A group of UK freethinkers who maintain an Arabic website interviewed me a few months ago. That interview is now online. See tabee3i Interview with Dr. Richard Carrier. In it I discuss (counter-intuitively) why naturalism is a stronger position than mere atheism, how I think closet atheists and doubters under oppressive Islamic regimes should cope with their situation (and how godless parents should raise their kids in comparably oppressive religious societies like America's Bible Belt),
and what I would do if I were elected President of the United States (as if we all fell into some bizarre parallel universe where that would be possible). Plus (more briefly) a few other things, including a bit about my life and loves.
Ben Dench at the liberal-progressive OEN (OpEdNews) web news service conducted and published an extended interview of me on a variety of topics. It's now available online. We discuss the future of Christianity, the role of secularism in improving society, my beefs with professional philosophy, and my proposal that a lottery for congress would be superior to the current election process. And a few other things besides.
Just a quick notice: at 11pm EST (8pm PCT) tomorrow (Thursday, August 27, 2009), Missouri State's student run internet station, The Growl, will be having a conversation with me on a variety of topics, including the new chapters I prepared for an upcoming anthology by John Loftus (one of those agreements I made years ago that finally came due, I'll blog it when it hits the presses next year), and various things about faith, science, cosmology, and why we bother criticizing religion. This is part of the run up to the big MSU Skepticon II event this November, but I'll tell you all about that in a couple of weeks (I'm waiting for the completion of their official website, which should be any day now). For now, if you're keen, you can listen in tomorrow by going to The Growl online and clicking 'listen' at the designated hour. It doesn't appear they archive shows, so if you miss it live, you missed it for good. I apologize for the short notice, but they only just asked me last night!
Last year I recorded a new lengthy interview for the Polyschizmatic Reprobates Hour on Rodney Stark's disastrously awful treatment of ancient science. Dan the Demented cut the show into three parts, the third on other topics, but the first two on Stark. Those two episodes are now up and available, on the PRH website and as podcasts. You can listen to them here: [Season 3 Episode 3] [Season 3 Episode 4]. Together this is essentially a two-part lambaste of Rodney Stark's embarrassing forray into ancient history, where I pillory his claim that Christianity made science possible, by educating the listener on the actual historical facts of Greco-Roman science (and technology). We quote his books For the Glory of God and The Victory of Reason and dissect their absurd falsehoods point-by-point. Each show runs 45 minutes.
The nature of an off-the-cuff interview lends itself to occasional slips of wording, so I must correct two of those: (1) obviously I meant to say a catheter goes into the bladder, not the kidney (they had a separate instrument that could enter the kidney to extract kidney stones); and (2) it was Ptolemy's lunar orbit that was (in combined motions) nearly elliptical, not his planetary orbits (the latter were still non-circular, describing curlycues, and were still eccentric, with velocities varying in reference to a focal point anticipating Kepler's Second Law--they would only have been nearly elliptical if anyone translated his system to a heliocenter).
A more concise and thoroughly vetted and referenced version of this show's argument will appear in a forthcoming book being edited by John Loftus.
On Thursday April 30 (2009) at 5pm PST (8pm EST) I will be the guest on The Infidel Guy (a godless internet radio show, for those not in the know), for about an hour. It will be by phonecon, which I hate, but it will be casual and informal, and topical. We might wander over many subjects, but the big three will be my thoughts on The Jesus Project, my recent debate with William Lane Craig, and my new book Not the Impossible Faith.
Go to the website for The Infidel Guy to learn how to listen live (I believe only subscribers can listen to archived shows after that). I think you can also listen live through iTunes (just search Infidel Guy in the podcasts section to find the feed). His website also has a phone number for calling questions in as the show airs.
As many know I was interviewed for the film The God Who Wasn't There, which came out years ago and includes an extended version of my interview in the DVD extras. When I finally got to see the film, I privately circulated (eventually to journalists, academics, colleagues and others) a brief white paper on potential errors in it (only regarding the first third regarding ancient history, as that's my field). I then forgot about it. Several people recently have asked me about the film again, which reminded me I should just publish my brief. It is now available via my website as Critical Notes on the Movie The God Who Wasn't There (2005). Some of the points I make in that document I have since revised in subtle ways (as will be clear in my book On the Historicity of Jesus Christ), but it's adequate enough to stand un-edited from the original.
People have also asked me my opinion of the film. In general, the movie is as much about the supernatural God who isn't there (the Jesus everyone believes is going to come back from outer space and kill us) as the historical man who wasn't there, so it's not exactly a documentary about historicity (that subject only occupies something like a third of the film and is covered entertainingly but briefly). I find the film fun, funny, well-edited, and (for the most part) well-produced. It's definitely a feel good movie for atheists, and it definitely pisses off Christians to no end. I like it.
But it's not PBS edufare. GWWT suffers from the unavoidable problem of all entertaining documentaries:
it oversimplifies things. But it's nowhere near as egregiously full of sh*t as Zeitgeist: The Movie, which has been thoroughly debunked as absolute garbage by several knowledgeable commentators (the best critiques are catalogued by Jim Lippard at the end of his own blog post on that awful doco). I wouldn't recommend Zeitgeist at all. But I only wouldn't recommend GWWT as a scholarly introduction to Jesus Myth theory. I still recommend it as awesome entertainment, played out with acceptable license. It takes liberties, but they aren't that excessive (as my white paper explains), and if you want authoritative discussion, you really ought to be reading a book instead.
[Though I grant you,
there aren't any such books I'd recommend yet, beyond Doherty's The Jesus Puzzle, which is in its own ways flawed and incomplete--as you might glean from my critical review.
Besides what you can read there, what I would say Doherty's book is lacking (and only because it's impossible for a single book to include everything) is coverage of a variety of essential supplementary topics, such as the fiction-myth analysis of the Gospels provided in Randel Helms' Gospel Fictions, which I also highly recommend (even though Helms doesn't argue Jesus didn't exist).]
I'm going to be in another movie. Sort of.
I first became acquainted with Roger Nygard from his films Trekkies and Trekkies 2. Trekkies was superb--funny, informative, moving, yet with a real love of his subject. Trek fans only come off looking as silly as they actually are, and it's all humor in good fun (with an underlying message of humanism that's actually very Trekkie itself).
Watching the first one inspired Jen and I to rent Trekkies 2, and we actually loved that one even more. It takes the same theme worldwide, looking at Star Trek fans in other countries. Which was actually the more amazing and moving. When you watch Bosnian Trek fans explaining why they love Star Trek's vision of a future golden age of peace and prosperity among all mankind, as a philosophy and vision for their own troubled times, it kind of means a lot more than when you hear it from some American suburbanite. I just can't recommend both films more. If you haven't seen them, you should.
Anyway, Nygard has turned his brilliant and funny eye from the life of Star Trek trivia to the biggest of big topics: the meaning of life. With his new film--many years in the making, spanning the globe--he brings you The Nature of Existence. Roger actually interviewed me for this (last year I think), and shot a lot of footage, but alas I'm told I get only one line in the film (though Roger assures me it's a good one, I don't really know). It's possible more of my interview will appear in something like web or DVD extras, but no guarantees, and anyway it's a long way from those formats yet. It's still a film in the can, and it premiers at the Cinequest Festival in San Jose, California in a couple of weeks (Sunday, March 8, 2009), "at the palatial California Theatre," where there will be a screening and closing night gala starting at 7:30 p.m.
Roger didn't want me to tell anyone he was making this movie until it was done, which is why I haven't said anything until now (besides a hint not too long ago). Since I haven't seen it, I don't know how good it is, but I think the probability is very high that it will not only be good, but almost certainly better than Religulous (which I had some issues with). Unfortunately I'll be in Southern California that day, so I can't make the premiere. I hope some fans will, and report back on it in comments here.
Follow the links above for more details, trailers, and so on.
I'll be on live broadcast radio this Friday evening, discussing the origins of Christmas and the historicity of Jesus.
It's the new Lowwdown show on KCAA 1050 AM (an NBC affiliate), which hits some of the Riverside market in Southern California (but you can also listen online from their website), with hosts Robert and Loredana (The Legal Diva). Normally I don't do call-in shows anymore, but since this one's broadcasting to a major market (albeit on a minor station) and is relatively mellow and the hosts are nice, I'll see how it goes. The show airs Fridays from 6-7pm (and they do take calls during the show). I'll be on this Friday (December 19), probably not for the whole thing, but maybe the first half-hour or so (the show actually starts around 6:06pm and will have a bunch of intro from the hosts, though that may come up later, since I'm the critical one, as you know). For those who miss it, it should eventually be archived for streaming or downloading (to run the mp3 for that specific show click here).
The San Francisco Exploratorium has launched a new website on "Evidence: How We Know What We Know." I was interviewed some time ago for this new launch, and elements of that interview are now available on their site as a podcast. Go to their new project page (above), click "Enter the Site" and select the Podcasts option down on the right side. I'm the second guest. It's about eleven minutes on "Why do Nutcrackers Work? (and other historical questions of science)," where I talk about the ancient origins of modern scientific values and the meaning of this for today.
There was perhaps an hour of Q&A recorded, but only ten minutes were used. Though I understand the need of that, this did create some problems. The editor stitched together elements of my answers into a continuous lecture. So you don't hear the questions I'm answering, or the entirety of my answers, so it sounds like I'm just rambling from topic to topic. Hearing it back I found it a little confusing at times. For example, in the full discourse I would quicken my pace at points to emphasize certain things before and after, but if you just keep the middle bit it sounds like I'm just arbitrarily talking too fast. And the change of topics can seem odd this way, there being no context or explanation of why suddenly I'm talking about something else. For example, my explanation of who Ptolemy was and when he lived wasn't included, until later on in the podcast, so at first it sounds like I just out of the blue start talking about this Ptolemy guy.
But otherwise there are some gems in there, and in the other podcasts. There are also other cool things on that site that are great, though it's all mainly for kids and teens. Currently the site is about the introductory basics of evolution science, but emphasizing the neat cutting-edge stuff scientists are now doing in the field, and how they learn from it, rather than just giving you a class on evolution. The aim of the Exploratorium is to get people excited about science. So it tries to spy out what's exciting, rather than merely lecturing at you. And the How Do You Know? project is about how we know things, the basic underlying methodology and way of looking at data. Its inaugural test case is evolution (though my podcast isn't about that, just science in general). But cases from other sciences will be added over time.
It occurred to me recently that many of my fans might not know that I have several significant letters to the editor published in journals, and have appeared on many web radio shows, since none of these are listed anywhere else. So this post is for anyone who wants to obsessively read and hear everything significant of mine, and didn't know about my work in letters and radio.
Christopher Ray interviewed me for Associated Content. See "An Exclusive Interview With Richard Carrier" ( March 20, 2007). It's fairly brief, but I talk more about my Coast Guard experience than I have anywhere else, and about some other things that don't usually come up, so fans might be keen to read it. In addition, for those who are curious, the only projects I'm currently on (and very busy with) are my dissertation and my Jesus Tomb article (see previous entry).
Recently I was asked to help Reginald Finley (The Infidel Guy) interview Gary Habermas and Mike Licona on why they believe Jesus was raised from the dead by God. This event went off disastrously, and a few days later I wrote here about why I thought it had, in an entry for Monday, November 6, 2006. Many people responded, and several of them made valid observations that convinced me I was wrong about a lot of things. In my original post I was inappropriately harsh, one-sided, and unfair to all sides, and mistaken on a few points. I felt it was unfair to the producer and the guests of Reggie's show to leave my blog entry as it was, so I am now rewriting it to reflect my change of perspective.
Everything I now believe is relevant and correct is included below. But anyone with gobs of time on their hands who wants to read my original entry and the discussion that followed can download the text of the whole thread by clicking here. That is only a temporary location, but when it goes down, anyone who is still interested can email me a request to send it by attachment.
A group of UK freethinkers who maintain an Arabic website interviewed me a few months ago. That interview is now online. See tabee3i Interview with Dr. Richard Carrier. In it I discuss (counter-intuitively) why naturalism is a stronger position than mere atheism, how I think closet atheists and doubters under oppressive Islamic regimes should cope with their situation (and how godless parents should raise their kids in comparably oppressive religious societies like America's Bible Belt),
and what I would do if I were elected President of the United States (as if we all fell into some bizarre parallel universe where that would be possible). Plus (more briefly) a few other things, including a bit about my life and loves.
