Problems with "The Good Delusion"

Recently, Alex O'Connor (aka CosmicSkeptic) gave a talk to the Dorset Humanists titles the Good Delusion.  In it he argued that free will does not exist, that in consequence morality does not exist, but that moral language can be reconstructed in a way that makes it informative, if not moral.  I think he is wrong on all counts.  I made some criticisms on a few points of the video, but it was suggested to me by somebody else that Alex was unlikely to read the comments and so that I should email him directly, which I have done.  In the process, I expanded on my points.  I thought it might also be useful to post the email on this blog.  It should be noted that the points below are not all my disagreements, though they are enough to refute the initial part of his argument; and the misconceived idea of reconstructing moral language is not motivated without the errors I refute.  I should also note that these do not constitute my positive argument for free will, and for morality.

Richard Carrier and Simon of Cyrene

In "On the Historicity of Jesus", Richard Carrier goes through Mark trying to show that all the stories within it are either "... more likely a fiction than a historical tradition, or just as likely either way.  As an example of the later, he gives Mark 15:21, the story of Simon of Cyrene being forced to carry Jesus' cross.  To justify this claim, Carrier interprets Mark 15:21 as an extended allegory.  Personally, I always have problems with allegorical interpretations.  The fact is that humans are creative, and consequently any story can be given an allegorical interpretation by an intelligent author.  Because the topic of the allegory is not previously constrained (unless explicitly stated in the original story), some other story or belief can always be found to match the structure of the text that is being allegorized - particularly if you are prepared fudge on the details.  Ergo the fact that you can find an allegory has no bearing on the original intentions of the author of the story being allegorized, unless you can find independent evidence that it was intended as an allegory and the fit is perfect.  In this post I intend to show the fit of Carrier's allegory is far from perfect.

Richard Carrier and Jesus of Nazareth

Introduction

As part of Richard Carrier's campaign to persuade us that Jesus was mythical, he needs to divest Jesus of all Earthly association.  A Jesus with a mother, brothers and sisters, or a hometown in Galilee is a historical Jesus - not a myth.  As a result, Carrier against those known associations, sometimes offering specious arguments in doing so.  In the case of Jesus' association with Nazareth, he does this by suggesting without basis that Mark's identification of Jesus as being from Nazareth is an interpolation in "Proving History".  To motivate that speculation, he attempts to show that Mark treated Capernaum as Jesus' hometown - exaggerating some evidence, and ignoring the inconsistency his suggestion introduces to Mark in doing so.  In "Proving History", of course, his intention is argue for his method in historical analysis, so he is content to argue that based on Mark (and absent the verse he suggests may be an interpolation), we would consider Capernaum to be Jesus' home town.  Carrier goes further in "On the Historicity of Jesus", arguing on specious linguistic grounds because the early Christians were called Nazorians; which name suggested a fictitious connection to Nazareth when the gospels were composed.