Look up Carrier, carrier, or carriers in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Carrier may refer to:

Science[link]

• Carrier wave, a waveform suitable for modulation by an information-bearing signal
• Charge carrier, an unbound particle carrying an electric charge
• a mathematical Set over which an algebraic structure is defined
• Carrier protein, a protein that facilitates the transport of another molecule
• a Catalyst or other intermediary in a chemical reaction
• Asymptomatic carrier, an organism infected with an infectious disease agent, but displaying no symptoms
• Genetic carrier, an organism that has inherited a genetic trait or mutation, but displaying no symptoms
• Disease carrier (disambiguation) in medicine
• Gestational carrier, a surrogate mother

Technology[link]

• Carrier recovery in telecommunications
• Lathe carrier, a device that transfers motion to a workpiece
• Carrier, a free instant messaging client based on Pidgin (software)

Ethnography and geography[link]

• Carrier is the English name for the Dakelh, an indigenous First Nations people of British Columbia, Canada
• Carrier language, the Athabaskan language of the Dakelh people
• Carrier, Oklahoma, a town in Garfield County, Oklahoma, United States
• The Carrier Dome, a multi-sport, domed athletic facility in Syracuse, New York, named for the Carrier Corporation

Commerce[link]

• Carrier (bearer), a person who carries objects for others
• Wireless carrier, an organization that operates a wireless network for mobile phones
• Common carrier, an organization that transports a product or service using its facilities, or those of other carriers, and offers its services to the general public
• Carrier Corporation, the air conditioning and commercial refrigeration manufacturing division of United Technologies, named after its founder, Willis Carrier
• Carrier is used to mean a Telephone company that provides local, long distance or value added services
• Mail carrier, a postal worker

Entertainment[link]

• Carrier (video game), a 2000 video game for the Sega Dreamcast
• Carrier Command, a 1988 simulator game for Amiga and many other platforms
• Carrier (game), a South Pacific World War II board game from Victory Games
• Carrier (documentary), a ten-part documentary miniseries that aired on PBS in April 2008
• Carriers (film), a 2009 horror thriller film
• The Carrier, the enormous living interdimensional spaceship home to the Authority, a team of comic superheroes
• Helicarrier, a flying aircraft carrier from the Marvel Comics
• Carrier, an Australian band and Clan Analogue member creating improvised electronic music

Other[link]

• Aircraft carrier, a type of warship
• an informal abbreviation of carrier bag

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

Richard Cevantis Carrier (born December 1, 1969) is an American historian. He is best known for his writings on Internet Infidels, otherwise known as the Secular Web, where he served as Editor-in-Chief for several years.^[2]

As an advocate of atheism and metaphysical naturalism, he has published articles in books, journals and magazines, and also features on the documentary film The God Who Wasn't There, where he is interviewed about his doubts on the historicity of Jesus.^[3] He currently contributes to The God Contention, a web site comparing and contrasting various worldviews.

Work[link]

Carrier received a PhD in ancient history from Columbia University in 2008. He has published several articles and chapters in books on the subject of history and philosophy. He has also self-published a polemical work on early Christian origins.^[4] He is also a contributor to the Secular Web (one of the main web sites for skeptics of religion on the internet^[5]) writing on a wide range of subjects such as the origins of Christianity and the elements of naturalist and atheist philosophy. He has also engaged in several formal debates, both online and in public, defending subjects as diverse as naturalism as a worldview, natural explanations of early Christian resurrection accounts, and the morality of abortion.^[6]

Defense of metaphysical naturalism[link]

Carrier has defended naturalism as a worldview in his book Sense and Goodness without God,^[7] in a formal online debate with Tom Wanchick,^[8] and in a public debate with Hassanain Rajabali.^[9] Carrier has further defended aspects of naturalism in various articles online.^[10]

Critics and proponents of naturalism have responded to Carrier's philosophy. After briefly assessing Carrier's critique of Mark Steiner's The Applicability of Mathematics as a Philosophical Problem, for example, Russell Howe, professor of mathematics at the Christian academy of Westmont College, argues that Carrier's line of argument plays into the hands of Steiner,^[11] though Carrier disagrees.^[12] On the other hand, Yonatan Fishman of the Department of Neurology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, in a paper published for Science & Education, quotes and defends Carrier's demarcation between the natural and the supernatural, which allows supernatural claims (when properly formulated) to be investigated scientifically.^[13]

On the origins of Christianity[link]

Carrier has written a number of polemics on the origins of Christianity and the historical figure of Jesus. In his contribution to The Empty Tomb Carrier argues that the earliest Christians probably believed Jesus had received a new body in the resurrection, and that stories of his old body disappearing from its tomb were developed later. He also argues it is less likely but still possible the original body of Jesus was misplaced or stolen. This work has received critical reviews including those by Philosophy professor Stephen T. Davis in Philosophia Christi^[14] and Christian apologist Norman Geisler.^[15]

Carrier has written and self-published a book arguing against the thesis that Christianity would never have succeeded unless there had been sufficient evidence confirming the supernatural resurrection of Jesus.^[4] Carrier has also questioned the historicity of Jesus in some capacity. Though originally skeptical of the notion, and subsequently more agnostic, since 2005 he has considered it "very probable Jesus never actually existed as a historical person",^[16] yet he also said "though I foresee a rising challenge among qualified experts against the assumption of historicity [of Jesus]...that remains only a hypothesis that has yet to survive proper peer review."^[17]

In news and media[link]

Carrier has played an important role in the national atheist community in the United States. When reports spread of Antony Flew's rejection of atheism in 2004, Carrier engaged in correspondence with Flew to find out what happened and published an extensive analysis of the situation on the Secular Web, finding among other things that Flew changed his belief into there being some sort of "minimal God" (as in Deism). Carrier also came away with the opinion that Flew's changed ideas were not accurately represented in the book Flew co-authored, There is a God.^[18] Carrier's involvement has received national attention in the Associated Press^[19] and New York Times Magazine.^[20] Carrier also appeared on national television in 2004, debating William Lane Craig on Lee Strobel's talk show Faith Under Fire on the PAX network (now ION Television), in a segment on the resurrection of Jesus.^[21] Also in 2006, The Columbus Dispatch reported that Richard Carrier had been selected as the keynote speaker for the Humanist Community of Central Ohio's annual Winter Solstice Banquet in Columbus, Ohio in December of that year, where he spoke on defending naturalism as a worldview.^[22] Carrier is also listed in Who's Who in Hell.^[23]

Publications[link]

Selected articles[link]

• "The Guarded Tomb of Jesus and Daniel in the Lion’s Den: An Argument for the Plausibility of Theft." Journal of Higher Criticism 8.2 (Fall 2001).
• "Pseudohistory in Jerry Vardaman’s Magic Coins: The Nonsense of Micrographic Letters." Skeptical Inquirer 26.2 (March-April 2002) and 26.4 (July-August 2002).
• "The Function of the Historian in Society." The History Teacher 35.4 (August 2002).
• "Hitler’s Table Talk: Troubling Finds." German Studies Review 26.3 (October 2003).
• "The Argument from Biogenesis: Probabilities Against a Natural Origin of Life." Biology & Philosophy 19.5 (November 2004).
• "Whence Christianity? A Meta-Theory for the Origins of Christianity." Journal of Higher Criticism 11.1 (Spring 2005).
• "Fatal Flaws in Michael Almeida’s Alleged ‘Defeat’ of Rowe’s New Evidential Argument from Evil." Philo 10.1 (Spring-Summer 2007).

Books and chapters[link]

• Entries on “Epicurus,” “Lucretius,” “Philodemus,” “Second Sophistic,” “Soranus of Ephesus.” In Encyclopedia of the Ancient World (edited by Thomas J. Sienkewicz). Salem Press (2002). ISBN 0-89356-038-3.
• “The Spiritual Body of Christ and the Legend of the Empty Tomb,” “The Plausibility of Theft,” “The Burial of Jesus in Light of Jewish Law.” In The Empty Tomb: Jesus Beyond The Grave (edited by Robert M. Price and Jeffery Jay Lowder) Prometheus Books (2005) ISBN 1-59102-286-X
• Sense and Goodness without God: A Defense of Metaphysical Naturalism. AuthorHouse (2005) ISBN 1-4208-0293-3.
• “Abortion Cannot be Regarded as Immoral.” In The Abortion Controversy (edited by Lucinda Almond) Greenhaven Press (2007) ISBN 0-7377-3274-1.
• "Bayes’s Theorem for Beginners: Formal Logic and Its Relevance to Historical Method," in Sources of the Jesus Tradition: Separating History from Myth ed. R. Joseph Hoffmann (Prometheus Press, 2010).
• Not the impossible faith, Why Christianity didn't need a miracle to succeed Lulu.com (2009) ISBN 978-0-557-04464-1
• Chapters: "Christianity's success was not incredible", "Neither life nor the universe appear intelligently designed", "Moral facts naturally exist (and science could find them)" in The End of Christianity edited by John W. Loftus (Amherst, NY Prometheus Books 2011) ISBN 978-1-61614-413-5.
• Chapters: "Why the resurrection is unbelievable", "Christianity was not responsible for modern science" in The Christian Delusion edited by John W. Loftus (Amherst, NY Prometheus Books 2010) ISBN 978-1-61614-168-4.

See also[link]

• Anti-supernaturalism
• Christ myth theory
• Criticism of Christian origins
• Internet Infidels
• Historicity of Jesus
• List of American historians
• List of atheist activists and educators

References[link]

External links[link]

• Richard Carrier's homepage (including a full list of publications)
• Richard Carrier's blog
• Richard Carrier's writings at Internet Infidels
• Richard Carrier discusses Metaphysical Naturalism on The Polyschizmatic Reprobates Hour
• Richard Carrier's Atheist column at The God Contention