Sunday, March 01, 2009

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...

24 comments:

  1. Sad part? Most of your insults against Comfort took more intelligence and creativity, individually, than he's ever shown.

    What strikes me most in all of this is that Ray Comfort claims that his religion is more important to him than anything else in his life. I'm sure neither you nor Dawkins consider Comfort in the Top 100 things worth bothering with, and you both completely crush him without effort. If that is the best he can do, the VERY best effort he can put out for the most important thing in his life, how much more pathetic is everything else in his life? From Comfort's efforts in this case, I would say I care more about my computer than Comfort cares about Jesus, because I at least spend some effort in keeping my computer up and running, and defended from (virus) threats.

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  2. Once again, IJ: I'm not insulting Ray. I'm just stating facts. "The ice cream is chocolate. That car is blue. The sun is warm. Ray Comfort is the World's Stupidest Christian™." Just the facts, man.

    Good call, though, re: the purported importance of Christianity to Ray's life vis-a-vis his lack of skill at defending or arguing for it.

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  3. I'm not saying your insults are wrong... *grins* "Stupid" is an insult even when it is a VERY accurate description of someone's intellectual level. When you describe that intellect as a dwarf in the ring with a psychotic(and mildly cannibalistic) prize fighter, you're really working the insult angle, and you're also clarifying the exact lack of intelligence you mean.

    As far as Comfort's arguments in relation to his purported investment in the subject? I gave a speech on Zombie Apocalypse Preparedness a few months ago, and it was better constructed than any of Comfort's arguments for "God", and I don't even believe that zombies are real!

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  4. Dawkins' openly stated desire to contribute to the financial bankrupting of creationism while simultaneously necessitating that Comfort dedicate that money to an organisation largely set up to undermine his ilk made me laugh out loud in glee. A line from the movie 300 comes to mind: "Give them nothing, but take from them...EVERYTHING!" Dawkins can occasionally be a bit barbed for my liking (but just a tad), but I'm glad that we have rationalist Spartans like him on our side.

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  5. i thoroughly enjoyed this. thank you.

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  6. That was fun to read.
    Ray Comfort is 100% fail.
    Im pretty sure if you look up "fail" in any encyclopedia, you'll find a picture of Ray Comfort.

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  7. Oh yeah that being said. I think Sam Harris would be a better debate choice. Dawkins is just too nice. Harris is better in illustrating how silly Christianity is.
    I love how he destroys the "this is not a scientific claim" argument with Elvis

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  8. Johnboy, to your first comment:

    Even Wikipedia wouldn't need a citation needed.

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  9. To be fair, I suppose you should say Ray Comfort is the stupidest prominent Christian. It's possible that David J. Stewart is even stupider than Comfort, but he doesn't have a TV show.

    I'm just stating facts. "The ice cream is chocolate. That car is blue. The sun is warm. Ray Comfort is the World's Stupidest Christian™."

    Ah, sort of like what someone told me on talk.origins: John works in Austin; Mary hikes in the Adirondacks; the Creation Museum lies near Cincinnati.

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  10. While I won't condescend to insults, I will point out that Mr. Dawkins does believe that we were created by aliens.

    Even if that were true, which it's not, Ray believes we were created by an invisible sky-fairy. How are aliens a crazier belief?

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  11. What? A Christian misrepresenting what someone said? Taking it out of context and beating it like a dead horse?

    Never!

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  12. I don't usually post comments... I'm really moar of a lurker... but I had to drop in to commend the absolutely mind-blowing brilliance of this post.

    Not that the other posts here are not brilliant - this blog is by far my favorite - but the brilliance of this particular post absolutely blew my mind (see above) and so I felt compelled to express this feeling.

    Keep it up!

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  13. I understand why Dawkins won't debate Comfort, but why won't he debate William Lane Craig (definitely not the world's stupidest Chrisitian) when Lewis Wolpert debated Craig?

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  14. Is there a trend among Christian wackos to become walking-talking oxymorons? I mean Ray Comfort is anything but comforting and Matt Slick was anything but slick. It's like they have adopted the same naming convention used by prostitutes....

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  15. Don't forget that according to Ray's own logic, he is scared to debate Matt because Ray knows his own argument is flawed. That is true in this case but Ray is saying that about Dawkins refusing to debate him which is just propaganda.

    Can I plug the old raytractors here? We have evolved into an actual forum. Come visit for fun. http://www.wearesmrt.com/bb/index.php

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  16. Yeeah there are at least 2 debates that Ray is currently ignoring.

    Ray really is quite amazing, like his most recent post because of the Atheists calling him a liar, oddly enough because he lies all the time. His response is not to deny it, but to say 'You guys are Atheists, who are you talk to me about lies?'.

    The guy is so stupid that he can't see we are simply judging him by his own standards.

    One of the classic signs of a liar is how their story changes with each retelling, Ray posted his story about the debate response first on Examiner.com not knowing that Dawkins had already posted the dialogue for all to read on his forum. Ray then deleted the story from Examiner, and rewrote it, oddly in 3rd person, for Christian World View Times. Which strangely enough refuses to publish my feedback pointing out his lies.

    But they will publish 'Wooo go Ray' responses, And a response for my nomination of perhaps 2nd Stupidest Christian on the planet, the uni-creotard Karl Priest/Joseph Mastropaolo. 1 or 2 people, hard to say!
    Karl Mastropaolo has for the past 7 years or so been crowing from the rooftops that Richard Dawkins won't debate him as Dawkins has never published a single peer reviewed paper ever! However 5 seconds with google would get you Richard Dawkins CV where it lists pages and pages of his papers published in various journals over the last 30 years.

    I wrote to the Jospeh Priest pointing this fact out, and he replied asking me to point out where exactly are these papers, so I responded pasting the full list into an email for him, PDFs are such rare things I understand how he might not have seen one before.

    Oddly enough he hasn't replied back.

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  17. While I agree that Ray Comfort is "dumber than a box of rocks", I have to respectfully disagree that he is indeed the world's "stoopidest Christian". There are actually lots of jerk bags that ACTUALLY BELIEVE that Ray's arguments are VALID!!! They are in fact, the worlds dumbest Christians. You've heard of the "blind leading the blind"? Ray is the stupid leading the stupid(er). :)

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  18. I keep pointing this out, but apparently nobody listens :) :
    Ray knows what he is doing. He is generating sales and customer loyalty. Read the post by Chris the Heretic (right above or close to mine) to view a description of these customers.

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  19. Martin,

    Brilliant, funny and utterly true.

    I loved reading this statement from Dawkins: "I often don't accept it, especially in the case of a student audience, because I am a dedicated teacher" - 'cause, you know, the Christians are all in bed now with the worst of the environmental assassins and corporate raiders - but we're the ones without morals.

    One small point - it should be "gets their dander up" - "dander" being an old word for the froth that arises from the fermentation process. (People who cite obscure linguistic references are almost as annoying as Christians.)

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  20. $20,000 is pretty small beans, when you consider that last year one Gerry Rzeppa---not quite as stupid as Comfort but not for lack of trying---was offering Dawkins a $64,000 "speaking fee" to answer a question about Rzeppa's crappy Christian verse "Some of the Parts" (aptly described by PZ Myers as "Vogon poetry).

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  21. this made me lol. Maybe ray is just doing it for the lulz!

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  22. Perhaps we can all help Ray to raise $100,000 so that this debate can happen. It would be great to see him get his ass kicked. We will require official rights to the video, though.

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  23. Ray doesn't realize that Dawkins is not insulting him by saying he's an ignorant fool. He's simply stating a fact

    Damn, I was going to say that exact same thing. I guess when it comes the World's Stupidest Christian™, everything that needs to be said has already been said.

    Well done!

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