Mass Hallucinations After the Death of a Non-Existent Jesus

David Wood recently posted a review of Richard Carrier's new book Sense and Goodness Without God. Wood's review is lengthy, but worth reading. It's titled "Good 'n' Senseless Without God", and here are some portions of it:

...the book seems less like an atheist apologetic and more like a venue for Richard to state his opinions about nearly everything.

Richard’s digressions become most unbearable when he clearly has no idea what he’s talking about. For instance, he maintains that the government should abolish income tax, for it is “a major public evil.” The amazing thing is that he goes on to propose all sorts of acts and reforms that would be impossible to pay for even now, let alone after we have abolished an enormous source of revenue....

Richard’s economic theory is only missing one thing. I suggest that the government should give a billion dollars to each and every person on the planet. That way everyone would be rich. It would be simple really, since the government can print as much money as it likes....

Many theists would accuse Richard of being too skeptical; I would argue that he isn’t really a skeptic. Whereas a true skeptic casts a doubting eye on everything improbable, Richard only applies his skepticism to the views of his opponents. Like most atheists, he is utterly incredulous when it comes to the supernatural, but completely gullible when it comes to the natural....

At times Richard even seems deluded, as when he argues that atheists are the most persecuted minority in the world: “[A]s atheists know better than anyone else on the planet, if you say you don’t believe you often become a social outcast.”

This is the epitome of egocentrism. Around the world, people have been shunned, oppressed, tortured, and killed for their beliefs, yet Richard thinks that he’s got it worse than all of them. He even shares with his readers the suffering that resulted from his stand against theism: “For the first time, rather than being merely constantly pestered, I was being called names, and having hellfire wished upon me.” If Richard were to study other cultures, he might realize that there are people in the world who go through more than mere name-calling for the sake of their beliefs, and that graduate students at prestigious universities shouldn’t be calling themselves “social outcasts.”...

Indeed, his [Carrier's] book is possibly the most inconsistent work I have ever read....

As we investigate Richard’s claims, a pattern should be coming into view. Richard goes to the Bible searching for the most unfavorable interpretation he can find. It’s fine if that’s his method, but remember that he demands that the principle of interpretive charity be applied to his writings. He says that we should assume that any contradictions we find in his book are only in our own minds, yet he’s quick to point out apparent contradictions in the Bible. He even does this when the “contradictions” can easily be reconciled...

While it is amazing to think that atheists would be willing to deny the principle of cause and effect in their desperate efforts to defend their views, it is just as startling to find Richard suggesting that the multiverse is eternal when it has supposedly developed through a process of evolution. If the universes get simpler and simpler as we go back in time, wouldn’t we eventually get to a beginning? Richard’s view suggests this, yet he claims that the multiverse would still be eternal, for the beginning would be “an eternal fixed reality.” Frankly, I just can’t make sense of this (and neither can Richard)....

It is also important to note that Richard’s entire case for a natural origin of life is around a page and a half, which is strange considering this is a hotly debated topic and one that is essential for his defense. He may argue that his space was limited, but his book is more than 400 pages long and is filled with irrelevant digressions and numerous redundancies. Surely he could have omitted his political speculations in order to make room for some actual evidence....

Though this topic is also critical for Richard’s case, he again fails to offer any evidence as to how consciousness arose. His section on “The Evolution of Mind” is just a page in length, and it merely describes his view of what a mind is, rather than providing a reasonable evolutionary pathway for the development of consciousness....

In a section titled “The Argument to the Best Explanation,” Richard correctly notes that the “best explanation will . . . rely on fewer undemonstrated assumptions than any competitors.” Yet it would be difficult to imagine an explanation that has more undemonstrated assumptions than his. Richard is free to exercise his extraordinary faith in believing these assumptions, but to repeatedly declare that his position is founded solely on science and logic is an insult to science and logic. The unskeptical skeptic strikes again!...

If Richard would turn on his skepticism for even a second in the presence of his own arguments, they would melt like ice cream. Therefore, Richard’s defense of meaning in an atheistic universe fails miserably. It’s not surprising that his chapter on the meaning of life is among the shortest in his book (three pages), and that it ends with three paragraphs on how to deal with depression....

Carrier attributes the origin of life to natural causes, and the resurrection of Jesus to an incredible ensemble of mass-hallucinations....

Since the debate [with Michael Licona], Richard has again argued that Jesus never existed. Thus, we have a problem. Richard believes that Jesus probably never existed. He also says that the theory he thinks is “most probably correct” is that Jesus’ disciples experienced visions of him after he died....

Jesus never existed. Nevertheless, he had close companions who did exist. (If you’re wondering how a person who didn’t exist could have followers, you may be forgetting that nonexistent people can be very, very crafty.) These followers became extremely distraught when Jesus (who didn’t exist) was tortured and crucified by Roman soldiers (who did exist). Jesus (who didn’t exist) may or may not have been placed in a tomb (which may or may not have existed). In light of the death of their nonexistent leader, the minds of these followers were so overcome by emotion that they soon experienced grief hallucinations, in which they saw visions of the risen Jesus (whom no one had ever seen to begin with). Strangely, these disciples came to believe that Jesus was resurrected without his body (probably because nonexistent people don’t have bodies). This caused them to become bold evangelists of the risen Lord they had never seen. James (who did exist), the brother of Jesus, also experienced grief hallucinations when he heard that his brother (who didn’t exist) had been nailed to a cross (many of which did exist). James joined the other followers, and the group became so bold that it attracted the attention of a man named Saul (who did exist). While Saul wanted to destroy Christianity because it went against everything he believed in, he was overwhelmingly attracted to its humble message of social reform. Thus, in the midst of a murderous rampage against Christianity, Saul also hallucinated and experienced a vision of Jesus (who never existed). The Apostle Paul (who previously existed as Saul) later met with Jesus’ followers to make sure that his teachings were in line with those of Jesus. He was pleased to learn that his teachings indeed matched up with the words of the non-existent Jesus, and he continued to spread Christianity throughout the Roman world....

In other words, Richard’s underlying belief is: “If God exists, he should be just like me.” Since God isn’t just like Richard, God must not exist. This mode of thinking may seem strange to the uninitiated, but it is the foundation of all atheism, and of Richard’s book in particular. It is the ultimate hubris, and the unstated accusation of every atheist in the world.

No matter what God does, atheists are always free to complain. They can always look for a way around the evidence to avoid the presence of God. But if a person consistently rejects the evidence, resorting to claims about mass-hallucinations among the close companions of a non-existent person, God is under no obligation to offer him further evidence. Those who wear blindfolds shouldn’t blame the sun for not lighting their path....

All things considered, Sense and Goodness Without God is the worst and most tedious book I’ve ever read. It is boring, biased, illogical, inconsistent, and full of errors. It is devoid of wit, uninformative, repetitive, and full of childish complaints against God. It is the self-centered, self-published work of a self-proclaimed philosopher. What makes the book even worse is that Richard really believes that he has written a philosophical masterpiece.