Richard Carrier Quotes & Sayings

We start with the evidence, and then figure out what the best explanation of it all really is, regardless of where this quest for truth takes us. — Richard Carrier

Such people are trapped in their own hall of mirrors, and for them there is no escape. They can never know whether they are wrong, even when they are. No evidence, no logic, no reason will ever get through to them. — Richard Carrier

Reason bases its decisions on evidence available to everyone, and allows people to disagree when evidence is lacking. Religion will never do that. — Richard Carrier

If I had to sit in Heaven forever, knowing that there are these people, millions and millions- probably billions of people, suffering these eternal horrible torments and there was nothing I could ever do for them, that, to me, would be Hell. — Richard Carrier

Colonization of the world, more often than not by robbery and warfare, spread Christianity into the Americas and other corners of the earth, just as Islam was spread throughout Asia and Africa. lt is not a coincidence that the two most widespread religions in the world today are the most warlike and intolerant religions in history. Before the rise of Christianity, religious tolerance, including a large degree of religious freedom, was not only custom but in many ways law under the Roman and Persian empires. They conquered for greed and power, rarely for any declared religious reasons, and actually sought to integrate foreign religions into their civilization, rather than seeking to destroy them. People were generally not killed because they practiced a different religion. Indeed, the Christians were persecuted for denying that the popular gods existed - not for following a different religion. In other words, Christians were persecuted for being intolerant. — Richard Carrier

However, though belief on faith alone may be comforting, it is wholly arbitrary and thus does nothing to ensure that you are more correct than anyone else. So it cannot properly be described as knowledge, but rather as a mere wish, a desire that something be true or false, or else it is a naive trust in guesswork or hearsay. — Richard Carrier

Christians always write to me threatening me with Hell. Strange how they think this vindicates them and their religion. Threats are the hallmark of a wicked creed. — Richard Carrier

If God wants something from me, he would tell me. He wouldn't leave someone else to do this, as if an infinite being were short on time. And he would certainly not leave fallible, sinful humans to deliver an endless plethora of confused and contradictory messages. God would deliver the message himself, directly, to each and every one of us, and with such clarity as the most brilliant being in the universe could accomplish. We would all hear him out and shout "Eureka!" So obvious and well-demonstrated would his message be. It would be spoken to each of us in exactly those terms we would understand. And we would all agree on what that message was. — Richard Carrier

You must test your own religious claims and texts by the same standards you apply to other religions. If your religion's claims and texts fair no better, then your religion is just as false as theirs is. — Richard Carrier

God needs blood to fix the universe, but only his own blood had enough magical power to do it, so he gave himself a body and then killed it. — Richard Carrier

The Christian religion is so manifestly contrary to the facts, belief in it can only be held with the most delusional gerrymandering imaginable. — Richard Carrier

I am like all other atheists only in that I do not believe there are any gods. Beyond that, I may differ dramatically in my values and beliefs from any other atheist. On both sides of the political spectrum, one can find the neo-conservative Objectivists and the ultra-liberal Communists, both of whom hate each other. These two factions take up nearly opposite sets of values, yet both are comprised of unabashed atheists. — Richard Carrier

Chemists all agree on the fundamental facts of chemistry. — Richard Carrier

To demarcate [words in way that changes the meaning] is simply to speak a different language than everyone else. And I do not accept semantic games like that. [ ... ] We need to use words as they are actually used and understood. We can correct errors and inconsistencies and make distinctions. But we can't try to foist an alien language on people. — Richard Carrier

It is probably true that almost all atheists stand for the values of reason and freethought. I will attempt to put these values in more substantial terms. There is the belief that inquiry and doubt are essential checks against deception, self deception, and error. There is the belief that logic and the scientific method is the only way the world can arrive at an agreement on the truth about anything. — Richard Carrier

For not even one person to have ever exhibited this interest in writing nor for any to have so satisfied it is bizarre. Saying this all went on in person is simply insufficient to answer the point: if everything was being resolved in person, Paul would never have written a single letter; nor would his congregations have so often written him letters requesting he write to satisfy their questions - which for some reason always concerned only doctrine and rules of conduct, never the far more interesting subject of how the Son of God lived and died. On the other matters Paul was compelled to write tens of thousands of words. If he had to write so much on those issues, how is it possible no one ever asked for or wrote even one word on the more obvious and burning issues of the facts of Jesus' life and death? — Richard Carrier

That someone would want another human being to suffer, or would even tolerate the idea, for committing no crime at all but being reasonable, is truly frightening. A religion that breeds such people is a genuine plague upon the earth. — Richard Carrier