Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Appearing in Ventura

Atheists United, who is sponsoring my work On the Historicity of Jesus Christ (in progress), will be hosting a preview of my La Verne talk (Monday March 9) in Ventura, California, the previous day (Sunday March 8), followed by a cocktail fundraiser for Atheists United (at a different location). This will make my talk reachable by people too far from La Verne to make that trip, and it'll give my book's local supporters a précis of the book's argument (minus the rigorous mathematical details--maybe someday I'll give a tutorial on Bayes' Theorem, but a host group would have to ask...and convince me they won't find it too dull to stand :-).

Here are the details (more at AU):

Topic: "Why I Think Jesus Didn't Exist"
Time: 4pm (until 5:30 or 6pm)
Date: Sunday March 8
Location: In
the Topping Room at the E.P. Foster Library (651 East Main Street, Ventura 93001)

This event will be free and open to the public. The following party (at a private location in Oxnard) will be more limited. At the very least I will expect attendees to donate something to AU.
Those interested should contact the organizers for more information about that, well in advance (email communications@atheistsunited.org)

The probability is increasing that I will have copies of my new book Not the Impossible Faith to sell at this event (at a discount, and well in advance of its appearance on Amazon in a month or two, when I'll blog in more detail about it). I will also have old back stock of Sense and Goodness without God that I'll be selling cheap (especially for those who want an extra copy they can loan out, give to friends or family, or trash up themselves with dog-earing and highlighting and scribbling and whatnot) as well as some copies of The Empty Tomb for those who don't already have one.

7 comments:

Zachary Moore said...

If you ever have a wild hair to travel to North Texas, please do let me know. I'm Executive Director of the North Texas Church of Freethought and would love to arrange a similar lecture.

AIGBusted said...

Richard,

I hope you'll record and post your La Verne talk.

Ryan

AIGBusted said...

BTW, Is "Not the Impossible Faith" a verbatim copy of your online book "Was Christianity Too Improbable to be False?" or have you made changes to it?

neander said...

Looking forward to the 'historicity' book.

Richard Carrier said...

Zachary Moore said... If you ever have a wild hair to travel to North Texas...

I doubt I'll ever be around there unless someone pays my expenses.

AIGBusted said... I hope you'll record and post your La Verne talk.

Not in my power. But if the La Verne group does, I'll blog it.

Is "Not the Impossible Faith" a verbatim copy of your online book "Was Christianity Too Improbable to be False?" or have you made changes to it?

Various changes, to the point that it supercedes as an edition, but nothing so significant that you "need" to buy the book if you're content with the online text (although I shall be referencing the print edition from now on). Basically, I folded everything in Chapter 19 into the other 18 Chapters (where the various items in 19 belonged), folded many endnotes into the main text, wrote a new brief introduction, rewrote some sections for clarity, made a slew of minor corrections and additions, and smoothed the readability in several places. Apart from all that, the main advantage of the book is that you can now cite it by page number (if you have a copy), and carry it around and loan it around and write notes in the margins and highlight it and whatnot (I made sure it had proper 1" margins throughout this time). Personally, I just prefer reading physical books--lounging wherever I want, no eye strain, no battery or outlet issues, lighter to carry, easier page turning and estimating of reading time, can stuff a bookmark where I left off, etc. It's pricey online (can't be helped, Lulu passes all costs on to the customer), but IMO it's worth the $20 I'll sell it for in person, especially if you want to start building a Richard Carrier collection on your bookshelf, or take advantage of any of the other merits listed above. And of course I'll sign it.

Ben said...

I take it you still don't know what topic you will be lecturing on earlier in the day in Missouri?

Richard Carrier said...

See my comment on March 17 after the W.L. Craig debate post.