Ray Comfort Compares Himself to Oskar Schindler

Bananaman Ray Comfort has cooked up his most recent scheme as an attempt to brainwash students into thinking that creationism is a legitimate alternative to evolution before they start their education. He is concerned that too many students lose their faith in the course of their university education…is that supposed to be a bad thing?

So Comfort has defecated on inserted his own introduction into Darwin’s On The Origin of Species containing all of his made up crap arguments about why evolution is wrong, and he’s giving away free copies on university campuses on November 24th.

He obviously thinks that this is some noble cause and that he’s going to be saving lives (or, I suppose, souls) by doing this as evidenced by his words in the September 22nd Way of the Master newsletter:

Recently, I watched a (clean) version of the movie, “Schindler’s List.” Schindler used his wealth to purchase 1500 Jews from Nazi death camps. At the end of the movie, he broke down in tears because he wasted much of his wealth on vanities, and said, “I could have saved more!”

I can’t help but think of this when it comes to what we are doing.

He then goes on to brag about how he’s giving $10,000 of his own money to the project and to ask people to donate their time and money to this deceitful venture.

Get over yourself Ray Comfort. Oskar Schindler was actually saving lives. What he did was dangerous and helped people, and it’s an insult to Schindler to pretend that Comfort’s mission is in any way comparable to someone who risked their life to help others. All the bananaman is doing is lying to students about science and hoping that some of them are gullible enough to believe him.

PS: I’m disturbed by the idea of a “clean” version of Schindler’s List. In my opinion if you’re going to watch a movie about the Holocaust it should disgust you, anger you, and freak you out.

I wonder if Comfort reads a “clean” version of the Bible…

Conversation with Thunderf00t Absent from Ray Comfort’s Newsletter

I found it strange that Ray Comfort neglected to even mention the conversation he had with Thunderf00t in his weekly newsletter. It’s as if it never happened! Comfort mentioned during the recording that he had cameras filming it as well, but there’s nothing new on his YouTube channel. I also couldn’t find any mention of it on his website.

I suspect that they’re going to edit it and play around with some ominous music and release a video making it look like Thunderf00t thinks rape is good or something…we’ll see.

I did have a laugh reading their newsletter when I read this quote by Charles Spurgeon that they had posted:

“I am sure our Lord Jesus Christ does not want His ministers to deliver magnificent orations, spread-eagle sermons, with long and elaborate sentences in them. He wants them to just come and talk as He talked, in all simplicity, so that the very poorest and most illiterate of their hearers may understand their meaning, embrace the Truths of God they proclaim and find everlasting life in Him of whom they speak.”

I see so they’re targetting the illiterate, that explains why they always sound like they’re speaking to children. How insulting! Kirk Cameron says:

We must remember that it is not the wise, the mighty, and the noble that God has called, but rather the foolish, weak, and the base, so “that no flesh should glory in His presence.”

There’s one way to weasel out of speaking to someone who will actually critically analyze what you’re saying. But what does this say about how they think of the people they do approach?

Cameron also typed out this gem: “The Pharisees loved the sound of their own voices”…pot, meet kettle.

Kirk Cameron, everyone.

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.

Ray Comfort Unconvinced that Evolution is True…Surprise!

I subscribe to the Way of the Master newsletter because it gives me some good laughs. Today I got a great laugh but I was also saddened because people are probably patting Ray Comfort on the back for spewing this crap.

Comfort is a well-known creationist, and along with his sidekick Kirk Cameron, he uses things like the banana and the coke can to “prove” there is a god and that evolution is a LIE AND YOU’RE GOING TO HELL!!!

Moving along…Comfort decided to go and visit the Smithsonian to look at their display on evolution. So far so good, it’s great that he’s taking the time to consider the evidence for evolution. The mounds and mounds of good evidence. But I guess considering the evidence wasn’t on his agenda because this his summary of the visit:

I spent a few days in Washington D.C. and took the time to visit the Smithsonian Museum, particularly to see their exhibit on evolution. After some searching we found it …the crowning glory of the Smithsonian Institute’s evolution display–a family of hairy dummies looking like a cheap window display at a Halloween store. It was underwhelming. I had a similar experience in Paris’s “Museum National D’Histoire Naturelle Grand Galerie De L’Evolution.” The French also had exhibits of thousands of God’s creatures, and tried to justify the name of the museum by displaying one copy of Origin of Species and a stuffed monkey with a “Lucy” sign on it.

God bless,
Ray

Seriously? The Smithsonian’s display didn’t look real enough, therefore God.

I can’t wait to read about PZ Myers’s visit to the Creation Museum.