An Exclusive Interview With Richard Carrier

Q:First, let me thank you again for your time. Your latest book, Sense and Goodness Without God, is a detailed work of advocacy for metaphysical naturalism. Could you briefly outline this philosophy for us?

Mr. Carrier: Metaphysical naturalism is a worldview in which nature is all there is. Basically, it says everything can be better explained without appealing to anything supernatural, and there are no supernatural powers or resources to rely on. I also argue in my book that a secular form of ethical humanism follows from naturalism, as well as a moderate political philosophy.

Q: You have been well-published on The Secular Web (www.infidels.org), so your rather outspoken defense of atheism is no secret. Would you say that atheism is implicit in the naturalist worldview?

Mr. Carrier: Certainly. There is no way to make naturalism compatible with any realistic belief in God.

Q: Not long ago, you were interviewed by Brian Flemming for his controversial The God Who Wasn't There documentary film. Could you maybe talk a little bit about your work on the historicity of Jesus and what opinions you have regarding the event now?

Mr. Carrier: My conclusions on that subject are still evolving, as my research continues to deepen. But I've become more convinced than I was in the movie that Jesus didn't really exist, although I don't always agree with everything Flemming's film argues or implies, nor do I agree with much of what's been said by others on this subject. I am planning my own book on this subject, which I'll begin as soon as I've completed my Ph.D.

Q: Your author profile mentions that you're a veteran of the United States Coast Guard. In what ways has your military service affected your philosophy of life?

Mr. Carrier: A great deal. There is no short answer I can give to this question. Even though I only had to complete two of my four years, my military service was one of the major events in my life that became a definitive influence on almost every aspect of my character and career. I could probably list a hundred ways it bettered me, and a thousand things I learned that I still count on. It changed me in every way, from the trivial ability to sleep almost anywhere in almost any conditions, to things more profound, like giving me a deep and abiding respect for those who serve, a lot more maturity and wisdom than I think I would ever have gotten elsewhere, and a lifestyle that allowed me to explore philosophy considerably more than the average man has time and means. Though the pay is dismal and the work and hours are in many ways very hard (in fact, they would be completely illegal under most state labor laws), your room and board and medical, and all the necessities of life are provided for free, and there is a lot of down time to spend alone with your thoughts or books--especially if you serve at sea, as I did. For a serious philosopher it's the ideal life, mixing constant daily exercise and broad and practical can-do experience, with a freedom from material concerns and service for the public good.

And then there are all the skills. I became a trained firefighter and munitions handler, earned a semester of college credits in electrical engineering, learned how to swim in adverse conditions, and much more. Even the eight weeks I spent in boot camp taught me more than I can say. The Coast Guard's boot camp is the second hardest of the five services (the Marines are first, the Army was a close third, although that may have changed). It made a better man of me in every measurable way. I also acquired my love of firearms in the service, becoming a marksman, a skill I keep up. I had always been a weapons tech nut--since my earliest days in high school I could rattle off the tactical specs for weapons in all periods, from antiquity to the drawing board--but it was all academic until I actually started shooting real guns, which Uncle Sam let me do for free. And now I've become passionate about the original Greek ideal of the philosopher, who must develop a capable mind in a capable body, and serve as a devoted citizen, conscientious in peacetime affairs, and ready to take up arms in defense of his country. Even Socrates fought on the front lines. We should all be willing to follow his example. And yes, despite all that, this was the mega-short answer.

Q: In your award-winning essay "A Fish Did Not Write This Essay," you note that people express surprise in learning that you're both an atheist and "too nice." Could you talk a little bit about the stereotype of the immoral/amoral atheist and how you approach it in your work?

Mr. Carrier:I mostly pay it no mind now. I let people form their own opinions after having met me. If they remain a bigot, I doubt there's anything I could say that would improve them. The only cases where I get more involved are when atheists are maligned as a group in the public arena, or when something I've said is misunderstood or misrepresented.

Otherwise, in all my work I strive to patch the ignorance of society, and no less so in the area of morality, where I've striven to lay the foundations for a secular moral philosophy, in a way I think has been largely neglected by secular philosophers. But honestly, if you want to know what atheists really are like, what our values really are, you have to just get to know us and spend some time with us. Words are nothing next to actions.

Q: In your review of the Dan Barker - Hassanain Rajabali debate, you note your interest in the differences between the debate tactics of Christian evangelists and Muslims. In what ways do you foresee the broad inception of Islam into the Western marketplace of ideas having an affect on the theism-atheism debate?

Mr. Carrier: It hasn't yet. At least not much. Islam is still such a minority, and so little studied or known, that it's had almost no discernible influence on that debate. Perhaps the most significant exceptions I can think of are, on the one hand, the revival of the Kalam Cosmological Argument, an old medieval Muslim amusement that Christians have taken and run with, or the frequent use of the mere existence of Islam as evidence supporting various arguments for atheism. You can see this in my book. But these are typically very basic and don't involve much more than simply noting the existence and success of the religion. Like, for instance, since so many can be passionately certain that Islam is true, while so many are passionately certain Christianity is true, and since one of them must be false, it follows that popularity and certainty are not evidence of the truth.

Generally, Muslims are so far behind the game that Muslim apologetics are actually naive and simplistic compared to contemporary Christian apologetics. Christians have had to deal with open criticism by atheists for so long that they've honed their game, and now the best of them avoid many of the old traps, or have even abandoned some of their stupidest ideas. Islam, by contrast, has been cultivated in countries that deny atheists the freedom to criticize the faith. Even Muslim communities in America tolerate very little of that among their own. So defenses of Islam remain as simplistic and naive as many Christian arguments and beliefs of the 19th century. That means Muslims won't have anything to contribute until they've caught up with the rest of us. But by then they'll probably find we've already been there.

Q: On March 5^th of this year, the Secular Coalition announced that, for the first time in history, Congress is set to have an openly nontheistic member. Forgive the editorializing, but do you think that the abrupt introduction of rationality into American politics will be too jarring to a system that clearly rewards outspoken religious devotion?

Mr. Carrier: I hadn't heard that. But one person won't have any impact at all, apart from (at best) breaking the glass ceiling and thus potentially paving the way for more to follow. But I'm not very optimistic about that. As for whether more atheists in Congress would improve things, that depends. If they're just politicians, then no. In fact, I'm fairly certain Congress already has lots of atheists--who simply pretend to be religious, and laugh all the way to the bank. But these are unscrupulous, machiavellian liars who will never do this country any good. If we're to have more atheists like that, I'd rather vote for Quakers. But if we're talking about infusing Congress with passionate, intellectually serious secularists, atheists who have enough character to say what they really believe and who are committed to thinking and acting rationally and empirically, then yes, that would be a good thing. But so would getting honest, rational, empiricist Christians into office who really believed what the Constitution says and in the ideals that founded it.

Q: Amazon.com makes an offer to sell your book in a two-pack with Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion. What sorts of relations do you have with other well-published atheists like Mr. Dawkins, or Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, so on?

Mr. Carrier: None. I've never corresponded with any of them, though I suspect they are familiar with my work. As for Amazon, I've asserted no control over the book pairing deals and I'm never informed of them. They often change, so it isn't always Dawkins. Sometimes it's Harris, or Eller, or someone else. I could try to enforce my own pairing offers instead (I know there are procedures for that), but I prefer to let the pros decide. If some author or publisher thinks pairing my book off with theirs will be a good sell, they probably know better than I. Otherwise, if pairing me with Harris helps sell my book one day, and pairing me with Eller helps sell my book another day, that's fine. Customers wouldn't be buying those books if they didn't want them anyway, and it's a discount deal, so everyone wins. But I don't pay much attention to who's tagging along from day to day.

Q: You mentioned in your interview in The God Who Wasn't There that you've "come a long way" since high school ideologically. Were you hinting that you're an apostate like Brian Flemming, or has your current religious affiliation been pretty much consistent throughout your life?

Mr. Carrier: Oh no, my religious and philosophical views have changed a lot, quite radically in fact, many times on my journey. But I was never a devout or fundamentalist Christian, and in fact I had no real contact with that side of the religion until high school, when it surprised me. I discuss much of this in chapter 2 of Sense and Goodness, where I talk about my minimally Christian background and relate my conversion to Taoism, for example. But I don't cover everything there. In short, I went from nominal liberal Methodist to hopeful Deist to seeker to devout Taoist, already by high school, and then I went from there to experimenting Confucian to curious Marxist to indignant Objectivist to serious Positivist, all the way back to seeker, ending up as a constructive naturalist. Maybe with some other minor blips in there to boot (and plenty of cannibalizing from Hume, Aristotle, Seneca, Hsun Tzu, etc.), but that's a reasonable summary of my philosophical development.

Q: Do you burn down churches for fun? If not, what DO you do for fun?

Mr. Carrier: 1. No. Not even for sex or cash. Not that anyone's offered.

2. Relax and make fun of movies and TV shows with my wife. Second to that is cooking. I'm a reasonably competent but completely amateur chef. After that, most of my entertainments consist of one or another version of enjoying nature or spending time with friends and family.

Richard Carrier regularly publishes on www.infidels.org and his book, Sense & Goodness Without God, is available wherever books are sold, except probably the Christian Science Reading Room. His books, Sense and Goodness Without God and The Empty Tomb are available for purchase on www.Amazon.com.

The essays cited above, "A Fish Did Not Write This Essay" and a review of the Barker-Rajabali debate, are available on Mr. Carroer's Infidels.org author profile.