Thinking About Religulous on the 2nd Anniversary of my Atheism

I realized today that it’s October, which means another year has passed since I gave up my faith. It’s embarrassing to think about now (because it’s really not that great of a movie), but seeing Religulous was what put me on the path to being an atheist. It was the first time that I was exposed to something that challenged my faith, and it really got me thinking.

I remember sitting in the car afterwards and talking to my husband about the movie – I have no idea what I was saying to him, but I remember getting a little choked up because I was so excited. I realized that I was alone in my head, there was no god in there monitoring my thoughts, I was free to explore ideas and to be who I wanted to be. It was a great feeling. (I talked about the scene that made a big impact on me in last year’s anniversary post).

After we got home from the movie I went on the internet because I wanted to see who else was excited about this life-changing movie, and since I had no inkling that there was such thing as an atheist forum or blog, I went to a religious forum to see what they were saying. I shouldn’t have been surprised to see negative opinions of the movie, but I was, so I decided to sign in and do some trolling (I can’t stand trolling, but I was feeling rebellious that night).

Today when I remembered that it’s been about 2 years since then, I decided that I’d try to find that forum post to see what I said…and guess what? I did! Woo! Here’s what I wrote, with my responses in red:

Hi Everyone,

I’m a former member of this forum. That’s a lie. I stopped posting here when I began to become disillusioned with Catholocism and Christianity in general. Lies, I was never a member…at least I don’t remember ever joining it… I decided to come back for a visit to see what was being said about the new movie Religulous, and after reading some of the threads about it, I thought I would offer up my perspective of the movie.

I attended Church with my family since I was small, and up until fairly recently I went to a Bible study once a week. True. But gradually as I grew up I began to look at the world through a more critical eye. Nope, I was only just beginning to use my critical eye. I was always very naive and quick to accept what was told to me, but I now know to question things and research things. By now, I meant literally that night, when I realized that if I researched my religion it wouldn’t be so convincing anymore. I don’t want to be a sheep that’s shepherded through life. You go girl!

So with my new outlook on life, I began to question everything, so naturally I began to question my religious beliefs and my faith. I began to see that the circles I was in were full of judgment and shame, and I began to realize that I didn’t believe what I said I believed anymore. I guess I made up this crap about my long history of questioning my faith because I thought it would be more credible than saying that I had just watched a silly movie that convinced me that I had been mistaken about god for my whole life. At that point I realized that a movie was a poor reason to stop believing, but I didn’t let my learning stop there and I’m confident now that I have solid reasons for not believing in any gods.

However it’s not easy to drop religion out of your life. I have dropped it out of my heart, still using the religious lingo and I’m much happier for it, but since a lot of my friends and family have these beliefs, I have felt like I need to hide the fact that I’m now Atheist it makes me cringe to see myself capitalizing “atheist” from them. Sadly it’s still true that I hide my atheism from certain friends and family members. People make you feel ashamed. I don’t think anyone could make me feel ashamed for my atheism now – I’m proud to have put my faith behind me.
 
So the reason I named this thread “Thanks to Bill Maher” is that he has created a movie that is telling people like me that it’s okay not to believe. Hearing that it’s okay to not believe really was novel to me then.

If you have not seen the movie, it is about Maher’s personal rejection of religion. The theme of the movie is to show people that it is responsible to have doubt and to question things. One of my favourite quotes from the movie is the lady that says “I don’t know anything about politics, but I’ll vote for George Bush because of his faith”…well look where that’s gotten us.

Maher questions the doctrine and the beliefs of all religions. This is something that’s a major faux-pas pretty much anywhere you go, but it’s really sad that people should be made to feel like they can’t question these things.

This movie has given me confidence in myself so that I can come out of the closet as an ex-Catholic, and I don’t see anything wrong with it…not to mention it was very funny and entertaining! Damn, I still haven’t come out of the closet…well I guess people realize I’m not a Catholic anymore, but many must think I’m still a Christian.

I hope that came out cohesively…but I welcome questions. Thanks for reading 

I was super excited to see how people would respond to that, and I was hoping to engage in my first debate with religious people as a newly minted atheist (actually I don’t think I really considered myself an atheist at that point, it wasn’t until after I had read some Hitchens that I really embracedthe term).

The first response to my post was this:

personally maher has never come across as funny to me, but everyones idea of humor is different.

from the previews and interviews ive seen him do on the movie it seems more like an attempt to evangelize people to the religion of athesim.

finally, i’m sorry that you doubt the faith. i’ll throw some extra prayers your way.

Here’s how I responded:

I’ve never seen Maher in anything else, this was true, I guess Americans must be more familiar with him than I was…I vaguely recognized him but wasn’t aware of his anti-religious comedy or his show on HBO so I don’t know how he is in other contexts, but in this movie he was funny.

How is evangelizing people to atheism any worse than evangelizing people to the Christian faith? I didn’t know enough about atheism at this point to think to point out that it’s not a religion, but I still think that I had an okay point here.

I don’t need your prayers…I appreciate your intentions, but they’re wasted on me. I think it must have felt really good to write this – prayer no longer meant anything to me.

The next bunch of responses were so stupid, and someone caught that I was trolling, so I never responded again. Someone thought I might work PR for Bill Maher HA! and another didn’t believe me that I didn’t know who Maher was…I thought that was a really odd accusation. Another responded that it’s not okay to not believe, which struck me as so closed-minded. I’m sure that’s when I started seeking out atheist communities on the internet, and I’m so glad I did!

This is long so I’ll wrap it up, but if you’re curious here’s the thread that I quoted from above, on the Catholic Answers forum. I jumped in on Page 7 and my user name was “MyUserName”…so creative! Here are screen caps of my posts (click to expand):

My Reading List (New Page)

I added a new page to my blog…my reading list!

Here’s the intro text from that page, (or you can just click here to go to the page):

I decided that it might be fun to share my reading list. I love books and I have a huge stack lined up to read, so I’ve just made a quick list for now and I’ll update it as I find the time.

Please feel free to make recommendations or to discuss any of the books I’ve read in the comments below.

Oh, I should add, I won’t be buying any books on faith, theology, apologetics, etc. (unless they’re the skeptical kind). I find those kind of books incredibly tedious, so don’t bother recommending those. But if anyone wants to send me one then I’ll put it to the top of my reading list and blog about it extensively 🙂

I can’t wait to hear your recommendations!

My Bible

I’ve been wanting to do this for a long time, and now that I have a few days off work I finally have the chance. I decided that it might be interesting to look at the Bible I used growing up. Looking at the Bible now is a completely different experience. I used to somehow be able to skim over the nasty parts and pick out the nice stuff, but that’s no longer the case. My personal Bible is full of highlighted portions and the occasional note, so I think it will be fun to have a look at what I used to find worthy of highlighting.

Here is my Bible (you can see it’s very worn and used…it’s been through a lot with me!):

I added the scare quotes to “Good News” after I realized that it was all a bunch of bull.

This Bible is quite a bit different than the more popular translations, and although I had those two around my house I always preferred this one because it was very easy to read. I often have to refer back to the King James though because the differences in the narrative are sometimes quite significant.

Here’s what the forward of this Bible says this about its translation:

The Good News Bible (Today’s English Version) is a translation which seeks to state clearly and accurately the meaning of the original texts in words and forms that are widely accepted by people who use English as a means of communication. This translation does not follow the traditional vocabulary and style found in the historic English Bible versions. Instead it attempts to present the biblical content and message in a standard, everyday, natural English.

My name and the date I got my Bible written in the front cover. I was 9 years old.

I got the Bible in Sunday school when I was 9. I remember being so excited. It smelled awesome and it was my first grown-up book. I hated Sunday school (I always had to rush from art class to get there), but I loved my Bible. I guess they chose such an easy to read translation because they were giving it to young children.

One of the best parts of this Bible is the pictures. I’ll probably be posting a lot of them here. Although I think if my parents would have seen some of the images they wouldn’t have been too happy with me having access to them as a 9-year-old. They were very careful to shelter us from violence. We never had video games in my house, and my parents pre-watched movies and TV shows to make sure they didn’t have violence or sexuality. But this Bible is certainly packed full of images depicting very violent scenes…here are a few of them:

I only had to get to page 11 to see scenes of animals and people, including frightened children, being drowned by God.

Abraham, fully prepared to stab his child.

I'm not even sure why they felt in necessary to draw this image. It's not depicting a story, but rather what could potentially happen to those that reject the Lord.

All of these images are taken from the first 150 pages of my Bible.

Since the people who put this Bible together obviously had no problem depicting violence, I was curious how they would translate some of the more sexually explicit stories into plain English.  An obvious one to look at is the story of Lot and his daughters in Sodom & Gemorrah. In the King James Version, the words for “have sex with” are “to know”,  so it’s pretty vague and easy to gloss over. But I was shocked to see that in this kid-reading-comprehension version this is how the story is told:

Genesis 19:4-8

Before the guests went to bed, the men of Sodom surrounded the house. All the men of the city, both young and old, were there. They called out to Lot and asked, “Where are the men who came to stay with you tonight? Bring them to us!” The men of Sodom wanted to have sex with them.

Lot went outside and closed the door behind him. He said to them, “Friends, I beg you, don’t do such a wicked thing! Look, I have two daughters who are still virgins. Let me bring them out to you, and you can do whatever you want with them. But don’t do anything to these men; they are guests in my house, and I must protect them.”

Wow, what a wonderful story to put into the hands of young children.

Most of the highlighting that I did was from the New Testament, but I found this highlighted in the Old:

2 Chronicles 4:11-14

The writing in blue says “prayer of worship.” I did this after listening to a series of tapes by Pastor Leon Fontaine of Springs Church in Winnipeg. The tapes were basically a workshop on how to pray. He went over different types of prayers and what the Bible says about them. What a bunch of useless nonsense…but I sure prayed a lot more after listening to those tapes. I also started directing my prayers through Jesus…I guess that was supposed to make them work better, who knows.

Before I get on with other sections that I highlighted, I want to post a few of the more entertaining images from this Bible.

Behemoth, from Job 40:15

I love this picture. This is how they decided to depict, in God’s own words, “the most amazing of all [His] creatures!” What a lame-looking monster. The translation notes say that some identify Behemoth with hippos, others with a legendary creature. Lame! C’mon, God, what about Gorillas or Lions or Cephalopods? There are plenty of way cooler creatures than some cow/hippo that eats grass.

I’m not sure why I found this picture so funny, but if God appeared to us like some giant guarding his flock, then I would find him a lot easier to believe in!

The Kiss of Christian Love

That doesn’t look like a Christian Side Hug to me!

Okay on to some of the highlighted sections…

Matthew 6:6 - But when you pray, go to your room, close the door, and pray to your Father, who is unseen. And your Father, who sees what you do in private, will reward you.

The notes in black pen on this page are from after I lost my faith, but perhaps one of the most important passages that led to my loss of faith is highlighted on this page. Matthew 6:6, which tells you not to pray so that people will see how faithful you are, but rather to pray in private so it’s only between you and God. This passage was important to me because I couldn’t stand it when people bragged about their Christianity. I used to pray silently when I was in public, and also every night before bed I would pray as if I was having a conversation with God. I would talk about my day, about the things I was thankful for, about the things I hoped he would forgive me for, and about the people who I wanted him to bless. It was a nice way to gather my thoughts at the end of every day.

But one fateful day at Bible study, the leader of the study decided that he was going to start having different people say the prayer at the end of the discussion. That first time he decided I ought to do it, so he asked me if I would say it. I said no, that I wasn’t comfortable…he kept encouraging me, but since Matthew 6:6 was so important to me I argued with him and said I really didn’t want to. But in the end he talked me into it. The prayer I said made me feel so uncomfortable. I tried to mimic the ritualistic way that others prayed out loud, but it felt so wrong to me. It was completely opposite of the way that I pray, and it was meaningless to me. After that I started going to the study less and less, until I stopped going altogether. I became disillusioned with the faith as I felt that this prayer was blatantly ignoring that passage. I think that that experience at Bible study was what emboldened me to start questioning my faith and to allow myself to lighten up, and have doubts.

Moving along…

When  looking through my Bible to write this post I had a laugh when I saw this highlighted:

Psalm 53

I can just picture my smug, Christian, teenage self highlighting this and thinking “see? Only idiots don’t believe in God!”

Blech I’m glad that self is long gone.

Here’s another passage that troubled me a lot growing up, and that made having faith harder for me even when it was at its strongest:

Mark 11: 24 Prayer of Faith - For this reason I tell you: When you pray and ask for something, believe that you have received it and you will be given whatever you ask for.

This idea that all you needed to do was to have enough faith and you would get whatever you prayed for is awful, in that it puts a lot of responsibility on the shoulders of people who believe that this is true. This caused me a lot of stress because I felt that if I prayed for something and the opposite happened, then it was my fault and that made me feel guilty for something that I had no control over. It even made me afraid to pray for some things, because I didn’t want to be made to feel that my faith wasn’t strong enough.

This post has gotten really long, so I’m going to finish up with the first passage that I ever highlighted in my Bible. It was also the passage that puzzled me most, and probably the one that’s the most familiar to people who don’t read the Bible:

John 3:16

What John 3:16 said to me was that all I needed to do was believe, and I would have my spot in heaven. This confused me because I wondered why there were so many other rules in the Bible if belief is all you really need to be a good enough person to get into heaven. This passage also made me afraid to doubt. What if my faith waffled for a second, and I got hit by a bus? Would I be punished eternally for that? I first highlighted it because I thought that it was a beautiful message that showed how Jesus saved us, but the more I thought about it the more issues it brought up:

-What about people who were never told about Jesus?
-If someone is told about Jesus but doesn’t believe it and is the most charitable person in the world, do they not get to go to heaven?
-Could evil people like Hitler be in heaven if they believe in Jesus?
-Why should I bother being a good person?
-Why shouldn’t I just live how I want to now, and then start believing in Jesus in my old age?

John 3:16 is one of the many examples in the Bible that shows how many holes there are in the whole doctrine. It just doesn’t make sense, and if this  is inspired by a just, loving, omnipotent god, it certainly doesn’t show.

I hope you enjoyed reading about my Bible. I’d love to see other former Christian atheists do similar posts about their Bibles, if you do, please post a link to your blog here, I’d  love to check it out!

An Excellent Discussion/Debate Between an Atheist and a Theist

I recently discovered this podcast called the Ex-Christian Monologues, and the first episode is a conversation turned debate between ex-preacher, now atheist activist Dan Barker and Jason Gastrich, Director of Jesus Christ Saves Ministries. Even though it’s nearly two hours, it’s worth a listen. Click here if you want to listen for yourself, or here if you want to read the full transcript.

Here are some highlights:

…

Jason: Well the core message of the Bible I think could probably be understood by a first grader, second grader, it’s really not that difficult to see the plan that God has laid out for us in the Bible.

Dan: I don’t know, I wouldn’t want to show it to my first grader. I mean, it’s a pretty ugly book when you look at it, and it’s a real demeaning book to human nature. . . . [Crosstalk] . . . And the whole concept of salvation, the whole idea that there needs to be a salvation, is a real insult to humanity. In other words, we are all deserving of damnation. We’re no good. We can’t think. We can’t figure it out. We all have to bow like humble slaves before this master who tells us what is right and wrong, who has expressed his grace to us. How lucky we are that he has died and given his free gift to us, so that we can avoid this punishment that we all deserve. Now that really is an ultimate insult that cuts to the core of what it means to be human, and it could be a self-fulfilling prophecy. You raise kids to think that, “Oh, I’m a sinner, I might go to Hell,” that’s horrible. And “I’m no good, I need to surrender.” Well I mean, a lot of people grow up with this attitude that they are no good, and that they are sinners, and they act it out.

…

Dan: Yeah, I know what that is. “The sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair . . .” [Genesis 6:2] I know that, and . . . But Jason, are you telling me this with a straight face? I mean do you really sincerely believe this stuff about the angels coming down and having sex with human beings? [Crosstalk.] That was a, that’s a myth. I mean that’s part of the Bible that is legendary and mythical. You don’t really believed that happened, do you?

Jason: Well it’s compounded again in Jude, and yes, absolutely . . .

Dan: You do. You actually believe that some angelic creatures came down from Heaven and . . .? I mean, this is the twenty-first century, Jason. You’re an adult. You’re talking about devils and angels and demons and . . . Think about what you’re saying and how ludicrous this appears to an intelligent person. That stuff did not happen. Those are myths that the Israelites made up to try to explain, in their own bumbling way, what the origin of the world was like…

…

Jason: I don’t doubt that you have. Um, do you think that it takes blind faith, or would you call it, I like to call it, “informed faith,” because I don’t feel like I just have a blind, empty faith. I feel like my faith is based on the concepts in God’s Word.

Dan: But why faith in the first place? I mean, what good is the concept? Why even put that word out in front of you to say we should have “blind faith” or “informed faith”? Why not just say, “Use your mind,” and use your free mind to examine and decidefor yourself whether you think this is true or false? What does faith have . . . like when you use the word “faith,” you’re admitting that the assertions you are accepting by faith cannot be accepted on their own merits. You need something extra. You need something above and beyond the evidence to make it true. Anytime someone uses the word “faith,” its a cop out. They’re admitting defeat. Faith is a kind of agnosticism because if you knew it was true, you wouldn’t need faith.

…

Dan: Even today. Read Henry Morris. Read Duane Gish.

Jason: I’ve read [some of] them. I have their books on the shelf right here.

Dan: Well read them. The Fossils Say No! What they’re pretending is if you could somehow demolish evolution, that would make creationism win by default, without having to actually provide a case for creationism. They come to creationism a priori.They come to it as true, regardless, and the way they think they can win the fight is by destroying evolution. Suppose they did. Suppose they destroyed evolution completely. They can’t, but suppose they did. Now, where’s their case? Where’s theirscience for their Book of Genesis? They have nothing. And you have to admit there is nothing. There’s no experiments, there’s no observational records, there’s no data that’s being kept. All you have is a belief of something that was taught to you in Sunday school.

…

Dan: It says that it’s the nachash, if you know the Hebrew word. And so the Book of Genesis has these two contradictory creation stories, that cannot be reconciled and yet we’re supposed to pretend that this is allowed to stand as a scientific account of the origin of [humanity.]

Jason: It’s funny that you mention that. I just got that question in my forum yesterday, and I’m going to get to that. I have the answer to it, but I just need to do a little more research to go ahead and put it right.

Dan: Yeah, and you think in advance that there must be an answer to this, right? Don’t you see how you are committed in advance? With your kind of thinking–I’m trying to be ad hominem here, but I used to be like you–but the way I used to think, I was actually blind to the possibility that the Bible had contradictions, because I would not allow myself to see what was before my very eyes. The Bible is discrepant and contradictory, and yet if you go into it with the mindset that there must be an answer, and “I’ll get back to you and find it for you,” well then of course you’re going to find something. I mean, we could all find . . .

…

Dan: Well, it doesn’t bother me. It’s like Christians use that all the time, you know: “You’re going to risk your eternal life if you don’t think the way I do.” Fine. If there’s a God who wants to send me to Hell for thinking for myself, then let him do it. Let him prove what a macho man he is and send me to Hell. Will that make me worship him any more? Will that make me have any more respect for the integrity of the supposed “Word” of his? No it won’t. I’m proud of the skepticism. I’m happy to be a critic. I’m glad that somebody should denounce, and put this very God under the microscope. Don’t you see what I’m saying?

…

I would feel sorry for Gastrich if he weren’t so arrogant in his ignorance.

It’s Been a Year Since I Lost My Religion

A year ago today my life began to change in a big way. On October 3, 2008 Bill Maher’s movie about religion, Religulous, was released in Canada. At the time I was a Christian, but I decided to see the movie because I was intrigued by the previews. I had never been exposed to such outright criticism of religion.

I didn’t know who Bill Maher was (honestly…people find this hard to believe), so I didn’t know what to expect. What I saw was a crass, in-your-face dump on faith. But rather than feeling offended I felt inspired by the closing scene of the movie. Maher said:

Faith means making a virtue out of not thinking…keeping mankind in a bondage to fantasy and nonsense that has spawned and justified so much lunacy and distruction.

…

The only appropriate attitude for man to have about the big questions is not the arrogant certitude that is the hallmark of religion, but doubt.

I started to allow myself to doubt my beliefs, and to consider that the Bible was probably just a fairy tale.

A short time after I had seen the movie I was in a book store and noticed Christopher Hitchens’s book God is not Great, and decided to pick it up. By the time I finished reading the book I was an atheist, and wondering how I ever believed in a god in the first place!

I was now very fascinated with the topic of religion, and picked up Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion. Dawkins introduced me to the world of skepticism of all sorts of beliefs. I discovered that there was a whole online community of skeptics.

I filled up my iPod with podcasts that allow me to learn while I’m working:

The Atheist Experience
The Conspiracy Skeptic
Hunting Humbug 101
Point of Inquiry
The Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe
The Skeptic Zone
Skeptoid

I also got into reading blogs that kept me up to date on the big stories in the atheist and skeptical communities:

Bad Astronomy
Friendly Atheist
NeurologicaBlog
Pharyngula
Skepchick

And I’ve been doing my best to get a fairly well-rounded understanding of science. Some of my favourite books:

The Elegant Universe – Brian Greene
Death From the Skies! – Phil Plait
Quirkology – Richard Wiseman
Trick or Treatment – Simon Singh
The Selfish Gene – Richard Dawkins

I’m being opened up to a whole new, fascinating, mind-boggling, incredible, inconceivable, evidence-based, beautiful and awe-inspiring universe.

It has been quite a year! I’ve been taking in so much information that I needed to start this blog in order to articulate some of my thoughts, and to try to take part in what others in the skeptical community are doing. I’m learning and growing every day, and I can’t wait to see where I’m at in a year’s time.

If any of the people involved in the podcasts, blogs and books I mentioned above happen to stumble upon this blog entry, I just want to say thanks!

I think that the best thing that I’ve learned in the last year is the importance of science. Science is the most useful tool that we have, and I’m excited every time I see someone promoting it to the wider public. It seems to be on the increase and that’s so encouraging.

I’ve rambled on long enough, but I just felt the need to reflect on the past year. Thanks for reading!

Happy Blasphemy Day!

Jesus Christ, it’s my first Blasphemy Day as  an atheist!

Although technically, when you’re an atheist every day is blasphemy day! The spirit of the day is to push the idea that religion should not be above criticism. All ideas should be criticized, and religion shouldn’t be exempt from this, especially since it permeates almost every part of society.

I was thinking that I would celebrate by posting all kinds of blasphemous images and phrases, jokes poking fun at religion, etc. But what would that accomplish? Protesting the idea of blasphemy shouldn’t be about mudslinging, it should be about eliminating the protective shielding that people have put around faith. So instead I’ll just briefly summarize my world view, which is in itself blasphemous.

I believe that all religions are fairy tales made up to comfort people and to provide easy answers to tough questions that haven’t yet been answered by science. Faith is not a virtue, and will not lead us to any truth. I have seen no evidence that would lead me to believe that there is a god, but if there is one then he’s either a huge jerk or an incompetent idiot. A god is not a prerequisite to finding beauty and meaning in life, and as I see it, life, the universe, and everything is more incredible when you don’t give credit to a sky fairy for popping it into existence. I’m thankful for every second I have of this life, because once it’s over, it’s either over or I’m going to hell for not worshiping an egotistical, jealous maniac who lives in the clouds.

Thunderf00t Converses with Ray Comfort

Pearlist (Physical evidence and reasoned logic supporter) youtuber Thunderf00t, and Creationist Ray Comfort recently sat down for a conversation. It’s really long, but touches on some interesting subjects so if you want to watch you can take a look here.

I always have mixed feelings about these discussions between, because it’s hard to see whether they accomplish anything. Neither is going to change the other’s mind, and Thunderf00t, by sitting down with Comfort, is in a way giving him credibility.

I thought it was an interesting discussion, and I found it easier to watch than most between creationists and non-creationists, mostly because it didn’t turn into a shouting match.

Here are some observations I made during the conversation:

• Comfort starts off by poisoning the well, saying he thought Thunderf00t goes by that name because he “likes stomping on Christians.”
• Thunderf00t drives in the fact that he doesn’t know everything, he doesn’t know why we’re here, but Comfort asserts that he does know. Comfort doesn’t seem to understand the difference between knowing something and believing something. Comfort even goes as far as to say that statistics show that more people believe in an afterlife. That may be true but the popularity of an idea doesn’t make it true.
• Comfort reuses his tired old anecdote that if you see some writing somewhere you know it was put there by a person, therefore looking at the universe, you have to think that it was put there by something intelligent. I like Thunderf00t’s answer to this, and that is that we can deduce that a person created the writing because we have observed people doing this before, so it logically follows. So far we have no evidence that would suggest that an intelligent being created the universe, so it isn’t reasonable to assume so.
• Comfort is always using special pleading.  He asserts that he knows the answers because god has shown him the answers, for example at 4:30 “He’s made everything clear to me.” Comfort’s use of logical fallacies such as this one throughout the conversation make it extremely difficult to have a reason-based discussion.
• At the transition between parts 3 and 4, Comfort quotes Penn Jillette, and completely misunderstands the quote. It’s kind of hilarious and really pathetic.
• In part 4 my desire for Thunderf00t to really go after Comfort is somewhat satisfied when he criticizes Comfort’s street preaching techniques. Watch this video for an example. It’s really dispicable how he makes people feel guilty, and then puts them in a position where they want to prove themselves to him. Comfort’s style of preaching is just plain mean, and he clearly makes people uncomfortable.
• In part 6 Comfort really falls into his preachy rhetoric. He’s pretty pathetic to watch throughout the conversation, as he is always trying to change the subject while Thunderf00t is making a point, and when all else fails he starts quoting the Bible and talking about sin and the ten commandments. So sad.

I think Thunderf00t did well at driving in the point that what Ray Comfort is doing is retarding the advancement of human knowledge. He is claiming that the Bible has all of the answers, and thus discouraging people from free inquiry. Comfort is unable to see the world outside of the framework of the Bible, and I suppose doesn’t want anyone else to be able to either.

I think the kicker is in Part 7 at about 7:33, Comfort says “All you need is an overactive imagination to believe in evolution.” Replace the word ‘evolution’ with ‘god’ and it sums up Ray Comfort’s beliefs. In fact, believing in evolution does not require a lot of imagination because of the wealth of evidence to validate the theory.

Comfort seems to think that everyone needs some kind of god to have faith in. Throughout the recording he says that Thunderf00t’s god is evolution or science or time. But when one uses physical evidence and reasoned logic to form ones body of knowledge, faith is not necessary.