We are back! Yes, “The Good Atheist” has been resurrected, and what better way to celebrate than by talking about the new Cosmos series, hosted by Neil deGrasse Tyson. Also on the show, Ray Comfort decides to call out Neil and suggest that the Bible is actually scientific. Finally, we announce the launch date for the book. Can you really handle all this excitement?
It’s time to sit back, put on your dirty pair of slippers, and listen carefully as ‘renowned scientist’ Dr. Ray Comfort carefully explains why the new “Cosmos” is wrong, and why the Bible is scien-terrific.
I know most of you won’t make it past the first few minutes, and seeing as though everyone on the show is a failed comedian, I dug into it to extract the juicy little nuggets for ya:
“You know, the word ‘science,’ it’s kind of a magical word, I believe in science. It just means knowledge, that’s all it means. There’s different areas of science, different areas of knowledge. When you say the Bible is not a science book, you’re saying it’s not a knowledge book? It tells us how God created the Earth!”
“It gives us the basis for all creation, and it passes the scientific method. It’s observable – Genesis – and testable. Evolution is not. You can’t observe something 60 million years old, but you can observe what Genesis says.”
My head hurts. I guess to old Ray, the word ‘observe’ is understood in a very literal way: seeing with your eyes. If you can’t see it, it doesn’t exist (I wouldn’t try and take that argument too far, Ray)! Now, I know that you can technically ‘see’ a chapter in the Bible called Genesis, but by that logic, a radioactive spider-bite can give someone the ability to dress up in leotards and throw a few cars at bad guys.
Here’s the thing though: Ray is brilliant at marketing. The only reason he did this video was because of the way these topics are trending online (Cosmos, Neil, and the Noah movie). Releasing his own shitty Noah based show the same day as the blockbuster movie is smart. Crazy smart. And his nicely designed pamphlets and fake dollar bills are collectible worthy promotional materials. This is why he’s successful. So, as terrifying as it sounds, we need to learn from this man.
Just nothing about science, for fuck’s sake!
NOTE: I should mention that near the end, Comfort claims that Neil is a believer, simply because he’s never called himself an atheist, and has typically evaded the issue. I know he hates labels, but when you don’t adopt them, people give one to you anyways. Better to be clear then go into the nuances of one’s beliefs, IMO
Someone on r/atheism found this Ray Comfort flyer entitled Scientific Facts in the Bible: 100 Reasons to believe the Bible is Supernatural in Origin. The ironic title demonstrates the true stupidity at work here. Check out these awesome excerpts:
Try to think of any explosion that has produced order. Does a terrorist bomb create harmony? Big bangs cause chaos. How could a big bang produce a rose, apple tree, fish, sunsets, the seasons, hummingbirds, polar bears – thousands of birds and animals, each with its own eyes, nose, and mouth?
See, a terrorist explosion can’t make a polar bear. Checkmate!
Try this interesting experiment: Empty your garage of every piece of metal, wood, paint, rubber and plastic. Make sure there is nothing there. Nothing. Then wait for ten years and see if a Mercedes evolves. Try it. If it doesn’t appear, leave it for 20 years. It that doesn’t work, try it for 100 years. Then try it for 10,000 years. Admittedly, it is pretty hard to believe that it could appear. However, here’s what will produce the necessary blind faith to make the evolutionary process believable: 250 million years.
I love his stupid, try-this-at-home experiment that no one in their right mind would even attempt. As far as Ray is concerned, evolution is a magic force that assembles inanimate objects together given enough time. While this has nothing to do with the actual science of what he’s trying to denigrate, it does speak to the level of ‘research’ this moron has been conducting.
If you are of the opinion that there is scientific evidence for the theory of evolution, go to our website at www.raycomfort.com. There you will find a link to the website of Dr. Kent Hovind, an authority on evolution. He will give 250,000 to anyone who can present any scientific proof of evolution. If you have some, take him to court. Become famous. Make this another Scopes trial. But you can’t, because there isn’t any evidence.
Kent might have a hard time paying you, since he’s currently serving a jail sentence of failing to pay his taxes (he claims he owed the money only to God, and not the U.S. government). His doctorate, by the way, comes from a shitty diploma farm. You too can be as credible as Hovind for the low price of 100 dollars! This ‘evolutionary expert’, convinced that the Earth is less than 10,000 years old, believes dinosaurs lived with Humans and the Earth was surrounded by a gigantic ring of water (his explanation of the fairy tale of Noah’s Flood and why the antediluvian patriarchs lived so long). If you want to waste your time trying to get money from a stone, be my guest.
Evolution is really a religion. The Funk & Wagnall dictionary defines “religion” as “a set of beliefs concerned with explaining the origins and purposes of the Universe.” That sums up the religion of evlution. It even has its own religious language: “We believe, perhaps, maybe, probably, could’ve, possibly.” The founding father of the faith is Charles Darwin. The god of the religion of evolution is ‘nature”, often referred to by the faithful as ‘Mother Nature’.
I’ve never heard of this Funk & Wagnall, although if that is indeed their description for ‘religion’, then I can see why I haven’t used them as a reliable reference. A religion is not really about trying to explain the origins and purpose of the universe. It’s more a collection of ancient stories and superstitions that – while occasionally offering pathetic cosmogonies – are really primarily interested in people (and more importantly, their money). They have implacable dogmas and ‘articles of faith’ which is a nice way to say “no proof for believing in this bullshit”.
Evolution, on the other hand, is interested in the mechanism that drives life to change and adapt to its environment over time. Sexual reproduction, for example, is one such mechanism. To hear Ray talk about this science, you would think that evolutionary biologists wear funny hats trying to get everyone to stop masturbating.
I’ve always found it funny how profoundly ignorant people like Ray, while espousing their own religions, suddenly turn on the concept when it applies to others. Science is a religion, they say. Well, even if that was true (which it most certainly isn’t), don’t they think religion is a good thing? Don’t they praise ‘blind faith’ as being above reproach? It’s funny the kind of schizophrenic relationship they have with their own belief system, isn’t it?
This week, Ryan and I talk about Ray Comfort’s appearance on the Atheist Experience podcast (and the loads of discussion material that generates), and we also talk about the Vatican crying to the UN about discrimination.
PZ Myers and JT Eberhard confront a few Ray Comfort supporters with predictable results. Despite how hard this is to watch (you’ll feel like screaming at the screen, no doubt), it’s still good practice to see just how hard these people struggle to maintain their pathetic talking points.
R
Ray Comfort gets spanked by Bruce the Atheist. It’s as satisfying as that sounds. Sure, there are some annoying parts where Ray shoots his mouth off with his nonsense, but I’m sure you can power through those parts.
This week, Ryan and I talk about a study that found atheists to be less generous than their sectarian counterparts, and we’ll also discuss the wisdom of getting kids baptized. Oh, and we also make fun of Ray Comfort. I know, it’s too easy, but hey, we’re trying to get warmed up for the live show tomorrow!
A few days ago I wrote an article about a crusty old religious white dude who claimed to know more about the Universe than Stephen Hawking, presumably because a dusty old book of myths told him so. Because Stephen had the “audacity” to postulate the Universe created itself, religious rubes have been tripping over one another trying to voice their objections to one of history’s greatest minds smacking down their God myths. A number of irrational voices are making themselves heard, including my favorite mustachioed clown, Ray Comfort.
“It is embarrassingly unscientific to speak of anything creating itself from nothing…Common sense says that if something possessed the ability to create itself from nothing, then that something wasn’t nothing; it was something – a very intelligent creative power of some sort”
The only person here who should be embarrassed over such a dumb statement should be Comfort himself. This is the same man who argued the banana was proof of God’s designing genius . You may also recall a few months ago, this moron released a highly edited version of the Origin of Species with a 50 page foreword trying to undermine what is arguably one of the most important books in the history of our species. He might as well have tried doing the same with Newton’s Principia, but since gravity doesn’t actually interfere with his narrow belief system (he lives in an age where most Christians have begrudgingly accepted the Earth is not the center of the Universe), he desperately needed to diminish the brilliance of evolution any way he can.
As for his statement “common sense” can tell us something about the world, it only further proves he has no idea what he’s talking about. Our powers of perceptions may be useful to us when trying to navigate this cooling ball of rock we call home, but they are completely inadequate when trying to understand the nature of the Universe. Take quantum mechanics as an example: anyone who aspires to comprehend the world of atoms using common sense is bound to lose their minds. The Universe does not conform to our senses; rather we must conform to it.
Comfort isn’t the only fool trying to tackle the magnitude of Professor Hawking’s genius. Religionists all over the world probably felt a mixture of confusion and frustration over the fact the best minds in the world continue to deny the supremacy of their God. They are convinced only a dogmatic belief like theirs could make such pronunciations, and science has become a new religion. Comfort and his ignorant brethren fail to realize if the evidence was pointing towards a God, science would be fully endorsing the notion of a creator. Unlike religion, which begins with a set of beliefs and tries to find ways to justify them any way possible, science is about direct observation, experimentation, and falsifiability, all things which are antithetical to religion. That the search of the truth about our world and our existence has revealed religion to be the make-believe nonsense it is must be a painful pill to swallow. Of course, there’s no law that states a person has to accept reality, is there?
This comic is dedicated to Ray’s blog “Atheist Central“, where he recently responded to the discovery of Ardipithecus ramidus. As usual, Ray is busy accusing scientists of making shit up. He’s so deluded the fool doesn’t even realize the irony of him calling Evolution “faith based” (does he think that’s a good or a bad thing also? I’m confused).
I’m no longer surprised when idiots like Ray Comfort flatly deny the evidence for evolution, but I draw the line when these same jerkoffs say science is somehow “faith based”, while simultaneously claiming their own convoluted belief system is supposedly supported by evidence. What evidence? What the hell is this fucking moron talking about?
You know, for the most part scientists are too busy actually doing science to even bother paying attention to these guys. In the old days, we used to think all we needed to do was ignore these morons and they would somehow magically go away. That didn’t work out so well. Then we tried to debate them, appearing on various news programs trying to defend what is perhaps the most widely tested scientific theory of all time. So far, that hasn’t worked either.
These people aren’t interested in the truth, and they certainly aren’t interested in any real debate. Ray Comfort and his ilk are either deliberately lying (which is what I suspect), or consciously trying to ignore anything that conflicts with their predetermined world view. You can’t win a debate with someone who refuses to accept the rules of logic, so why are we so busy abiding by them when they don’t?
If you want to want to keep wasting your time trying to argue with intellectual midgets, be my guest. Personally I’m done playing Mr. Nice Guy. If it’s war they want, it’s war they’ll get!
(NOTE: Ray has since discontinued the blog and removed the article)
Alright, it’s time for Ray Comfort to explain the mysteries of life to you. Here he is explaining to people why you cannot go to heaven based on your own goodness, since all human beings are inherently evil. Like the rest of his evangelical ilk, he believes the only way to ‘secure’ your place in magic land is by believing in Jesus, who had to be tortured and killed as blood atonement for the curse God (who is also supposed to be Jesus) placed upon all of us from birth.
He also claims it isn’t aging that kills us; it’s sin. So, the reason we get old and die is because our bodies decay like the Emperor in Star Wars. As you can guess, this is not the reason we die, and it certainly sends a pretty bleak message about how terrible we are as people, since salvation is impossible for anyone who isn’t into blood sacrifice. Pretty sick ideology if you ask me.
I feel sympathy for Scott, who tries his best to explain to Ray that a building or a painting are bad analogies to use when trying to prove something as intangible as God. Ray does the familiar shtick of trying to dumbfound Scott in order to slip in his ‘God in the Gaps’ bullshit. The question I always find the most insulting is Ray’s tactic of asking a person if they have ever stolen something in their lives. Sure, we all have, but stealing something once does not make you a thief, the same way fighting off a kitchen fire doesn’t make you a Fireman. Comfort is so used to throwing labels around he doesn’t even realize how poor an argument that really is. As for his statement that someone’s opinion does not affect reality, he’s absolutely right: objective reality doesn’t change simply because some poor delusional people believe the supernatural. Regardless of what Ray and his ilk believe, the Earth will continue to rotate around the sun long after this upright ape species dies off.
Check out 8:30, where Kirk really struggles…
