The attacks on Christ and Christianity are relentless in our day.
One of the best known attackers of Christianity is Dr. Richard Carrier, who has become (in)famous for trying to prove that there is no way that Jesus of Nazareth could have been a real person. His weak scholarship has been repeatedly and resoundingly refuted by scholars and historicists. Dr. Bart Ehrman’s detailed takedown of both Carrier’s arguments and jackassery is incredible. Nevertheless, Carrier’s arguments are perfect examples of the kinds of contemporary arguments being made that supposedly prove that God isn’t real, Jesus is a lie, and that Christmas is a fairy tale. He has summarized his arguments which supposedly prove his claim in this way:
I’m pretty sure the top three reasons atheists are atheists are (1) the world is awash with evil and injustice (natural and human) and there is no superbeing doing a thing about it, (2) the only books claiming to be endorsed by a god are awash with ridiculous ignorance, contradictions, and vile teachings, and (3) if a god existed and cared that we knew it, he would tell us, personally (and, being the only actual god, consistently). I would add (4) the universe is very badly designed for life and thus cannot have been designed for it and then (5) there is insufficient evidence to reach any other conclusion.
As a collection of arguments against Christ, these are representative, they are the main arguments you encounter with every Angry Internet Atheist (and even most of the calmer ones.) My purpose here then is to demonstrate the ways that the Book of Mormon answers these challenges in ways that the Holy Bible cannot. In doing so, I will demonstrate not only the folly of Carrier’s arguments, but I will also demonstrate the necessity of the Book of Mormon itself as a source of revealed doctrine that proves the reality of Christ necessary for the present age.
An Evil World
Carrier’s first argument for atheism is, “the world is awash with evil and injustice (natural and human) and there is no superbeing doing a thing about it.”
This argument is incredibly weak. The world is filled with evil, but God is doing a great deal about it. God’s greatest work against evil is the Atonement of Jesus Christ through which the consequences of evil – privation, suffering, and death – are conquered. As the Prophet Alma explains:
11 And he shall go forth, suffering pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind; and this that the word might be fulfilled which saith he will take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people.
12 And he will take upon him death, that he may loose the bands of death which bind his people; and he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities.
13 Now the Spirit knoweth all things; nevertheless the Son of God suffereth according to the flesh that he might take upon him the sins of his people, that he might blot out their transgressions according to the power of his deliverance; and now behold, this is the testimony which is in me.
Jesus Christ took upon Himself not only the punishments for our sins and transgressions, but all our infirmities, pains, sicknesses, and weaknesses. He does this so that He can succor us, so that He can provide, “assistance that relieves and delivers from difficulty, want or distress.” He succors us so that He can heal us in mind, body, and soul. The faithful disciple is, “filled with joy” (Mosiah 4:3) despite his or her trials. Or maybe it is because of your trials that you are able to be filled with joy.
Very many of today’s agnostics and atheists, like Carrier, argue that suffering is proof that God isn’t real because suffering is evil and therefore no good God would allow it to exist. Their entire ideological framework argues that pleasure is good and pain is bad and therefore mortality is bad because suffering exists. But this supposition is nonsense. It has no actual foundation in logic, it is the lowest common denominator that all of the atheists and agnostics can agree upon because, having denounced God, they have been reduced to intellectual infants, unable to define Good or Evil altogether.
In a recent interview with Dr. Jack Symes, noted Canadian psychologist Dr. Jordan Peterson did an admirable job explaining an alternative moral framework for the purpose of reality in opposition to the agnostic and atheist pain/pleasure framework. Peterson does this using the example of Abraham:
So, I guess my first response to that question to you as well is that it isn’t obvious to me that the axis of happiness and suffering is the right axis of evaluation. We seem to believe that it’s self-evident that it’s, let’s say, something approximating pleasure versus pain. But that is not the only, what would you say, those aren’t the only interpretive frameworks that are accessible. So, I’ll give you an example, a biblical example, which I think deals with this point extremely well.
And so, the first great hero of the biblical text is Abraham. …We’re presented with Abraham at the start of his story, but he’s an old man already. And he’s a man who’s lived a life that hasn’t been characterized by suffering. So, he has the socialist paradise at hand, in a sense, because Abraham is the child of wealthy parents and there’s not a lot of biographical information in the text, but what we do know is that whatever Abraham wanted he got. …It’s sort of, it’s the situation of childhood paradise. That’s a good way of thinking about it, unconscious childhood paradise.
…Now, God comes to Abraham in a very specific form, and God comes to Abraham as the voice that compels him to leave his security and voyage into the world. And that’s precisely the instruction, is that Abraham is to leave his kin and the security of his wealthy father’s dwelling and to go out into the terrible world. And it is a terrible world because Abraham has a very cataclysmic adventure. War, tyranny, famine, sexual conflict, deep sexual immortality, the requirement for profound sacrifice. Like Abraham has a life and it’s not hedonic [meaning not based on pleasure].
Okay, so then you might say, well if the solution to life’s conundrums isn’t pleasure as opposed to pain, because that’s what Abraham has to begin with, what exactly is on offer? …Now what God offers in the Abrahamic story isn’t pleasure, and it’s certainly not the absence of pain. It’s something like noble romantic adventure. And that’s way different. That’s a way different vision. …And what that implies is that if you do things correctly, there will be spectacularly positive consequences, let’s say, and maybe unimaginably spectacular consequences. But if you do things wrong, like there’s no bottom to the abyss.
Now that’s a very demanding world. But I don’t know, you know, like you think about your own kids, like you want to set a challenge in front of them? And if you wanted to challenge someone to be everything they could be, if they were everything they could be, then would the challenge have those archetypal poles of Hell and Heaven? I mean, that is how the world appears to be constituted. This is good.
…If God exists, or if it’s reasonable to take the leap of faith and believe in God, then it’s reasonable to think that God has a plan for you and that your life is meaningful despite the pain and the suffering you experience. Or in consequence, not despite even, right? Yeah, in consequence, good. Well, could be, you know. Yeah, so it seems like a meaningful and fulfilling life is probably more important than having hedonistic pleasures for the Abrahamic believer.
The absence of pain, evil, or injustice is not the meaning of mortal existence. It is not the moral foundation of reality. Rather, as Dr. Peterson correctly intuits, the moral foundation of reality is about transformation – the transformation of spirit children into Gods. The only way this is possible is through the trials of mortality, facing and experiencing pain and injustice in order to develop the intellectual, emotional, and spiritual skills and abilities necessary to become exalted. In the words of the Prophet Joseph Smith, each of us has “to learn how to be a god yourself.” And Gods are not made by avoiding suffering and lounging about in endless comfort or pleasure. We become Gods as a consequence of how we choose to react in the face of the challenges of injustice, evil, and suffering. It is only in facing these trials that the spectacularly positive joys of exaltation are possible for us.
In fact, as the Prophet Lehi explained, the process of exaltation necessitates the existence of opposition – justice and injustice, sorrow and joy:
11 For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things. If not so, my firstborn in the wilderness, righteousness could not be brought to pass, neither wickedness, neither holiness nor misery, neither good nor bad. Wherefore, all things must needs be a compound in one; wherefore, if it should be one body it must needs remain as dead, having no life neither death, nor corruption nor incorruption, happiness nor misery, neither sense nor insensibility.
13 And if ye shall say there is no law, ye shall also say there is no sin. If ye shall say there is no sin, ye shall also say there is no righteousness. And if there be no righteousness there be no happiness. And if there be no righteousness nor happiness there be no punishment nor misery. And if these things are not there is no God. And if there is no God we are not, neither the earth; for there could have been no creation of things, neither to act nor to be acted upon; wherefore, all things must have vanished away.
22 And now, behold, if Adam had not transgressed he would not have fallen, but he would have remained in the garden of Eden. And all things which were created must have remained in the same state in which they were after they were created; and they must have remained forever, and had no end.
23 And they would have had no children; wherefore they would have remained in a state of innocence, having no joy, for they knew no misery; doing no good, for they knew no sin.
27 Wherefore, men are free according to the flesh; and all things are given them which are expedient unto man. And they are free to choose liberty and eternal life, through the great Mediator of all men, or to choose captivity and death, according to the captivity and power of the devil; for he seeketh that all men might be miserable like unto himself.
Without opposition, without suffering being possible, it is impossible to have joy. Without misery, there can be no happiness. Without the possibility of sin, you cannot be righteous. To demand a world without the possibility of suffering is not to ask for a more just existence. To demand a world without the possibility of suffering is to demand a world without sin or righteousness, a kind of endless “unconscious childhood paradise” without any hope for intellectual or spiritual progress. It is to wish to be a two-year old, forever. Even Heaven is not totally absent from sin and sorrow as Lucifer rebelled against God (Revelation 12:7-9) and God weeps because of the suffering of His children (Moses 7:28-41).
The problem here, one that will come up again before the end of this article, is that people like Carrier simply refuse to understand or accept why they are wrong. Yes, suffering exists. But that suffering matters. It has eternal significance. The moral axis of the universe is not pain/pleasure, but the “infinitely painful and [infinitely] rewarding adventure,” the consequence of which is immortality and eternal life – Godhood (D&C 132:20). And God is active at every level of existence to comfort, heal, and strengthen all those who will accept His aid. The Atonement of Jesus Christ not only overthrows the worst evils we face, Death and Hell, but comforts, nourishes, and heals us from the everyday sorrows and pains we experience. That the atheists and agnostics dismiss this aid doesn’t make them right. It merely means that their philosophy has turned them spiritually and intellectually into children incapable of experiencing or understanding it.
The Problem of the Bible
Carrier’s next problem is, “the only books claiming to be endorsed by a god are awash with ridiculous ignorance, contradictions, and vile teachings.” Note that the bolded words in the previous quote are a link in the original that leads to another article by Carrier that criticizes God because the Bible says that God orders people be killed, including entire enemy groups be wiped out. Carrier incorrectly labels this genocide, but his basic claim still stands despite this error – No good God would command that men, women, and children be killed.
Let’s look at these accusations in reverse order.
The only reason atheists and agnostics today think that murder is bad is because of Christianity. There were plenty of ancient philosophies that allowed murder. The ancient Roman law that held power during the time of Christ had numerous cases of legal homicide, numerous situations in which it was acceptable for one person to murder someone else. For example, a Roman daughter who had sex before her marriage could (and often was) killed by her father and Roman law protected this power. Unwanted children would be abandoned and left to die by dehydration, eaten by animals, or taken as work slaves or sex slaves. And slaves could be killed at will by their owners without punishment for the owners. And this was the most sophisticated and civilized culture in Europe before the Enlightenment for at least a thousand years after it collapsed. And it still has a massive influence on modern society.
So, why doesn’t Carrier and al the other atheists think it is alright to murder slaves, daughters, and unwanted babies? Why do they think it is morally wrong?
Because of Christianity.
The rise of Christianity in the Roman world and then its ever deeper permeation into European history transformed the value placed on individual human lives. The idea that each individual has inalienable rights that shouldn’t be violated is an idea that developed out of Christianity. The morality of the West is rooted in Christianity. Atheists like Carrier do not believe rape and murder are bad because of some figmentary self-evident fact that they are wrong. And we know that it is not self-evident that rape or murder are wrong because some of the most sophisticated societies in history, such as the Romans, allowed, defended, and promoted various forms of murder and rape. Modern atheists and agnostics believe rape and murder are wrong because they have been indoctrinated into those views by a society that was steeped in the morality of Christianity and inculcated that morality into its children even as that society tried to remove the origins that gave rise to that morality.
The “vile teachings” of the Bible are the reason that Carrier thinks that humans have rights and that killing is wrong.
But what about all those times that God commands entire groups of people be destroyed in the Old Testament? In answer to that question, I highly suggest New Testament scholar Dr. Preston Sprinkle’s book Fight: A Christian Case for Nonviolence. On pages 74-90, Dr. Sprinkle looks at multiple examples where the Bible records God commanding that a group of people be exterminated man, woman, and child only for later verses to show that said group was not exterminated and that Israel had kept God’s command even though said people weren’t exterminated as commanded. Some of the most egregious examples of supposed genocidal actions were only recorded long after they supposedly happened. For example, the book of Deuteronomy and its recording of the destruction of the Amorites wasn’t recorded until 500 years later and is rife with the kind of imperial ideology that justified the actions of the later kings of Israel and Judah in the military conquests. This is in direct contrast to both Exodus and Leviticus, which record that it was pestilence, disease, and terror that drove out the Canaanites before the Israelites ever arrived. In short, there is good reason to doubt that God ever sanctioned the destruction of entire groups of people, women, or children.
Which brings us to a criticism that Carrier actually gets correct. The Bible does contradict itself. The problems of textual transmission across millennia alone would lead to omissions and contradictions developing in the library of the Bible. And that is before we account for people altering the texts on purpose. All of which is exactly why we need the Book of Mormon, as the Prophet Nephi explained:
26 And after they go forth by the hand of the twelve apostles of the Lamb, from the Jews unto the Gentiles, thou seest the formation of that great and abominable church, which is most abominable above all other churches; for behold, they have taken away from the gospel of the Lamb many parts which are plain and most precious; and also many covenants of the Lord have they taken away.
27 And all this have they done that they might pervert the right ways of the Lord, that they might blind the eyes and harden the hearts of the children of men.
28 Wherefore, thou seest that after the book hath gone forth through the hands of the great and abominable church, that there are many plain and precious things taken away from the book, which is the book of the Lamb of God.
1 Nephi 13
“The book” here has often been interpreted as being the Bible itself, but it is more likely meant to represent the whole corpus of prophetic instruction which has been altered and/or lost over the stretches of history. Isaiah, Ezekiel, and John were all given a book that represented their mission from God and the words they were supposed to preach. The Book of Mormon predicts that the words of the prophets would be altered and lost. The Book of Mormon was created to restore these lost truths, to clear up the contradictions and explain the unknowns.
35 For, behold, saith the Lamb: I will manifest myself unto thy seed, that they shall write many things which I shall minister unto them, which shall be plain and precious; and after thy seed shall be destroyed, and dwindle in unbelief, and also the seed of thy brethren, behold, these things shall be hid up, to come forth unto the Gentiles, by the gift and power of the Lamb.
36 And in them shall be written my gospel, saith the Lamb, and my rock and my salvation.
1 Nephi 13
But one example of how it does this: Despite numerous wars and battles taking place within the Book of Mormon, not once does God command entire groups of people be destroyed. In fact, the thrust of the Book of Mormon is the exact opposite and God’s servants labor to preach to, convert, and save their enemies. See Alma 17:4, for just one example. There is no reason to think that He did so to the Israelites either. Rather, it seems much more likely that the Israelites carried out numerous acts of brutal violence and then tried to justify it by attributing such violence to God.
God Doesn’t Speak
The third objection that Carrier and other atheists and agnostics raise against Christianity is, “(3) if a god existed and cared that we knew it, he would tell us, personally (and, being the only actual god, consistently).”
The Book of Mormon’s very existence as a completely independent record from the other side of the planet from Israel already addresses this problem. The Book of Mormon describes the purpose for its existence as:
Wherefore, it is an abridgment of the record of the people of Nephi, and also of the Lamanites… An abridgment taken from the Book of Ether also, which is a record of the people of Jared… Which is to show unto the remnant of the house of Israel what great things the Lord hath done for their fathers; and that they may know the covenants of the Lord, that they are not cast off forever—And also to the convincing of the Jew and Gentile that Jesus is the Christ, the Eternal God, manifesting himself unto all nations
Title Page of the Book of Mormon
But it doesn’t end there. The revelation of the Book of Mormon was but the first among the revelations of the modern age. As the Lord explained in:
38 What I the Lord have spoken, I have spoken, and I excuse not myself; and though the heavens and the earth pass away, my word shall not pass away, but shall all be fulfilled, whether by mine own voice or by the voice of my servants, it is the same.
D&C 1
and
2 But, behold, verily, verily, I say unto thee, no one shall be appointed to receive commandments and revelations in this church excepting my servant Joseph Smith, Jun., for he receiveth them even as Moses.
D&C 28
God is not silent. He continues to pour out commandments and revelations today through His modern prophets. God speaks, not spake, acts not acted. And it didn’t end with the Prophet Joseph Smith.
Sister Wendy Nelson, the wife of the current Prophet of God, Russell M. Nelson, records what it is like when revelation begins to come to him in the middle of the night:
When the messages come during the dark of night, Russell M. Nelson reaches for his lighted pen and takes dictation from the Lord.
“OK dear, it’s happening,” the president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints tells his wife, Wendy Nelson.
“I just remain quiet and soon he’s sitting up at the side of the bed, writing,” she said in a recent church video.
Sometimes the spirit prompts the prophet’s wife to leave the bed, though she’d rather sleep. One such morning, Wendy Nelson told Mormon leaders, her husband emerged from the bedroom waving a yellow notebook.
Nelson’s nighttime messages have “increased exponentially,” his wife said, since last year when the 94-year-old took the helm of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, widely known as the Mormon church.
“One of the things the Spirit has repeatedly impressed upon my mind since my new calling as President of the Church,” Nelson said, “is how willing the Lord is to reveal His mind and will.”
CNN
God is consistently calling out to all those who would listen through His prophets and apostles, ancient and modern. But we aren’t dependent on their words or authority. We can have a person witness, individual revelation from God, to guide us in all aspects of our lives. As the Prophet Moroni explained:
3 Behold, I would exhort you that when ye shall read these things, if it be wisdom in God that ye should read them, that ye would remember how merciful the Lord hath been unto the children of men, from the creation of Adam even down until the time that ye shall receive these things, and ponder it in your hearts.
4 And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost.
5 And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things.
Moroni 10:3-5
God does speak to us both on a large scale level and on the very personally level. In fact, through the power of the Holy Ghost, though communion with God, we can know the truth of all things! What a magnificent thing to know, what an even more wondrous thing to experience. Yet, it is the daily experience of those who follow Jesus Christ. But He can’t make you listen. No one can make the intentionally deaf hear anything they don’t want to hear. Carrier doesn’t hear God because he doesn’t want to hear God.
The Last Objections
Carrier’s final objections, that the Universe is hostile to life and that there is insufficient evidence to believe in God, are the objections most easily dismissed.
First, Carrier’s claim that the Universe is hostile to life is completely without evidence. Sure, you won’t survive long in the vacuum of space. “Scientists estimate there could be 60 billion planets in the Milky Way alone within habitable zones capable of supporting life. Considering the vast number of galaxies, researchers estimate about 50 sextillion potentially habitable planets in the universe, making Earth one of many candidates for hosting life.” (Kershner, emphasis additus) To be clear, that’s 5,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 planets which are habitable in the Universe. And I’m supposed to conclude that means the Universe is hostile to life? Absurd. That is like arguing the Earth is hostile to life because seventy percent of it is water.
Carrier’s claim that there is no sufficient evidence to believe in God reminds me of the Prophet Alma’s confrontation with the Anti-Christ Korihor:
43 And now Korihor said unto Alma: If thou wilt show me a sign, that I may be convinced that there is a God, yea, show unto me that he hath power, and then will I be convinced of the truth of thy words.
44 But Alma said unto him: Thou hast had signs enough; will ye tempt your God? Will ye say, Show unto me a sign, when ye have the testimony of all these thy brethren, and also all the holy prophets? The scriptures are laid before thee, yea, and all things denote there is a God; yea, even the earth, and all things that are upon the face of it, yea, and its motion, yea, and also all the planets which move in their regular form do witness that there is a Supreme Creator.
45 And yet do ye go about, leading away the hearts of this people, testifying unto them there is no God? And yet will ye deny against all these witnesses? And he said: Yea, I will deny, except ye shall show me a sign.
46 And now it came to pass that Alma said unto him: Behold, I am grieved because of the hardness of your heart, yea, that ye will still resist the spirit of the truth, that thy soul may be destroyed.
Alma 30
The sheer existence of the Universe with its wonders from supermassive stars and sextillion planets able to carry life down to the mysteries of quantum entanglement should be evidence enough of the existence of a Creator. Neither my car nor my computer sprung randomly into existence. The Universe, in all its infinite and eternal complexity, did not either. Entropy increases, not decreases unless acted upon by an outside force. The natural flow of the Universe is from chaos to even greater chaos as systems breakdown under the ever increasing influence of entropy. The Universe started with the inflationary chaos of the early period where everything was essentially hot, flat, and dense. Then, from the absolute disorder of everything everywhere being spread like so much butter scraped over too much bread to the existence of the complex dance of nebula, planets, stars, galaxies, superclusters and more. Entropy went backwards, from the general chaos of superheated flatness to complex and interconnected existence as it cooled. That is the exact opposite of what we should see happen and is evidence itself that a Creator had a hand in making order appear out of chaos because the Universe should have went from its high state of disorder into an even greater state o disorder, not into a more complex state of order than ever. But this is not the end of the evidence.
As Alma noted, we have the experiences of prophets and apostles, ancient and modern, across the span of thousands of years. Everyday people have seen the Devil cast out (pgs. 114-115), the sick healed, the dead raised (pgs. 385-386), angels appear on the Earth once more, and spirits returning to communicate with the living (entire book). The journals and histories of the members of Christ’s church are filled with stories of blessings, miracles, and revelations from God. There are more people communicating with God that there than have ever seen an atom or tested sub-atomic particles. The evidence in eyewitness accounts and firsthand experiences is abundant for those who will listen and who will learn.
There, of course, is Carrier’s (and the atheists and agnostics with him) real problem. Dishonestly and hubristically, he dismisses any evidence that doesn’t accord with what he already believes and finds any admission of error unacceptable. Instead of accepting evidence, he only accepts what supports his a priori conclusion and dismisses anything that might cast any doubt upon it. He cannot accept that he could be wrong and therefore he can never learn. There is a multitude of evidence for the existence of God the Father and Jesus Christ. And the honest in heart and humble in mind will find it enthralling, captivating, and converting. But those who refuse to admit that they could be wrong will only writhe in their own ignorance and kick against the pricks of their own foolishness until their:
38 days of probation are past; ye have procrastinated the day of your salvation until it is everlastingly too late, and your destruction is made sure; yea, for ye have sought all the days of your lives for that which ye could not obtain; and ye have sought for happiness in doing iniquity, which thing is contrary to the nature of that righteousness which is in our great and Eternal Head.
Helaman 13
Self-enforced ignorance has consequences. To remain ignorant is to remain in darkness and to not understand the Plan of Happiness/the Plan of Salvation. It is to intentionally bring suffering upon your self and your community. Carrier and his ilk are like your uncle who took up smoking tobacco at 15 and has smoked every day since. Whether or not you accept that smoking tobacco causes emphysema, heart failure, birth defects, cancer, and death is ultimately irrelevant to what you will do to yourself. You will suffer, you will die, and you will hurt all those around you who love you in the process. It is inevitable that every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus is the Christ (D&C 88:104), but whether or not you are damned depends on how you get to that point. Exaltation is the product of knowledge, intelligence, light, and truth. (D&C 93:36-37, D&C 130:18-29) Damnation is the only child and inevitable outcome of willful ignorance.
Carrier and the atheists like him, so sure in the faith and dogma that God is not real and Christianity is a farce, are prime examples of the arrogance and self-destruction that Jacob warned about over 2,000 years ago:
O the vainness, and the frailties, and the foolishness of men! When they are learned they think they are wise, and they hearken not unto the counsel of God, for they set it aside, supposing they know of themselves, wherefore, their wisdom is foolishness and it profiteth them not.
And they shall perish.