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In his latest defense of atheism, Richard Carrier says that there “is a little known secret of thinking like a genius: it doesn’t matter where your ideas come from, or how many turn out to be harebrained, so long as you only trust the ones that are soundly proved.”[3] I’m not sure what this secret has to do with Richard’s book, nor am I convinced that it really is a characteristic of thinking like a genius. However, after reading his defense, I’m certain of one thing: There is a little known secret of thinking like an atheist: it doesn’t matter where you get your ideas, or how harebrained they are, as long as you’ve convinced yourself, in spite of the evidence, that your position is true.

Sense and Goodness Without God is Richard’s most ambitious attempt at philosophy. It is well written, meticulously organized, and broad in scope. It is also thoroughly inconsistent, one-sided throughout, and full of false claims and outdated arguments. Richard’s chapter on “The Secular Humanist’s Heaven” (in which he declares his hope that humans will spend eternity inside computer programs) would be comical, even to secular humanists, if it weren’t obviously meant to be taken seriously.

While the book purports to be a “Defense of Metaphysical Naturalism[4],” this claim is somewhat misleading. Richard frequently digresses, and the book is heavily peppered with speculations that have little to do with defending a worldview. For instance, consider Richard’s argument for the superiority of realist art:

I confess I find little beauty in abstract art—or at best a trivial beauty, which might amuse but will hardly impress. Consider the onerous and exacting skill, the tireless accumulation of ability through trial and error over years of practice and dedication, that a painter exhibits when he creates a scene full of vibrant realism—as in the awe-inspiring glories of Classical or Renaissance art. Compared to them, the works of an abstractionist are an embarrassment. The one paid profound attention to the natural world . . . The other did little more than interior design on a canvass.[5]

A little later, Richard argues that legislators should be chosen by lottery, but that the President “should be nothing more than an employee hired or fired at will” by this group.[6] He even proposes a new government bureau—the “bureau of reinvention.”[7] Whether Richard’s judgment in these areas is correct or not is beside the point. A treatise on the proper methods of choosing government officials has nothing to do with defending Metaphysical Naturalism. Because of this, 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.”[8] 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. In addition to spending increases in numerous areas, Richard argues (perhaps a little flippantly) that the government should pay off the national debt, for “the simple act of paying off massive public debt is undeniably useful.”[9] While no one would deny that paying off debt is useful, many would object to calling it a “simple act,” especially when Richard calls for increased spending on education, defense, and his fanciful space adventures (in his conclusion, he says that society should be dedicated to “colonizing the universe”[10]).

If you’re wondering how Richard intends to pay for all of this, his plan is simple: “Rather than charge taxes, the government could simply generate revenue directly—by selling stuff.” He identifies this “stuff” as trees and other natural resources, and he suggests that the government should purchase the rights to these resources (which would cost even more money):

If the government bought up and then managed all the commercial forests, for instance, and rented this land out to lumber companies with an eye to maximizing public revenue, not only would we get a huge windfall of cash without violating anyone, but the forests could be managed more ecologically.[11]

2. Spend nearly $8,000,000,000,000 to pay off the national debt (roughly $25,000 for every man, woman, and child living in the

U.S.

3. Spend lots of money buying up all the rights to

America

’s commercial forests and coal mines.

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. All it needs is paper, and it can make plenty of paper with all its trees, since it will own all the forests. Without poor people, the world will be a much better place. Therefore, the government should adopt the Carrier-Wood Plan. (Now you see why Congress doesn’t contact Carrier/Wood for budget advice; we obviously don’t know what we’re talking about. Until we do, we probably shouldn’t be demanding eccentric policy changes.)

This illustrates one of the book’s many drawbacks. Throughout the book, Richard tries to give the impression that he is an expert on everything, from science to linguistics, from history to politics—a polymath of the highest caliber.[12] Yet the suggestions he makes reveal that he is an expert in very little. Richard isn’t a polymath; he’s a dilettante. While it is admirable for a man to learn a little of everything, dabblers should acknowledge their lack of expertise and tip their hats to the truly proficient. Richard instead shakes his fist at everyone, demanding that the political theorists and philosophers of the world gather round and heed the words of a graduate student in history.

Thus, much of Richard’s book should be taken with a grain of salt. There are, however, portions that should be taken more seriously, namely, those parts of the book that actually relate to his stated purpose. While we must keep in mind even here that his arguments are often based on a superficial familiarity with his subject matter, Richard is one of the world’s fastest up-and-coming defenders of atheism. Christians may therefore approach his work expecting to read one of the most thorough and up-to-date defenses of Metaphysical Naturalism available.

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. That is, when someone claims that God created life or that Jesus rose from the dead, Richard scoffs and laughs and dismisses the claims as “socially acceptable insanity.”[13] Yet when a person argues that the universe formed on its own for no reason or that randomly colliding molecules produced life, Richard believes whatever he is told.

This lack of skepticism is nowhere more apparent than in his book. A person can only make the sort of arguments Richard makes if he has abandoned caution and careful reflection. Perhaps a few examples are in order. Consider Richard’s argument that breasts are evidence for the nonexistence of God:

[F]emale breasts do not need to be large, or prominent at all—as instruments for nursing, small breasts are just as effective, while large breasts create increased strain on a woman’s back and increased risk of injury and lethal malfunctions like cancer. . . . [T]hey are a liability, a needless waste of energy. . . . What possible use such an inefficient tactic would have in the eyes of an intelligent engineer is hard to fathom.[14]

Oddly enough, he dedicates his book to “Jen . . . My buxom brunette.” Yet, according to Richard, the only purpose for large breasts is “to advertise to men ‘Hey, this woman is so healthy she can waste energy on these risky things, aren’t they pretty?’”[15] (Note: If his argument is correct, then men should find a 700-pound female hunchback extremely sexy.) But does the existence of buxom women qualify as evidence against the existence of God? Had Richard seriously thought through his argument, he wouldn’t have used it. Here’s why. Richard acknowledges that breasts have a purpose (milk production), so his only real objection is that some breasts are larger than others. However, any reason he could give for the natural selection of larger breasts in an atheistic world could just as easily be applied to a theistic world. For instance, he argues that large breasts act as an advertisement of a woman’s health. But wouldn’t men be attracted to healthy women whether those men were created by God or not? If so, then natural selection would favor large breasts in either world. Like it or not, Richard can’t simply point to Pamela Anderson and say, “There, that proves that God doesn’t exist,” because his argument has a hole in it. (Also, some men would look at the same evidence and come to the opposite conclusion.) Nevertheless, compared to some of his other arguments, Richard’s “Argument from Large Breasts” is an absolute masterpiece.

Occasionally, Richard gives his readers a glimpse of the extreme childishness of some of his arguments. He goes so far as to claim that if something doesn’t fly out of his butt, it must not exist (I kid you not!):

This may be the worst argument ever offered by anyone, and it gives us some insight into Richard’s position. Let us ponder his logic here. Richard draws an analogy between the absence of an observable divine hand and the absence of blue monkeys flying out of his butt. Just as we reject the idea of blue monkeys, so also we should reject the idea of God. Since this is an analogy, his conclusion about God can only be as strong as his conclusion about blue monkeys. But how strong is that conclusion? Richard says the fact that blue monkeys aren’t flying out of his butt is “sufficient reason” to conclude that blue monkeys don’t exist. The tremendous weakness of this argument should be obvious. Presumably, there are no monkeys of any color flying out of Richard’s butt. Are we to conclude that monkeys don’t exist? Neither are there fire trucks, books, planets, horses, or bees emerging from his butt. But all these things exist.

Reading this argument made me wonder how Richard has managed to survive as an atheist apologist. In the end I concluded that he uses the arguments of other atheists very well, and that this ability has helped him become an apologist. However, when he tries to come up with his own arguments, the result is disastrous. Anyone who would claim that something relating to animals in his butt is evidence that God doesn’t exist is not ready for serious academic discussion (or doesn’t think that his readers are).

Almost as illogical as Richard’s “Argument from No Blue Monkeys in My Butt” is his claim that disagreement on a topic means that the disagreeing parties are both wrong:

[T]he one thing all religions seem to have in common is a belief that love has something to do with the meaning of life. On virtually everything else they disagree—so virtually everything else is probably false.[17]

Instead of simply reading this ridiculous comment and then moving on (as Richard apparently expects his readers to do), let’s follow this argument through to its logical conclusion. According to Richard, when all groups unanimously agree on something, that something is probably true. But if two different groups have two different beliefs, both beliefs are probably false. Thus, since different religions disagree about the nature of God, all beliefs about God are most likely false. Since Christianity teaches monogamy, while Islam allows polygamy, both views of marriage must be false. But why stop here? Those who favor democracy hold that “the people” should have a right to vote; those who support monarchy believe that the king should have all authority. Since there is a disagreement, both views are probably wrong. Theists believe in God; atheists do not believe in God. Hence (and here’s the key), both theists and atheists must be wrong, meaning that God both does and does not exist. Richard’s argument, if followed, leads to a contradiction. If we declare two different beliefs to be false because people disagree about those beliefs, and if those beliefs have opposite truth values (i.e. one is true if the other is false, such as belief in the existence or nonexistence of God), then we end up claiming that two views, one of which must be true, are both false. Thus, if Richard’s argument is correct, we arrive at a contradiction, meaning that his reasoning is utterly flawed.

The adoption of Metaphysical Naturalism will benefit the survival of any society, by eliminating fatal or exhausting religious conflict and instead managing disagreement with reasonable debate, by stopping the waste of time and other resources on falsehoods and taboos, by encouraging humanistic cooperation and preservation (especially against extremism, apocalypticism, fatalism, and religiously-inspired apathy, bigotry or panic), and by instilling the proper values necessary for an enduring, contented culture, one actively interested in exploring and colonizing the universe and ending misery and want.[18]

Here Richard argues that Metaphysical Naturalism is better than any religion, because if society were to adopt his view, there would be no religious conflict. Since everyone would have the same worldview, we could concentrate our energies on more important things, like colonizing the universe.

This seems pretty straightforward, but there is a gaping problem. Richard claims that the adoption of his view by society would bring an end to religious conflict. But what does he mean by “adoption”? He can’t be referring to a simple adoption of his view by a government, for this would not put an end to religious conflicts, whether internal or external. For instance, if Congress suddenly voted in favor of a Metaphysical Naturalism Amendment to the Constitution, there would still be Christians, Muslims, atheists, agnostics, Hindus, Jews, Mormons, and others contending for their faiths. Thus, there would still be conflict.

Nor can Richard be referring to the adoption of Metaphysical Naturalism by a majority of citizens in a society. Muslims will still contend for Islam, even if they are in the minority. So what does Richard mean? Apparently, he is claiming that if everyone in a society were to adopt his view, then no one in that society would be arguing about whether or not his view is true. His argument, then, amounts to this: “If we all believed in Metaphysical Naturalism, then there would be no disagreements about the truth of Metaphysical Naturalism.” If my point isn’t clear yet, just compare Richard’s reasoning with the following arguments, which are based on similar logic:

If everyone were to become a Red Sox fan, then there would be no more enmity among baseball fans. Everyone would agree that Boston is the team to support, and we could focus on more important things, such as enjoying baseball games. Thus, everyone should become a Red Sox fan.

If Christianity were adopted by everyone, then no one would disagree about whether or not Christianity is true. We wouldn’t have to worry about Muslim extremists anymore, for Islam would be a thing of the past. The war in

Iraq

would be over! Thus, everyone should adopt Christianity.

Interestingly, Richard uses a similar strategy when he argues for the abolition of income tax. One of his justifications for his policy is that “so much of the time of legislators and the resources of political action groups is wasted on endless yearly debates over taxation.”[19] In other words, if we were to abolish income tax, then legislators wouldn’t have to debate about income tax. But this logic could be used to justify any policy change:

If we just made it a law that immigrants could come to the

U.S.

at will, then we wouldn’t have to worry about patrolling our borders or making immigration policies. We could then take those resources and use them elsewhere. Thus,

U.S.

borders should be open to everyone.

If people would simply agree that abortion is wrong, the abortion controversy would be over. This would allow officials to spend their time debating other issues, such as health care. Thus, people should agree that abortion is wrong.

While many arguments from Sense and Goodness are based on faulty logic, Richard just as frequently bases his arguments on faulty data. For instance, he claims that God’s “only purported purpose for sex was procreation, not lust or entertainment,”[20] and that the Bible “contains hardly a hint of . . . any mature acceptance of sexuality.”[21]

I would normally say that a person who makes such a claim obviously hasn’t read the Bible. However, Richard says that he’s read the Bible from cover to cover and that he’s even read the New Testament in Greek, so I’m not sure what his errors imply. The Bible doesn’t say that God’s only purpose for sex was procreation. Consider this Bible passage, in which King Solomon praises his wife’s beauty:

Solomon describes his beloved’s breasts as “two fawns” and as “clusters of the vine.” Now recall Richard’s discussion of breasts. He rails against God for creating them and concludes that their true purpose is to advertise health. Who has a more mature view of sexuality here?

Needless to say, the Song of Solomon isn’t about the joys of child-rearing. I’m sure Richard is familiar with this part of the Bible, so I still don’t understand why he would say that the Bible teaches that sex is only for procreation. Richard is also wrong when he says that the Bible lacks a mature view of sexuality. According to the Bible, God created sex. He could just as easily have given us the ability to reproduce asexually, but he didn’t. He wanted man and woman to be together, and he made sex pleasurable. When he finished creating us this way, he called everything “very good.”[23] And contrary to what Richard says, sex has purposes other than procreation. For instance, sexual pleasure can strengthen the marital bond between a man and a woman, which is certainly good for marriage. So, while he says that the Bible lacks a mature view of sex, it should be clear that Richard simply lacks a mature view of the Bible.

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.”[24]

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.”[25] 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.”

Given the poor quality of Richard’s arguments, it is shocking to read the following claims in his book and on his website:

From long experience, I can vouch for the fact that the study of philosophy has steadily improved my ability to identify and correct my own errors, and to identify (and thus avoid) the errors of others. It has thereby improved my ability to think well and clearly, and has made my continuing education in all other things easier and more fruitful.[26]

Every hour that devout believers spend praying, reading scripture, attending sermons and masses, I spend reading, thinking, honing my skill at getting at the truth and rooting out error.[27]

Now, nearing middle-age, I have found myself with that coherent, sensible, complete, evidentially well-supported philosophy of life that I had been looking for.[28]

My strongest ability is the refinement of persuasive and expository arguments, giving them logical structure and force without leaving them dry or obscure. I am also talented at developing illuminating analogies or examples.[29]

At every step of the way [in this book] I use sound reason and scientific evidence to argue that there is probably only a physical, natural world without gods or spirits.[30]

Even more interesting is that Richard inadvertently implicates a number of his atheist colleagues in his crimes against reason:

The Internet Infidels were also instrumental in helping to complete the latest phase of my intellectual development, especially Jeff Lowder and many affiliated colleagues: Evan Fales, Victor Stenger, Keith Augustine, Dan Barker, just to name a few, who also gave advice about improving this work specifically.[31]

Shame on all of them! Either they lacked the reasoning ability to see the flaws in Richard’s arguments from breasts and blue monkeys (in which case they should all stop writing), or they don’t care that atheism is based on ridiculous arguments (in which case they should stop trying to persuade the world that their beliefs are important). Either way, they are guilty along with Richard. Aristotle would not be pleased.

As we have seen, Richard’s logical flaws are enough to cast doubt upon his entire opus. Yet he repeatedly commits an error even more dreadful than those listed above—the dreaded fallacy of inconsistency. Indeed, his book is possibly the most inconsistent work I have ever read. Lest my readers think I am exaggerating, I will present two examples of Richard’s illogic.

On the last page of his book, Richard says that atheists “gain a sense of community and conviction through fighting together against our common enemies—the foes of reason, truth, and liberty.”[32] He then pleads for his readers to join him in his battle against Christianity. Remarkably, half way down the page he adds, “Failing that, if you’d rather pass, then I would like to extend another plea: for tolerance, acceptance, and understanding.” Thus, Richard’s message at the conclusion of his book seems to be: “Let’s all join together and destroy Christianity, our greatest enemy, until it is gone from the earth! But for those of you who don’t agree with me, let’s all be tolerant and understanding toward one another.”

This inconsistent message is consistently expressed. Throughout Sense and Goodness, Richard praises tolerance and condemns intolerance.[33] Yet nearly everything that can be said of an intolerant person can be said of Richard, for he ridicules in the harshest terms the views of those who disagree with him. For instance, he calls Christianity “the ultimate memetic virus”[34] and “a genuine plague upon the earth.”[35] (He defines “memetic virus” as a meme that “impairs or kills your mind, your power of reason.”[36]) Christianity suppresses free thought, fosters “war and violence of every kind,”[37] and is one of the two “most warlike and intolerant religions in history”[38] (Islam is the other). Indeed, Christianity has enslaved the minds of billions of people:

The fact is that we believe in God and an immortal soul because of the missionary zeal and religious intolerance intrinsic to the Christian religion. We owe our superstitious ideas to sword and gun and flame. In this corner of the globe, the Christian church was the victor, and our minds were the spoil.[39]

Thus, Christianity is a horrible disease that has infected the minds of people everywhere. It has trapped humanity in perpetual darkness and is preventing our advance into new frontiers. So how should intelligent people react to this Christian infection, this ultimate mind-destroying cancer? Richard calls for war, a battle “to defeat the nonsense and lies” that Christians have spread.[40] He even refers to his campaign against Christianity as a “crusade” and says that “it would be immoral not to fight it.”[41]

Even if we assume that Richard is correct in everything he says and that Christianity is the most dreadful sickness that’s ever come upon us, can we trust him when he calls himself tolerant? Can a person who has dedicated his life to attacking and ridiculing Jesus and his followers accuse Christianity of being intolerant? Can a man simultaneously call people to fight and to lay down their arms, on the same page of the same book? Should a man desperate to display his philosophical abilities be permitted to say, in a single breath, “Join me in my crusade against my enemies, and may my enemies be tolerant and understanding of my efforts to destroy them”? Perhaps. But only in a world where logic doesn’t matter. Welcome to Carrier Country (Population: 1).

Richard’s inconsistency can even be seen in his efforts to cover up his inconsistencies:

If what I say anywhere in this book appears to contradict, directly or indirectly, something else I say here, the principle of interpretive charity should be applied: assume you are misreading the meaning of what I said in each or either case.[42]

Hence, if he demands tolerance while reeking of intolerance, we should simply assume that we are misunderstanding him. The problem with applying the principle of interpretive charity to Richard’s writings is that his writings rarely apply the very principle they demand. Anyone familiar with Richard’s book or other writings knows that his interpretations of Christianity, for instance, are among the most uncharitable anywhere.

Note, also, that Jesus is never said to have laughed, and by all accounts he had no family life, no children or wife. Is that really an image we ought to follow? And contrary to popular belief, he was not a peace-loving man (Mt. 10:33-6). He could not even restrain himself from violence in the marketplace (Jn. 2:13-16), and this makes even Gandhi a better man than Jesus.[43]

And the New Testament was only marginally better [than the Old Testament], though it too had its inexcusable features, from commands to hate (Luke 14:26) to arrogantly sexist teachings about women (1 Timothy 2:12), from Jesus saying he “came not to bring peace, but the sword,” setting even families against each other (Matthew 10:34-36) and approving the murder of disobedient children (Mark 7:6-13), to making blasphemy the worst possible crime (Matthew 12:31-32), even worse than murder or molesting a child. It, too, supported slavery rather than condemning it (Luke 12:47, 1 Timothy 6:1-2).[44]

Since my purpose here is only to show that Richard is being inconsistent, I will briefly respond to a couple of his accusations. On multiple occasions, he accuses Jesus of being a violent person. To support his claim, he appeals to the following passages:

[Jesus said]: “Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I came to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man’s enemies will be the members of his household.”[45]

The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. And He found in the temple those who were selling oxen and sheep and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. And He made a scourge of cords, and drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and the oxen; and He poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables; and to those who were selling the doves He said, “Take these things away; stop making My Father’s house a place of business.”[46]

In the first passage, Jesus is addressing the idea that he had come to usher in a golden age of peace. Contrary to Jewish expectations, the purpose of Jesus’ first coming was to die on the cross for the sins of the world and to tear down the barrier of separation between God and man. But not everyone would believe this message of salvation. Hence, families would be divided. Picture a Jewish son converting to Christianity against the will of his father and mother. The result would be a divided family. That Jesus here uses the word “sword” figuratively to represent the division brought by the Gospel is obvious to anyone whose last name isn’t Carrier. Richard may respond by complaining that Christianity is bad because it sometimes divides families, but dividing families is very different from Jesus suggesting that family members should hack one another to death with swords (as Richard’s interpretation implies). Needless to say, I wouldn’t call this a “charitable” interpretation of the text.

Richard is just as uncharitable with the other passage he uses to call Jesus a violent man. He says that Jesus couldn’t restrain himself from violence in the marketplace. But Jesus wasn’t in the marketplace! He was in God’s Temple, which unscrupulous merchants were using as a marketplace. Since no one else would do it, Jesus expelled the merchants and the moneychangers with a whip. I’m fully aware that, to Richard, it is absolutely ridiculous for a person to be zealous for God. But to suggest that Jesus couldn’t control his thirst for bloodshed because he removed people who were profaning God’s Temple is uncharitable in the extreme.

Consider also Richard’s claim that the New Testament condones slavery. He offers two proof texts for his accusation:

And the Lord said, “Who then is the faithful and sensible steward, whom his master will put in charge of his servants, to give them their rations at the proper time? Blessed is that slave whom his master finds so doing when he comes. Truly I say to you that he will put him in charge of all his possessions. But if that slave says in his heart, ‘My master will be a long time in coming,’ and begins to beat the slaves, both men and women, and to eat and drink and get drunk; the master of that slave will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he does not know, and will cut him in pieces, and assign him a place with the unbelievers. And that slave who knew his master’s will and did not get ready or act in accord with his will, will receive many lashes, but the one who did not know it, and committed deeds worthy of a flogging, will receive but few. From everyone who has been given much, much will be required; and to whom they entrusted much, of him they will ask all the more.”[47]

All who are under the yoke as slaves are to regard their own masters as worthy of all honor so that the name of God and our doctrine will not be spoken against. Those who have believers as their masters must not be disrespectful to them because they are brethren, but must serve them all the more, because those who partake of the benefit are believers and beloved.[48]

It should be noted that, in the first proof text, Jesus is speaking in parable. He tells a story of a rich master who went on a journey and then returned. Servants who behaved poorly would be punished; servants who behaved well would be rewarded. The story is meant to illustrate Jesus’ immanent departure. Jesus was leaving, but he would one day return. In the meantime, people can either serve Christ or they can rebel against him. We can do as we like, but we mustn’t forget that one day Jesus will return, and that we will all be judged. That’s the obvious meaning of the passage.

Yet, strangely, Richard sees the passage as a campaign speech for the continuation of slavery. Is this a charitable interpretation? Jesus tells a story about a master and his slaves. Richard might as well accuse anyone who has ever written a story about slavery of being advocates of slavery. At best, Richard can say that it’s immoral of God to compare our relationship to Jesus as that of slaves to their master, but he can’t say that the passage commends the slave trade, since the passage is about Jesus and those who either follow or reject him.

In the other passage, Richard calls Paul an advocate of slavery. But notice what Paul says. He tells his readers that slaves shouldn’t rebel against their masters “so that the name of God and our doctrine will not be spoken against.” Paul doesn’t say, “Accept slavery because slavery is right.” Richard seems to think that Paul should have said, “Slaves, you need to start a tremendous uprising. Slavery is wrong! Rebel against it! Kill your masters while they sleep and flee to the hills!” I’m glad that it was Paul advising the Christians. If Richard had been writing the letters, slaves would have rebelled, and Christianity wouldn’t have lasted very long. Perhaps this is why Richard wishes that Paul had advocated open rebellion. On the other hand, Richard may only mean that Paul should have told Christian slave-owners to release their slaves. However, this could also have adversely affected the spread of the Gospel (“You want me to believe in this stuff that’s destroying our society?”). Paul made it a policy, as much as possible, to avoid adding any offense to the Gospel (which was offensive enough). Besides, in his letter to Philemon, Paul does ask a slave-owner to free his slave.[49]

Additionally, if Richard were to interpret the New Testament favorably, he would note that the Bible contains the very notion that eventually led to the end of slavery:

For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.[50]

Slaves, be obedient to those who are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in the sincerity of your heart, as to Christ; not by way of eyeservice, as men-pleasers, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart. With good will render service, as to the Lord, and not to men, knowing that whatever good thing each one does, this he will receive back from the Lord, whether slave or free. And masters, do the same things to them, and give up threatening, knowing that both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no partiality with Him.[51]

Paul says that we are all one. He tells slaves to render service with good will, then turns around and says that masters should do the same things for their slaves. He adds that our true Master is in heaven, and that there is no favoritism with God. In other words, we are all equal in God’s sight. This idea ultimately resulted in the Founding Fathers’ declaration that “All men are created equal,” which in turn gave birth to democracy in

America

and to the eventual abolition of slavery. Richard can argue that the New Testament should have made its anti-slavery message more explicit, but he can’t claim that it isn’t there. The bottom line is that Jesus came to change men’s hearts. Political change came as a result of people’s minds being renewed, so Jesus’ method seems to have worked quite well. Richard, however, focuses only on political changes that he thinks Jesus and Paul should have demanded, in a world where Christians had no political power whatsoever. This is most likely a result of his moral theory, which declares (in some places) that a person’s inner life doesn’t matter, so long as he does his part in society (see below).

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:

Instead, the earliest account, in Mark (Paul records none of these events, not even vaguely), contradicts Matthew: there are three women, not two, and they go to anoint the body, not just “to look at the grave” (Mark 16:1 v. Matt. 28:1) . . . Then there is Luke’s account (24:1-10), which contradicts the other two: it follows Mark’s less-fantastic version, but records that there are two men, not one, in “dazzling apparel” (rather than simply wearing white).[52]

Are these really contradictions? I’m not so sure. Consider the following statements:

Believe it or not, these four statements are all true. Yesterday morning, my aunt left North Carolina to come to Virginia. I could describe the event as a visit from Aunt Ginger and Uncle Tony, but I could also describe it as a visit from Aunt Ginger, since I know her very well but don’t know Uncle Tony. I could say that she came yesterday morning, since that’s when she left. I could also say that she came yesterday afternoon, since that’s when she arrived in Virginia Beach. I could even say that she came last night, because that’s when she went to see my father. Further, she came to town for several reasons. My wife and I are moving, and we can’t bring our dog, so Aunt Ginger volunteered to come to town and take her. When I told Ginger that I would gladly bring the dog to her house in North Carolina, she replied that she would rather come to us, since she would like to see my wife, kids, and dad, and go to the beach as well. Hence, I could describe the same event in many different ways, though all of these descriptions would be true.

Of course, someone who is desperate to prove that I am a vicious deceiver could point to my statements and say, “Look at this liar! He says that his aunt came in the morning and then says that she came in the evening. At first he says that just one person came to visit, but he later contradicts himself and says that it was two people. What’s more, he says that his aunt came to see him, then he contradicts himself and says that she came to see his father, then he contradicts himself again and says that she came to go to the beach, then he contradicts himself yet again and says that she came to get a dog. These contradictions are so many and so strong that no one should ever believe anything that David says.”

Atheists are free to accuse me (or the Bible) of gross contradiction, and in fact this is a very common approach in atheist apologetics. But for Richard to interpret obviously reconcilable statements (i.e. one passage mentions two women at the tomb, while another mentions three women, etc.) as horrible contradictions and then to demand that the principle of interpretive charity be applied to all of his writings would require a completely different type of charity. It would require us to say, “No matter how unfavorably Richard interprets the writings of others, everyone should always assume that Richard is right.” While he would be elated if everyone said that, I’m just not that generous.

We can see, then, from Richard’s “intolerant tolerance” and from his “uncharitable charity” that he has little thought for coherence. However, accusing a self-proclaimed philosopher of being inconsistent is a serious charge, and some readers may think that two examples are insufficient to warrant such a conclusion. Hence, for Richard’s dedicated followers, I offer seven more.

First, throughout Sense and Goodness, Richard attacks Christians for being mean and immoral, and he blames Christianity for producing these bad Christians.

I became ever more acquainted with the horrible history of Christianity and the sorts of things Christians have done and are still doing around even this country in places less liberal than my First Methodist neighborhood, from trying to pass blasphemy laws to murdering doctors, from throwing eggs at atheists to killing their cats, from trying to dumb-down science education to acting holier-than-thou in pushing their skewed moral agenda upon government and industry alike.[53]

Most people in ancient times believed it was proper to respect the gods of other peoples. This changed on a global scale when Christianity was spread, quite literally, by the sword. Those who attempted to assert their religious differences were harassed, tortured, robbed of their land and belongings, even killed.[54]

When a man has run out of arguments because his position is indefensible, he will often resort to idle but mean-spirited threats (“You’ll burn for not believing!”) which are the hallmark of a wicked creed, the faith of a cruel, merciless, and unjust heart. . . . A religion that breeds such people is a genuine plague on earth.[55]

Since some Christians have done bad things, Christianity must be bad. For Richard, any bad deed that a Christian does is evidence against Christianity, even if the deed is contrary to Jesus’ teachings. Yet, strangely, nothing an atheist does counts against atheism. Stalin killed millions of people because he had no respect for the sanctity of life, but should this affect our opinion of atheism? Hitler tried to apply atheistic evolution to society, concluded that the Jews needed to be removed from the gene pool because they were interfering with human evolution, and killed millions of people. But Richard would never think of relating this to Hitler’s atheism. Mao Tse-Tung also constructed an atheist regime, fueling the deaths of millions more. We could also look at individual atheists. Jeffrey Dahmer killed and ate 17 people because he realized that, as an atheist, he didn’t have to follow the moral principles of others. The Columbine massacre was wrought by the hands of atheists who decided that life doesn’t matter. But does Richard ever point out the misdeeds of atheists?

Hence, immoral acts by Christians (keep your eyes peeled for that notorious ring of egg-throwing, cat-murdering evangelicals) always count against Christianity, even when Jesus told his followers not to do them. But immoral acts by atheists never count against atheism, even when many immoral acts are completely consistent with atheism.

Second, Richard says that the Bible is useless, childish, and boring, for it contains “extensive genealogies of no relevance to the meaning of life . . ., long digressions on barbaric rituals . . ., lengthy diatribes against long-dead nations and constant harping on doom and gloom.”[56] Since Richard finds things like genealogies unimportant, he concludes that the Bible is boring and useless. But what about his own book? I would be shocked if one-tenth of one percent of the American population could finish reading it, even if they wanted to. With sections such as “Beauty as Emotional Appraisal,” “The Meaning of Normative Propositions,” “General Brain Function Correlation,” and “Reducible and Irreducible Sensation,” it is clear that most people would find his book incredibly boring. Consider his meditation on the topic “The Meaning of Words”:

What do words mean? Words are code signals that human societies made up, because it was useful in thought and communication to categorize everything in some consistent way. Words are the names of things that we experience or imagine, and by sharing the same codebook we can use these codes to communicate our imaginings and experiences to others, and we can organize and study our own thoughts more effectively this way, too.[57]

Obviously, very few people lay awake at night tormented by the question “What do words mean?” Nor do they care about analyzing normative propositions or studying the differences between reducible and irreducible sensations. I’m sure Richard would respond by saying, “But these topics are important! If someone finds them unimportant, then something must be wrong with him!” Perhaps. But aside from Richard and a few of his followers, very few people are interested in probing the depths of his political speculations. He can always say, “But I find this stuff interesting!” Yet I can respond by noting that I find the Bible interesting, as do millions of others. In other words, Richard argues that the Bible is childish and useless because he doesn’t find much of the material applicable to his life. But if he were to apply the same reasoning to his own book, he would have to conclude that Sense and Goodness is a boring and useless book, since it contains passages that have little to do with the lives of most people.

Third, Richard criticizes Christians and Muslims because they believe that their faiths are true and want to spread them all over the world:

Christians view their faith and ideology as “right” and all other religions as just superstitions, whose followers are misguided. . . . Most religions in history had plenty of room to accept other views as valid. . . . [T]he three most widely practiced religions—Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism—root themselves in the idea that the “faith” must be spread to all people. . . . So the new idea that only one religion is true and all others are evil or false, and the idea that this true faith must be carried across the globe in order to save everyone from doom, are the very attributes that guaranteed the survival of Christianity and Islam, and the elimination of nearly all other religions in the world.[58]

Thus, Christianity is bad because Christians believe that it’s true and that all other systems of belief are false. But what does Richard believe? There’s an entire section in his book titled “Metaphysical Naturalism is True,” and most of his book is dedicated to showing that all religions, especially Christianity, are false. He says that his worldview is “supported by all the evidence of all the sciences” and is the only one consistent with reason, but that “No other worldview . . . is supported by any evidence of any of the sciences.”[59] He also longs for the “adoption of Metaphysical Naturalism,” which he says will be a tremendous benefit to any society.[60]

Hence, Richard (1) believes that his worldview is true, (2) believes that all other worldviews are false, and (3) wants to spread his worldview to everyone. Yet he condemns Christianity for these same three aspects, making him not only inconsistent, but also hypocritical.

Fourth, Richard also chastises Christianity for its arrogance in suggesting that man is supreme in the universe:

[T]he ultimate memetic virus [i.e. Christianity] has less to do with things as harsh and difficult as the truth, but more to do with silencing competing memes, and stirring purely emotional attachment to other memes instead. For instance, some memes play to our ego by telling us that we are the center of the universe, the purpose for which the whole cosmos was made.[61]

[I]t is easy to see how the ultimate memetic equivalent of a virus would have nothing to do with things as harsh and difficult as the truth, but everything to do with silencing competing memes, preying upon our fallible intuitions, our ignorance, and our intellectual laziness, and stirring purely emotional attachment to the viral memes, which, sometimes, play to one’s selfish ego—like memes that tell a man he has the authority of Truth behind his every desire, and is the center of the universe, the purpose for which the whole cosmos was made.[62]

In our [i.e. atheists’] worldview, we are just another tiny byproduct of nature, special in no sense to anyone but among ourselves, subject to a plethora of random accidents and forces, and there is no perfect or supreme being at all, least of all us. In contrast, it is theism that often encourages arrogance, making man the center of the universe, exaggerating his importance in the grand scheme of things.[63]

So, when Richard is attacking Christianity, he notes that it encourages arrogance by making man the most important thing in the universe. By contrast, it is atheism that teaches our true place in the cosmos—we are “just another tiny byproduct of nature.” So far so good. But watch what happens when Richard has to defend his own worldview:

It is important to stress the role of self-worth in [my moral] picture, for that is more important and more potent for maintaining happiness than any other factor. Amidst all other forms of misery, fear, and pain, a strong sense of self-worth can preserve happiness like a sturdy ship in a storm.[64]

The loss of a human mind is a truly profound loss to the entire universe, and the development of a human mind is the greatest, most marvelous thing the universe may ever realize.[65]

In Part V, “Natural Morality,” I surveyed and defended the ethical philosophy of “Secular Humanism,” which I defined as any philosophy that holds to two basic doctrines: that humankind is the most important thing in the universe and the welfare and betterment of all human beings is a fundamental good, and that only secular solutions to our problems are credible, not religious or mystical ones.[66]

When Christianity teaches that man is center-stage in our universe, it is only playing upon our ignorance and arrogance by telling us that we are important. But as soon as Richard needs to defend his ethical philosophy, he says that “humankind is the most important thing in the universe.” To be sure, on Richard’s view, it is only adult humans who are the center of the universe. Babies aren’t quite as important:

And a newborn human baby, deserving even greater compassion and respect, has more value than any animal on Earth, with the possible exception of adult apes or dolphins (or, perhaps, elephants).[67]

Fifth, Richard argues that Christianity is far too passive, for it “would have us believe that letting people rob and beat us is moral (Matt. 5:38-42).”[68] (A more charitable reader would note that Jesus is here referring to someone slapping us, presumably as an insult, and to someone suing us in court.) Because of such demands, telling Christians not to strike back, even in the face of violence, Richard concludes that the morality of the Bible “is unlivable.”[69]

Yet, as we have already seen, Richard says that Christianity is one of the two most violent religions in the world, with a violent founder bent on hacking families into little pieces. It seems, then, that Christianity is the most violent religion of all time, yet so incredibly peaceful that no one can live up to its ideals.

Nearly a hundred years ago, G. K. Chesterton noticed the same inconsistent accusation, and it is perhaps worthwhile to quote him at length:

I felt that a strong case against Christianity lay in the charge that there is something timid, monkish, and unmanly about all that is called “Christian,” especially in its attitude towards resistance and fighting. . . . The Gospel paradox about the other cheek, the fact that priests never fought, a hundred things made plausible the accusation that Christianity was an attempt to make a man too like a sheep. I read it and believed it, and if I had read nothing different, I should have gone on believing it. But I read something very different. I turned the next page in my agnostic manual, and my brain turned upside down. Now I found that I was to hate Christianity not for fighting too little, but for fighting too much. Christianity, it seemed, was the mother of wars. Christianity had deluged the world with blood. I had got thoroughly angry with the Christian, because he was never angry. And now I was told to be angry with him because his anger had been the most huge and horrible thing in human history . . . The very people who reproached Christianity with the meekness and non-resistance of the monasteries were the very people who reproached it also with the violence and valour of the Crusades. It was the fault of poor old Christianity (somehow or other) both that Edward the Confessor did not fight and that Richard Coeur de Leon did. The Quakers (we were told) were the only characteristic Christians; and yet the massacres of Cromwell and Alva were characteristic Christian crimes. What could it all mean? What was this Christianity which always forbade war and always produced wars?[70]

Sixth, a related inconsistency concerns Richard’s charge that Jesus taught his followers that “If anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, let him have your coat also.”[71] Richard complains that this teaches us to allow people to rob us. He also complains that Jesus’ command to the rich young ruler to “go and sell your possessions and give to the poor”[72] suggests that surrendering all our wealth and time is moral. Richard apparently feels that our property is extremely important, and so any command to give it away is appalling.

A person of informed moral character knows it is detrimental to happiness to have too great a care for material things—or even worse, to base one’s happiness on their possession—and knows that it is beneficial to happiness to care less about objects than more substantive sources of pleasure, such as peace and friendship and satisfying work.[73]

In the end, what sacrifices you must make to be good are usually in the long run trivial, such as the loss of material goods or eating crow, things which have no relation to real human happiness anyway.[74]

Thus, both Jesus and Richard tell us not to worry about material possessions. The only difference (according to Richard) is that Jesus is horribly wrong when he says it, while Richard is absolutely correct.

Seventh, Richard claims that the “surest reason of all to be an atheist” is that theists can only offer absurd arguments in defense of theism:

Last but not least is the coup de gras. . . . No fact that people need such ridiculous contrivances to defend is ever likely to be true. If it were true, the facts would speak to it. You would not need to resort to the absurd.[76]

Since theists must resort to weak arguments, theism must be false. But what if Richard, in a brief flash of consistency, were to apply the same reasoning to his own position? He would say to himself, “Wow. My belief is based on arguments about big breasts and blue monkeys flying out of my butt. I have to constantly rip Bible verses out of context and distort them in order to make my criticisms stick. I have to contradict myself over and over again to support my position. It’s time to face the truth. If my beliefs were correct, the facts would speak to them. I wouldn’t need to resort to the absurd.”

Does such a thought ever cross Richard’s mind? This type of thinking would require a consistency which he clearly lacks. As we have seen, Richard has one method for investigating Christianity, but a completely different method for investigating his own worldview: “If Christianity is intolerant, it is because it is a wicked and false religion; if I am intolerant, it is because I’m right about everything. If you’re reading my book, give whatever interpretation helps me most; if you’re reading the Bible, pick the most harmful interpretation and pretend that it’s the only one possible. If a Christian does something bad, it’s because he’s a Christian and Christianity is evil; if an atheist does something wrong, it’s because he hasn’t truly understood the glories of atheism. If the Bible contains a boring passage, it’s because the Bible is a boring and useless book; if my book contains a boring passage, you’re an idiot for thinking it’s boring. Christianity is bad because Christians believe that it’s true; they should all convert to atheism, the only true system of belief. We should all reject Christianity because it is too peaceful to be of any real use to society; we should also reject it because it teaches nothing but violence and bloodshed. Christianity is evil because it teaches that we shouldn’t worry about material possessions; people should instead accept my view, which teaches that we shouldn’t worry about material possessions. I can’t believe that people believe in something like Christianity, which is based on flawed logic and bad arguments; they should instead believe in my flawed logic and bad arguments, because whatever is based on my illogic must be true.”

Much like the skeptics of Chesterton’s day, Richard is so anxious to prove that Christianity is illogical that he’s willing to be illogical himself. Thoughtful readers will wonder why this is so, and will ask, along with Chesterton, “What again could this astonishing thing be like which people were so anxious to contradict, that in doing so they did not mind contradicting themselves?”[77] If we really live in an atheistic universe, it makes no sense for an intelligent, educated man to become frighteningly illogical whenever Christianity is mentioned. Richard claims to be an expert in history, science, and philosophy; surely such a man should be sober enough to accurately reflect on a topic that has consumed his life and studies. On the other hand, if we live in a universe where Jesus is Lord, a universe in which man has rebelled against his Creator, then it makes perfect sense for Richard to turn off his reason whenever reason won’t help him against his Enemy—the God who gave him the freedom to rebel.

Richard describes the “Secular Humanist’s Heaven,” the world he is aiming for, as “a world rather like that in Star Trek: The Next Generation.”[78] The problem is that, instead of putting his little ship into orbit around a suitable “Class M” planet, Richard has attempted to put the entire universe into orbit around himself. In other words, instead of going to the evidence and letting it carry him along on a safe and steady course, Richard has opted to force the evidence to conform to his own narrow worldview. We have seen this phenomena repeatedly in the previous sections, and we will see it again in all that remain.

Before we join Richard and his secular humanist companions on their voyage to colonize the universe, let’s all take a quick trip to Planet Reality. In order to defend Metaphysical Naturalism, Richard must account for several things. If a worldview is claimed to be scientifically and philosophically credible, it must reasonably explain (1) the existence of the universe, (2) the apparent fine-tuning of the universe, (3) the origin of life from non-life, and (4) the rise of consciousness. While Richard attempts to account for these four aspects of our world, his reasoning is no better than it was when he argued that a D-cup bra is evidence of a defunct God.

In an effort to explain both the existence of the universe and its apparent fine-tuning, Richard appeals to modern theories of the multiverse. The various multiverse theories all maintain that the universe we observe is only one of innumerable—perhaps infinite—universes. This large complex of universes, taken together, is called a “multiverse.” Richard considers this to be the best explanation for the existence of our universe:

Currently the most credible explanations of the nature and origin of the universe belong to “multiverse theory,” the idea that our universe is just one of many.[79]

While there are many multiverse theories, with differing degrees of merit, Richard says that he is most impressed by Lee Smolin’s view. According to Smolin, universes actually give rise to new universes wherever there are black holes:

[I]f a Big Bang looks exactly like a really big mass crushed to an extreme point, and black holes are really big masses crushed to an extreme point, then it may well be that inside every black hole is a new Big Bang. Every time a star collapses, a new universe explodes, in another direction, outside our universe.[80]

Since Smolin’s theory entails that some of the fundamental properties of a universe will be retained—with some modification—by the universes it spawns, this theory allows for the formation of increasingly complex universes through a process of natural selection:

For Smolin’s one single assumption produces all three ingredients: reproduction—as every universe producing black holes spawns new universes, and many of those spawn countless more, and so on; mutation—as each universe is randomly just a little different than the next; and selection—as only those universes that are rich producers of black holes will multiply. From this single assumption it follows that universes exactly like ours are inevitable.[81]

Thus, given Smolin’s theory, our universe is a necessary consequence of this process of cosmological evolution. “But,” one may wonder, “where did the multiverse come from?” Richard argues (1) that the multiverse needs no cause because there is no basis for the generalization that all things must have a cause, and (2) that the multiverse needs no cause because it is eternal:

[A]lthough it seems that everything must have a cause, therefore the multiverse must have a cause, there is no real basis for such a generalization. The only reason to believe that anything has a cause is that we observe it to be so. But what we are observing is inside a universe, inside time. There is no reason to believe the same expectations should hold outside the universe, outside time.[82]

We don’t yet know if the multiverse has existed for an infinite length of time, or if it had a beginning. . . . [I]t may be that if we keep going back in time we will keep finding universe after universe, and it may well be it is universes all the way down. . . . Our universe is simply in the middle of a fixed, endless structure. For the same reason a multiverse that had a beginning would not have come “from” anywhere—there would exist nothing “before” the first ever moment of time, and that first moment of time, like every moment of time, would simply be an eternal fixed reality. It needs no cause. It is its own cause.[83]

[T]he multiverse is eternal, in the sense that it exists at every point of time that exists, has existed, or ever will exist. And for that reason it did not come “from” anywhere. There was never a time when it did not exist, so it did not come from “nothing,” because there has never been “nothing.” There has always been “something,” from which every universe is born.[84]

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). But it isn’t because I deny the possibility of something uncaused and eternal. On the contrary, this is what theists believe about God. Yet the physical universe is a different matter altogether. Richard’s view entails that our universe came from another universe, which came from another, which came from another. If he says that it goes on forever like this (and he presents this as an option), he must accept the possibility that we have crossed an infinite amount of time, events, and universes to get where we are today. This, of course, runs into all of the problems addressed by the Kalam Cosmological Argument.[85] The Kalam argument demonstrates that it is impossible to traverse an actual infinite, so the fact that we are here demands a finite number of past events. Richard knows that this is a problem for his theory. In fact, when he is critiquing theism, he rejects the idea of an infinite regress:

Another problem is what philosophers call “infinite regress.” If everything must have an explanation, then you do not really get anywhere by explaining the universe by proposing a god. For then that god needs an explanation. Why does a god exist at all? Why that particular god and not some other? And where did this god come from?[86]

Two things are worthy of note here. First, Richard criticizes the Christian argument for leading to an infinite regress (when it doesn’t, since we believe in a timeless, nonphysical First Cause), which is something that his own theory demands (because he actually believes in an infinite regress of universes). So, we may add this to the above list of inconsistencies. Second, he isn’t really responding to the Christian argument, and he knows it. He presents the Cosmological Argument as if it were this:

He attacks this straw man by pointing out that Premise One would mean that God must also have a cause. But watch what happens when we remove the straw from his straw man:

When we see the argument in its true form, we can understand why Richard is forced to question the principle of cause and effect. We also see why he argues that the multiverse is eternal. He must oppose these premises in order to avoid the obvious conclusion—that the universe must have a cause. Yet, as we have seen, he can’t argue that the multiverse is eternal, for that would require both an infinite regress of causes (which he criticizes) and the traversal of an actual infinite (which is absurd). On the other hand, if Richard says that the multiverse did have a beginning (and he seems to grant this, albeit inconsistently), it makes no sense to argue that it needs no cause on the grounds that we have “no basis for such a generalization.” Indeed, we can’t even imagine what it would mean for something to come into existence without a cause. Now, if the multiverse were eternal, this particular problem wouldn’t be so great. But we have no reason to believe that it is eternal, and the idea of an eternal series of temporal, physical universes is fraught with philosophical difficulties.

Richard also uses multiverse theory to account for the apparent fine-tuning of our universe. Scientists have noted that our universe is governed by numerous laws and constants, which, if changed only slightly, would make our existence impossible. Since it seems improbable that literally dozens of forces and constants would be just right for life in a universe that formed at random, atheists must postulate an explanation for such a miraculous convergence of values. Richard answers with an analogy:

Everyone knows that rolling a die over and over again will only produce a purely random string of numbers. Yet orderly sequences are always among such random possibilities. For example, if you roll a die enough times, the odds become very good that you will roll the exact orderly sequence of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. . . . It follows that every random chaos will always, as a matter of logical necessity, contain many pools of order. And the larger the chaos, the more times it expands or reproduces, then the more pools of order it will inevitably generate simply by chance—and the more complex they will be, too. Thus, order is the inevitable outcome of random chance. Pure chaos can thus lead inevitably, and quite easily, to that minimal order necessary to get Chaotic Inflation or Smolin Selection started, which in turn lead inevitably to more and more order, and eventually to us.[88]

How, then, did we get such an orderly universe? Well, there was a lot of chaos, which over time developed into our orderly universe. Of course, Richard could use this argument to explain away any sort of order:

In other words, it’s correct to say that chaos can give rise to limited pools of order. But the greater the order, the greater the difficulty of attributing it to chaos. And on Richard’s view, everything is ultimately attributable to chaos:

[I]f there was a first event in time, from which all universes ultimately sprung and upon which everything has been built, it must have been the simplest possible thing . . . something incredibly basic, an Ultimate Simplex . . . And a fundamental chaos is the simplest possible thing we can think of, having no fixed order that needs explaining. And as we have seen, multiverse theory proves that such a chaos can produce our universe.[89]

I must have missed the part where Richard proved that chaos can produce our universe, but that’s beside the point. He argues that the “Ultimate Simplex” must have been the “simplest possible thing.” But what is necessary to get his theory going? To get his process of natural selection started, Richard needs not only a universe, but a self-replicating universe. It is also necessary for this first universe to have some very specific properties. For example, it can’t produce universes exactly like itself, for this would allow no variation. But neither can it produce universes very different from itself, for Smolin’s theory of cosmological natural selection demands that certain valuable characteristics be retained by the newly-spawned universes. Thus, we need a spectacular universe-producing machine (very similar to a self-replicating living organism) that is capable of giving rise to an infinite number of vastly more complex universes, and we need this machine at the very beginning of the whole process. Contrary to Richard’s speculations, such an immense piece of equipment is far from being the simplest thing we can imagine. Indeed, if such amazing technology existed, it would be evidence for a divine engineer, not for a primal chaos.

Strangely, Richard appeals to the work of Paul Davies to support his view, but I doubt that he has read much of Davies’s work. In the very article that Richard cites, Davies notes that physicists are suspicious of those who use multiverse theories to account for fine-tuning (as Richard does):

Invoking the multiverse together with the anthropic, or biophilic, principle in an attempt to explain fine-tuning is still regarded with great suspicion, or even hostility, among physicists, although it has some notable apologists. There is consensus that such explanations should not impede searches for more satisfying explanations of the nature of the observed physical laws and parameters.[90]

Not everybody is happy with the many-universes theory. To postulate an infinity of unseen and unseeable universes just to explain the one we do see seems like a case of excess baggage carried to the extreme. It is simpler to postulate one unseen God.[91]

By allowing nature to realize all possibilities, anything at all might be “explained”. Indeed, we might need no science at all. It is merely necessary to make a case that such-and-such a feature is indispensable to human existence and, hey presto, it is explained. . . . It is hard to see how such a purely theoretical construct can ever be used as an explanation, in the scientific sense, of a feature of nature. Of course, one might find it easier to believe in an infinite array of universes than in an infinite Deity, but such a belief must rest on faith rather than observation.[92]

To be sure, Davies believes that our universe may indeed be part of a multiverse (and I’m open to the idea myself). Yet to employ a multiverse model as an explanation for some of our most spectacular scientific data stretches the bounds of credulity far more than it stretches the bounds of the universe.

Hence, Richard’s explanation for the order and fine-tuning of the cosmos is that there was so much chaos that our orderly universe was an “inevitable” outcome. Similarly, we have seen that his response to the question “Why does the universe exist?” is simply “Because it just does.” But Richard isn’t done. He also has an “explanation” for the origin of life:

[E]very possible planet that could be (given the universe and its physical laws) probably has been, is, or will be. Thus, that one or more planets should have all the right properties for biogenesis is probably a forgone conclusion, and our planet is known to be one of those rare few. . . . [S]cientific research upholds all the elements of [biogenesis]—the vast size and variation of the cosmos, the law of big numbers, the suitability of Earth for natural biochemistry, the ease with which a biochemistry can arise in such conditions, and the abundance throughout space, and especially our solar system, of all the chemicals needed to get life started. Everything from amino acids to sugar, from water to sulphur, from oxygen to nitrogen and carbon dioxide, has been found in space, sometimes in great quantities. And these are the things of which life is made. . . . Furthermore, experiments have proved that amino acids naturally chain into proteins, the building blocks of life, when subjected not only to many possible kinds of natural forces, but forces we know were common on the early earth, and beyond. Finally, scientists have manufactured proteins that naturally reproduce themselves without the aid of any additional enzymes, proteins so simple that we now know the odds of such things forming by chance are well within the realm of cosmic possibility. . . . Once reproducing chains of amino acids exist, mutation inevitably takes hold. . . . So, in fact, not only is random mutation in reproduction inevitable for the first life, such life would experience a very rapid rate of mutation.[93]

Richard must be a poor poker player, because he isn’t very good at bluffing. He wisely avoids documenting his claims[94], and his statements are so vague that few of his readers will be able to investigate what he says. But perhaps this was the idea. If Richard had handed us some concrete claims, complete with references, we would have been able to dismantle his defense piece by piece. He obviously feels safer within the walls of the impenetrable fortress called “Vagueness” (the capitol building of Carrier Country). 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.

Nevertheless, Richard’s fuzzy and unsubstantiated discussion says enough to allow a short critique. Typical of atheist apologists, he argues that there are many important molecules in our universe, and that life is ultimately composed of such molecules. The conclusion is that, since we’ve got some of the materials for life, the development of life should be no surprise. Compare the following:

Question: Where did you say the pyramids came from? I didn’t understand your point about chaos.

Answer: Well, just look around you! There are rocks everywhere, aren’t there? Indeed, there are rocks spread all over the universe. And these are the things of which pyramids are made.

That may be true, but it doesn’t explain how these rocks became part of the ordered systems that we now observe. Richard therefore tries to buttress his claim with a few dubious reports. He says that “amino acids naturally chain into proteins” when subjected to forces that were common on the early earth. There are so many problems with this claim that it’s hardly worth responding to. First, when molecules join to form amino acids in nature (usually in extraordinary circumstances), they form equal proportions of left-handed and right-handed amino acids.[95] Yet the proteins in living cells are made up of left-handed amino acids only. Hence, Richard must explain how a pool of exclusively left-handed amino acids formed by chance, and he doesn’t do this. Second, amino acids react with a number of other molecules more readily than they react with one another, so Richard must explain how his pool of left-handed amino acids arose free from contamination by other molecules. Again, he doesn’t do this. Third, even if there were such a pool of uncontaminated, left-handed amino acids, the rate of amino acid polymerization (amino acids joining together to form chains) in water is extremely low. Peptides (chains of amino acids) tend to break down in water, and each increase in the desired number of amino acids decreases the probability of formation dramatically. Additionally, life requires specific polymers, not the random byproducts of chance. If Richard wants his more skeptical readers (i.e. readers that aren’t biased in favor of his view) to believe that proteins—the right proteins—were forming in any significant quantities, he needs to provide evidence, which he doesn’t do. Fourth, even if a number of proteins formed, against incredible odds, this isn’t life. The most basic functional living cell imaginable would require far more than just a couple of random proteins. And Richard still has to account for molecules like DNA, which is composed of nucleotides, not amino acids. Further, Richard would have to explain how all the necessary biomolecules, arising by chance, ended up in the same place and then joined together, in just the right order, to form life. Richard dismisses all of this as insignificant, yet this is one of the most crucial topics if his theory is to stand. One can only interpret Richard’s failure to support his view as the silence that comes from a complete lack of evidence.

Richard’s next claim is that “scientists have manufactured proteins that naturally reproduce themselves without the aid of any additional enzymes.” Again, since he doesn’t give references, it is difficult to examine his statements (though he advises his readers to “always ask for the primary sources of a claim you find incredible”[96]). I'm familiar with an experiment by David Lee’s team, in which it was found that a peptide taken from yeast had the ability to catalyze its own synthesis.[97] I also know of a molecule called “amino adenosine triacid ester,” which acts as a template to reproduce itself.[98] But such experiments are usually forced and rarely reflect anything that would happen naturally. However, even if we assume that a number of self-replicating proteins formed in the primal seas, this still doesn’t give Richard anything remotely resembling life. In addition to several hundred functionally correct proteins, he still needs many other macromolecules to perform numerous coordinated functions in the cell.

As for Richard’s claim that once “reproducing chains of amino acids exist, mutation inevitably takes hold,” I challenge him to provide evidence that such mutations will result in an increase in complexity, or that these mutations would ever give rise to life. Richard’s well of evidence has obviously run dry, and it’s frightening to think that someone could have so much faith in a view that is so overwhelmingly improbable.

Nevertheless, let’s grant Richard the existence of a living cell. What’s he going to do with it? Would such a cell, by random mutation and natural selection, ever produce the variety and complexity of life that we see all around us? Further, would we expect such a cell to eventually give rise to consciousness, the epitome of complexity? 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.

Richard’s book is meant to be a defense of Metaphysical Naturalism. I have argued that his view must explain, minimally, (1) the existence of the universe, (2) the apparent fine-tuning of the universe, (3) the origin of life, and (4) the rise of consciousness. As we have seen, he defends (1) by arguing (inconsistently, I think) that the multiverse is eternal, that the first event (of something eternal?) consisted of a primal chaos, and that this first event didn’t need a cause because our belief in cause-effect relationships is only based on personal experience. Richard defends (2) by claiming that our highly ordered and fine-tuned universe was the “inevitable” outcome of chaotic forces. He accounts for (3) by saying, in effect, “We have all the parts of the machine, so it’s obvious that those parts could all come together in the right order without any problem whatsoever.” He doesn’t account for (4) at all, other than saying that it really did happen, and that it conferred an advantage on organisms that possessed it.

In yet another example of Richard’s inconsistency, he tells his readers that we shouldn’t believe something until it’s been proven, and that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence:

When there is no trustworthy evidence of something and no valid reason for it, you should not believe it.[99]

Likewise, when scientists make extraordinary claims, they are expected to fork over evidence well beyond ordinary demands—evidence of extraordinary weight. When they fail to do so, they are not believed.[101]

Well, he hasn’t proven his view. Perhaps he thinks that, since he has written more than 400 pages, everyone will think that he has defended his worldview. But the facts remain. Richard can argue that there are multitudinous unobservable universes out there, but we don’t observe an endless series of universes extending back into eternity past. Instead, we observe a single universe that had a beginning; and based on all our scientific knowledge, whatever has a beginning must have a cause. Richard may claim that the immense degree of fine-tuning in our universe was inevitable, but we have no reason to think that such a pattern of forces and constants couldn’t be avoided. We don’t observe such finely-tuned systems arising out of chaos. These constants could have been different. In all probability, they should have been different. The fact that they are as they are implies that they were finely-tuned for a purpose—life. Richard may also expect his readers to believe that random collisions of molecules can produce coded information, but this isn’t what we see in nature. Information always comes from intelligence, and we have no reason to think that it was any different in the beginning. Richard can even tell us that consciousness arose as the natural byproduct of mutation and natural selection, but again, we don’t see this sort of complexity arising on its own. In effect, Richard has failed to defend a single important component of his theory. Theism, on the other hand, accounts for all of this quite comfortably. God created the heavens and the earth, and he made a fine-tuned world, which was necessary for his greatest creation—fully conscious, living beings.

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.”[102] 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!

Theism not only presents a more reasonable and satisfying explanation for things like the existence of the universe and the origin of life, but also provides a foundation for meaning and purpose. Indeed, when Richard isn’t trying to make an argument for atheism, he seems to understand that, in an atheistic universe, life is ultimately meaningless:

In our worldview, we are just another tiny byproduct of nature, special in no sense to anyone but among ourselves, subject to a plethora of random accidents and forces, and there is no perfect or supreme being at all, least of all us.[103]

[E]ven in this very rare, habitable pond called earth, life has a really difficult time surviving—we barely struggle along on this tiny little planet, in brutal competition for scarce resources, on a microscopic island that will be melted by the sun in a relatively short time, if it isn’t wiped out by meteors or interstellar radiation before then. . . . Clearly, we are not made for this universe.[104]

Nevertheless, Richard can’t allow Christianity to have an advantage over atheism (“We have meaning but you don’t!”), so he distorts the Christian argument to make it easier to support his own view:

Nor do we need to be some superbeing’s creation for our lives to have value. After all, believers seem comfortable with the fact that God was not created, yet his life has value.[105]

According to Richard, the Christian argument is that only created things have meaning. But since God is uncreated, Christians must acknowledge that uncreated things can also have meaning. Thus, life can be meaningful even if we aren’t created.

The problem, of course, is that Richard’s supposedly Christian argument isn’t the Christian argument at all. Christians don’t argue that only created things have meaning; rather, they argue that since our deeds are significant to no one but ourselves, and since we will soon come to an end, everything we do is ultimately meaningless. An atheist is entirely justified if he asks, like King Solomon, “What advantage does man have in all his work Which he does under the sun?”[106] The intellectually honest answer for atheists is that we gain no more than poor Sisyphus gained by rolling his meaningless stone. The fact that our world has more variety than that of Sisyphus doesn’t change the human predicament. Shakespeare summarized this position well:

According to Richard, our universe is one of an infinity of universes, with nothing significant about our own except that the laws turned out in such a way as to allow life. However, this only adds to our insignificance, for even in our own universe we don’t seem to matter much, let alone in the multiverse. The Milky Way is a mere drop of light in the great cosmic emptiness. Our sun is rightly labeled a “yellow dwarf,” for it is a pygmy in our runt of a galaxy. Earth is a speck of dust floating around a dwarf, and we humans are barely particles by comparison. Nothing we do will ever change anything in the grand scheme of things. We came and we will go, but the universe will never notice. Even if we spend our entire lives improving society, we will all soon be wiped out, and it will be as if we had never existed. Whether we feed the poor or eat them, whether we raise a family or murder a family, whether we fight crime or sell crack, the end result is the same. In the end, nothing will be any different just because humans were here. Though many atheist apologists do their best to avoid this line of reasoning, it is a completely rational and consistent way to look at the world if God isn’t part of our worldview.

However, adding God to the picture changes things. While the universe does not notice us, God does. What we do in the present matters eternally, for there are eternal consequences for our actions, whether good or bad. Thus, my decision to feed a person instead of eating him really makes a difference. The Christian argument, then, is that for our lives to have any lasting meaning, there must be something that lasts. For our lives to have any permanent significance, there must be something permanent. Ironically, Richard’s position occasionally seems consistent with the Christian view:

In my vocabulary, life has meaning to the degree that it has any significance or importance to anyone.[108]

It follows from this statement that since our lives will ultimately have significance to no one (once our world has perished), our lives are ultimately insignificant. Richard may claim that our lives can have meaning in some limited sense, and I wouldn’t disagree. But he must acknowledge that this limited meaning is, in the end, just as meaningless as anything else. Atheists shouldn’t be ashamed of this fact. Instead, they should embrace this inevitable outcome of their position. Richard, however, not only refuses to make this admission (in his section on meaning, that is), but also goes even further by arguing that humanity may be eternal after all:

If we actually wish to live forever ourselves, or for our descendants to do so, our only prospect is a human technology of immortality.[109]

Your mind-pattern can in principle be formed out of many different materials, not just the one we happen to be made of, so it remains possible that we might be able one day to “transfer” our minds to a more durable, enduring medium, like an electronic brain, and thus achieve immortality that way. This would indeed be a life after death—the death of our original bodies and, to borrow a phrase from Christian theology, a resurrection in a new ‘more glorious’ body.[110]

We might even make immortality possible. It may even happen that, in the fullness of time, we will be able to transfer our minds, by transferring the patterns of our brains, into computer-simulated worlds that are in even more perfect regulation than the physical world, a true paradise. And this simulated universe, and the computers that produce it, would itself be a self-sustaining, self-maintaining, self-repairing, self-expanding artificial organism. It is possible it will never die.[111]

This idea, of course, is absurd, and it shows how far Richard is willing to go in order to match the arguments of Christianity. It is absurd because it could never work, even if we developed all the necessary technology (and I don’t think we can). Here’s why. Even if I could copy the pattern of my brain into a computer program, this would have nothing to do with a transfer of consciousness. Even if scientists were to make a clone identical to me in every way, with even the same memories and experiences, this would not be equivalent to transferring my mind to anything else. At best, it would be something identical to me, but it wouldn’t be me. From my perspective, I would still grow old and die, even if there were a million clones just like me. In short, a mind could only be transferable from one physical medium to another if the soul were some sort of spiritual substance that actually leaves one medium and goes to the other. Thus, while Richard strongly criticizes mind-body dualism[112], his theory of consciousness-transfer requires it. Unless he is willing to accept a radically different concept of the soul, he must acknowledge that atheism can offer no hope for immortality.

In an even more futile attempt to assert the eternality of our actions, Richard goes so far as to appeal to God’s point of view as a defense of his own:

[F]rom a point of view outside of time, everything—past, present, and future—exists eternally: our lives sit forever like pearls on a string of time. What we do with our life, what we make of it, how we enjoy it, can never be taken away. It becomes a part of what exists, adding to its value, like gems in a purse.[113]

Notice that Richard appeals to “a point of view outside of time.” From such a point of view, where all of history is visible at once, our lives would be forever present and valuable, “like pearls on a string” or “gems in a purse.” But Richard doesn’t believe in a point of view outside of time, so his argument becomes: “If there were a timeless observer, which there isn’t, our lives would have meaning.” Just as Richard’s desire for immortality demands mind-body dualism, so also his desire for meaning demands a point of view that only God could ever hold.

Richard attempts to rescue his groundless position with a volley of indefensible arguments and poetic language meant to stir up the emotions (recall his “gems in a purse”) rather than compel the mind:

By existing, and making of ourselves something good, we give ourselves and each other value, we create purpose and meaning.[114]

Just as theists understand God’s love as giving God himself and the universe value, so naturalists understand our love as giving ourselves and the universe value.[115]

Our being here, to acknowledge it, to study it, to know it, and to love it, gives the universe meaning, not the other way around.[116]

And for us, the sages have said it for millennia: it really is love that is key—love of learning, love of doing, love of others, love of ideals, love of country or cause, anything, everything, is the foundation of meaning.[117]

Even when I look at something magnificent in nature—the stars, the wilds, the physique of a sea lion, the beauty of a nebula—I think to myself “How fantastic!” How pointless that beauty would be if I didn’t notice and appreciate it. How valuable I am because I can.[118]

Putting all this together, we find that love is the foundation of meaning. Our love for things gives the universe meaning, and since we create meaning for the universe, our lives have meaning as well. Just as God’s love gives him meaning, so our love gives us meaning.

Richard is grasping at straws, and using them to build more straw men. First, theists don’t argue that God’s existence has meaning because he loves; however, we might argue that God’s love has meaning because he exists—eternally. Second, if atheism is true, then I respond to Richard’s “Argument from Love” with the words of Tina Turner: “What’s love got to do with it? What’s love, but a secondhand emotion?” Why should an emotion that was programmed into us during our evolutionary development because it aided our survival be a foundation for meaning? We could just as reasonably say that the foundation of meaning is power, or big breasts, or loyalty, or selfishness, or puppies. It seems as if Richard is appealing to people’s admiration for love (brought about largely by the spread of Christianity) in order to conceal the fact that he doesn’t have a logical argument for meaning. Third, using Richard’s method of argumentation, anything could be used to suggest that our lives have meaning. Let’s call this my “Argument from Lucky Charms”:

Fourth, let us not forget that these arguments supposedly come from a skeptic, who tells us that we shouldn’t believe anything until it’s been proven. 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. As it turns out, despair flows naturally from the spring of atheism. This doesn’t mean, of course, that all atheists are depressed, for many aren’t. But it does mean that a reasonable, intelligent atheist can logically conclude, based on his worldview, that life is meaningless, that neither love nor happiness make an iota’s difference in the cosmos, and that suicide is perhaps a rational alternative to meaningless living. Even Richard acknowledges the rationality of suicide when one is overcome by despair:

When we have exhausted all options, and still conclude there is no longer any prospect of happiness, death becomes an acceptable alternative.[119]

This is the crucial difference between atheism and Christianity when it comes to meaning. While both Christians and atheists are free to believe that life is meaningful, only the atheist is free to believe that life is meaningless. Despair thus makes perfect sense for an atheist, but it makes no sense at all for a Christian. The rational atheist is consistent with his beliefs when he flings himself from a bridge; the rational Christian may only do so while bungee-jumping.

Just as Richard unsuccessfully attempts to give his readers an atheistic defense of meaning, so also he tries in vain to provide a foundation for morality. Since his moral theory is dreadfully incoherent, I will only attempt an outline.

Richard says that he has developed “a complete theory of natural ethical value, a form of virtue-based objective realism, built and defended from the ground up, which is empirically testable and rationally justified.”[120] The core value of his system is the desire for happiness, which, he argues, entails two other values: “compassion and integrity, which are essential to a genuinely happy life.”[121]

[T]he Goal Theory does not root moral value in popular sentiment or majority vote, or even in current beliefs or attitudes, but in the actual facts, particularly in the sentiments that every person would have if they were both (1) fully informed of all the true facts about themselves and the universe and (2) cognitively accurate in their analysis of these facts. In other words, when we know what is true, and logically deduce from this what is actually valuable to us, we will all find ourselves in agreement about a certain set of objects of value. And this entails a certain set of behavioral principles, and by virtue of this universal agreement, those objects would have objective value, and those behaviors would be objectively right and wrong.[122]

For instance, we tell the Nazi that his beliefs, like that Jews are not human beings and that they are plotting to take over the world, are factually false, and therefore his morals regarding Jews are in error.[123]

Hence, values are objective because every person who is informed of all the facts and whose reasoning abilities are functioning properly would agree to them. (Note: When we call something “objective,” we mean that it is true regardless of people’s opinions, and that they would agree with it if they knew all the details and were thinking clearly. Richard argues that values are objective because everyone would agree with them if they knew all the facts and were thinking clearly. This is equivalent to saying, “Values are objective because they are objective.” Thus, Richard hasn’t offered an argument for the objectivity of moral values. He has simply restated the meaning of “objective.”) Richard applies a similar argument in favor of the value of life itself, for he says that “life has objective value to the degree that every sane and informed person would value it if informed of all the facts, and their cognitive faculties were functioning without error.”[124]

There are several problems with this view. First, it suggests that in order to reach this state of agreement, we will have to be “fully informed of all the true facts.” But how can we ever know that we are in full possession of the facts? Until we reach such a state of knowledge, Richard’s moral theory is useless. (I also find it difficult to believe that it would be helpful for Richard to simply walk up to a Nazi and “tell” him that his views are factually false. Would this strategy ever work?) Second, it is difficult to believe that people will agree on moral issues as soon as they are in possession of all the facts. No matter how many facts we learn, people still disagree about things like abortion and homosexuality. Will a few more facts change this disagreement? Third, Richard says that there will be moral agreement as long as everyone’s cognitive faculties are working. But who is to decide whose faculties are functioning properly? That is, if I say that abortion is wrong, and Richard says that it is right, we will be at a standoff. He will say that my faculties are malfunctioning, and I will argue the same about him. In other words, determining proper mental function when it comes to moral values seems like it would be an extremely subjective science, and Richard is arguing for objective values. Fourth, Richard is once again being inconsistent, for he rejects a similar argument offered by Christians. Consider this portion of his brief debate with William Lane Craig:

Craig: Right, well for a person with an open mind and an open heart whose cognitive faculties are functioning properly, will come to belief in God. But that doesn’t mean that this is irresistible. It’s not going to overwhelm you.

Richard: But you’re essentially saying that I have a closed mind, a closed heart and my cognitive faculties aren’t functioning. I mean, that’s just an ad hominem. As far as I know . . .

So Richard rejects the “If your faculties are functioning properly . . .” argument when it’s being used by a Christian, calling it logically fallacious, yet he uses an almost identical argument in favor of his moral system.

Though Richard isn’t able to establish any sort of objective morality without using arguments that he condemns others for using, he offers several reasons to be moral, and I concede that any of them could lead a person to live a moral life. For instance, Richard states that “immoral behavior is risky. Like playing Russian Roulette, having unsafe sex, smoking cigarettes, or driving drunk, you might get away with it, but it is a gamble, and you can never to your dying day be sure of escape.”[126] It is important to note, however, that some people like taking risks, and that the possible benefits of immoral behavior (pleasure, wealth, etc.) are often enough for many people to accept the risks.

Because of this natural, acquired human sentiment, whenever we act like those we hate, we will be faced with a psychological dilemma: we will be forced, on some level of our being, to hate ourselves. With feelings of self-loathing, someone who hates himself, in any sense, will always be handicapped, even sabotaged, in his own quest for happiness.[127]

The problem with all of Richard’s reasons is that they miss the point of the Christian argument. Richard seems to be responding to a claim such as “You can’t think of any reason for a person to be moral.” That’s certainly not a claim that I would make. Indeed, a person can be moral for any reason at all. I could even conceive of a person living a moral life for purely evil reasons. For example, I could imagine a person who says, “I want as many people as possible to be melted by the sun, so I’m going to encourage love and peace so that society will grow and expand. By the time the sun melts us, there will be trillions of people! Then everyone will melt! Ha! Ha! Ha!”

So the point isn’t that atheists can’t offer reasons to be moral (any reason would suffice for some people). The Christian argument is that atheism (1) offers no real foundation for any specific moral values, and (2) offers no compelling reason for a person to be moral, if that person would prefer to act otherwise. In other words, if we say that cannibalism is bad, and the cannibal wonders why, atheism cannot offer a reasonable explanation, whereas theism can.

To illustrate, let us suppose that instead of arguing against William Craig, Richard was instead arguing with Jeffrey Dahmer. Based on Richard’s arguments for morality and Dahmer’s interview on NBC Dateline, the conversation would go something like this:

Jeffrey: That’s funny. I thought you’d be beyond this sort of thing by now. Anyhow, I can see that it’s immoral from your perspective, Richard. So if it bothers you, I just won’t tell you about it when I do it.

Richard: It’s not that it’s immoral from my perspective. It’s that it’s immoral period.

Jeffrey: You’ve obviously got some leftover baggage from Christianity. Welcome to the new world. Objectivity went out with the Bible, didn’t you hear? There is nothing that’s really immoral anymore.

Jeffrey: Why? We eat animals, don’t we? And humans are just animals, you silly boy. Don’t tell me you’ve gone out and joined P.E.T.A.

Richard: Yes, humans are animals. But we’re not just animals. We’re different from the rest of animals, so you can’t say that we should act like them.[128]

Jeffrey: Perhaps. But you can’t really say that I shouldn’t eat people, if that’s what I want to do. I’m free to do as I like.

Richard: But you’re using your freedom to deprive others of their freedom, and that’s unacceptable.[129]

Jeffrey: Says who? You say in your new book that it’s wrong for a person to force his moral views on other people.[130] Quit trying to ram your views down my throat.

Richard: But some moral values are objective. That’s what I’m arguing for. True morality is objective, and I can prove it.

Jeffrey: Ha! Ha! Ha! Who are you going to prove it to? Your fans? People who listen to whatever you say because they don’t like to think for themselves?

Richard: No, I’m serious. Check this out. It’s objective because it’s the view that everyone would have if they were fully informed of all the facts, provided they analyze the facts correctly.

Jeffrey: That sort of reasoning might work on someone who’s willing to latch on to anything to support his worldview, but I’m a skeptic, Richard. You can’t prove what you’ve said. You can only lay it down as an unsubstantiated rule and hope that no one questions it. But I’m not blindly accepting your rule. I enjoy my freedom.

Jeffrey: I get to do whatever I want, Richard. It’s exhilarating. If I want to help someone, I can help someone. If I want to kill someone, I can kill him. You’re still being held back by your allegiance to a Christian morality when you’ve rejected Christianity. Your mind has been polluted. You said in your book that Christianity has taken our minds captive,[131] and you’re right. But you haven’t been able to rid your mind of the Christian morality.

Richard: Well, lot’s of religions have these same moral values, so there must be something to them.

Jeffrey: That’s because all theistic religions are able to offer a reason to be moral. If there’s a transcendent God, then he sets the rules. This sort of thinking has corrupted the minds of people everywhere, and it’s fine for people who believe in that sort of thing. But people like you and me are beyond all that. I’ve evolved to a higher stage of humanity, Richard. You can join me if you like.

Jeffrey: No. The rest of humanity is still at the sheep level. They still feel bad when they do wrong, just as you feel bad when you do wrong. But I don’t feel bad when I do the things you call immoral, because I have risen beyond them. I am beyond good and evil—a superman, a god. Would it make sense for a god like me to lower himself down to follow the rules of mere insects?

Richard: You’re insane! Look, I can show you that your beliefs are wrong factually. You believe that you’re somehow higher than everyone else. But that’s factually false. You’re a human just like the rest of us.

Jeffrey: I’m nothing like the rest of you. I was born with an amazing ability—the ability to control my emotions. Emotions weigh us down and keep us human. I threw mine off a long time ago, and I have risen to the heights of heaven.

Jeffrey: I was speaking figuratively, Richard. The great ones do that from time to time.

Richard: Look, if you kill people, you’ll be overcome by self-loathing. You’ll feel guilty because your conscience will convict you.

Jeffrey: My conscience is something that was forced into me by society. I consider it my duty to do the opposite of whatever my conscience normally tells me to do. This is the only way to get all that pollution out of my head.

Richard: Wait! I just remembered some more elements of my moral theory. The highest goal of morality is happiness.

Jeffrey: They aren’t unhappy, either. At least, not after I kill them. Look, if it makes you feel better, I’ll only kill unhappy people.

Jeffrey: Pardon me if I don’t bow to the dogmatic demands of others. I’ve invented my own morality. My highest moral principle is that it would be immoral to follow moral values that hold people back. So to avoid killing people would be immoral for me. Being immoral would make me unhappy. You want me to be happy don’t you?

Jeffrey: Aha! The truth at last. You want a moral society so you can live a good life. So you’re acting moral out of self-interest.

Richard: There’s nothing wrong with self-interest. As I say in my book, “If I engage in self-sacrificing and selfless acts, if I maintain concern about others in my decisions, I am not selfish, even if I act this way out of self-interest.”[132]

Jeffrey: Yeah, I’m acting out of self-interest too. That’s why I eat people, whether they like it or not. You can’t expect me to act for your interests, can you? I do what makes me happy. It’s just as you’ve said, “If you should not regulate your life according to your own happiness, what worth could life possibly have?”[133]

Richard: But you can’t be truly happy if you eat people. You’ll live in constant fear of getting caught. You’ll have low self-esteem. If your cognitive faculties were functioning properly, you’d agree with me!

Jeffrey: On the contrary, if your brain was functioning properly, forcing you to reason consistently, you’d be joining me for a meal right now. Look, you can’t run around destroying the foundation of a building and not expect the whole thing to come crashing down on you. You’ve set yourself against Jesus, but a lot of things are resting on those shoulders. Your little theories can’t sustain the wait of a single critical mind, let alone all of society.

Richard: I set myself against Jesus because I’m a lover of truth! A first-rate philosopher! Too many people have fallen for Christianity’s lies, and I’m here to set people free.

Jeffrey: Then you and I are the same, Richard. We’re both trying to set people free. I’m trying to set people free from the chains that have kept them from becoming gods. But you stop short because you haven’t followed your atheism through to its logical conclusion. I feel sorry for you. Say, I have to go. Could you reach behind you and grab my coat . . . [bludgeons Richard to death with a golf club] . . . Sorry, Rich. I had to put you out of your misery. According to your moral theory, if a person knows all the facts he will come to the right conclusion. Well, if you knew all the facts, you couldn’t live with yourself. Objective morality! Ha! That’s no way for an atheist to live. Now, where’s my George Foreman Grill?

Some readers may respond to this dialogue by arguing, “But people can reject morality when they’re arguing with a Christian, too. So what are you saying here?” This objection misses the point. To illustrate, consider a different conversation. This one will be between Jeffrey Dahmer and Billy Graham.

Billy: The person you plan to kill was created in the image of God. It wouldn’t be right to kill him.

Billy: You should believe in him. God created the world. He created life. Then we all sinned and turned our backs on him. But he loves us so much that he sent Jesus to die on the cross to pay the penalty for our sin. God loves you, and he loves the person you want to kill.

Notice the difference here. In the first scenario, Jeffrey Dahmer rejected Richard’s argument for morality even though he agreed with Richard’s atheism, and if we really understand atheism, we have to acknowledge that it offers no foundation for morality. This doesn’t mean that all atheists are horrible people. An atheist can be a kind, loving, generous person. But an atheist can also be a serial killer, and there’s nothing in his worldview to prevent him from making that choice. Jeffrey Dahmer was just as consistent with his atheism as, say, Bertrand Russell.

In the second scenario, Dahmer rejected the entire system along with the morality. In other words, it made sense for him to say, “I reject Christianity, so I reject the Christian morality also.” But it would make no sense for a Christian to say, “I accept Christianity, but I reject Christian morality.” While a person could say that, he would be acting inconsistently with his worldview. An atheist, on the other hand, can kill a person without such inconsistency. Thus, just as with the issue of meaning, both Christians and atheists are free to live moral lives, but only atheists are free to live immoral lives (or, perhaps, amoral lives).

This is why it is so difficult for Richard to formulate a consistent moral theory. It is also why his theory depends on principles that would be disastrous for society. For instance, he argues that a politician’s personal life is irrelevant as long as she is a good leader:

This does not mean the candidate must be a saint—she can be a complete bastard in her personal life—rather, it means that when it comes to performing public duties she won’t cheat, deceive, or double-cross the people.[134]

Richard also thinks that something is immoral only if it interferes with another person’s happiness, and he uses this principle to test moral claims:

[S]ince [homosexual sex] hinders no one’s happiness, while suppression of homosexual emotions has been empirically proven to be destructive of human life and happiness, it is actually immoral to denounce or repress them.[135]

Suppose America adopted Richard’s position into law. Only acts that interfere with the happiness of others would be classified as immoral. Now let’s try a test case. Bob is caught with a great deal of child pornography. What should the government do? We might reasonably conclude that taking pictures of naked children could interfere with their happiness, since being child porn-stars may give rise to psychological problems. So Bob should go to jail. But let’s modify the scenario. Bob took the pictures with a hidden camera while the children were having their bath. This wouldn’t affect the children, since they wouldn’t know about the pictures. However, we may argue that the children may one day find out about the pictures (by seeing them on the internet, for instance), so this could still cause problems. Hence, Bob should still go to jail. But let’s modify the situation a little more. Using a hidden camera, Bob took pictures of naked children while they were having a bath, and the children were wearing masks. There is now no conceivable way for the children to be affected by the pictures, so according to Richard, we couldn’t call this pornography immoral. One may respond by arguing that child pornography may trigger thoughts that lead pedophiles to prey on children, but this could also be applied to any sort of pornography. Richard would never agree that all pornography should be banned, so why ban child porn? The answer, of course, is that it should be banned because it’s immoral. It doesn’t matter whose happiness it affects; it’s still wrong, as are many other things. Even if a man and his horse are completely happy as lovers, it is still an immoral relationship. This is why Richard’s moral theory is utterly impractical. It’s also why he admits that he can’t think of a single fixed moral law:

But in morality, the rules cannot even be fixed. Any set rule can fall upon an exception. Thou shalt not murder—but what if you must kill a villain to save an innocent?[136]

Though Richard’s moral theory doesn’t allow absolute rules, let me suggest a few that probably won’t fall upon many exceptions:

Trying to reason about morality with no foundation is enough to drive a person mad, for it will end in a psychological crisis. Atheists must, if they are consistent, conclude that morality is relative. At the same time, they know that certain things are absolutely wrong. Because of this, some atheists (like Richard) do their best to formulate a system that accounts for objective morality. Others simply acknowledge that morality is groundless, though they never really believe it (try asking them about child porn). Still others throw morality to the wind and become cannibals. Indeed, many of history’s serial killers only acted after carefully reflecting on their worldviews. When they realized that morality is relative, they latched on to the only moral principle they felt they could follow—the principle that they should not follow the moral beliefs of others. Once an atheist has reasoned thus, only a miracle can save him.

It is appropriate to note here that, in his last interview before being killed in his cell, Jeffrey Dahmer explained how his beliefs had led to his horrendous acts. He also told the world that he had since come to see things differently:

If you don’t—if a person doesn’t think that there is a God to be accountable to, then—then what’s—what’s the point of—of trying to modify your behavior to keep it within acceptable ranges. That’s how I thought anyway. I always believed the theory of evolution as truth, that we all just came from the slime. When we—when we died, you know, that was it, there is nothing. But I’ve since come to believe that the Lord Jesus Christ is truly God, and I believe that I, as well as everyone else, will be accountable to him.[137]

True, Dahmer could have been lying about his conversion, but I don’t think he was. I believe he had an encounter with God, one that changed his views about life and morality. This is a wonderful illustration of the moral bankruptcy of atheism. In a way, Dahmer was completely logical, for he followed his beliefs no matter where they led him. He was certainly more logical than Richard, who tries to defend moral theories that are impossible for an atheist to defend. The only source of objective morality is God himself, and the only cure for a psychopath is Jesus Christ.

Although Sense and Goodness Without God offers no rational explanation of why people should be moral, Richard routinely accuses God of gross immorality. Further, the book is filled with suggestions as to how the universe’s “incompetent and perverse” engineer, if he exists, should have done things. Here are a few of Richard’s recommendations:

God is supposed to be your bud, your pal. . . . God would act like a friend and a parent if he really were one.[138]

[I]f I were to make a universe, . . . I would make it a law of the universe that the more good a person really was the more invulnerable they would be to harm or illness.[139]

[I]f I were omnipotent, whenever I got fed up with all the killing I would just snap my fingers and turn all guns into flowers. . . . Likewise, if I wanted people to know which church was teaching the right way to salvation, I would protect all such churches with mysterious energy fields . . . and its bibles would glow in the dark so they could always be read.[140]

[S]ince we know that people raised by good, loving parents are always better off, and more morally and mentally stable, God could simply allow only good loving parents to conceive children.[141]

[I]f God can have a mind without a physical brain, it is inexplicable why we need them. It is far more probable that such a god would create beings with minds like His, minds that could not be damaged or destroyed, rather than minds needlessly dependent on something so fragile as a brain.[142]

In short, God should be much more involved in the world, and he shouldn’t have made an imperfect universe. God shouldn’t remain hidden; instead, he should appear to all people at all times, so that everyone will know that he exists. As these apparent injustices seem to be Richard’s only substantial objection to theism, I will address this point in some detail.

In his monthly column (“Skeptic”) for Scientific American, Michael Shermer has proposed an interesting principle, affectionately named “Shermer’s Last Law.” It states that “Any sufficiently advanced extraterrestrial intelligence is indistinguishable from God.”[143] Hence, if an advanced alien were to come to earth and dazzle us with its advanced technology, this alien would seem like God to us. Of course, this implies that the reverse is also true. If God appeared to the entire world tomorrow morning, he would be indistinguishable from an advanced alien. Hence, according to Shermer’s Last Law, God could never—even in principle—give enough evidence for everyone to conclude that he exists. Even in the face of a barrage of miracles or a parting of the Pacific Ocean, the skeptic would be free to say, “Wow, those aliens are pretty amazing, huh?”

There has always been a way out for nonbelievers. Jesus’ enemies attributed his miracles to Beelzebub.[144] Carrier attributes the origin of life to natural causes, and the resurrection of Jesus to an incredible ensemble of mass-hallucinations. Shermer offers an invincible piece of armor for the skeptic, who can never be sure that God exists.

Nevertheless, there is one way for God to prove his existence to everyone: He could take away our free will and program us to believe in him, whether we like it or not. Hence, all atheist demands for certainty are ultimately objections to God’s gift of free will. Barring the elimination of choice, there is nothing God could do to convince an impassioned skeptic armed with Shermer’s Last Law. We could even imagine a skeptic living in a world of constant miracles appealing to arguments similar to Richard’s: “If God really loved me, he wouldn’t leave me in doubt as to whether these ‘miracles’ I’m seeing are from God or an alien. Surely a good God would never leave us confused as to his existence. Besides, this God seems to be forcing himself on everyone when he knows that we can’t even be certain that he exists. If I were God, I wouldn’t force myself on ignorant people. Should he hold us responsible for a choice we can’t reasonably make? Of course not! Hence, even if this God is real, he is immoral, unfit for worship.”

It seems, then, that an atheist can never be sure that God exists, regardless of what God does. So Richard’s accusations can’t mean that God should prove himself to everyone. This means that when it comes to things like the existence of God or evidence for miracles, Richard must demand something less than certainty.

The question thus becomes: How much evidence should God give? Atheists complain that God should give far more evidence; theists typically hold that the evidence is sufficient to warrant belief in God. So who’s right? If we’re going to claim that God has or hasn’t given enough evidence, we should at least have some criteria for what would constitute sufficient evidence. Tragically, the only atheist criterion seems to be: “God should give enough evidence to convince me! Until then, I won’t believe.” But that’s an incredibly subjective criterion, and, in the case of skeptics such as Michael Shermer (and, I think, Richard Carrier), it is impossible to satisfy. It also assumes that God is only interested in belief, and not in the type or quality of belief. In lieu of reasonable atheistic demands for evidence, I offer the following criteria:

Criterion One: God should give enough evidence to cause an open-minded person to become interested in religious matters.

Criterion Two: God should give a sign or miracle such that a truly interested person could only deny it by absurd or implausible speculations.

Criterion One (if met by God) would reveal those who are open to spiritual claims. Criterion Two (if met by God) would show these people what to believe. It would be difficult to argue that God hasn’t met Criterion One. A skeptic may say, “But God hasn’t given enough evidence to convince me!” but that misses the point, which has nothing to do with convincing anyone. The point is that there is certainly enough going on in our world to promote an interest in religious matters. Indeed, Richard has dedicated his life to discussing spiritual topics, and he spends his days writing arguments against things like the apparent fine-tuning of the universe, the resurrection of Jesus, etc. He writes against these ideas because people are interested in them and because he himself is interested in them. Thus, there is enough evidence to inspire interest in religious matters.

But what about Criterion Two? Is there a sign or miracle that can only be denied by a person who is clearly not open to it? Indeed there is. Those who deny the resurrection of Jesus do so by resorting to absurd contentions and by adjusting their method of investigation so that no amount of evidence could ever convince them. Although Richard says that one would “really have to look hard to find an event in a worse condition than [the resurrection] as far as evidence goes,”[145] his exaggeration is hollow, for his approach to Jesus is simply impossible to justify.

In his debate with Mike Licona, Richard laid out his case against the resurrection (in more detail than we find in Sense and Goodness). His case may be summed up as follows. Jesus died on the cross. His disciples, longing to make sense of the tragedy, searched the scriptures and concluded that his death had meaning. Several of Jesus’ followers experienced grief hallucinations, in which they saw visions of the risen Christ, telling them that everything was okay. For some reason (Richard never explains why), these disciples concluded that Jesus had been resurrected without his earthly body (a radical concept for first century Jews). When Christianity began to spread, Saul of Tarsus, a devout Pharisee, attempted to destroy Christianity. Nevertheless, he also experienced a hallucination in which Jesus told him to convert to Christianity. Strangely, Paul also adopted the radical view that Jesus’ earthly body wasn’t resurrected. A few decades later, some Christians made up the empty tomb story to illustrate their belief that Jesus’ body was empty of his spirit, but they forgot to tell everyone that it was only a story. Later Christians took the invention seriously and concluded that there really was an empty tomb, and that Jesus’ body must have been involved in his resurrection (the normal Jewish view). Thus, the followers of Christ came full circle, believing first in the Jewish idea that the body that dies is the same body that rises, second in the unorthodox view of a completely different, spiritual resurrection body (Note: given the Jewish understanding, a “spiritual resurrection” was practically an oxymoron), and third in the Jewish idea that the body that dies is the same body that rises. That seems problematic, considering the overwhelming amount of evidence against such a position. (For more on this, see my review of the Carrier-Licona debate.) Nevertheless, Richard’s problem is far greater than mere evidence, which he is free to twist to his liking. The main problem with his view is that it is completely inconsistent with his belief that Jesus never existed.

Prior to his debate with Licona, Richard said, “Jesus might have existed . . . But until a better historicist theory is advanced, I have to conclude it is at least somewhat more probable that Jesus didn't exist than that he did.”[146] Then, at the debate, Richard argued:

There are many theories contrary to what Mr. Licona has argued, but there isn’t time tonight to look at them all. I will instead present the one theory I think is most probably correct, which I only have time to summarize. Shortly after the death of Jesus, his disciples prayed, meditated, and searched the scriptures for some meaning to justify the tragedy and some way to preserve and promote the noble program of moral reform Jesus had died for. As a result, some had prophetic dreams or visions in which Jesus appeared to them, reassuring them, and telling them just what they wanted to hear.[147]

Since the debate, Richard has again argued that Jesus never existed.[148] 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. Putting these views together, we arrive at Richard’s true position on the resurrection of Jesus. As incoherent as it may seem, he apparently believes something like the following:

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.

If that’s the best a Columbia-educated historian can come up with, Criterion Two has been met. Indeed, upon close inspection, all theories that attempt to explain away Jesus’ resurrection are ultimately at odds with the historical evidence, or highly illogical, or both. Thus, both criteria have been met. There is evidence sufficient to spark interest in the divine, and there is a divine sign that reduces all its opponents to absurdity. Until atheists come up with better criteria for how much evidence is fair, they have no basis for arguing that God hasn’t given enough evidence. After all, no amount of evidence is sufficient when someone is set against believing in something. Even if we had all witnessed Jesus’ resurrection, the skeptic could always say, “Those aliens are at it again.”

Nevertheless, one may still wonder why God doesn’t turn guns into flowers, or make glow-in-the-dark Bibles, or place mysterious force fields around churches. Why doesn’t God walk around with us, clearly showing everyone that he is here? Interestingly, Richard accidentally stumbles upon the Christian answer in the midst of one of his attacks against God:

Likewise, as a loving parent, I would think it a horrible failure on my part if I didn’t educate my children well, and supervise them kindly, teaching them how to live safe and well and warning them of unknown or unexpected dangers. If they asked me to butt out I would. But if they didn’t, it would be unconscionable to ignore them, to offer them no comfort or protection or advice.[149]

“If they asked me to butt out I would.” Here Richard unwittingly alludes to an interesting piece of Christian history. According to the Bible, God was once with us, in a beautiful world. But we chose to disobey him. In effect, we chose to live apart from God. In response, God gave us what we wanted. He partially (not completely) withdrew from our universe, and withdrew some of his sustaining power. Thence came earthquakes, disease, famine, bloodshed, and the many other things Richard complains about. God’s message was clear: “Since you’d like to live without me, let me give you a taste of a universe that isn’t completely sustained by me.” God later returned in the person of Jesus Christ, and we rejected him again. Jesus then rose from the dead in a glorified body, as if to say to the world, “Look! I’m the one who can fix all this!” But people continue to reject him. We’ve asked God to butt out. Some of us want him to butt back in, and he has promised to do that. But as long as the world is governed by sin, we can’t expect God’s complete presence in it. Richard can complain that this isn’t fair. He can say that it’s all nonsense, or that there’s no evidence for any of it. But he can’t reasonably say that it’s illogical or incoherent. Those terms are much more aptly applied to his own position.

Perhaps Richard’s complaints here reveal something of the nature of atheism. If we were to assemble all of his “If I were God . . .” arguments and were to condense them into a single syllogism, I think we would be left with the following:

Premise One: If God exists, then he would do things just as I would do them.

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.

Richard longs to be recognized as a philosopher, and he claims to be one in his book and elsewhere. I’m surprised no one has challenged this claim. If by “philosopher” Richard means “someone who thinks a lot about stuff,” then I would perhaps grant that he is a philosopher. If, however, we employ that term with any meaningful criteria of what it means to be a philosopher, Richard falls dreadfully short. In other words, if Richard is free to call himself a philosopher when he routinely engages in the most faulty reasoning imaginable, then anyone in the world can say, “Hey, I’m a philosopher too!” and the term has lost all meaning. Hence, it is time for those who respect philosophy to take a stand against the unlawful use of the word “philosopher.” We should not hear that word come from Richard’s mouth or read it in his writings, unless he is applying it to someone else—someone who at least makes an effort to be logical.

In his quest for recognition as a philosopher, Richard is forced to engage in a little equivocation to support his high opinion of himself. He does this by playing around with two different meanings of the word “philosophy.” According to Richard, “Philosophy is what we believe, about ourselves, about the universe and our place in it.”[150] Since philosophy is just “what we believe,” and everyone believes something, it follows that everyone has a right to be called a philosopher. The problem is that philosophy isn’t just what people believe. Richard is taking advantage of the way we talk about a person’s “philosophy of life.” Compare the following statements:

In (1), philosophy means “whatever we believe.” In (2), it is applied to the body of works handed down to us by philosophers, which is what people study in philosophy courses. In (3), philosophy is an activity governed by careful reasoning and a logical progression towards truth. These meanings, however, are not interchangeable. One cannot say, for instance, “I have a philosophy of life, so I must be a philosopher.”

Richard also tries to take away the most accurate meaning of “philosophy” by making the standard entirely subjective. He argues, “The true philosopher is anyone inspired by a passion for pursuing wisdom and truth.”[151] Now go up to an average college student and ask him if he pursues truth. He will most likely answer that he does. But does this make him a philosopher? Again, only if the term is stripped of all relevant meaning.

Of course, philosophers certainly have a passion for pursuing wisdom and truth, as do many scientists, historians, and theologians. Yet many people think that they seek the truth when they really don’t. We can see this clearly when they write books that are filled with illogical arguments and misrepresented evidence. Such people are obviously more interested in justifying their opinions than in reaching accurate conclusions.

We have seen over and over again how Richard changes his method depending on his purpose. He employs one method while examining his own position, but a completely different method while examining the positions of others. If a Christian makes an argument for the existence of God or the resurrection of Jesus, Richard subjects the argument to the highest level of scrutiny and rejects it because it doesn’t meet his rigorous standards of truth. Yet when Richard defends Metaphysical Naturalism, any argument will do, no matter how poorly reasoned it is.

Further, Richard routinely criticizes and abuses real philosophers who have earned that title through careful reflection and study. His motive seems to be that, if he can’t rise to their level of coherence, he will attempt to bring them down to his. But even as he attacks these philosophers, we see him committing countless errors without a hint of careful deliberation. Consider, for example, Richard’s treatment of Alvin Plantinga, who argues that belief in God is “properly basic[152].” While I’m not convinced that Plantinga is correct, I am convinced that Richard’s mode of reasoning pales in comparison to Plantinga’s.

In the essay Richard responds to, Plantinga reflects on the evidentialist objection to theism. Anyone familiar with the work will know that his method consists of the following steps:

Using this method, Plantinga makes his opponent’s position as strong as possible (usually much stronger than the opponent ever made it) before deciding whether to accept or reject it. Compare that method to Richard’s method, which centers around the following steps:

5. Conclude by saying something like, “So much for that argument! This shows that there is absolutely no evidence for any position except mine, and that all of the evidence supports me.”

This is exactly how Richard treats Plantinga’s work. He offers a poor account of Plantinga’s sophisticated argument, along with flimsy responses that are usually addressed in Plantinga’s essay. He then concludes with “So much for the claim that belief can be warranted without evidence.”[153]

We see Richard using the same technique in his treatment of free will and determinism, which is the most sloppy handling of the topic I have ever read. Richard supports “compatibilism”—the view that free will and determinism are compatible. He contrasts this with J. P. Moreland’s “libertarian free will”—the view that the human will is outside the chain of physical causation. Compatibilism teaches that what we do is determined completely by the events leading up to my choice, but that my choice is still free in some sense. Libertarian free will, however, teaches that the “self” has the ability to choose what to do, and that this choice isn’t determined (though it may be influenced) by past events.

Richard misrepresents Moreland’s position by declaring that, since libertarian free will states that a person’s choice is outside the chain of physical causation, this choice must be a completely random event. Having thus misrepresented Moreland’s view, he proceeds to stir up emotion against it: “Imagine how you would feel, having learned that it is nothing but the result of unpredictable randomness whether you kill your wife or not at this very moment. Shocking, yes?”[154] Once Richard has both distorted libertarian free will and declared that it could lead to men murdering their wives at random, he goes on to argue against the straw man he has built. Interestingly, he proceeds by citing a number of court cases which he uses to show that the courts reject the idea that our acts are completely random. This is flawed for two reasons. First, even if all the courts in the world agreed with Richard, this wouldn’t make his view correct. I could just as reasonably argue, “Well, it says ‘In God We Trust’ on our money, so this shows that God exists!” Second, the court cases that Richard cites would support libertarian free will over against compatibilism, had he not distorted the former. For instance, he cites a case that states: “Servitude means ‘[a] condition in which a person lacks liberty especially to determine one’s course of action or way of life’—‘slavery’—‘the state of being subject to a master.’”[155] Richard interprets it thus:

Here free will is clearly seen as acting as one chooses, since we only lose free will when we are caused by someone or something else to act “contrary” to or “without” our choice (which equates to our “desire”). So long as we “determine our course of action” as we want, we have free will, because our act is voluntary.[156]

This is fundamental to all criminal law: intent (knowledge of what one is doing and an overriding desire to do it) is essential for all criminal responsibility. This means that desire must be the cause of one’s action in order for someone to be responsible for what he does. So our entire criminal justice system requires determinism to be true, at least for human actions.[157]

1. Compatibilism, though it is a form of determinism, teaches that we really have free will.

Whether Richard likes it or not, compatibilism teaches that our acts are determined, that is, that they are what they are because of an unalterable chain of causes. This is why compatibilism is a difficult concept to grasp. If my acts are determined by forces over which I have no control, do I really have free will? Perhaps, or perhaps not. But despite Richard’s misrepresentations, libertarian free will does teach that there is a cause for my act. The cause is the self, and the self is a substance that is not completely controlled by the series of physical causes. Thus, the courts’ rulings stating that we are responsible for our actions (because we could have done otherwise) fit much more comfortably with Moreland’s view.

Yet Richard commits another error in his discussion of free will that is also worthy of note. Moreland draws a distinction between a final cause (the end or purpose of a thing) and an efficient cause (the agency responsible for bringing something about). Whereas determinism, according to Moreland, demands that everything happens because of efficient causes, libertarian free will teaches that humans can act because of final causes; that is, we can act in order to bring about some desired end. Whether he is correct or not is irrelevant here. I’m more interested in Richard’s response. He counters Moreland by claiming that final causes and efficient causes are really the same thing. He then adds:

So Moreland is attempting to state a tautology (A is B) as if it were a distinction (A is not B), a fundamental violation of basic logic.[158]

This statement is enlightening for several reasons. First, Richard believes that final causes and efficient causes are equivalent. While he can argue that one is ultimately reducible to the other, there is nevertheless a distinction between the two, so they are not equivalent. Second, he claims that stating a tautology as if it were a distinction is “a fundamental violation of basic logic.” Pick any logic book you like and turn to the “Fundamental Violations” section. You won’t find anything like, “Whatever you do, don’t treat a tautology like a distinction!” (Richard loves to toss around accusations like this, even when they aren’t true.) Third, it is significant to note that Richard doesn’t even understand what a tautology is, though he uses the term several times in his book. In Richard’s lexicon, the terms “tautology” and “equivalence” are interchangeable, but this just isn’t true. A “tautology” is a proposition that, in virtue of its form, is necessarily true. Just as a contradiction is a statement that can’t possibly be true, a tautology is a statement that can’t possibly be false:

Whereas the first statement can’t be true, the second statement can’t be false. (A statement that is neither a tautology nor a contradiction is said to be “contingent.”) Hence, an equivalence can be a tautology (“Richard is Richard”), but these aren’t the kind of equivalences Richard is trying to use. The statement “Final causes are efficient causes” is not a tautology, nor is the negation of that statement “a fundamental violation of basic logic.”

I took the time to explain these concepts because a single tautology or contradiction is sufficient to destroy Richard’s entire position. Here’s why. Richard often tries to give the impression that at some point in his life he sifted through various methods of investigation, found the best, used these methods to gather data, and finally arrived at his philosophy of life. Based on his book, I find it far more probable that he selected his methods based on which methods supported his worldview. Nevertheless, if he really built his philosophy from the ground up, it’s time for him to level the entire structure, for he explains what it would take to inspire him to demolish his worldview:

[I]f we can find any proposition that has meaning but does not make any predictions, or that makes predictions but does not have any meaning, or that can be confirmed as true or false without any reference to what it predicts, then this principle would have to be revised, and my entire philosophy reconstructed from the ground up (unless the revision had no other consequence than to expand or qualify what was already established).[159]

Richard says that if there exists a proposition “that can be confirmed as true or false without reference to what it predicts,” his entire philosophy will have to be reconstructed. But such statements are known to exist—tautologies and contradictions.

I confirm that this statement is true based on its logical form. There is no way it could ever be false. But I do this without reference to its prediction. The proposition says that it will either rain or not rain. No one would ever say, “Oh yeah? Well, we’ll just wait and see if you’re right!” It has to be right.

We can also construct a statement that can be confirmed as false without reference to what it predicts:

This statement is false, but no one needs to ask for my marriage certificate to know that it’s false. It’s false because it is a contradiction. Now, Richard said that he would need to revise his entire philosophy if such statements could be shown to exist. Thus, if he is a man of his word, he will begin dismantling his worldview. But will he ever do such a thing? Is he really concerned with methodology? While some atheist apologists try their best to arrive at a correct worldview by careful reflection, most merely want to appear as if their worldview is based on sound reasoning. A careful examination of their writings usually reveals their biases.

And what do we find in Richard’s book? Normally, I wouldn’t give my full opinion about such a book, for fear that I might be accused of being too harsh. However, based on Richard’s treatment of the Bible, I can only conclude that he believes that critics should be entirely vocal about their opinions of others’ works. With that in mind, I reluctantly offer my full assessment of Richard’s latest attempt at philosophy.

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.

So is Richard a philosopher? No one who has any respect for philosophy would ever apply that label to Richard. His notion that “I’m a philosopher because I like to think” is absurd. I like to put sweetener in my coffee, but it doesn’t make me a chemist.

While it may be inappropriate (shall we say, “intolerant”?) to refer to belief systems as “diseases,” I must note that all of the criteria Richard uses to establish that Christianity is a virus are at least as applicable to atheism. Atheists believe that their system is right, just as Christians do. Atheists also seek to spread their religion across the globe. The only thing that has stopped them is the fact that humanity isn’t quite gullible enough to fall for it. Further, we must ask ourselves, “What could be so destructive that it causes an intelligent, educated man to rest his mind on fallacies and contradictions, and to proclaim his illogical view like a banshee?” It seems that atheism takes intelligent people and reduces them to absurdity. It also inspires delusions in its adherents. Richard actually believes that there will come a day when the world will completely throw off reason and will adopt Metaphysical Naturalism, and that a utopia will immediately result, and that we will then go out and colonize the universe, and that we will conclude our stay by transferring our minds to computer programs. He even thinks that his description of the “Secular Humanist’s Heaven” is what everyone has been dreaming of, for after his description of computer consciousness and space voyages he adds, “If it sounds like your dream of heaven, this is no accident.”[160] Has anyone been dreaming of spending eternity inside a computer program?

The fact that Richard’s view results in such delusional thinking matches up perfectly with his description of viral memes:

As a virus impairs or kills its host, a viral meme impairs or kills your mind, your power of reason. Even those whose minds survive it act as carriers.[161]

Hence, there are those whose minds have been killed by atheism, and there are carriers of the disease. Ironically, this book was written by a man named “Carrier.”

In addition to this deluded thinking, viral atheism causes people to ignore any true opportunities to fulfill their desires. For instance, we can see from Richard’s writings that he desires an explanation for the origin of the universe, and for the fine-tuning of the cosmos. He wants a worldview that accounts for life and consciousness. He also wants a philosophy that provides a foundation for meaning and morality. The fulfillment of all these desires is Christianity, yet Richard continues to turn to his placebo.

Of course, I’m being facetious. Richard isn’t an atheist because he’s been infected by a disease; he’s an atheist because he’s angry at God. His mind has been poisoned by rage, and this rage has led to his irrational war against Christianity. Richard even endorses the view that our reason obeys emotions such as anger:

[W]ithout emotions, reason would be a dead letter. For reason is the slave of emotion. Reason is not a motivator. Reason is a tool, a process. But for that tool to be applied, you must be motivated to apply it, and what you apply it to depends on your goals, which are in turn the result of motives, and motives are the product of desires, and desires are the outcome of emotions.[162]

After reading Richard’s book, I am convinced that this last statement is autobiographical. He says that reason is the “slave of emotion.” If we have seen anything from Richard’s book, we have seen that he hates Christianity, the Bible, and the idea of God. His reasoning ability has become the slave of this anger, this hatred. Anyone who looks at the life of Jesus and sees nothing but cruelty, violence, and evil has got a serious problem. It is a sign that atheism may be pathological after all. Jesus died on the cross for our sins because he loves us and wants us to experience all the joys of knowing him. To focus all our aggression on such a sacrifice is a sure sign that there is such a thing as spiritual rebellion. So, as it turns out, Sense and Goodness Without God provides outstanding evidence for the spiritual truth of Christianity, since people don’t become quite this angry at a beings they don’t believe exist. For Richard to become so illogical and impassioned in his war against God strongly implies that he doesn’t consider God to be a nonsensical character in a fairytale. It also implies that his book probably isn’t meant to convince the world that atheism is true. It’s most likely meant to convince himself.

Notes:

[1] Richard Carrier, Sense and Goodness Without God: A Defense of Metaphysical Naturalism (Bloomington: AuthorHouse, 2005), p. 287.
[2] p. 230.

[3] p. 24.

[4] Metaphysical Naturalism is the view that everything that exists is part of nature and is knowable only through the sciences.

[5] p. 365.

[6] pp. 384-385.

[7] p. 394.

[8] p. 394.

[9] p. 395.

[10] p. 412.

[11] p. 395.

[12] On the front page of his website, Richard says, “My specialties are science, philosophy, historical method, and ancient cultures and religions” (http://www.columbia.edu/~rcc20/, accessed 7 August 2005).

[13] Richard Carrier, “What Do We Do When Some Theist We Don’t Know Sends Us E-Mail?”

[14] Sense and Goodness, pp. 171-172.

[15] p. 172.

[16] p. 273.

[17] p. 254.

[18] p. 412.

[19] p. 394.

[20] p. 172.

[21] p. 17.

[22] Song of Solomon, 7:1-9. All Bible quotations are from the New American Standard Bible.

[23] Genesis 1:31.

[24] Sense and Goodness, p. 269.

[25] p. 18.

[26] p. 25.

[27] p. 4.

[28] p. 4.

[29] http://www.columbia.edu/~rcc20/writing.html, accessed 7 August 2005.

[30] Sense and Goodness, p. 5.

[31] p. 6.

[32] p. 414.

[33] See, for instance, pp. 13, 19, 176, 230, 261, 264-267, 287, 306, 308, 320, 402, 404.

[34] p. 266.

[35] p. 287.

[36] p. 258.

[37] p. 270.

[38] p. 264.

[39] p. 267.

[40] p. 19.

[41] p. 19.

[42] pp. 5-6. He does concede, however, that it is possible for him to make a mistake.

[43] pp. 300-301.

[44] p. 16.

[45] Matthew 10:34-36.

[46] John 2:13-16.

[47] Luke 12:47.

[48] 1 Timothy 6:1-2.

[49] In verses 13-14, Paul says that he would like Onesimus’s (a runaway slave’s) help in his ministry, but that he didn’t want to take Onesimus “by compulsion.” Instead, he wanted to let Philemon (the slave-owner) do everything of his “own free will,” and Paul strongly urges Philemon to treat his “beloved brother” (Onesimus) fairly.

[50] Galatians 3:26-28.

[51] Ephesians 6:5-8.

[52] Richard Carrier, “Craig’s Empty Tomb and Habermas on the Post-Resurrection Appearances of Jesus.”

[53] Sense and Goodness, p. 18.

[54] p. 264.

[55] p. 287.

[56] p. 15.

[57] p. 29.

[58] p. 266.

[59] p. 411.

[60] p. 412.

[61] p. 176.

[62] p. 258.

[63] p. 259.

[64] p. 320.

[65] p. 330.

[66] p. 369.

[67] p. 329.

[68] p. 342.

[69] p. 17.

[70] G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (New York: Image Books, 1990), pp. 87-88.

[71] Matthew 5:40.

[72] Matthew 19:21.

[73] Sense and Goodness, p. 324.

[74] p. 319.

[75] p. 202.

[76] pp. 282-283.

[77] Chesterton, p. 89.

[78] Sense and Goodness, p. 405.

[79] p. 75.

[80] p. 79.

[81] p. 80.

[82] p. 85.

[83] p. 84.

[84] p. 82.

[85] For a discussion of the Kalam Cosmological Argument, see William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 1994), pp. 91-122. An outline of the argument may be given as follows:

If the universe never had a beginning, then an infinite number of moments occurred prior to the present moment.
If an infinite number of moments occurred prior to the present moment, then today would never have come, because it is impossible to traverse an actual infinite.
But today has come.
Thus, there were a finite number of moments before today.
If there were a finite number of moments before today, the universe had a beginning.
Everything that has a beginning must have a cause.
Therefore, the universe had a cause.

[86] Sense and Goodness, p. 73.

[87] Although Christians have occasionally used the former version, the latter more accurately reflects the modern form of the Cosmological Argument.

[88] pp. 86-87.

[89] p. 93.

[90] P. C. W. Davies, “Multiverse Cosmological Models,” Modern Physics Letters A, 19:10, pp. 741-742.

[91] Paul Davies, The Mind of God: The Scientific Basis for a Rational World (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992), p. 190. In the 1980’s and 1990’s, Davies was slightly more critical of multiverse theory (but not much).

[92] Paul Davies, God & the New Physics (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1983), pp. 172-173.

[93] Sense and Goodness, pp. 166-167.

[94] Instead of citing sources, Richard adds long “For Further Reading” lists at the ends of his sections. The message seems to be, “I’m not going to tell you where I’m getting all this, but if you read these twelve books, maybe you’ll find something that supports my claims.”

[95] Molecules with four functional groups are referred to as either “left-handed” or “right-handed,” the molecules in the first category being the mirror images of those in the second.

[96] p. 237.

[97] Lee DH, Cranja J R, Martinez JA, Severin K, and Ghadiri MR. (1996) “A Self-Replicating Peptide.” Nature, 382:525-528.

[98] See Tjivikua T, Ballester P, and Rebek J. (1990) “A Self-Replicating System.” Journal of the American Chemical Society 112(3):1249-50.

[99] Sense and Goodness, p. 255.

[100] p. 217.

[101] p. 223.

[102] p. 239.

[103] p. 259.

[104] p. 78.

[105] p. 161.

[106] Ecclesiastes 1:3.

[107] Macbeth, Act V, Scene V.

[108] Sense and Goodness, p. 345.

[109] p. 162.

[110] p. 158.

[111] p. 406.

[112] Dualism teaches that mind and body are two separate substances.

[113] p. 162.

[114] p. 161.

[115] p. 161.

[116] p. 162.

[117] p. 162.

[118] p. 162.

[119] p. 342.

[120] p. 313.

[121] p. 315.

[122] p. 336.

[123] p. 336.

[124] p. 345.

[125] Faith Under Fire, Episode #101.

[126] p. 317.

[127] p. 321.

[128] “Thus, far from being ‘just’ animals, we alone have the ability to adopt and live a moral life. Anyone who reasons that we should act like ‘other’ animals because we, too, are an animal, is forgetting that as every species acts in its own way, so should we: thus, even as animals, we ought to act like human beings” (p. 309).

[129] “The only freedoms that should be restricted are the uses of freedom to deprive others of freedom” (p. 390).

[130] “Instead of legislating anyone’s moral vision, the law should ensure a common peace and welfare, so each individual can manifest her own moral vision, live her life according to her own moral beliefs—and exercise her freedom to change her mind. . . . [Y]ou can’t compel or intimidate anyone else into joining you” (p. 376).

[131] p. 267.

[132] p. 347.

[133] p. 339.

[134] p. 385.

[135] p. 317.

[136] p. 340.

[137] Dateline, November 29, 1994. Notice that Dahmer attributes his actions to his ideas.

[138] p. 280.

[139] p. 274.

[140] p. 275.

[141] p. 278.

[142] p. 256.

[143] Michael Shermer, “Shermer’s Last Law,” Scientific American, January 2002.

[144] See Matthew 12:24.

[145] p. 244.

[146] Richard Carrier, “Did Jesus Exist? Earl Doherty and the Argument to Ahistory.”

[147] Richard Carrier and Mike Licona, On the Resurrection of Jesus Christ (The Veritas Forum, 2004).

[148] He argues this in Brian Flemming’s film, The God Who Wasn’t There.

[149] p. 281.

[150] p. 3.

[151] p. 23.

[152] A belief is “properly basic” if it is foundational to knowledge and requires no justification.

[153] p. 46.

[154] p. 102.

[155] p. 111.

[156] p. 112.

[157] p. 113.

[158] p. 107.

[159] p. 29.

[160] p. 406.

[161] p. 258.

[162] p. 196.