Thanks for your questions

I just want to say a sincere thanks to everyone who submitted questions under "Q for Ray" subjects. I know some people are disappointed that we did not directly read questions and attribute them to those who wrote in, but we did read through a lot of them before the show. I think everyone who watched the show would agree that the conversation was plenty jam packed without breaking to read a canned question.

However, both Matt and I read through several dozen questions, took notes, and found themes which helped us to formulate what to say. Some of you probably recognized pieces of your questions surfacing in the dialog. So... it may not have seemed like we were paying attention to you, but we were. Thanks for your support and we appreciate you.

Open thread on episode #702: Ray Comfort

Pre-show remarks: I'm going to go ahead and get this post up now, so folks will be able to comment as soon as the show ends today — or heck, even comment live as it's progressing. Anticipation for this one has been off the chain. I don't think I've ever seen anything like it in my 12 off-and-on years of being involved with AETV, and I imagine we'll easily have the largest UStream viewership we've ever had. With about 4½ hours to go at the time I'm writing this, already the chat room is packed. So if you haven't already done so, run to the store, stock up on popcorn or your preferred snack-of-choice, and get ready. I'll see you back here for the post-mortem.

By the way, you can stop sending us "Q for Ray" questions now. We've gotten literally hundreds of them (though the number of viable questions is significantly lower once we weed out all the banana-related ones), and I have no idea how much of the show will be devoted to viewers' questions and how much will be straight-up debate between Matt and Russell and Ray. So it'll go how it goes, gang. I'm sure we're in for a good time all the same.

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Postmortem: Well, how about that, eh?

As you can well imagine, watching this was, for us co-hosts, an endless exercise in screaming frustration that we couldn't be on. There were so many moments where I could have shut Ray down in an instant on many of his usual arguments, though Matt and Russell did fine work, as I'm sure I don't need to say. I could probably do a whole blog on the first 10 minutes of the show alone. Suffice it to say that it was all roaringly entertaining, and extremely informative, for those who want to know how a mind (and I use that term advisedly) like Ray's functions. So many of the arguments Ray hopes to employ against atheists are nothing more than ammo we could easily turn around on him. It's pitiful that he does not recognize this.

In order to keep this post from reaching Atlas Shrugged length, I'll concentrate on two PRATT arguments Ray loves to bring up, and which we saw dusted off and put through their paces again today. "Something from Nothing" and "A Painting Requires a Painter".

That things in nature, including the universe itself, appear to be designed, is intuitive to us, because we are pattern-seeking creatures. But where Christians like Ray go phenomenally wrong is in confusing and conflating order and design. Design, at least as Christians use the term, implies intelligent agency and purpose. Order is entailed by the nature of existence itself. As George Smith points out, to exist at all is to exist as something. But order alone is not evidence of intelligent design. The great irony of Paley's Watchmaker argument is that it demonstrates this. To deduce that the watch in the desert must be a designed artifact, the observer is reaching that conclusion by comparing the watch to its surroundings. The watch stands out because it is wholly unlike the desert. The Watchmaker argument proves, if nothing else, that deserts are not designed.

Ray lives in a curious alterna-reality in which he claims everything is the product of divine design, which prompts the question of how he knows (other than the Bible told him so), what frame of reference he is using to distinguish design from non-design. I wonder if Ray has ever looked at those grains of sand he keeps bringing up under a microscope, though. When you do, do you know what you see? Something like this:

No two are alike. No two have precisely the same chemical or mineral composition. Ray would, no doubt, insist that God is so awesome that he literally can design each and every individual grain of sand as lovingly as a work of art. That in his omnipotence, God can effortlessly lavish such loving attention on even the smallest thing. And that's the problem when you argue with someone about their imaginary magical friend. There are no rules in magical thinking.

If sand grains were designed, wouldn't you expect to see more uniformity? Most designers, after all, prefer to work from schematics and templates, from blueprints and preliminary concepts. The photo above suggests a couple of options for those inclined to think like Ray. 1) The grains of sand are the random product of erosion and other natural processes that determined their shape, mass, composition, color, and all the rest of it. Or 2) they were designed by a God who, for reasons best known to himself, intentionally made them look random. But why? In order to trick us, or just to show off his artistic side, or what?

The problem with positing a God over natural processes in a nutshell: With nature, you're allowed elegant, simple, and in most cases empirically verifiable explanations for what is observed. With gods, you now have to add a whole new host of arguments and explanations to understand why this magic being would have gone about his business one way as opposed to another way. And not one of these arguments comes with evidence that allows you to test it. It's all down to that old bugaboo, "faith," in the end. Gods not only don't explain things, they pile on more inexplicable, unnecessary nonsense.

To be continued...

It's happening

Barring a last minute surprise, Ray Comfort will be on AETV this coming Sunday via phone.

Been very uncharitable to the fellow here, but to be honest, he's been uncharitable to atheists. I thought about the fact that, here he is, about to appear on our program after so many people have begged him and us to make it happen — and the most recent post on the blog is one branding him a pathological liar.

But I cannot go back on that, because all his duplicitous and dishonest behavior down the years supports it. This is a man whose entire career in apologetics has involved flame-baiting atheists. It's the reason he changed the name of his blog to Atheist Central, after all. He repeats all of his P.R.A.T.T. arguments (watch last week's show for the definition of that acronym) no matter how many times they are annihilated, going the extra step of lying that no atheist has ever addressed them. He lies about science and evolution, claiming evolution does not provide explanations for things that numerous biologists have in fact clearly explained to him over and over again. He's about cheap publicity stunts, like publishing his own edition of Darwin, rather than learning and bettering himself and the world through knowledge and enlightenment. He is the undisputed poster boy, not only for Christian fundamentalism's irrationality, but its immorality. Someone who will look you in the eye and lie with every breath is an immoral person, full stop. Perhaps it's a good thing that he's making himself the face of belief.

Anyway, much as I think the guy should still be ignored, this is — as of today — going to happen. If you have questions for Ray, send them to tv@atheist-community.org with the subject line Q for Ray. This may likely take up the whole hour. If anything, it could be the best show we've had in years.

Ray Comfort, pathological liar

Once again, Ray Comfort is telling the readers of his absurd blog that the only reason he has not called into the Atheist Experience is because we have not extended an invitation to him.

But of course, we have. I did so here. This was nearly a year ago. Hilariously, Ray dodged my invitation by linking me to his interview request page. This is typical of his dishonesty.

Another thing that is typical of his dishonesty: If you go to the original post on his blog, you won't see the comment exchange detailed in my own post that I link to above. Because Ray has completely scrubbed his post of almost its entire comment thread.* (Unfortunately, the post is a little too old to find a cached copy of the original version with comment thread intact, but if any of our readers have l337 internet skillz and know how to dredge one up, by all means have a go.)

So you see, this is Ray's little game. If we go to his blog and extend an invitation, he will simply delete it, thus enabling himself to continue claiming that we just aren't inviting him, or maybe we're scaaared of him, or whatever sustains the deluded fiction upon which he has constructed his life.

Ray Comfort is a liar. The proof's in the proverbial pudding.

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* I've been informed (in the very first comment below) that the comment thread was disappeared not by any duplicity on Ray's part, but by the installation of a new comments module, which can have the effect of losing all your past comment threads. (It's a reason I don't switch us to Disqus here.) So, thanks to BathTub and my apologies for the error. Still it does not change the point of the original post: Ray's continuing claims that we have not made any attempt to contact him are flat lies. According to Jen we've had an even more recent exchange with his staff.

Something to read with your Monday morning coffee

Everyone loves a good beatdown of those two adorable sad-sack clowns, Ray Cameron and Kirk Comfort. (Or is that the other way around? Oh, who cares!) And here, a fine young atheist writer named Nathan Dickey provides one for your reading pleasure. Enjoy.

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Talking to Nathan on Facebook this morning, he brought up that he was inspired to take the opposite approach suggested by this post of mine from a year ago, in which I tried to encourage atheists simply to ignore Ray. My opinion then, which I still hold, is that the vast majority of what Ray says and does is every bit as much about self-promotion and aggrandizement as it is about evangelizing.

It's nothing but a publicity stunt when Ray and Kirk do things like publish their own version of Origin of Species, or "challenge" people like Richard Dawkins to a debate (simply so they can crow he must have chickened out when he refuses). And Ray's legendary dishonesty is so shameless in all of his dealings with atheists that for atheists to continue to seek engagements with him can only be seen as an act of futility. This is quite simply a man who cannot be trusted to show any degree of integrity whatsoever. He is a pathological liar, straight up, as we saw most recently in an exchange where Ray informed an atheist commenter to his blog that he would be delighted to phone in to AETV if we extended an invitation to him, as he did not want to invite himself. I immediately went to Ray's blog and posted an invitation. Ray replied by posting a link to his "interview request" form, which would seem bizarre, considering that I wasn't requesting an interview with him, only extending the invitation to call us that he had asked for. I say it would seem bizarre, until you realize that Ray is dishonest in every imaginable way. Then you realize this behavior is par for the course for him.

Weeks later, we were told by a reader that Ray was once again repeating the whole "Sure I'd love to call them, but they haven't invited me!" thing, which makes him nothing less than a blatant, bald-faced lying sack of shit. So in this regard, yes, I still say, atheists should ignore Ray, because he has demonstrated through his every behavior that honesty at even the most basic level is just not part of his playbook.

But then, to do as Nathan has done, and critique the content of Ray and Kirk's evangelism — well, that remains an entirely legitimate exercise in counter-apologetics. And a fun one too, as Ray and Kirk are without question the most laughable excuses for apologists alive — and when you consider the generally low intellectual level the bulk of religious apologetics is working in, that's really saying something. So keep tearing apart their silly books and websites and TV programs. As Nathan notes, beating down Ray and Kirk's drivel can be thought of as the training wheels for newbie atheists just learning to ride the counter-apologetics bike. It's good sport, and good practice.

Ray Comfort recovers World's Stupidest Christian™ title from Denyse O'Leary

Just in case you were worried. See how much pure, unadulterated Raytardation you can catalog in this single passage.

Evolution has no explanation for man's beginning. Some of its believers think that perhaps there was a big bang, but they don't know where the materials came from for it to take place. They don't know what was in the beginning, but they are certain that there was no God. They believe the scientific absurdity that life rose out of non-life. It was simply a case of evolution-did-it.

Truly, I'm amazed the guy survives from day to day with such a profound lack of basic intelligence.

Here's more, if you think your poor skull can take it.

Will he do it?

I know I have said many times atheists ought to ignore the farcical spectacle that is Ray Comfort, but this one was too good to pass up. A viewer has emailed us reporting that over at Ray's blog, a reader calling himself "imadallasguy" has left this comment:

Ray,

A good way you could honor your Saviour and the sacrifice He made for you would be to call in live tomorrow to the Atheist Experience of Austin show which airs live on Easter Sunday at 4:00PM CST.

He did so much for you. What a sweet and blessed thing it would be for you to honor Him in return by calling in to the show, so that His word could go out to all the unbelieving world.

I'll be listening for your soothing voice tomorrow.

In reply, Ray loaded up the .50-cal Bullshit SMG and set it on full auto.

imadallasguy...All they have to do is ask. I would be honored to go on their program. I don't want to invite myself.

Gee, if I had a dollar bill for all the times Matt has told me he's attempted — right there in the comment sections of Ray's own blog — to get Ray to agree to some face time, I'd have...well, probably about twelve bucks. Whatever, the point is, he knows full well he's been "asked".

So here is the comment I just left, which I reproduce here just in the event it somehow fails to make its way out of Ray's moderation queue, thus enabling him to keep claiming he'd love to talk to us, we've just never asked him. (Perhaps some of you ought to visit that thread and back imadallasguy up on his call-in request, eh? Godless eyes are watching!)

Ray: imadallasguy...All they have to do is ask. I would be honored to go on their program. I don't want to invite myself.

As one of the rotating cohosts of The Atheist Experience, I say consider yourself asked. You are formally invited to phone in tomorrow, or on any Sunday afternoon it is convenient for you, from 4:30-6:00 PM CST. The number is 512-477-2288, and the earlier in the program you call, our phone screener will make sure you're pushed to the front of the queue. We look forward to hearing from you.

I am also aware that our host, Matt Dillahunty, has made debate overtures to you several times, often right here in the comments of your blog. So I find it curious you say you've never been approached by any of us. Still, I understand you're a busy man, so perhaps you've forgotten.

Who'll start the betting?

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Addendum, one hour later: Ray did post my comment.

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Second addendum: Well, fuck. Apparently the show's not on tomorrow, and Joe didn't find out until yesterday, and (bit where I jumped Joe's case for not letting us know before Saturday deleted, because that was done in frustration and thus uncool, sorry). So I'll have to leave another comment informing Ray of this, and making sure he knows the offer's open. Not that I expect him to call, still. Sorry, gang.

Okay, so now that we're all agreed we don't play nice...

Via PZ and WikiLeaks, in case you hadn't seen this bit of timeless comedy gold, you can now download Kent Hovind's entire "doctoral dissertation" for "Patriot Bible University," a farcical Christian outfit housed in a doublewide offering correspondence courses. If the above is an example of what "Patriot Bible University" considers an acceptable lead-in to a dissertation, then let's just say the whole preposterous charade that is fundamentalist "education" is even more hilarious than you think.

While we're on Hovind (and it's worth noting that this remains one of our most trafficked posts ever), I'd like to add a rider to remarks that Kazim and several commenters made in the preceding post. I agree it's most important to attack ideas and not the people expressing them — but only to a point. Yes, the ad hominem attack is a fallacy, and is most commonly used simply to score cheap shots (and yes, I've been guilty of that one), or when the arguer has run out of intellectual steam and can't muster rebuttals to strong points made by his opponent.

But this is a very different thing from attacking people when they have demonstrated, by their statements or actions, that they are not merely wrong but bad and foolish people. Kent Hovind is a case in point. First off, I don't see anything unacceptable about calling a person who is convinced to the core of his being that dinosaurs walked the earth alongside humans an "idiot." This is not name calling, but merely descriptive, in the same way I have pointed out that Richard Dawkins' referring to Ray Comfort, the World's Stupidest Christian™, as an "ignorant fool" and my referring to him by his unofficial title of World's Stupidest Christian™ are not insults but descriptors*. Listen to Ray talk and read his writings, and his stupidity is on raw display. It cannot be denied any more than you could deny getting wet while standing in a thunderstorm. There is simply no way to refer to him other than to call him what he is: a stupid, ignorant fool.

Hovind is a man who is not merely ignorant but arrogant and entitled. He is convinced he is above the law, and remains unrepentant even when a ten-year jail sentence served to show him he was wrong on that point. Moreover, he has had an impact on a number of sycophantic followers, whom he has taught to lie and prevaricate just as he does. Read the comments from Hovind's defenders in that old post of ours, and you'll see them spouting the usual run of tortured, self-serving falsehoods to claim Hovind's conviction on rather blatant tax fraud was Christian persecution at the hands of a Satanic government. So, QED, Kent Hovind has significantly damaged not merely the intellectual but the moral development of hundreds if not thousands of people. He has caused demonstrable harm.

He is also, in his self absorption, utterly cold and heartless to those who really do care about him. Listen to the audio clip between Hovind and his wife Jo. Listen to her try to express her feelings to him, her concern over the rightness and wrongness of the situation they find themselves in, and then listen to him shut her down with icy finality. He's right, he's always right. Because he's God's wingman. He doesn't need to change, he's perfect. It's she who needs to "advance." You have to wonder if we witness, in that exchange, the entire dynamic of fundamentalist Christian marriage in microcosm. Is this really a world in which unfeeling, authoritarian men are simply deaf to any of their wives' emotional and moral concerns? Sure seems that way.

So, yes, I will always concentrate on attacking arguments first. But I will not refrain from condemning people worthy of condemnation. So go laugh at Kent Hovind's "dissertation," and then laugh at Kent. Because he's an ignorant, arrogant, entitled, cold-blooded, self-absorbed, self-aggrandizing, felonious piece of shit. Quote me.

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*Speaking scientifically, I know I cannot prove that Ray is necessarily the world's stupidest Christian. There may well be many who are much much stupider. But if so, then they — unlike Ray, who proudly flies his stupid flag in public at every opportunity he gets, many of which he instigates himself for the attention — have the sense to stay out of the spotlight about it. Which, in turn, would make them smarter than Ray by just that much. So perhaps it can be proved that Ray's the stupidest after all.

A beautiful day, sans creationist fools

Okay, so I read on Pharyngula this morning that Ray Comfort, the World's Stupidest Christian™, rescheduled his giveaway of his bowdlerized Origin of Species on university campuses for today instead of tomorrow, evidently because he heard that people were preparing to counter it by printing up information from the NCSE's enjoyable Don't Diss Darwin site. So naturally, he had to do an end-run around that, since his pathetic, ignorant twaddle sinks like the Titanic when faced with the iceberg of scientific fact.

So I'm trying to make up my mind whether or not to go down to the UT-Austin campus and confront the dopes handing out books. But I'm not sure I really feel like it. For one reason, unless you're a student, or you live down there or have business there, the campus isn't very visitor-friendly. Traffic is a headache, and parking is a righteous pain in the ass at the best of times. And anyway, it would be amusing for a few minutes, I suppose, but then, like all dealings with creationist fools, it would simply get aggravating and tedious.

Finally, I step outside, and I see this.

And I think to myself, Wow, an absolutely perfect autumn day. Which is rare enough in Austin, I can tell you. Seriously, we're talking deep blue, cloudless, endless skies, and the temperature like Goldilocks' porridge. Not too hot, not too cold. Just right.

And then I think, now who would I rather spend a gorgeous day like this with? A gaggle of hopeless anti-science morons, or someone with more charisma and intelligence than all of them put together? Say, this guy:

It was not a difficult decision. Grab the leash, dial up a little Miles Davis on the iPod, and it's off to the park we go, big boy!

Really, some days are just too beautiful to ruin.

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So, I have no idea yet how the UT giveaway went, and what fireworks may or may not have erupted. I've put an email in to some folks with Atheist Longhorns I know, so maybe they'll have a report for me later.

Kirk n' Ray's latest folly

By now I'm sure everyone knows about Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort's plan to give away their own edition of Darwin's On the Origin of Species, complete with their own 50-page introduction packed with contemptible creotard lies, at 50 college campuses this November. UT-Austin is one of those campuses, and you can bet I'll be there to get my copy! I heartily encourage Atheist Longhorns and literally everyone from the university's Biology department to snap up copies as well, until they run out. And of course, make sure the uneducated drones giving away the book's are appropriately humiliated and schooled. They evidently haven't considered the likely consequences of showing up in an environment where people are, by and large, well educated, and trying to spread their ignorant twaddle. Let's ensure they leave with a full understanding of those consequences.

Jim Emerson's Scanners blog (Jim edits rogerebert.com, and both he and Ebert are outspoken science supporters) offers a very funny takedown of Kirk and Ray's idiocy, and I think it's a good thing that this whole exercise receives as much derision in advance of the actual event as possible. What an awesome thing it would be if those dispatched to give away these books encountered, at all 50 universities (and I've read reports there may be more than 100 universities by now), a horde of fearless and outspoken experts in science who calmly shoot down their foolishness and lies, like shooting clay pigeons out of the sky. This ought to be an event they live to regret.

We get email: "atheists can be irrational too" edition

Remember Patrick Greene? He's the dimwit who took umbrage at Ray Comfort's website selling bumper stickers unflattering to atheists. He declared it hate speech and threatened to sue, called in to the TV show to defend his litigiousness, was roundly mocked for such silly and petty behavior, and yet insisted that his contact information be made available on the show despite warnings from both Matt and Kazim that this was probably not the best idea.

Well, here it is a year later, and Patrick is highly frustrated that you folks are still emailing him telling him what an assrocket he is. Evidently it didn't occur to him that, what with fans posting clips all over YouTube and the availability of the show on such services as Google Video and Blip.tv, his little announcement would be available pretty much in perpetuity. Never mind, though, because, in his narcissistic view of things, you're all the ones with the problem. So he writes us back in full-blown petulant-5-year-old-who's-been-told-he-can't-play-Wii-until-he-eats-his-broccoli mode.

I received another e-mail about the bumper sticker, after a YEAR of this shit going on, so I have decided to file the lawsuit, and send you a copy of it. I am so sick to death of people keeping this crap alive......!!!!
Because of this e-mail, and the hundreds of other e-mails I have received that say the exact same thing yours does, I have decided that I will file the lawsuit, because if ALL of you think it's a bad idea.........it must be a good idea...............because all of you around the world are acting like Christians. This idea I had is a YEAR old. A YEAR OLD!!! [Like you, Pat? —MW]
And if you all are STILL talking about it, and taking time to send e-mails about it, then It MUST be a good idea......THANKS!!!!!

Well, you can't argue with logic like that, can you?

So, here's the email that our courageous defender of atheism's honor has fired off to Living Waters Ministry.

To Mr. Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron,

This is to inform you that over a year has passed since the incident of the threatened lawsuit against your bumper sticker. Since that time I have received e-mails by the hundreds, from atheists all over the world. These atheists have unanimously agreed that the lawsuit idea was not a good one, to put it mildly.

However, after spending the last year going through your blog and your store, and seeing the sheer volume of materials against atheists, I have come to the conclusion that your "free speech" constitutes hate speech.

So, since Christians by their own admission adhere to a "loving" faith, your biblical mandate of spreading the "word" must come in the form of loving rhetoric, not insulting people who do not share your belief, and not instilling hate to your followers.

Therefore, if ALL of your material against atheists is not removed from your website by October 20, 2009, I will file a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in San Antonio, and ask the court to issue a restraining order to curtail your hate speech.

Sincerely yours,
Patrick Greene

Oh yeah. That'll have them quaking in their boots and their lawyers scrambling to circle the wagons, for damn sure. Uh-huh. Like this thing won't be dismissed so fast it'll set off a sonic boom.

Patrick, if Ray Comfort is the World's Stupidest Christian™, then you are most certainly the World's Stupidest Atheist™. You guys are made for each other. If only you knew how good you're making him look. Moron.

Open thread on Thunderf00t vs. Ray Comfort

A lot of people are emailing us to let us know that the big debate is up on YouTube. Here's part one, and you can follow up on the rest yourself.

I'm opening it up to comments because I know you're all dying to discuss their respective performances. I will probably contribute my own impressions later. I do have some, but I don't want this post to be simply "Russell's opinion of the debate."

Yes, I repeat, we should ignore Ray

Recent comments in my previous post about Ray Comfort, the World's Stupidest Christian™, keep explaining that's he's sufficiently funny in his stupidity that, well, taking him down is great sport. And then I'm pointed to his post today, in which he makes what I suspect he considers a brilliant "Gotcha!" point, the burden of which is that if atheists really don't believe in God, then we have no business criticizing all the killing that occupies God's time throughout so much of the Bible. After all, if we don't believe God exists, then we also don't believe he did any of that killing, so why get our panties in a twist about killings that never really occurred, eh?

See, gang, this is why Ray is the World's Stupidest Christian™. He's too limited between the ears to comprehend even the elementary distinction between believing or not believing in the existence of something, yet still condemning ideas on moral grounds, especially when those ideas are held to be true by roughly one-third of the Earth's population. Christians plug their religion, among other ways, on the selling point that God is supposedly this being of transcendent love. John 3:16 and all that. Therefore, it is entirely justified for atheist critics of Christianity to point out instances of divine atrocities in the Bible (let alone the whole "and if you don't love me back yer goin ta hell" thing), and note how these actions are not exactly consistent with statements you often hear from Christians like "God is love." You'd think a 9-year-old could get that distinction, and you'd be right. Ray isn't even that intelligent. Many atheists in Ray's comments have already given the example of fiction: you can watch a movie and read a book, and understand that it's all made up, and still hiss the villain.

So I repeat: we just should ignore this mentally constipated lackwit. I mean, come on, gang, how much more obvious does it need to be that he's descended to sub-troll levels, and his whole shtick at this point is his getting the attention (which equates, in all three of his brain cells, to validation) of atheists. Hell, it's why he renamed his blog "Atheist Central" from "Ray Comfort Food." Have we all forgotten the meaning of the word flamebait?

Seriously, he's useless, people. Find a better hobby.

Attention, every atheist alive: Why aren't we ignoring Ray?

"For frak's sake, what's the point?" That's all the reaction I can muster to the news we've been getting from a jillion folks via email, to the effect that Ray Comfort, The World's Stupidest Christian™, has agreed to debate noted science YouTuber thunderf00t. No disrespect to thunderf00t, whose videos are among the best I've seen. But really, bud, talk about tilting at windmills.

That thunderf00t will clean Ray's clock is irrelevant, because Ray is the most egregiously dishonest person alive. What will happen will be the same thing that happened when Ray and his pal Kirk Cameron debated the Rational Response Squad on ABC some time back. Ray will make inane points, thunderf00t will decisively and unequivocally refute them, and then Ray will simply ignore everything thunderf00t said and repeat the limp arguments that were just blasted to smithereens by his opponent. Of course, Ray and Kirk looked like the dumbasses they are coming out of the RRS debate. The point is, they didn't, and couldn't, notice.

Ray, apart from being The World's Stupidest Christian™, is, more succinctly, a narcissist and a liar. And as he himself, perhaps ironically, has pointed out, the only reason he has any prominence at all is due to atheists. The unplumbed depths to which he allows his fractal wrongness to sink have been red meat to us, and a lot of us have bitten. But the net result of that has been to give Ray the validation he wants. If atheists are so fierce about attacking every moronic utterance Ray spews, then, obviously, that means he's got us scared and circling the wagons! Right? Uh-huh.

So, frankly, any "debate" with this supreme idiot will be a farcical waste of time, because Ray isn't interested in truth (as in the "verifiable, objective facts" definition of the term), just his own brand of fundagelical truthiness. And these little charades simply pump up his ego by reinforcing his ego-gratifying need to believe that the simple fact atheists want to take him on proves he's right. The content of the debate is irrelevant. That it's happening at all is, to him, victory.

So can we just forget this cretin already? He ought to be relegated to the obscurity he richly deserves. Let him end up evangelizing at one of those non-denominational congregations that meet in half-empty strip malls in the dodgy part of town. It's where he deserves to be.

Ray Comfort odds and ends

There seems to be a lot of Ray Comfort related stuff on my radar lately, so I'll dump it all in one post.

• Sam, a grad student in New Zealand, debated Ray for $100.  Considering all the sneaky tricks regarding format, and Sam's status as a novice speaker, I would have asked for a lot more.  But according to people I've heard from, Sam made a surprisingly good showing, and Ray turned out to be incredibly bad at it.  You can judge for yourself by reading Sam's post, and there are even audio files attached.
• Everything Else Atheist mocks a recent blog post by Ray for his very, very bad understanding of sex and relationships.
• Guy P. Harrison, author of 50 Reasons People Give for Believing in a God, made us an interesting offer.  He wanted to see a good takedown of Ray Comfort's new book, You Can Lead an Atheist to Evidence, But You Can't Make Him Think: Answers to Questions from Angry Skeptics.  But he didn't want to read it himself, so he sent it to us instead.  I've read it, and now Matt's reading it.  At some point in the near future, the plan is to either appear together on Atheist Experience or do a Very Special Episode of Non-Prophets that will give this, ah, very enlightening book the attention it deserves.

Regarding Ray Comfort, the World's Stupidest Christian™

Ray Comfort, the World's Stupidest Christian™, is the world's stupidest Christian. When you consider the competition, that's quite a feat. Ray's degree of stupidity is truly stunning to behold. It's so monumental it serves as a kind of strange attractor towards which other Christians, not necessarily as stupid as Ray but not especially smart either, are inexorably drawn. It's Stupidity as a force of nature, implacable, unwavering as the tides, and entropically hurtling towards greater and greater stupidity until any remaining vestige of what might be determined intelligence has been broken down into its constituent molecules, and scattered to the voids of space.

So like, the guy's frackin' stupid. Really. I've blown boogers into tissues during a bad cold that are Nobel laureates compared to this guy. Stoo-pid.

Not content with the minor notoriety one gains from being the World's Stupidest Christian™, Ray has decided he really needs to earn the title. After all, a man's gotta have something in the way of an achievement in life. So, to this end, as those of you who've been hanging out on RDnet and Pharyngula have already heard, he has "challenged" Richard Dawkins to a "debate". This is as funny as Verne Troyer challenging Mike Tyson to three rounds in the ring.

But it gets funnier. Ray Comfort, the World's Stupidest Christian™, thinks Dawkins will be impressed by money. So he's offered $10,000. Thinking a millionaire will be impressed by your $10,000 is like thinking a supermodel will be impressed by your Honda Fit. But, bless his heart, that's why Ray is the World's Stupidest Christian™!

Dawkins was unimpressed with the $10,000 offer, shockingly enough, replying to someone claiming to rep Ray that the offer "is less than the typical fee that I am ordinarily offered for lecturing to a serious audience (I often don't accept it, especially in the case of a student audience, because I am a dedicated teacher). It is not, therefore, a worthwhile inducement for me to travel all the way across the Atlantic to debate with an ignorant fool." Gold! Dawkins then added (and you can see him smiling as he wrote it) that he'd consider playing along if Ray donated $100,000 to the RDF "so that that money will NOT be available for buying animatronic dinosaurs with saddles, or other similar nonsense. The fact that he would be making a substantial donation to a charity dedicated to Reason and Science adds to the humour of the situation."

Now it gets even funnier. Get this: Ray Comfort, the World's Stupidest Christian™, thinks Dawkins is haggling. So he raised the offer to $20,000, imagining, I suppose, that Dawkins is now obliged to come back with something like, "How about 90?" At which point the haggling continues as a matter of form until they settle on 50.

Of course, Dawkins isn't playing. He doesn't have to. And the funniest thing of all, in a long list of funny things, is that without this stupid "debate" even taking place yet, Dawkins has already humiliated Ray! D'oh! That's what you get for being the World's Stupidest Christian™, cupcake!

And Dawkins has humiliated Ray simply by letting Ray be Ray. It's uncontrollably funny the way Ray's very offer essentially amounts to nothing less than an admission of inferiority in all respects. To wit, Dawkins doesn't need Ray. Ray desperately needs Dawkins. Dawkins has everything Ray doesn't have and cannot gain through merit: prestige, respect, authority, legitimacy, expertise. Ray wants all of those things, and hopes an association with Dawkins will cause them to rub off on him, especially as he's deluded himself into thinking he can prove evolution false in a debate with one of the world's leading scientific authorities on evolution. But you see, that's Ray Comfort, the World's Stupidest Christian™, all over!

I love Ray. Really. I heart him like a hearty thing. He cannot know what joy he brings into the daily lives of atheists, just by the million little loving ways he reminds us that he's the World's Stupidest Christian™.

So Dawkins has named his price, because he can, because Ray has nothing Dawkins wants or needs. And the mere fact that Ray has already upped his previously pathetic offer to a slightly less pathetic level has pretty much bagged this "debate" for Dawkins right out of the gate. In the same way it's funny to see the no-hopers at the Discovery Institute still trying to convince themselves of their relevance more than three years after Dover put a howitzer shell through ID, by their continuing efforts to find scientists to debate them, it's even funnier seeing Ray running after Dawkins, like some loser at a bar trailing after a hot chick pleading, "Well, maybe if I gave you my number..."

Gang, this is exactly the right way to treat creationists every time they try to make a grab for legitimacy and shore up their inflated sense of importance: pure derision. Because you know, it works! It really gets their gander up.

How did Ray Comfort, the World's Stupidest Christian™, react to being dubbed an "ignorant fool"? Well, nosir, he dint like it! And he whined about it in entirely predictable fashion over at — where else? — the Christian Worldview Network.

During the more than 5,000 times I have spoken in the public forum, I have engaged hundreds of little Richard Dawkins' and have noticed that when their argument is very weak, they always revert to personal insults. While I won't condescend to insults, I will point out that Mr. Dawkins does believe that we were created by aliens.

Which, of course, he doesn't, but that's beside the point. Ray doesn't realize that Dawkins is not insulting him by saying he's an ignorant fool. He's simply stating a fact, as I am when I refer to Ray by his unofficial title, the World's Stupidest Christian™. It's like, imagine that Dawkins has a bowl of chocolate ice cream in front of him. And he looks at it and says, "The flavor of this ice cream is chocolate." Is he calling the ice cream a name? Is he insulting it? No! He is merely stating an observable fact about the nature of the ice cream. Likewise, when he points out Ray is an ignorant fool, he is merely stating an observable fact about Ray Comfort. Ray will never get these points. Because — what is he, everybody...? All together now...

Poor, poor, poor, poor, poor little Ray

Ray Comfort. The Uwe Boll of Christian apologetics.

You know, it'd be pretty easy to do a Ray Comfort Drinking Game. Just take a shot at any straw-man attack on atheists, moronic canard about evolution...

On second thought, alcohol poisoning within minutes might be a real hazard. Better not. Still, he's worth a laugh, poor sad idiot. Notice there are no comments allowed, though. Knock me over with a feather.

Ray probably exists, I think...

Ray has asked for evidence that Darwin existed and, as expected, has decided to imitate his strawman view of atheists by declaring every piece of evidence unacceptable because we can't be absolutely certain.

Here's my response:

"Ray's right, we can't be absolutely certain that Darwin existed. We can't be absolutely certain about any historical event.

But absolute certainty is a red herring, the only issue is one of reasonable certainty - that a claim has been verified as 'most probably true', to the best of our ability to do so. Some claims have more supporting evidence than others. Additionally, some claims require more evidence than others before they become 'reasonable'.

The only answer anyone needed to give, and the only answer that is correct is this:

We have sufficient evidence to claim that Darwin most probably existed and that the events attributed to his life (the voyage on the Beagle, his writings, articles about him by contemporaries - favorable and unfavorable, his family line, etc) are most probably accurate.

The same is true for George Washington, though the "I cannot tell a lie" story is most likely false, and there may be other romanticized, mytho-heroic tales attributed to him which aren't very accurate.

The same cannot be said for Paul Bunyan or King Arthur... or Jesus.

When we try to determine whether a particular historical figure existed, we have to collect the stories about them to define the personage we're trying to verify. If the preponderance of evidence confirms a significant portion of those stories, it's very probable that the individual existed.

If the stories are supported by nothing more than anecdotal evidence or hearsay, they're unreliable. If they also include claims of supernatural/magical abilities, they're better relegated to the "tall tales" bin.

Ray has mistakenly tried to represent the case for Jesus as being of a similar nature to the question of Darwin's existence. They're not remotely comparable - and if we find out tomorrow that Darwin never existed, that he was a fictitious invention, it doesn't change a single thing about the science of evolution or the value of the discoveries attributed to him. The same isn't true for Jesus.

Ray is comparing apples and motorcycles and making a childish appeal to absolute certainty where no such appeal is required or justified."

Though that will come as no surprise to anyone.

Merry Christmas (to those celebrating it for any reason). Happy Holidays, or not, to those who celebrate something else, or nothing at all. :)

Ray's idea of justice...

Ray wrote:

"...would you want Dahmer to go to Hell? Or are you quite happy (assuming that you are an atheist) for him simply to be dead."

Since he's censoring many of my responses, here it is:

I'm not Alex, but I'll answer.

I'm satisfied that Dahmer was imprisoned for the remainder of his life and, unlike some of my liberal friends, I'd have been content to see him put to death by the state (a position that Dahmer is reported to have shared), though I generally oppose capital punishment on the grounds that the legal system isn't structured in such a way that we can satisfactorily prevent unjust executions.

I also wouldn't want to see him tortured, and certainly not forever. I don't think that's justice, it's revenge. He was beaten to death by a fellow inmate and some might consider that justice, but that's a very simplified view of justice that I don't share.

Interestingly, Dahmer is reported to have repented and accepted Christ as his savior. I have no idea if this is true, and neither do you, but it does raise two points:

1. If it is true (and if your religion is true) then any decent Christian should oppose the death penalty and, instead, prefer to give convicts as much time to repent and avoid hell as possible.

2. If it is true (and if your religion is true) then Jeffrey Dahmer is in heaven, right now.

Do you think that's just? Clearly not, as you just used him as an example of someone that you feel most people should want to see sent to Hell.

You also mentioned Hitler. Hitler was, according to his public and private statements a devout Catholic and whether or not you accept that, you must accept that you don't know his 'heart' and aren't his judge, and that it's at least possible that he, too, could have been saved - even if only during his dying breath.

Your religious views have nothing to do with justice because they aren't based on punishing the wicked and rewarding the virtuous. There is no system of merit associated with salvation by grace. To you, salvation is a matter of capriciousness. A death-bed conversion is more valuable to your God than a life spent as a good person.

So, your dichotomy is false on several grounds. As an atheist, I don't have to simply be "quite happy" with the death of a murderer - I can be satisfied with a proper implementation of justice that denies the murderer liberty and, on occasion, life. Also, as an atheist, I never have to rationalize blood lust as justice or be dissatisfied that justice might be overturned by the whim of a divine dictator. I can, instead come to a proper understanding of justice that isn't bound by bronze-age myths.

Ray's threat of hell...

In today's post at Ray Comfort's blog,

Ray wrote:

"...but I don’t think that people should become Christians because of a fear of Hell. Rather, they should come to Christ out of a fear of the God that can cast them into Hell.."

I've submitted the following response and I don't care if it gets posted there or not, it's worth adapting for our blog as well.

Ray, you cited Luke 12:4-5 to justify your position that we should fear God. While I'd normally point out that this is still an absurd doctrine of fear that isn't something I'd expect Christians to be proud of (and I will), you've attempted to avoid that response by claiming that there are two types of fear.

It's curious that you quoted 1 John 4:17, yet you didn't bother to note that it's verse 18 from which you draw the idea of fear as torment.

The text of verse 18 reads:

"There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love."

So, the question, Ray, is this:

What is your authority for claiming there are two different types of fear referenced in the passage in Luke?

The same word (English and Greek) for fear is used in both references (in Luke and 1 John). The passage you quoted from Luke also appears in Matthew (10:28) and relies on the same Greek word in that instance as well.

The 1 John passage doesn't say 'fear (phobos) can also mean torment (kolasis)' it says 'fear (phobos) involves torment (kolasis)'.

The author of 1 John isn't giving an alternate definition of fear, he's explaining that fear has/contains (a more accurate translation of the Greek 'echo') torment, intrinsically.

Or, more accurately, 'fear (phobos) does (instead of 'can also') mean torment (kolasis)'.

This is a subtle but significant point that will be important in a moment.

Now, I'm well aware that this word (fear/phobos) has several meanings, that's not my point. My point is that you're claiming that it means one thing in the first sentence and a different thing in the second sentence and you've provide no justification for that - nor have you offered a valid alternate definition (you appealed to some sort of 'common sense' fear).

Let's re-write Luke 12:4-5 substituting your definitions (or with the most valid definition to replace your 'common sense' pseudo-definition):

“And I say to you, My friends, do not be afraid (tormented) of those who kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. 5 But I will show you whom you should fear (be in awe of): Fear (be in awe of) Him who, after He has killed, has power to cast into hell; yes, I say to you, fear (be in awe of) Him!"

It's worth noting that this passage is attributed to Jesus and one would presume that you consider it to be an accurate Greek representation of what he originally said.

I find it patently absurd for you to claim that this passage, is referencing two different types of fear.

Firstly, there is no indication from 1 John 4:18 that there are two different types of fear, as you claim - that's simply an explanation that fear includes torment.

Secondly, you're implying that Jesus was such a poor thinker that he would construct a 'not this - but this' comparison with predicates that have entirely different meanings and, as if that wasn't enough, you're implying that he was so careless with his words that translators were forced to use the same word to mean two different things (despite other words being available), even though he surely must have realized that this would lead to centuries of confusion over what he meant.

The verse is clear - 'Don't fear those who can simply kill you, but fear Him who can kill you and punish you forever.'

This is a clear threat of hell.

It's clear in the Greek and in the English. Your appeal is a sophomoric apologetic that simply rationalizes your preferred softening with sophistry.

What's worse is that even with your softened re-rendering, the text is still simply a threat of hell - because that's the power that determines which personage one should fear.

There are only two reasons that I've been able to come up with for why you didn't simply say "Yes, we're supposed to fear God because he can send us to hell." (A position that, while I despise it, would have at least earned you some respect for honesty.)

1. You really don't have any firm understanding of what you're talking about.

2. You were afraid of facing the contradiction that arises when one verse tells you to love god, another tells you to fear god and a third says that there is no fear in love.

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Now, as a quick end-of-post comment:

The simple truth is that the fire-and-brimstone preachers used to use this precise passage to support their message. After all, we have Jesus directly telling you to fear God because of what he can do to you after you're dead. Ray, I believe, knows this and he knows the distaste the general public has for fire-and-brimstone preachers, so he's twisting and turning like a twisty-turny-thing in order to convince someone - anyone - that he's not like those guys.

He doesn't think we should fear Hell, just the guy who can send us there - because he can send us there - but not really fear, in the sense of being terrified, but fear in the common-sense, 'healthy respect for'-fashion.

Hogwash.

I therefore request that Fred Phelps of Shirley Phelps-Roper take a few minutes and call Ray to explain why his particular brand of exegesis isn't Biblical. It may be more pleasant to Ray, but that's only because he's desperately trying to soften the message.

Ya hear me, Shirley? I'm tired of beating on Ray, it's your turn!