Ray Comfort’s Email to his Fans

Goosing the Antithesis tells of the email that Ray Comfort sent to his mailing list regarding the Nightline debate. If you’ve seen the (admitted one-sided) preview video from the Rational Response Squad, you saw that Comfort and Kirk Cameron did not come off looking too well. Maybe that was just the RRS’ video, though?

Judging from Comfort’s email, though, it seems like we’ll just see more of the same…

What did his email say?

Just a quick note to let you know that the debate went wonderfully.

When I say “wonderfully,” I have to qualify it. It was like an open air with an unreasonable and loud heckler. The “heckler” in this case wasn’t just the two atheists we were there to debate, but the fifty atheists in the audience. As per ABC’s stipulations, the audience was composed half-and-half — fifty Christians and fifty atheists. The Christians were very quiet and polite — the atheists weren’t. It was very apparant [sic] who was who in the audience. It seemed that no matter what we said, it was completely ignored by Brian and Kelly (the atheists) and then followed up with their anger, mockery, and insults. But as with a good open air, the heckler is simply a platform to speak to the crowd who is listening. In this case there is a crowd of millions who will hear clear, concise evidence for the existance [sic] of God. How incredible. So I am delighted, because of what we were able to say.

…

God bless,
Ray Comfort

That’s a very nice way of saying: We didn’t come off well, so you’d all be better off not watching the debate tomorrow night… Just take our word for it: We were awesome.

[tags]atheist, atheism, Goosing the Antithesis, Ray Comfort, Nightline debate, Rational Response Squad, Kirk Cameron, heckler, Christian[/tags]

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Dan Harlow

One thing that struck me as odd about both the RRS and Ray Comfort was they they were both reading from prepared material. Now I know most speakers do this but it comes across as if the two groups are just talking AT each other. I don’t really see any open dialog going on here.

Still, I have only seen the biased preview video clip so I need to hold off any more judgment until all the facts are in.
James W.

It doesn’t sound like Comfort had a lot to say other than calling the atheists names. While the teaser video is biased, Comfort is more willing to call names than letting the debate speak for itself.
vjack

Blaming the audience seems like an interesting approach here. I wonder how most Christians feel about being represented by these two?
Mriana

Oh that is rich! They come off looking bad, so they have to name call and tell fellow Christians to go hide their heads in the sand. Typical when anything intellectual is said that contradicts or deminshes their postition they duck tail and run from it, dragging others with them, just like children. *rolling eyes* It ceases to amaze me that when it comes to intellectualism, the Christians run from it and tell others to ignore it and run too. That , IMHO, is intellectually illogical. *rolling eyes* It seems to me that Ray is acting very childish.
Sojourner

I think I’m an agnostic, although with all the titles and categories flying around, I cannot be sure. Whilst it seems quite clear to me that of course the religious people are factually wrong, and often quite absurd, it doesn’t seem to me that the atheists have managed anything more definitive than a summing up of available evidence. Which is to say, they are able persuasively to point to the state of existing knowledge (which has gaps) and suggest that so far, nothing conclusively supports the existence of god. Well, yes. However, five hundred years ago, nothing pointed conclusively to the existence of atoms, either, since they were not within the human frame of reference yet. (As an illustration, let me say that I grew up in an African country and we were conclusively taught that random white guys “discovered” Mt. X and Lake Y. Which means that Africans walked around with their eyes closed for lo those many years…) To wit: just because we don’t know about something doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. We are not the last human beings on the planet, nor have scientists et. al. declared an end to investigation and enquiry. We have no idea what is yet to be found out. Perhaps we should be less definitive about what is not? Perhaps god, if such exists, just has an extraordinarily laissez faire policy when it comes to human affairs? In which case believing or not believing could hardly matter less. I saw a debate in which agnostics were dismissed because of not having any answers. It seems to me that the desire for an answer–The Answer–now, at once, at all costs, is the problem.
Mriana

ROFLMBO! Educate? I didn’t see any education. How about causing atheist to confirm their stance because Kirk and Comfort had not rational argument? This is unbelievable. If they had been listening to Kelly and Brian, maybe they would have gotten an education. Like I said, anti-intellectual.
Richard Wade

Sojourner,
You’re right to point out the folly of being too sure of ourselves. As Voltaire reminded us, “Doubt is an unpleasant condition, but certainty is an absurd one.” Any individual or group who gets seduced by the desire to possess absolute truth is headed for trouble. Until someone invents a theoscope we’ll just have to keep arguing. So when you say “Just because we don’t know about something doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist,” there will always have to be the response, “Just because someone can dream it up doesn’t mean it does exist.” If the theoscope shows nothing out there the believers will just say God is beyond the perception of man’s inventions. If it does show something, some believers will get excited, some will not accept it and some will remain iffy. There have been many times when something extraordinary was discovered only to disappoint people when it was shown to be not divine by their standards or definition.

The problem I have with most believer’s definition of God is that the part about him being outside of ordinary existence, nature and causality really seems like an afterthought, a lame excuse for his embarrassing absence. The idea that he is the universe’s worst absentee landlord that you are considering is a similar attempt, but as you say it could be so. It’s just not very convincing.

Clerics remind me of show hosts trying to keep their audience entertained while the guest of honor fails to show up. He’s thousands of years late and folks are getting up to leave. This is why religious founders defined believing as the primary virtue, far more important than good behavior or good works. It keeps the flock coming back and staring at the statue that never moves. The more difficult it is to believe in something that perpetually eludes verification, the greater the “virtue” of their faith.
miller

Sojourner,
As an analogy, consider Newton’s laws of gravity. They are wrong. But before the Einstein, no one knew that. However, people at the time were correct to at least tentatively conclude that Newton’s laws were correct, since it was a highly successful theory. It is still very useful to think of the world in terms of Newton’s laws, even if we know that it does not work in certain limiting cases.

Similarly, atheists could be wrong about the existence of God, but I think we are still correct to tentatively conclude that he doesn’t exist.

Nearly everywhere I’ve looked on the internet, atheists take great pains to define “atheism” as “lacking a god-belief” rather than “having belief in the lack of a god.” It seems to me that most people who identify as atheists and people who identify as agnostics are pretty much the same, aside from their disagreement on definitions.
sheff

Any atheist is an agnostic at best, because no atheist can prove that God does not exist…scientifically. No atheist has 100% proof that God does not exist, but just believes that he doesn’t, or is unsure of his existence. As for Evolution, just like Christianity, it is also unproven, therefore, those who cling to it so dearly are merely are doing nothing more than following in “faith” that it is correct, just as Christians have “faith” that the Bible exists. I don’t understand the hostilities between the two, because as a Christian, I have no “hate” or “dislike” of an “atheist”, I just wish that I could help them see what I see. It just feels like recently, there has been such an uproar among “atheists” to try and disprove what we believe. Why is it those that believe that nothing exists after death try to get people who do to believe in “nothing”? I saw some of the debate, and truthfully, I think the “atheist” audience members were quite rude, and at times would not let Ray make his points or finish his thought (especially the lady who spoke of Cancer). I would not be proud of that debate if I were an “atheist”.
Domomojo

I posted this in the RRS forums already:

I was in the audience during the taping. I have no idea what Comfort is talking about with his claim of “angry atheist audience members.” He’s just pissed we clapped whenever Brian or Kelly made a good point. The only time we yelled was when Cameron started listing scientists who believed in God (specifically implying YAHWEH), and started with Einstein. Many of us shouted NO! By that point we were tired of all the lies Cameron and Comfort were making.

I was extremely frustrating to hear the list of straw men they trotted out regarding evolution. They are breaking their own commandment by bearing false witness! I am fed up with these hypocrites. Brian and Kelly might not have made a perfect presentation but at least they didn’t LIE!

And as for the one angry atheist lady, she was just one person out of 50. They cut out a lot of the bull crap Ray was saying which caused a lot of frustration. Keep in mind it was over 90 minutes long! Ray flat out lies, there was no “mockery” from the audience! He has a persecution complex.
Darryl

Clerics remind me of show hosts trying to keep their audience entertained while the guest of honor fails to show up. He’s thousands of years late and folks are getting up to leave. This is why religious founders defined believing as the primary virtue, far more important than good behavior or good works. It keeps the flock coming back and staring at the statue that never moves. The more difficult it is to believe in something that perpetually eludes verification, the greater the “virtue” of their faith.

Marvelous, Richard.

Sheff, you ought to pay more attention to atheist blogs because your arguments are some of the most commonplace fallacies among Christian apologists and the most widely and easily debunked by atheists. I won’t do your homework for you.
Jacob

Greetings! Unfortunately, I was very disappointed with the results of the debate. In the beginning, Comfort made many good points, but it seemed as though the atheists always ended with the last word. I felt Mr. Comfort and Mr. Cameron could have taken a better stand. Mr. Cameron was not the ideal Christian for the debate. He seemed to have a hard time answer questions. Someone like Chuck Missler would have been much better. I respect Mr. Cameron, don’t get me wrong. However, I don’t think he was the right man for the job.

One problem was that the debate was too short. I know there was one time when Mr. Comfort was going to make a point about the fallibility of radioactive dating. But the mediator/supervisor of the debate proceeded to another question before Comfort could make a argument.

In response to Mr. Domomojo, the atheists in the audience were very revolting, and very impatient, especially the “cancer” woman who insisted upon Comfort saying “cancer” rather than “suffering.” Cancer is suffering.

The female debater was very sarcastic, and the male debater would shake his head and get all flustered whenever Comfort made a good point. But you’ll notice, Comfort and Cameron were very relaxed and tolerant, and accepted their sardonic remarks civilly.

I think, and I’m sure Comfort would agree, that the atheists and Christians could have argued until they were blue in the face. It wouldn’t matter. People are still going to believe what they want to believe.

At least for us Christians, we have hope, a hope that the atheists may never have unless they come to Jesus.

Jake
Mriana

At least for us Christians, we have hope, a hope that the atheists may never have unless they come to Jesus.

Oh good god! I feel really sorry for Hemant. 🙁 These last few threads concerning this issue are shameful and arrogant, IMHO. I seriously doubt any of this behaviour is going to win Hemant over to Christianity. Look over other religious text, dear. The Muslims belive Christians are infidels and are going to hell because they are not Islamic. *rolling eyes* The Christians believe everyone who is not Christian is going to hell. I bet if you looked into other “holy” texts you will find similar thoughts. Christianity is not the one and only path in life, nor is it necessarily the right path, but behaviours displayed here on Hemant’s blog only serve to turn people off religion.

We have hope too. Hope that we can help to make life better for others before we die. I hope, before I die, people realize what they do with their religious beliefs are actually harmful to others. 🙁
Domomojo

Jacob,

Thank you for calling me and the rest “revolting”. Were you there? I’m not defending the “cancer” lady, as I said before she was just one person. I have met plenty of “revolting” Christians in my life. There are good and bad people in any demographic.
sheff

Darryl,

Are you saying that evolution is 100% provable? You say that I am just like every other apologetic Christian out there, but I want to know where the 100% undeniable proof for Evolution is? If you cannot prove it, than like I said, you are walking in faith with Evolution as I am walking in faith with Jesus.

Let me also add, that I never once stated that I could prove that the Bible was 100% proven, but I was merely making the point that it’s followers believe in it through faith just as people believe in Evolution.
Siamang

“Are you saying that evolution is 100% provable?”

Yes. To everyone with an open mind.
Darryl

Sheff,

Go back and read my previous post–carefully. Then, think.

As I said, I’m not going to do your homework for you. If you want to learn, the first step is to question your own assumptions and conclusions. This requires an unsparing critique of ideas that you have adopted. Such a critique is not had by going to sources that agree with you and getting more ammo for your arguments; just the opposite. Go study evolution as scientists teach it (NOT creation scientists or I.D. scientists, but your average evolutionary scientist). I mean really study it–no cliff notes; no evolution for dummies. Then come back and discuss these matters intelligently.

If you’re sure you have the truth, then such an inquiry poses no threat to your beliefs; in fact, it should only confirm your beliefs and provide you with more evidence by which to defeat the atheists.

Are you brave enough for this challenge? It takes spunk to do it–do you have what it takes? We’ll see.
Mriana

Guys, I’m afraid you are talking to someone much like others who drop in here- they accept only what is told to them by their church without question and nothing more. I doubt s/he will take the time to study scholarly works. I’ll be really surprised if they do. One of the advantages of Free Inquiry is that we are free to inquire into anything we have questions about, but some churches do not allow for free inquiry and only allow their people to learn what they feel is best for them to learn and does not go against their church’s doctrine. Sad but true. To be truly educated is to be liberated and so many denominations fear this liberation will cause them to lose control of their people and they will no longer be a loyal follower of that denomination or any religious demonination.