Thunderf00t vs Richard Carrier (Devil's Advocate Amongst Atheists?)

hi I'm busy at the moment and I don't
really have time to do this but I want to put a short response video concerning a current controversy between Thunderfoot and the author Richard carrier if you don't know who Thunderfoot is he's a bit of an internet legend some of his videos are carefully constructed scientific commentaries some are experiments some are instead social and political commentaries some of it is very carefully reasoned and formally presented and some of it is completely informal improvised spur-of-the-moment commentary if you don't know who Richard Currier is the other half of this controversy don't worry I'm going to go over his CV in just a moment in response to the criticism that Thunderfoot posed towards so 18 minutes into a free ranging informal discussion the full wing interchange with Thunderfoot transpired quote all of his academic work is self-published isn't it so the first person has suggested that all of Richard carriers academic work is self published to this Thunderfoot replies yeah in terms of even calling himself an academic would be I think technically he does have a PhD doesn't he I can't remember he calls himself doctor but I'm not quite sure what the hell he's a doctor of but for certain in terms of being a research academic or anything like that it's a complete non-starter let's not make any excuses for Thunderfoot here Richard carriers academic credentials you can find through Google in about 5 seconds you can find his list of publications and who they've been published with in the same 5 seconds I got a copy of his CV which contains both Here I am 10 seconds later making this video Richard carriers CV actually tells the life story of a pretty interesting unconventional guy he does have a PhD he has a PhD from Columbia University which is a real respectable University and his dissertation was on attitudes towards the natural philosopher in the early Roman Empire he does have a list of respectable and respected publications although he also has informal articles in informal magazines and of course websites one of his major accomplishments in life was learning ancient Greek including the study of manuscript ancient Greek so-called pathology and paleography in terms of the challenges that Richard carrier is now facing some of which he reflects on in his own lectures some of which are left up to her imagination a little bit um he's a historian who is artfully critical of Christianity as it actually exists today and also in every historical period that's documented and yet he's struggling to publish his research in Christian academic publications nevertheless by large he succeeds despite the very real bias against him that the editors will have just give one example out of his CV that leaps out at me he recently in 2014 published an article on quote the prospect of a Christian interpolation in Tacitus the animals of Tacitus and that was published in a journal called vigil II Christianity if you look at that journal you will not be surprised to find the editors and people of control of it are generally people with degrees in Christian theology teaching Christian subjects at Christian universities so for Richard Currier as someone who's not just an atheist but an atheist activist to be advancing you know his own career step by step in the face of tremendous hostility from a you know field of study that isn't just dominated by true believing Christians but is created by and for them is a really tough uphill struggle even if that were not the case it's by no means unusual that Richard carrier is basically unemployed after his ph.d in 2008 if you don't think that's normal you don't know many people with PhDs in the humanities haha look don't get a PhD in religious studies I've spent whatever the last 15 years of my life avoided getting a PhD in religious studies it's one of the reasons where I want to look at Richard carrier CV I have a lot of sympathy for both what his stated struggles have been and what some of his unstated struggles must have been in choosing to take the path he's taken in life just a couple of weeks ago I met with a professor who was urging me to get a PhD in religious studies and I said no I don't want to be unemployed for 10 years and I also don't want to be unemployed for the rest of my life um throughout Asia I met people with PhDs in history religion and other humanities who were either completely unemployed or working as English teachers in Beijing Bangkok you name it the world is covered with underemployed brokenhearted people with PhDs the humanities compared to that unenviable lot in life Richard carrier has done quite alright for himself as an independent intellectual yes he does have some self-published books he does go on some self-promoted lecture tours he does post videos to YouTube and so on to promote his name and promote his research certainly nobody could fault him for that least of all somebody like Thunderfoot now my point here is not to glorify the work of Richard carrier however Thunderfoot is somebody who likes to have a lot of opinions about what the Bible says what the Bible doesn't say and that is not at all Thunder foots own area of academic expertise and it is exactly the area that Richard carrier has a PhD in that he's an acknowledged expert in even if he is a controversial expert with whom other theologians disagree naturally the vast majority people who have a degree in theology are biased against Richard carrier because they're either not atheist or at least are politely avoiding the type of open politic controversy that Richard carrier actually encourages the background to this controversy is that Richard carrier made Richard carrier wrote a blog post attacking Thunderfoot at Great Lengths full of at home and remarks claiming that Thunderfoot was a sociopath and a narcissist and providing a lengthy rationale for this from my perspective that's embarrassing and it's shameful and I think Richard carrier should apologize and retract it or delete it however I also think that the statement just made by Thunderfoot is something he should apologize for and retract and it's shameful and unfair and untrue for me it's slightly hilarious to see this controversy in this case Thunderfoot is attacking Richard carrier by disregarding his CV disregarding his accomplishments disregarding his credentials and claiming that Richard carrier is not an academic hilariously my own experience is the opposite in that I have been always clarifying for people that I am NOT an academic and people have attacked me for being an academic that may be a unique problem in Asian Studies and in Buddhist studies and so on my reasons for sympathizing with Richard carrier are twofold firstly my own experience the Asian Studies makes me really aware of the type of bias for Richard carrier is struggling against I know that it's nearly impossible to be a skeptic of Buddhism and to be published in Buddhist studies journals that includes some absurd experiences in which the editors of the journals not only praised my work while apologising that they couldn't publish it in one case the editor of a journal he actually invited me to become a PhD student at his university while rejecting the article that he apologized Dean he couldn't publish even if it was excellent and I wanted the University but that that is a very prestigious university it's in the worldwide top ten it's it's one of those expensive and overrated universities and of course among my reasons for you know saying no thanks for declining that offer was of course that I don't want to end up like richer care here I don't want to spend years of my life and a huge amount of money getting a diploma that will then even in the best case area result in sitting around unemployed or semi employed for many years if you've known a lot of people with PhDs in the humanities what you'll find is that it's routine for them to either be completely without a job after they finished a diploma or for them to get some kind of position on paper you know they're listed as a research fellow they have some unpaid vaguely defined position at a university so that it doesn't look like they're unemployed and then for many years they're doing independent research writing articles and living with the hope that one day a formal academic position will open up for them obviously for someone like Richard carrier whose expertise is in ancient Christianity the vast majority of those jobs will go to people who are pro Christian um likewise the vast majority of universities that are funding research on Buddhism are looking for someone who's an uncritical advocate of Buddhism and let's be honest someone who can do fundraising to raise money from Buddhist charities to support their academic program and Buddhism almost nobody is interested in the type of open roll-up-your-sleeves critique of religion that Richard carrier engages in so as I say he's chosen a very difficult path himself the second reason I would state for my having respect for Richard carrier despite some of the frankly ridiculous things he has said on the internet uh is that Richard Kerr himself is pretty honest about the fact that he's an eccentric um how eccentric is Richard carrier well he talks about his own life he used to be in the US coast guard nothing wrong with that if anything that probably makes them a much more interesting dinner companion or got to have a conversation with you as years of experience getting his certificate as a flight deck firefighter and a duty Gunners maid and because of things in the US Coast Guard interesting guys lived an interesting life he has mentioned in his lectures that he's actually not an ex Christian he connected down West at some point in his youth he converted to Taoism and was fairly enthusiastic about that religious practices and then he had a loss of faith coming out of that and then had a renewed interest in and engagement with religious studies um being an eccentric doesn't excuse the things that he has said and done it doesn't excuse his somewhat ridiculous ad hominem attacks on Thunderfoot and Thunderfoot has every right to be offended however I've got to tell you as eccentrics go I've seen worse as academics go I've seen worse and that's the ultimate irony about Thunderfoot attacking Richard carrier for supposedly not being an academic tragically this whole discourse is all too typical for exactly the type of people academics are and what they do during the long years between when they finish their PhD and get a formal academic position you