Customer Reviews

UFOs, Ghosts, and a Rising God: Debunking the Resurrection of Jesus

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Chris Hallquist's book is one unlike any I've ever read. The title alone caught my eye and made me wonder why he would include such things as UFOs, ghosts, and Jesus in the same book, but his method became clear immediately. He uses comparisons and analogies that everyone will be able to understand and identify with in order to help everyone take away as much as possible from his book. His style of argument is also very easily digestible for anyone who likes to use his or her mind on a regular basis.

Hallquist pulls a multitude of disciplines into his book: philosophy, religious studies, history, psychology, etc. There is something in this book for everyone. For instance, as someone interested in psychology, I was drawn to his sections in which he discusses how difficult it is to doubt something once introduced to the belief. This is why legends are so hard to pull back into reasonable terms. He also addressed Nostradamus, a 16th century seer, and how the fact that his prophecies seemingly kept "coming to be" simply shows that humans believe things when they want to be believe them. With each field of study that he brings into his book, he presents a sufficient amount of background to help the layman understand where he is coming from.

The other interesting thing about Hallquist's book is that he argues against fundamentalist writers and other religious apologists by using their own logic against them. He shows that the historical evidence that they are so desperately using to support their own position actually works against them. Using the historical evidence and using quotes directly from the bible shows that the evidence is actually extremely thin, and that there are dozens of ways of interpreting the evidence due to a multitude of circumstances, including who wrote the evidence itself. He also uses gaps in time and other factors that further weaken fundamentalist evidence of historical absolute truth.

Chris Hallquist tackles this topic in a more user-friendly way than writers such as Richard Dawkins, for example, because Dawkins does not make me want to go out and learn more about the topic. At the very end of UFOs, Ghosts, and a Rising God, Hallquist issues a warning about how to avoid bunk and tells his readers to learn more about the authors he discusses. The end of his book covers talks about the part of religion that effectively forbids people from questioning their beliefs due to their fear of being eternally punished. He not only brings up this problem, but how to combat it. What I really like about this section is that he is encouraging not only further learning, but discussion and intellectual argument. As he says on the last page of his work, "Look for fresh angles. Dig deep rather than think a superficial examination will give you a sure answer. And above all, think for yourself" (180). This reminds me of a David Hume quote: "Truth springs from argument among friends." What Hallquist is advocating is not only free thinking and the power of knowledge in the area of religion, but in every subject: intellectual discussion and argument as the basis of truth.

This up and coming young philosopher has shared his own research into some interesting questions. I thought the parallels between belief in UFOs and ghosts were useful analogies. I look forward to more works from this author, but I hope he gets a better proof-reader next time around. There are many typos and grammatical errors that end up detracting from the work.

How refreshing it is to find books by writers encumbered by traditional favoritism. Hallquist's is one such book. That a culture views some hypotheses as "sacred" is fully besides the point when it comes to evaluating truth claims. This book boldly puts religion -- elements central to Christian dogma specifically -- elbow to elbow with the more modern and provincial beliefs in ghosts and UFOs. To this 360 Degree Skeptic, that grouping is deserved. To best evaluate any claim to truth, all pedestals must be removed.

In my opinion, the strength of this book comes in the mere process of applying the same skeptical approach one brings to claims of visitation by ghostly apparitions and alien visitation to stories of supernatural feats in the Bible.

No, UFO's, Ghosts, and a Rising God, is not a perfect book. In fact, to this reader it often seemed Chris was going mano-a-mano with a few noted Christian apologists that happened to engage his intellect. To those unfamiliar with more academic arguments, this will dampen its general appeal somewhat. But all in all, I found the the book a worthy read.

This book had been on my amazon wishlist for quite some time, and I am glad I finally got around to buying it.

Hallquist writes with great clarity, simplicity, and (when necessary) emotion.

This book carefully documents a vast number of weird claims, legends, and other bunk which in and of in itself makes the book worth having. Even if you don't agree with his conclusions about Christianity, you'll get a kick out of the stuff he describes. For example, at one point in the book he quotes evangelical Stage Magician Andre Kole on how people would greatly embellish the magic tricks he performed within a couple of days. That is mythmaking at its best.

I was surprised at how well he was able to support the hallucination hypothesis (the hypothesis that the resurrection appearances were hallucinations). He points out that the gospels themselves seem to be describing a suddenly disappearing and reappearing Jesus (this is also supported in 1 Corinthians 15:3-8, in which Paul seems to describe a series of isolated appearances), which is indicative of hallucination (hallucinations are usually fairly brief and fleeting).

I think there are only a couple of instances in the book in which Hallquist left out something important, and in both these cases what is left out only supports his arguments. Here are the two instances:

Paul and epilepsy - Hallquist quotes Dr. Barry Beyerstein's description of temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE), and notes a surprising correlation between the symptoms of TLE and the character of St. Paul (Paul displays excessive moral zeal, is preoccupied with religion, has a conversion experience, and so on). The quote Hallquist provides says that TLEs report mystical religious presence. Mystical Religious Presence? Hmmm... "Christ lives in me" -- Galatians 2:20. It's an astonishing link, one that I wish Hallquist had pointed out explicitly.

Second, Hallquist seems to think that legend explains all of the gospel miracle stories. Though that could well be, another possibility which explains at least some of them is symbolism. For instance: the cursing of the fig tree is symbolic, See pp.56-58 of Richard Burridge, Four Gospels, One Jesus?: A Symbolic Reading.

Overall, this is a great read and a book which will help give you the "other side of the story" if you've read a book like The Case for Christ: A Journalist's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus.

This book points out contradictions like the varying accounts of the women at the tomb which do not agree on the details. That the Shroud of Turin is a fraud. That Pliny the Younger considered Christianity to be depraved superstition. The apologetics have their minds made up against any showing of the problems of the resurrection. The resurrection is an extraordinary claim and needs extraordinary evidence. Paul does not discuss the details of Jesus' life or even seem to know about them. The new testament says to love one's enemies and the old says to kill the children of one's enemies. The Jesus appearnace to Paul was probably hallucinogenic and the appearance to the 500 was very vague and without detail, like making up a tall tale. In short, the bible is an extremely tall tale which society has been suckered into accepting for 2000 years. It is about time for this tall tale to join the junk heap of history.

This book relies heavily on comparisons and analogies to UFO reports, Ghost stories, etc. and commits the logical fallacies of "Begging the Question" and "Category mistake" in doing so.

Further, since the comparisons are usually to entirely different categories of phenomema, they are, at base, false analogies. As a "young philosopher" he should know better.

In addition, the author makes vast claims about historical relationships and Psychological factors, and yet has no advanced qualifications in any of these subjects. Of course, he can state his opinion, but that is all this is.

Most of this stuff can be found on his blog, and "Uncredible" is a good description.

Hi everyone,

I don't want to annoy you with a sales pitch for the book, but you should know that there's a lot more info about the book on my website, The Uncredible Hallq (Google it). This includes links to a half-dozen reviews and a free PDF providing quick refutations of the claims most commonly heard from Evangelicals about the resurrection, to give you a taste of the book's contents.

Cheers,
Chris

I bought this hoping for an expertly argued, scientific treatise. It's nothing of the sort - I was extremely disappointed. Avoid.

Mr. Hallquist parrots a lot of material you'll find on atheist websites that have been challenged even by other atheists themselves and proven to be either logical fallacies or just plain wrong. If a person wishes to disbelieve in God, miracles, and challenge the claims that Jesus was the Son of God, that's fine, they are free to do so. But even other atheists (e.g. Carrier, Luddeman) and liberal theologians like Ehrman don't challenge the historicity of Jesus' life, Paul, or the disciple's actions as recorded in Acts. The evidence is just too strong. For a current treatment, see Licona's 700 page historiographical work on the resurrection, which does a good job presenting arguments on both sides: http://www.amazon.com/Resurrection-Jesus-New-Historiographical-Approach/dp/0830827196/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1299617953&sr=1-1.

In the end, a philosophical appeal to the best explanation approach leaves this book requiring its reader have far more faith than that exercised by Christians.