Apr 11 2013

Appearing in Irvine Next Week

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appearances

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I will be giving two talks at the University of California, Irvine, next Wednesday (April 17th, 2013). One for the Classics Department (in conjunction with the Interdisciplinary Program in the History and Philosophy of Science), and one for the campus chapter of the Secular Student Alliance (homepage on Facebook). Both talks are open to the public (parking and other details available here), with Q&A. I will definitely be selling and signing my books at the SSA event (not sure yet if that will be possible at the earlier departmental event).

The first talk will be at 2pm in Humanities Gateway room 1010 on Bayes’ Theorem and Historical Reasoning: How Historical Methods Can Be Improved and Why They Need to Be:

Drawing from his new book Proving History: Bayes’s Theorem and the Quest for the Historical Jesus (Prometheus, 2012), Dr. Richard Carrier will explain what Bayes’ Theorem is (in terms anyone in the humanities can understand), how it underlies all valid historical methods even when we don’t realize it, and why knowing this can improve historical reasoning and argument in all fields of history.

The second talk will be at 5pm in Social Science Lab (SSL) room 122 on Can Morality Be a Science? in which I’ll summarize my findings in The End of Christianity and Sense and Goodness without God regarding the prospect of science actually taking over the job of discerning moral truth (which means, not just studying morality descriptively, but prescriptively), in the same way it has taken over many other domains of philosophy (from cosmology and anthropology to psychology and cognitive science).

 

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Apr 10 2013

Is Thunderf00t a Sociopath?

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atheism plus, feminism, racism, replies, women

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In response to my video promoting positive goals and values for the atheist community (Atheism…Plus What?), Thunderf00t (whose real name is Phil Mason) has expanded his anti-feminist rants to the point that I am seriously worried he might have no empathy for other human beings at all. He is now even ranting against concern for minorities. His departure from logic and reason, in defense of abuse and amorality, is just weird, and makes it ironic that he claims my call for more community and compassion, honesty, and reasonableness is toxic to the atheism movement. Clearly, his chucking overboard empathy, women, minorities, and anything actually good for our community is what’s toxic. If his vision were realized, the atheist community would be a scary and awful place to be.

Before I break down what is most disturbing about his video, some backstory is needed. Read the rest of this entry »

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Apr 03 2013

Atheism…Plus What?

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atheism plus, morality, podcasts, sexism, video

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Picture of Dr. Carrier at the podium discussing Atheism Plus at the 2013 American Atheists conventionVideo of my talk at the 2013 American Atheists Convention (their 50th anniversary!) is now online. It is getting downvotes from the haters (even at one point more downs than ups). Please go watch that video (Atheism…Plus What?) and see if you can find anything in it that honestly deserves a downvote. Seriously. And if you don’t, please upvote it. Show the haters they don’t own the movement.

Others reading the comments (I can’t stomach such a task myself) tell me that the downvotes appear to be coming from people who didn’t even watch the video (or didn’t watch it all through). It appears, in fact, that these downvotes are there in an attempt to discourage people from watching the video, rather than representing disagreement with its actual content or quality or value.

Note that the Women in Atheism panel at AACon 2013 is also a must-view adjunct to this, since in it the women on the panel brilliantly answer some of the common questions that arose from my talk. Unfortunately that video is not yet online (I’m not sure if they are putting everything up or only select things). I will link it in here as soon as I find out it’s available. But one of the examples of what they addressed is the hyperskeptical claim that all the harassment of atheism women in our movement is done by hundreds of Christians posing as atheists, which actually should outrage you all the more if you really believed that (rather than using it as an excuse to do nothing about it). Greta Christina gave an excellent discourse on why that doubt is irrational (in short: we see the same phenomenon in every other movement, e.g. the gaming and tech industries, so we should not expect to be a miraculous exception), and other members of the panel added to that (such as pointing out that we have plenty of evidence a lot of them are atheists).

I also did a podcast last month on Atheism+ that went up just recently, in which I have a reasonable conversation with someone who disapproves of it, UK political scientist and Huffington Post blogger Tony Sobrado (listen to his Interview with Richard Carrier on Atheism Plus). No hating or flaming, and no straw men or other fallacies. He had concerns based on misunderstandings and missing or incorrect information, asked about them calmly, and gave me the opportunity to answer them. All without any atmosphere of hostility. A model for how to do this. In fact, we covered so much great ground that this is a really good conversation on A+ that could use a written transcript. If anyone has the time and gumption to create one, I will publish it on my blog, with credit.

That podcast was inspired by Sobrado’s Huffington Post article against Atheism+ “What Is Atheism Plus and Do We Need It?” and you can see how we addressed everything in his article on that show. So anyone who may have read that and wondered how we might respond (or was angered by it and wished someone would answer it), this is the podcast for you. But the AACon video is a good introductory piece to start with. The two together tell you pretty much all you need in order to understand what we’re really advocating in the Atheism+ movement and why.

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Mar 22 2013

Kiva Now or Never!

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atheism, charity

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Okay, time to do some good. The Atheists, Agnostics, Skeptics, Freethinkers, Secular Humanists and Non-Religious team at Kiva is just a few hundred members away from winning a $10,000 bonus matching fund. Let’s get them that bonus! It only costs you $25. (And maybe not even that yet…for a while, due to another matching grant, your first loan can be free for awhile.) That’s the minimum venture. But when you see the results, you might end up putting more in just because you think this is really cool. Join now. (Before the end of March! The deal ends then.)

For those not in the know, Kiva is an international charitable organization that specializes in providing cheap micro-loans to people around the world, especially in third world countries, to help them in their business and job ventures and just quality of life. The loan gets paid back eventually, and when that happens, you can redirect your $25 (or whatever you’ve put in) to someone else. And so on. So the same $25 keeps helping more and more people. You might lose it eventually, though the risk is extremely low (less than 1%), and hey, it’s just $25; you can easily afford to put another in and start again.

The double bonus is that if you join through our own Crommunist’s campaign (which I’ve linked to above but again it’s here), he gets a matching $25 credit to put into Kiva loans, so you are helping twice…or actually three times, if you count what your money does, plus what that bonus does, plus what the $10,000 will do if the AASFSHN meets its target member count. I just joined and helped a Mongolian truck driver get new brakes (possibly saving lives), as well as a couch and some clothes. And I upped the profile and success of the atheist team at Kiva.

You can do that, too! I mean, honestly. It doesn’t even cost you much of anything to start, or to continue (if you want to keep going at the minimum buy-in of just $25). The low risk shows the recipients are very diligent in repaying these loans (these are not freeloaders) and the benefit can be relatively huge. You can really make a difference in the world for almost nothing. Why not?

For more, see Crommunist’s post on this new development and his past diaries of how his own loan has been recycled over the past year and more to help lots of different people.

 

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Mar 19 2013

Status Report

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about, updates

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Two notes today, one to readers of my blog and another to the donors who funded Proving History and On the Historicity of Jesus Christ:

(1) Today I shall begin recording in studio for the audiobook edition of Not the Impossible Faith. Two other books have already been done and are available on Audible now (Why I Am Not a Christian and Sense and Goodness without God), and NIF will be the last of my own books to be turned into audio (though we will try to get audio rights for Proving History, too). That project will occupy me most of this week, in fact, leaving me little time to manage my blog. Then, next week, is the American Atheists convention, for which preparation, travel and attendance will again keep me too busy to do much else. So my blog will likely be on hiatus and comment moderation greatly delayed over the next two weeks. Just so you know. (Although I have one post already completed that I might throw up at some point amidst all that, and if I do find time I might do more.)

(2) I have sent an email today to all the donors to my historicity project. If you are an official donor to that project and did not receive that email, please email me right away so I can update my contact information for you. Then I can also send you that same email, which offers an advance look at the current draft of On the Historicity of Jesus Christ (which will differ from the published text, since it will likely be revised on advice from peer reviewers and editors before publication, but it will likely not differ in any radical way).

To everyone else who may be interested, note that OHJC has now entered the stage of peer review and contract negotiation, after which will be the publisher’s official editing and production phase (which can itself take many months). I am hoping peer review can be completed by July, which will likely mean an October or November publication–depending on how much revision needs to be done; if very little, it’s possible the book will be out even sooner. My ultimate target is to have copies for sale at this year’s Skepticon. Donors of course will eventually receive free copies by post just as with Proving History (except any who opt out of that benefit).

 

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Mar 15 2013

Record-Breaking Atheist Charity Drive

Categories:

atheism, charity, health, updates

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Last year I blogged about the national atheist community’s engagement with the Light the Night charity drive to fund Leukemia research (see This Is Atheist Charity and Charity Legend Update). Well, it achieved remarkable results. The atheist movement officially raised nearly half a million dollars (and may yet meet or exceed that target: see how to get involved again this year; in fact, read the whole letter from Todd Stiefel on why you should). The atheist charity hosting this drive for the The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, the Foundation Beyond Belief, raised “the largest amount ever raised by a first year non-corporate team” and “the 4th largest amount raised by any team in the nation in 2012, including corporate teams.” For this year’s drive, our own cancer-survivor Greta Christina is an honored hero with the FBB, and they are there seeking nominations for other honored heroes (see previous link).

All of this would have been unthinkable even ten years ago, much less twenty. The atheism movement, and its humanist moral conscience, is becoming an unavoidable contender in the interfaith community. You can help keep that momentum going. Because with it will come greater recognition and influence for us all.

 

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Mar 12 2013

That Christian Nation Nonsense (Gods Bless Our Pagan Nation)

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Christianity, morality, philosophy, politics

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This is a transcript of my speech at this year’s convention for the National Atheist Party (minus spontaneous asides and ad-libs). Though this was an oratorical adaptation and rearrangement of my previous work online (Christianity Was Not Responsible for American Democracy), it is also much improved and contains new material, and I received multiple requests from the audience to make a transcript of it available. This is my cue text, so it is not in every respect word-for-word what I spoke at the convention, but it is very near to it. I began with a quotation… Read the rest of this entry »

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Mar 04 2013

Sense and Goodness without God Now an Audio Book

Categories:

audiobooks, naturalism, philosophy, publications

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Cover for AudioBook edition of Sense and Goodness without GodMy flagship defense of a naturalist worldview (and of philosophy in general), Sense and Goodness without God: A Defense of Metaphysical Naturalism, is now available as an audio book, through Audible.com. It’s a fairly faithful reading, so even things I’d probably change now (mostly minor stuff) is still in there (I didn’t want to deviate too much into creating a second edition just yet), but I still had to leave out many of the internal cross references and all the bibliographies.

To get those bibliographies in audio, you still have to get something like the kindle edition and run voice-to-text on them. They frequently appear at the end of each section, and there are a lot of them. So to make that task easier, I’ve compiled a single PDF file on my website (Bibliographies for the Original 2005 Edition) that just has the bibliographies, one after another, on which you can then run text-to-speech (so you don’t have to try and search the book for where the bibliographies are, a tedious task for the visually impaired).

Do note that those bibliographies are obviously ten years out of date (I completed the book in early 2004, and it was published in 2005), but I wanted to make speech-conversion available for the original edition of the book. Even if I were to update these bibliographies, I would usually just be adding the most recent best works. The ones in there now are still relevant to their respective topics and represent what I was working from at the time. And there are still a lot of crucial readings and good recommendations in there. I have found that leading works published after 2003 (which I have been keeping track of) almost always further confirm my conclusions, or provide better and more up-to-date explanations of why the facts I was relying on are correct.

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Mar 01 2013

Appearing in Texas: American Atheists 50th!

Categories:

appearances, atheism plus

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I shall be one of the featured speakers at the American Atheists convention this month, in Austin, Texas, March 28-31 (2013). And I’m just one among a huge array of awesome folk presenting there: just look at this lineup! Yes, that’s Jay Jay French from Twisted Sister and recent United States congressman Peter Stark on the roster (at an explicitly atheist convention!)–along with a zillion other hoopy froods. Read all about this convention, who will be there, and how to get in and get accommodations, at their convention website. It’s their 50th anniversary, so this one is special. So many people will be speaking and performing there it’s mind boggling. If you can make it, do!

I’m currently slated for the 5:15pm slot that Friday (March 29th), but be aware that can sometimes change. My talk will be “Atheism…Plus What?” Yes. That’s right. Shock. Horror. I’ll summarize the backstory and aims and values of what we’ve been calling Atheism Plus and explain why I think it’s important (whatever we choose to call it) and how we can have reasonable critical discussions about it (instead of emotional kneejerk reactions). No Q&A is scheduled, but you can chat with me at the nightly afterparties.

They will be selling my books Proving History and Why I Am Not a Christian: Four Conclusive Reasons to Reject the Faith. If you can find me anywhere at the convention without interrupting a speaker, I’ll happily sign anything you have (whether bought there or something you brought with you).

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Feb 28 2013

Harriet Hall Redeemed

Categories:

atheism plus, morality, updates

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Getting back to things I missed this past week and a half while I was away, I have good news to report on the infamous “big rifts” front. In my original post for Atheism+ I included what appeared to be the grossly callous behavior of leading skeptic Harriet Hall (although without naming her), which really shocked me and led me to conclude she must be rather heartless. I had then linked to a description of that and other actions against Surly Amy and the Skepchicks at the same event, and made these general remarks of outrage (though of the behavior of numerous people as a whole, not Hall specifically):

[A]s the Surly Amy story shows, there are clearly many of us who disregard the happiness of others just to hurt them, mocking or insulting (or even threatening) them merely to please one’s own vanity or self-righteousness, in complete disregard of the pointless misery it causes another human being. That is fucking cruel. And if you are complicit in that, or don’t even see what’s wrong with it, or worse, plan to engage in Christian-style apologetics for it, defending it with the same bullshit fallacies and tactics the Christians use to defend their own immorality or that of their fictional god, then I don’t want anything to do with you. You are despicable. You are an awful person. You disgust me. You are not my people.

…

Even the most rudimentary application of The Golden Rule would have caused any of the people who treated Amy as they did, or Rebecca Watson, or any of the many women and men who have been targeted by this shit, to stop themselves well beforehand. “Wait. Would I want people to treat me this way?” No, you fucking wouldn’t. So alas, you are a hypocrite.

Well, I am now glad to report I can (and will) add a retraction regarding Dr. Hall. I was quite wrong in her case. She has since apologized and explained that she didn’t realize the context of what she had done and how it had been misconstrued. She and Surly Amy have had an excellent correspondence over this, and Hall comes across as a great person and very concerned and on board with our goals and values (and not, as she had erroneously given the impression of, mocking and deriding them). Indeed her image is fully redeemed for me. She says she had no idea the harm she had caused, and would have behaved otherwise if she knew. That’s the behavior Atheism+ wants to promote and wants to see more of: recognition of moral responsibility, learning, and improving ourselves and our movement. And above all, listening and communicating in a reasonable fashion.

Surly Amy has written an excellent post on their reconciliation, with quotations of their correspondence, which is all very well worth reading: Chicks, Tough Old Hens and Roosters. Oh, and T-shirts at TAM. It explains a lot, and dispels a lot of myths, especially the notion that Hall has any sympathy for the people who were using her t-shirt protest as proof she was on their side. She quite clearly explains she was not then and is not now.

 

 

 

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