retracts this by admitting that only 516 are invariant, the remainder being neutral or […]

Bad Science, Worse Philosophy: the Quackery and Logic-Chopping of David Foster’s The Philosophical Scientists (2000)   Addendum E: Zero Entropy Richard Carrier   Although there is no such thing as zero entropy in reality, it does exist as a mathematical ideal. In Thermodynamics: Foundations and Applications by Elias P. Gyftopoulos and Gian Paolo Bereth (MacMillan, […]

Bad Science, Worse Philosophy: the Quackery and Logic-Chopping of David Foster’s The Philosophical Scientists (2000)   Addendum D: Precedents Richard Carrier   Since I wrote this, I discovered that a real expert, Bernd-Olaf Küppers, had already done something similar to what I do in the rest of this chapter. His work is rigorous enough to […]

Bad Science, Worse Philosophy: the Quackery and Logic-Chopping of David Foster’s The Philosophical Scientists (2000) Richard Carrier The following material was updated in 2006, in light of the publication of Richard Carrier’s article, “The Argument from Biogenesis: Probabilities against a Natural Origin of Life,” Biology & Philosophy 19.5 (November, 2004), pp. 739-64. An important discussion […]

Bad Science, Worse Philosophy: the Quackery and Logic-Chopping of David Foster’s The Philosophical Scientists (2000) Richard Carrier The following material examines arguments officially and formally refuted in Richard Carrier, “The Argument from Biogenesis: Probabilities against a Natural Origin of Life,” Biology & Philosophy 19.5 (November, 2004), pp. 739-64. Note the clarification added to Addendum C […]

Browse the Secular Web Bookstore for books on Freethought. Freethought Freethought Challenges of the ’90s (1992) by Fred Edwords Science and technology are transforming the world’s values more dramatically and more completely than organized religion has ever been capable of. Because so many people cannot deal comfortably with the moral dilemmas raised by the new […]

The Origin of the Word Agnostic Bill Young There is little doubt that Thomas Henry Huxley invented the word agnostic in the Spring of 1869. However, there is conflicting evidence about when this was and what it originally meant. According to R. H. Hutton, as published in the New English Dictionary, Huxley first used the […]

Agnosticism An Agnostic Theology (2010) by Kile Jones Insofar as theology depends upon revelation, can it possibly be agnostic? Kile Jones argues that an “agnostic theology” is not only not a contradiction in terms, but is an intellectually honest position that allows one to provide reasons for possible belief in God while simultaneously allowing reasons […]

Faith and Reason Agnosticism Freethought Logic FAQ Do Religious Life and Critical Thought Need Each Other? by Richard Carrier Text of a paper published in the Fall (1996) issue of Inquiry: Critical Thinking Across the Disciplines, addressing why and how religious experience is to be approached critically, using Buddhist meditation as the central example. “Happy […]

Why I Am Not a Hindu Ramendra Nath Originally published by Bihar Rationalist Society (Bihar Buddhiwadi Samaj) 1993. Electronically reprinted with permission.   I have read and admired Bertrand Russell’s Why I Am Not a Christian. On the other hand, I have also read and disagreed with M.K.Gandhi’s Why I Am a Hindu. My acquaintance […]

Is God Dead? (An Introduction to Kya ishwar mar chuka hai?) Dr. Ramendra Nath Reader, Department of Philosophy, Patna College Patna University Originally published by the Buddhiwadi Foundation 216-A, S.K.Puri, Patna 800 001, Bihar, India Electronically reprinted here with permission. Foreword     Preface Introduction "Is god dead?" This is the literal meaning of the Hindi title […]