The Preposterous Micro-Cult of Richard Carrier

 

Richard Carrier is at it again - this time abusing probability theory to use Aristotle’s existence in order to undermine Jesus’ existence. Carrier has built a small cult-like following on his absurd work centred around the historically ridiculous idea that Jesus never existed. And like all cult figures, he is supported only by the gullible few who cannot discern his squalid tactics and poor reasoning, he calls his critics (which is most people) cranks, insults those who point out his errors, and shores up his narcissistic ego by claiming the experts are deceivers or fools, and that his charlatanism is the right way forward. No, Carrier is a grifter of the worst kind (I’ve tackled him before - see here, here and here).

Yet again he’s written a stinker - an outrageous defence of Jesus’ so-called non-existence by being confused about probability theory, where his entire argument rests on a foundation of methodological errors, circular assumptions, pseudo-statistical theatrics, and an unrecognisable form of historiography. Let me go through his four most fundamental errors:

Error 1
His first amateurish absurdity is his invention of reference classes to predetermine the outcome. He begins by dividing ancient figures into two “reference classes” - mythologised superheroes, who rarely exist historically; and ordinary mundane people, who usually do. He immediately places Jesus in the first class, Aristotle in the second, and then declares - based on his own invented categories - that Jesus must start with a very low prior probability of existence. Even a sketchy understanding of Bayesian probability would show Carrier that this classification is circular - where he’s basically argued: Jesus is mythologised, therefore low prior; mythologised means low prior, therefore Jesus is mythologised. If he had a proper grasp of history, he’d know that historians do not use “mythological superhero” as a category, much less use these invented accounts to lower the prior probability that the underlying person existed. Carrier’s entire Bayesian edifice collapses if his arbitrary priors are replaced by historically grounded ones.

Error 2
Next he arbitrarily imputes likelihood ratios masquerading as mathematics. His article is filled with invented numbers: Aristotle’s writings are “100 times more likely” if he existed, an inscription is “1000 times more likely.”, student testimony is “10 times more likely.”, later historians are “5 times more likely.”, etc just like a cult leader spews out ridiculous claims and expects his acolytes to digest without critical evaluation. None of Carrier’s ratios are derived from data, statistical analysis, or historiographical practice. They are simply numbers Carrier makes up and plugs into equations to produce meaningless result. Carrier loves to sound clever to dupe his pliable readers, then insult or dismiss those outside of the gate as being ‘cranks’ if they see through his nonsense - and he gets very defensive when he fears he’s being exposed. But to see through him is to see quite clearly that his clever-sounding writing is mostly guff – absolute guff. His error 2 violates basic Bayesian methodology for at least three reasons: 1) no empirical calibration of likelihoods; 2) his numbers have no grounding in actual frequencies, error rates, or comparative studies, and 3) the evidence is not independent. Carrier multiplies dependent evidences as if they were independent, deceptively inflating the totals. I don’t know if he understands that small, uncertain datasets cannot sustain precise Bayesian ratios - but if he does, then he’s conning his readers, and if he doesn’t, then he needs to learn by reading more. If he did so, and reasoned honestly and competently, he wouldn’t assign arbitrary values that produce a desired outcome of Jesus’ non-existence, nor does he compare incomparable social strata.

Error 3
Carrier also artificially reduces all early Jesus evidence to zero by redefining everything as dependent, mythical, or derivative, including even some of the most historically testified evidence we have, like that of St. Paul, who is one of the earliest and most independent sources, and wrote within twenty years of Jesus’s death, mentions meeting James the brother of Jesus, refers to Jesus’s execution, and knows of Jesus’s teachings; like that of Josephus, even though the scholarly consensus across atheist, Jewish, and Christian historians holds that the core reference to Jesus is authentic; and like the other gospels, attempting to collapse all of them into a single fictional source, even though they demonstrably have different content, interests, and theology. For more on this type of error, see my blog post The Resurrection and Bayesian Reasoning here.

Error 4
Carrier also misuses Bayesian requirements for independence. He multiplies likelihoods - 100 × 1000 × 10 × 10 × 5 × 2 - as if each piece of Aristotle’s evidence were independent when they are all connected to the same Peripatetic tradition, preserved by the same Hellenistic libraries, and cross-quoted within the same literary networks. Like error 2, this violates the independence requirement of Bayes’ theorem. What makes it more preposterous is how, to suit his own agenda, he does the opposite in treating every Christ tradition as though it is entirely dependent on Mark, even when multiple layers of tradition clearly exist. His Bayesian model is structurally distorted. Carrier claims Christ’s miracle stories lower the prior probability of His existence. But even if you don’t believe in the miracles, the idea that miraculous attribution lowers the probability of the existence of the individual blatantly reverses standard historiographic logic - as anyone who has heard of Alexander, Pythagoras, Augustus or Apollonius would tell you. Moreover, founders of religious movements in antiquity who attract the kind of religious material Jesus attracted almost always did exist - which is another point that reverses Carrier’s logic. The prior probability of Jesus’s existence is high, not low - and Carrier’s model was rigged from the start in order for him to attempt to woo his followers into submission to his mistaken logic.

No, the truth is, Carrier is an amateur grifter posing as a confident, smart authority figure - and only the kind of people who typically latch on to charlatans like him are those likely not to see through him. In fact, once you condition on ‘already impressed by Carrier,’ the posterior for ‘sees through the act’ drops to about the same level as a p-value in bad psychology research, heh heh. 😊

When Carrier assigns probabilities, his prior is usually whatever number first wandered into his Bayesian dreamscape. His result in this article is both mathematically and historically meaningless. And this, I’m afraid, is what all charlatans, cranks and cult gurus do - they draw vulnerable, easily-swayed people in by constructing a distorted narrative to output the answer they already believe, and wish to convince cult shoppers to purchase what he’s selling (yes, he continually calls for financial donations too).