Experimental History

A few weeks ago I teamed up with my friend David Fitzgerald once again to talk about historical method for a gaggle of godless kids at Camp Quest West. David and I dressed up in silly costumes and did a skit or two. One girl loved my hand-made ivy crown so much I was happy to let her have it after the show, but sadly we were so busy we forgot to get any pictures. Oh well. Anyway, the gist of our

The Postmusical Age

I'm massively preoccupied this month getting my dissertation in, but I took a few hours this weekend relaxing and updating my music collection. It's something I do every few weeks. I haven't the time to build any heavy blog topics this month, so I thought I'd pass on some of my musings on music instead. If you're keen to know what I listen to, this post's for you. But there's also a tiny bit of

The Abortion Controversy

A new classroom textbook has just come out called The Abortion Controversy, edited by Lucinda Almond, which includes as a chapter an old paper I wrote years ago, along with other papers from a wide range of perspectives taken from many different sources. The book is intended as a classroom reader wherein all sides of a debate can be explored.I haven't read the other chapters included in the

O Hammers, Head...

I read something today that just made me laugh. Pretty hard, at first. Then I thought about it...and lost a few sanity points. It's dark. So dark it almost passes from dark back into funny again. It sounds like something right out of a Douglas Adams novel...if it was made into a movie by Terry Gilliam. And yet it's totally true. I thought maybe some of you would laugh as much as I did at this bit

Video of Michigan Talk

The Freethought Association of Michigan has put a video of the talk I gave to their group on January 24 of 2007 at the Women's City Club in Grand Rapids, Michigan. You can download it by going to the Freethought Association Past Events page dedicated to this event (Richard Carrier on January 24, 2007, "Sense and Goodness Without God") and right-clicking the link there to download the mp4 video (

Penn & Teller's Magic Bullet

I just got back from vacation and have one great story to tell. Everything went well, my sister's wedding, my talk in Vegas, our trip to Hoover Dam, and so on. But most unexpected was my appearance on stage during the Penn & Teller show as a participant in their famous "Magic Bullet" trick. I'll tell you all about that in a bit.However, I must pause on another oddity. Though it never touched us,

Atheist Blogroll

I have joined the Atheist Blogroll, which is like a webring where you can locate authentic blogs maintained by atheists the world over. From now on you can find the scrolling alphabetical list of blogs (with a link to the list homesite), down my blog's right margin, under the label "Other Godless Blogs," just beneath my subject index. But I'll also put it here so you can jump right into the pool