A Rebuttal to Ray Comfort’s ‘Are You a Good Person?’ Test

There’s a family in our neighborhood who hands out Jesus tracts banded to suckers on Halloween…it’s tempting to order a bunch of these to send out taped to massive candy bars…great idea!

Why didn’t they go on with the other 6 commandments? Oh right, it would prove how outdated all this nonsense is.

Love it!  It seems like such a superior message to me…

To be fair, it is a comic.

“Jesus never sinned… not even once.”  ROFL!!!

I love the humanist comic.  I want that on a poster for my office.  🙂

EDIT: OMG… go to 5:38… man with wild mustache. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only forgotten son.”

Watch the YouTube vid of Ray Comfort interviewing ThunderF00t – I couldn’t believe how ignorant, aggressive and rude Ray was. 

I’m surprised they used the “forgotten son” guy… too funny.

“Have you ever helped out a person in need? Have you ever donated blood or given money to charity? Have you ever smiled at someone, even if was just once? Then, by your own admission, you are a philanthropist, a life saver, and a nice guy! And where do nice philanthropist live savers go when they die? That’s right! Heaven! So… I guess you don’t need Jesus. Never mind.”

And don’t forget, most of that guilt is over “thought crimes” ! As I like to point out out them, their god is more concerned with thought crimes relating to him than how you treat other humans, not a very morally superiors being I’m afraid.

Yes, I will go to Hell for that. However, that font did work for the chick tract and I’m on a new laptop with limited fonts installed. Need to rebuild my collection.

At least you have the balls to own up to it 😛
Congratulations Joe Hanson! You are still a good person!

They must need to pull people aside quite often, most five year olds are intellectually superior to Comfort and his boyfriend…

The worst problem about the whole so-called “Nice Guy Test” is that for  it to be even remotely relevant the guy needs to actually believe in that god and heaven and hell that the questioner refers to at the end. All the other guys that don’t believe in any of that superfluous fluff will just go: “So… that’s it? You’ve proved nothing about your god in that test. Instead you are just trying to guilt-trip me into taking a leap of logic that me being bad equals god exists… You don’t see how irrelevant this is?!”

At least that was the thought that raced through my mind when Ray tried desperately to pull the test on Thunderfoot.

This “test” takes it for granted that the ten commandments deserve to be followed. Whoops, lost me right there.

I think I’ve been thinking about religion only in terms of the abstract and the political for too long…the whole basis for xianity (according to this video) is completely absurd–god creates people who cannot help but break his ridiculous rules, but he loves the world and people so much that he kills his son in order to forgive them for breaking those rules…? As a live-long atheist, I have difficulty understanding how anyone could believe this without brainwashing.

The one-panel comic is cute and funny, but I find the page accompanying it falls into the trap that Cameron et al. *hope* you fall into — that is, arguing whether telling a few lies “really” makes you a liar, or stealing candy as a child “really” makes you a thief, etc.  This gets you stuck in their narrative on their terms.

It seems to me the simplest way through the Good Person script is just to keep agreeing with them:  “Yep, I’m a liar.  Yep, I’m a thief.  Yep, Jesus says I’m an adulterer at heart.  Yep, I’m a blasphemer.”  Eventually, Kirk and Ray get to the crux of the argument (which is really just a repackaged, worse version of Pascal’s Wager):

K&R:  “So if God were to judge you by the Ten Commandments, would you be innocent or guilty?”

Atheist:  “Guilty, I guess.”

K&R:  “And would you go to Heaven or Hell?”

Atheist:  “If your God is in charge?  Hell, I guess.”

K&R:  “Doesn’t that *concern* you?”

Atheist:  “Nope.”

…and…  scene.  They honestly have no answer for that.

It depends on which gods is judging me.  I mean I’ve been pretty good what with the blood donation, helping others, etc but I’ve never made a human blood sacrifice to Quetzalcoatl nor have I torn the still beating heart from a child’s chest to appease great Ah Pukuh.  I’m sure to be in plenty of trouble if they come to judge me.

Here’s the Muslim version of the same idea http://urduislamicbooks.org/allah-is-watching/
(4:15 is pretty funny.  I guess Allah cares about drinking alcohol, but littering is fine)

Regarding this panel in the tract, if I have to go to hell for just thinking about sex with a woman without having done it, I’ll feel really cheated:
http://www.livingwaters.com/tracts/269/p3.jpg

Atheist:  “If your God is in charge?  Hell, I guess.”

K&R:  “Doesn’t that *concern* you?”

How about just turning it back on them at this point, and asking, “Doesn’t it concern you that your all-knowing, benevolent God created a place where people can be tortured for all eternity?”  I still haven’t heard a good answer to that one.

This video actually does a great job of illustrating what religion is really about… policing the masses.  I too couldn’t believe the littering at 4:15… especially considered there was a trash bin right behind him!

Ray Comfort meets the Evangelist’s Nightmare
http://www.youtube.com/user/NonStampCollector#p/u/18/GXxtvAy4Rzs

The most incredible and thoroughly disgusting thought I got when watching this moronic cow shit was that over a billion of our fellow species believe all or most of the premise of this short as truth and as the ONLY way to live one’s life! I often wonder how much faster and more efficiently the human race would have developed/evolved/progressed had we had the benefit of a world without religion? Would we have conquered Mars by now? Would we have eradicated cancer? Other diseases? Where would our understanding of the human brain be? 

Anyway, just a thought. In the meantime, Cameron and Comfort can eat all of the cow shit they spew. Assholes. 

I think that I follow you Hugh. For instance, are you referring to the commandment that states”Thou shalt not steal”, and then subsequently, the children of Israel proceed to steal the land from the Canaanites, by slaughtering them, thereby violating the commandment, “Thou shalt not kill”. All of this because they coveted the land and riches contained in it. “Thou shalt not covet”.
But oh yes, God commanded them to take this land, because God promised it to them, and these people were idol worshipers. Therefore, the “pro-life” god commanded them to slaughter all the men, women and children, both born and unborn. That makes it all o.k.

Especially since God isn’t even God’s name!

Why do people choose to reject the love and mercy of God? By rejecting God, you’re choosing to die with your sins and go to hell.

Sucks for Mohandis Gandhi.

I like how, in the tract, it says “only a corrupt judge” would let the guilty go free, but then creates a loophole so that god can do what they said was corrupt.

So maybe it isn’t corrupt if you say to the judge “I’m good friends with your son” and *then* they let you go free?

Don’t forget about his second banana, Kirk Cameron.

Damn, that banana thing is a gift that just keeps giving.

Those who abolish hell are unlikely to make these kinds of arguments in my experience.  However, even if they do, the “Problem of Evil” is very hard to answer without making God seem like a complete dick.  “So, because two people disobeyed God 6000 years ago, children in Africa have to starve to death and thousands of babies die of terminal illness before they even learn to speak.”

What you’re refering to is religion. Any religion out there is about doing something to get something in return. Do good works to get closer to god. However, true Christianity is not a religion. There’s nothing you can do to work your way to heaven (the point of the video). All that’s required to get to heaven is that you receive the free gift of grace from God by accepting that His Son Jesus died to cover your sins. You don’t have to go to church, you don’t have to give money to the church, you don’t have to read the Bible. those things will not get you into heaven.

As for the question, “Why is there so much evil in the world?” Well, this is a rather loaded question, and one that cannot be fully explained.

First and foremost, this question relates back to free will. I have the free will to out and murder someone if I choose to. Yes, there’s concequences for that, but I still have the choice to do evil. If I didn’t have that choice, then I wouldn’t really have free will. Then we have Adam and Eve. When they committed the first sin, this allowed evil to enter the world.

As for questions like, “Why did God allow a family member to get killed by a drunk driver?” and “Why does God allow things like the earthquake in Japan to happen?” Those questions I cannot answer, but I have learned this. God has His reasons to allow such things. However, if we spend our time chasing after those reasons, you’re likely to develope a negative outlook on the world. Instead, just accept that these bad things did happen (yes, it can be a difficult thing to do) and continue with your life. If God wants you to know the reason behind these bad things, God will find a way to reveal that to you.

I don’t believe in gods.  I don’t believe in your god.  I don’t believe that your god offers love and mercy.  I don’t believe in sin and I don’t believe in hell.  There really isn’t anything that you’ve presented that I would consider believable enough to reject.  You need to understand that if you want to understand why atheists are swayed by talk of heaven and hell.

Where is this evidence?

I find it unfortunate that you do believe in gods. I don’t believe in gods because I find no reason to believe in them.  none of the arguments for the existence of any gods are sufficiently compelling.  The working definition for “god” is so ill defined as to be meaningless.  There are better explanations for god belief that the existence of an invisible deity.

My question:  What is “god”?  What do you mean by “god”?  Define “god”

I find it unfortunate that you’re missing out on a level of love and peace that can only be experienced through God. What am I missing out on by believing in God that you have obtained by not believing in God?
I don’t believe in gods. I have one God. As for your working definition for god, you are correct. In fact, there are many gods, but only one God.
A god can be anything that you love, worship, or otherwise hold in high esteem. Some people make money to be their god for instance. They love money so much that their goal in life it to collect as much money as possible. Some people might make a car out to be their god. For others, a sports star or other celebrity could be their god. They could have multiple gods in this sense as well. A god is simply anything that you idolize
My question for you: You find God unbelievable, what would it take for you to believe in God?

There is evidence of God’s miracles all around. I’ve personally seen people get healed before my very eyes.

Or just take the Bible for instance. I’m sure you’ve heard people quote Bible verses to prove the Bible, but there’s a reason they can do that. You see, the Bible was not written by a single human author. The Bible has a lot of different authors. The authors of the old testiment for instance, lived centuries apart from the authors of the new testiment. The prophocies found in the old testiment are confirmed by the authors of the new testiment. Here’s the kicker. These authors never met, discussed their findings or anything, and yet thier words are in agreement. so now we have multiple people centuries apart, and they’re in agreement.

Or we could get into Bible prophecy that’s happing in the world right now if you’d like.

“I find it unfortunate that you’re missing out on a level of love and peace that can only be experienced through God. ”

I’ve had that exact same argument posed to me by Muslims and Mormons.  Not being a Muslim or a Mormon, I don’t know.  But THEY sure seem to think you’re missing out on something special.

until the last part i was sure this was a video ridculing christianity, seariously.

Didn’t you ever hear the story of the King and the peasent?

A mighty King who had a reputation for being harsh and a loaf from his followers staged a parade through town.  One peasant found himself in the street when he saw the parade come by and in a panic broke into his neighbors house to hide, he was arrested but he guards and brought before the king where the king asked him why he broke into his neighbors house.  the peasant replied that he was hiding because he was afraid fo the king.  The King responded by beating him to death with his scepter screaming “YOU’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO FEAR ME!  YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO LOVE ME!”

 Ask a Jew about those prophecies. 

“There is evidence of God’s miracles all around. I’ve personally seen people get healed before my very eyes.”

How do you know it’s not some other mechanism or a demon tricking you? 

 “My question for you: You find God unbelievable, what would it take for you to believe in God?”

If he is as described in the bible he knows and is failing to provide it. 

Your questions I cannot answer. As I already mentioned, God has His reasons for allowing such evils. What His reasons are, I do not know. But that’s what faith is all about, trusting God even when you do not know the answer yourself.

As  for heaven, I can’t really say what it’s going to be like. In fact, now you’re getting into questions that I still have about God and the Bible. Yes, that’s right, I still have many questions myself. Some of them have been answered over time, and some I’ll just have to  wait and find out for myself.

God is not required to meet you at your level. Sometimes He does, if it is His will, as he did with Thomas. I will pray that God reveal Himself to you.

then maybe that’s why I’m not a believer.  God hasn’t chosen to reveal himself to me.  I’ve asked God, and he hasn’t replied.  Ball’s in his court.

Ok, but he didn’t die for me to cover my sins.

God may reveal Himself to you, but it may not be in the way you’re expecting. Same thing happened to me. Just try to keep that in mind, ok?

 Except it is an accurate representation of the Faith not Works Grace theology.  Meaning it’s not the packaging that’s the problem, it’s the message. 

No it ISN’T a choice.  I cannot choose to be convinced by the implausible.  Don’t defend the fact that you suck at evangelizing.  

 Except that the Forces of the Anti-Christ will mimic the powers of Jesus…and some believe that Satan already mimicked the stories of Jesus and miracles claims to deceive people away from Christianity.  And then there’s the miracles of other religions.

Also how do you KNOW what demons want.  Clearly one could be just a pest while other higher demons could be in it for the long game. 

You’ve already admitted you’re not an authority on any of these topics and you have profound ignorance.  Your insistence to argue as if you are knowledgeable is profoundly arrogant. 

 If we were joyful in times that would be sorrowful we wouldn’t be sentient.  We would be like rocks and not responsive to our environment.   Anything, like your God or Heaven, that claims it can make something like knowledge of genocide or rape or murder not affect my happiness is monstrous to me. 

God will reveal the reasons to me if and when He chooses to. It is not my responsibility to know everyting.

I came here to share and discuss, not to argue. You are free to take what I say and do what you please.

As for the Anti-Christ, well informed and prepared Christians will be able to recognize him. As for knowing what Satan’s goals are, the enemy comes to steal, kill, and destroy. Those are his goals according to John 10:10

Ing, I think we should continue our discussion here. the words are becomming cramped and difficult to read.
 
How you need God to reveal himself to you is something that I’m going to leave between you and God. However, believing in God is a personal choice. You’re free to believe in Him, and you are free not to.
 
As for being joyful in the face of difficult times, there seem to be a few misconceptions in the air. First, I’m not saying that have to completely disregard other emotions. It’s how you deal with your emotions and feelings that’s important. Jesus got angry. When I heard about murder and widespread natural disasters on the news, yes, it makes me sad too. But it’s important that you don’t let these emotions and feelings consume you. You see, if you’re constantly thinking about and chasing after why so many bad things are happening in the world, you’ll develope a negative view of the world. It’s important to trust God here and trust that God has a plan and He knows what he’s doing.
 
Now, as for Morman and Muslim prophets, they are just that, prophets. My faith is not based in prophets, but in God himself. You seem to know a lot about other religions, so let me ask you this. Do you know what the differnce is between Christianity and any other religion out there?

The problem with this scenario is that they want to trap you into arguing about whether you’re actually a good person. If I’m ever asked this question, I’ll cut them off right at the beginning.

Q:  “Would you consider yourself a good person?”

A:  “Is this the part where you tell me that I’m a liar, a thief, and an adulterer? Your question assumes that the Bible matters. It doesn’t. It may be your favorite book, but it is completely irrelevant. There is not a shred of evidence to indicate a supernatural realm or any sort of afterlife, and so  it does not matter what the Bible has to say about anything at all. Your ‘hook’ is only going to catch people who already believe your basic premise that the Bible is true and that your deity is real.”

What discrepancies are you talking about?

As for Matthew/Mark/Luke/John not having the same exact words, it would just be silly if they did. Those books of the Bible are written as their personal account of their time with Jesus. It would be the same thing as you and me going to an amusement park (random example) and writting a summary of what we did that day. Even if we were together and rode all the same rides, our words are going to be different in our summaries.

As for hell, God does not want to send people to hell. In fact, I’d say he doesn’t send people to hell. People choose to go to hell themselves when they choose to reject God’s love and mercy.

Read As: Yes Ing, your summary was completely accurate.

Because Jesus is a scapegod, he absolves you of your sin, so you’re not judged by your works, but merely your acceptance of Jesus Christ. (or not by your works alone in some versions).

Bernard Shaw skewers this idea in Androcles and the Lion, in which one of his characters representing a type of Christian chooses Christianity because he thinks it means he can do whatever he wants, so long as he repents before he dies.  The Christians I know dismiss the idea, saying you can’t just be a total dick on purpose, accept Jesus in name only, and get into Heaven.  But I’ve had people knock on my door and literally tell me that as long as I say the words, I’m guaranteed entry into Heaven.  Or if you’ve been baptized (even as an infant).  Or as long as you don’t reject God, since that’s the only unforgivable sin.

It is your responsibility to be informed about the decisions that you make.

Ah yes, I had actually wondered about things like that for a long time. My questions were answered one day from a sermon I heard while in college. The preacher started by talking about all the things the Bible says a person must do if they have Lepresy. There’s actually about 4 chapters regard that subject. It was basically saying the person with Lepresy must exile themselves from society. Why would this exist in the Bible, and as a part of God’s law nonetheless? The answer: the law described in the old testement is a shadow of the Kingdom of Heaven. In other words, it shows what heaven is not like. 

What I think make infinitely more sense is that the bible, like all other religious texts, is a work of people, with no divine intervention, reflecting the customs and morals of the time in which the particular segment was written.  In that light, it all make perfect sense.  In any other, you have God setting up rules by which women and children are chattel.

“However, those people you talked to are wrong.”

On that we agree.  Although I’m sure they think you’re wrong too.  For all the bible’s supposed consistency, a lot of people read it very differently.

I never saidthatyoudid.That doesn’t stop it being your responsibility to be informaed about the decisions thatyoumake.

Ok, let’s ignore any divine intervention when it comes to people writing the Bible for a minute. The Bible, unlike other relgious texts, was written by a lot of different authors, spanning centuries apart. These people never met, never collaborated, and yet their words are in agreement. If you ignore God in that equation, then the only explaination you have is coincidense. However, don’t you find that to be too coincidental?

Ok, let’s ignore any divine intervention when it comes to people writing the Bible for a minute. The Bible, unlike other relgious texts, was written by a lot of different authors, spanning centuries apart. These people never met, never collaborated, and yet their words are in agreement. If you ignore God in that equation, then the only explaination you have is coincidense. However, don’t you find that to be too coincidental?

These people did not write in a vacuum.  In fact, many of the consistencies  were also consistent with other religion stories.  The flood is a common mythology, as is the virgin birth.  And whatever hypothesis you adhere to for the authors of the canonical gospels, they either built on previous versions, or at least had a common source (so called ‘Q’) to draw on. 

And lastly, the whole thing goes through the canon filter.  A committee decides what is appropriate, and what to leave out.  And different committees representing different major sects of Christianity come up with different decisions as to what is canon.

If you’ve never seen Joseph Campbell/Bill Moyers “The Power of Myth”, I highly recommend it as a broad introduction to human mythology.  When you see the big picture, and how common these themes are, the Christian versions become a lot less remarkable.  (Campbell never left his church, but he did say the perspective cost him a loss of faith, which he missed.  Moyers remains United Church of Christ- so these aren’t anit-Christian people).  Campbell talks about some of the texts left out of the canon, including some very interesting versions of Satan.  Oh, and don’t get me going on how it is that Ashara didn’t make the cut!

Maybe there’s some specific example you’re thinking about, but I don’t know of any cases of two completely separate people coming up with eerily similar versions of things.  I’ve seen bible prophecy used to ‘prove’ the bible, but it’s kind of like listening to Stairway to Heaven backwards- if you know what you’re looking for, your mind can fill in an incredible number of gaps.  Many bible prophecies keep getting re-filled as world events occur to match them.  The end of times has been at hand for over 2000 years.  I thought the United Nations was the ‘one world government’.  A lot of people have been the antichrist.

I won’t have any chance to follow up for a few days, so if I don’t reply, don’t take it personally.  And since you originally asked why someone would reject God and choose hell- here’s a version that answers it for me, and I think a lot of atheists http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iClejS8vWjo

Just pretend I’m a Jew then.  Wouldn’t the process of me rejecting Jesus as the son of God be the same as a Christian rejecting the Koran as the ‘correct’ word of God?  It wasn’t meant to be “I just reject one more faith” but “picking your version of God’s word”.  Agree I didn’t put it well, but that’s the angle I was going for anyway.

Your comment about healing is an assertion.  If you can’t back it up with evidence then  how can you expect anyone to give it credence?

You Revelation quote says nothing about a world government.  I suggest that you are reading too much into it and layering it with a shovel full of confirmation bias. Don’t you have anything that isn’t so ambiguous that a carny soothsayer couldn’t have come up with better?

I hope to see you on the forums.  You may well be challenged to back up your assertions there too.

To suggest that the bible (any of it) has the same supernatural perfection of language is unsupportable in the opinion on a native Arabic speaking Muslim I once worked with. Hey, I think you’re all wrong.  But to suggest any book has any kind of lock on being ‘obviously the one’ is unsupportable, as evidenced by the number of different people who are sure their own book is ‘the’ book.  You can’t all be right, and plenty of people have arguments for their book that are just as valid as your arguments for your book.  Of course, they think your arguments are invalid too.

Here’s my take on it:

Ray – “Have you ever told a lie?”
Me – “Yes…have you?”
Ray – “Yes.”
Me – “What do you call someone who lies?”
Ray – “A liar, but….”
Me – “You’ve just admitted you’re a liar, so I have zero reason to believe ANYTHING you say now. Good bye.”