Battles have been raging online over the last month or so with regards to Ehrman's treatment of mythicism in his last book (Did Jesus Exist?: The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth, cobbled together from his debates, I believe) which was summed up here in his outspoken Huff Post article:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bart-d-ehrman/did-jesus-exist_b_1349544.html

Carrier responded to this with gusto in his excellent piece here:

http://freethoughtblogs.com/carrier/archives/667

 

Whic...

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As a fan of much of Richard Carrier's work, I am looking forward to watching this debate on whether Jesus was the Son of God or a mere apocalyptic prophet.


 
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Here are some notes I made some time ago on the Fine-Tuning argument. From memory, some of the ideas came from Richard Carrier in Sense and Goodness Without God. The argument looks like this (wiki):

The fine-tuned Universe is the proposition that the conditions that allow life in the Universe can only occur when certain universal fundamental physical constants lie within a very narrow range, so that if any of several fundamental constants were only slightly different, the Universe would be unl...
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I love this analogy for the intuitive brilliance and common sense that it makes. It exposes the explanatory weakness of supernaturalism and illustrates that it has been on the retreat ever since the new boy Science hit town. It can be found in many of Richard Carrier's writings, for example here. See what you think.




The cause of lightning was once thought to be God's wrath, but turned out to be the unintelligent outcome of mindless natural forces. We once thought an intelligent being must have...
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It always feels good to get a good evening's writing done. i must admit, I am really enjoying writing this new book (working title - 25 Reasons to Disbelieve the Nativity). I am some 20 odd pages in and I will certainly have enough pages to make a decent sized book. It is going to be a job making sure it is concise enough!

I am also rating Gerd Theissen's 'The Historical Jesus'. What a fantastic reference book it is turning out to be! I have just finished my opening background section on the G...
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