Richard Carrier

Richard Cevantis Carrier (born December 1, 1969) is an ancient historian.

He is long-time contributor to skeptical websites, including The Secular Web and Freethought Blogs, Carrier has published a number of books and articles on philosophy and religion in classical antiquity, discussing the development of early Christianity from a skeptical viewpoint, and concerning religion and morality in the modern world.

He has publicly debated a number of scholars on the historical basis of the Bible and Christianity.

He is a prominent advocate of the theory that Jesus did not exist, which he has argued in a number of his works.

Carrier's methodology and conclusions in this field have proven controversial and unconvincing to most ancient historians, and he and his theories are often identified as fringe.

In his autobiographical essay, "From Taoist to Infidel", Carrier discusses his upbringing in a benign Methodist church, his conversion to Taoism in early adulthood, his confrontation with Christian fundamentalists while in the United States Coast Guard, and his deeper study of religion, Christianity, and Western philosophy, which eventually led to his embrace of naturalism.

From 1995 to 2015, he was married to Jennifer Robin Carrier.

Announcing their divorce, Carrier revealed that he is polyamorous, and that after informing his wife of his extramarital affairs, the last two years of their marriage had been an open relationship.

He debated Michael R. Licona on the Resurrection of Jesus at the University of California, Los Angeles on April 19, 2004.

Carrier debated atheist Jennifer Roth online on the morality of abortion.

He has defended naturalism in formal debates with Tom Wanchick and Hassanain Rajabali.

He has debated David Marshall on the general credibility of the New Testament.

His debates on the historicity of Jesus have included professor of religious studies Zeba A. Crook, Christian scholars Dave Lehman and Doug Hamp.

In 2006, Carrier was the keynote speaker for the Humanist Community of Central Ohio's annual Winter Solstice Banquet, where he spoke on defending naturalism as a philosophy.

In 2007, famed English philosopher Antony Flew, who had long advocated atheism in the absence of empirical evidence of divinity, published his final book with co-author Roy Varghese, There Is a God: How the World's Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind.

Flew espoused the position that there was an intelligent creator, thereby embracing the concept of deism.

Carrier wrote to Flew, and discussed the philosopher's supposed conversion on The Secular Web.

In Carrier's analysis he came up with an incorrect theory that There Is a God was authored primarily by Varghese, and misrepresented Flew's opinion regarding religion.

Without addressing Carrier directly, Flew released a rebutting statement through his publisher: "My name is on the book and it represents exactly my opinions. I would not have a book issued in my name that I do not 100 percent agree with. I needed someone to do the actual writing because I'm 84 and that was Roy Varghese's role. This is my book and it represents my thinking."

Carrier's best-known works concern the development of early Christianity and atheism as well as modern views of religion and philosophy.

In collaboration with Reinhold Mittschang, Carrier challenged several quotes attributed to Adolf Hitler, which were found in a collection of monologues known as Hitler's Table Talk in which he scorns Christianity.

In 2008, Carrier received a doctorate in ancient history from Columbia University, where he studied the history of science in antiquity.

His thesis was entitled "Attitudes Towards the Natural Philosopher in the Early Roman Empire (100 B.C. to 313 A.D.)."

He has published several articles and chapters in books on the subject of history and philosophy.

For a number of years, Carrier was editor of and a substantial contributor to The Secular Web, where he wrote on the topics of atheism and metaphysical naturalism; these later formed the basis for his book Sense and Goodness without God.

The March 18, 2009 debate Did Jesus Rise from the Dead? with William Lane Craig was held at the Northwest Missouri State University and posted online in two parts by ReasonableFaithOrg (YouTube channel).

Prior to the debate, Carrier commented that "I originally insisted we first debate [on the topic] Are the Gospels Historically Reliable? for the simple reason that you can't honestly debate the former until you've debated (and in fact settled) the latter."

In his post debate commentary, Carrier argued that Craig "focused almost entirely on protecting the Gospels as historical sources, and it was there that his shotgun of arguments got well ahead of my ability to catch up."

Another debate with Craig was broadcast on Lee Strobel's television show Faith Under Fire.

Carrier appears in Roger Nygard's 2009 documentary The Nature of Existence, in which persons of different religious and secular philosophies are interviewed about the meaning of life.

The October 25, 2014 debate Did Jesus Exist? with Trent Horn was held in San Diego, California, and posted online by the "MABOOM Show" (YouTube channel).

He also authored a regular column on the web site Freethought Blogs; this was suspended in 2016 amid allegations of sexual misconduct.

Carrier has frequently been a featured speaker at various skeptic, secular humanist, freethought and atheist conventions, such as the annual Freethought Festival in Madison, Wisconsin, the annual Skepticon convention in Springfield, Missouri, and conventions sponsored by American Atheists.

Carrier strongly advocated for a movement in atheism called "Atheism Plus," through which he argued that the atheist community ought to also share certain particular political agendas, not just lack a belief in God.

Philosopher Massimo Pigliucci criticized Carrier for being very intolerant of people who disagreed with him or his atheistic views and for radicalizing the "Atheism plus" agenda.

Pigliucci also quoted the originator of the "Atheism plus", Jen McCreight, criticizing Carrier: "Finally had time 2 read Richard Carrier's #atheismplus piece. His language was unnecessarily harsh, divisive & ableist. Doesn't represent A+."

In recent years, Carrier has been accused of engaging in unwanted sexual advances at skeptic and atheist conventions.

Carrier has both apologized for and denied the alleged misconduct.

Carrier has engaged in several formal debates, both online and in person, on a range of subjects, including naturalism, natural explanations of early Christian resurrection accounts, the morality of abortion, and the general credibility of the Bible.

A debate with Craig A. Evans, entitled Did Jesus Exist? was held at Kennesaw State University on April 13, 2016, and posted online by KSUTV.