Richard Cevantis Carrier (born December 1, 1969) is an American author and activist, whose work focuses on empiricism, atheism, and the historicity of Jesus. A long-time contributor to self-published philosophical web sites, including The Secular Web and Freethought Blogs, Carrier has published a number of books and articles on philosophy and religion in classical antiquity, discussing the development of early Christianity from a skeptical viewpoint, and concerning religion and morality in the modern world. He has publicly debated a number of scholars on the historical basis of the Bible and Christianity. He is a prominent advocate of the theory that Jesus did not exist, which he has argued in a number of his works. Carrier's methodology and conclusions in this field have proven controvers