I Got... Physical Mail

So, today I got in the  mail a copy of both Ray Comfort's You Can Lead an Atheist... (complete with illegible "Autograph")  and The Atheist Bible courtesy of an anonymous donor to Ray Comfort's ministry. Since I have not gotten ahold of the next book I will be reviewing yet, my plan is to look through The Atheist Bible and, if there's anything notable, ripping the hell into its points while waiting to get ahold of the other book. Money just hasn't been there for adding to the blog of late. Just the way things go sometimes. 

New Poll Posted

Ok. The new poll up is regarding the fate of Ray's book once I've read it.*

Be aware, my girlfriend has now made the offer to attempt to read 5 chapters, and if she can't read it I will not be punished mentally for a month for desecrating it ala PZ myers. Please vote, I'm always interested in what you guys have to say.

*This is a non-binding poll. In the end I will decide, though your votes, particularly if overwhelming may convince me in a direction.

Poll Completed!

Ok. So, now its over... and with  50% of the votes you have all condemned me to reading Ray Comfort's God Doesn't Believe in Atheists as my punishment for running an Atheist focused blog. 

Anyone who has anything in particular they'd like covered or focused on in the review I will certainly consider any suggestion. I will also be putting up a new poll probably next week regarding the Pharyngulation of the garbage book. 

Just for the record, if I decide to do a poll for my next review Ray Comfort will not be an option. 

Pharyngulation of Ray Comfort Book Possibly Held Off

Ok. So, my fiance is less than supportive of me destroying a book of any sort, even the garbage of Ray Comfort. Sadly this means that I will either not be destroying God Doesn't Believe in Atheists after I'm done with it, or doing it anyway at somewhat of a relationship cost. I'll probably put up a non-binding poll for that once the current poll is done.

Ray Comfort Review

So, its very much looking like, with about half the votes and only a week left on the poll that I will be reviewing Ray Comfort next. If anyone here reading has a copy they would either sell cheap or lend, I will happily pay for shipping. I would just like to see if there are any copies used before I let any of my hard earned money go to Living Waters.

That said, you never know how things can change in a week, but I am planning ahead.

Ray Comfort and the Straw-Man Version of Evolution

Please note that I have already replied to this here, but really... how thick can you be Ray?

"You march ahead unchanged, repeating the same falsehoods. I'm not talking about reasonable differences in interpretation, I'm talking about outright misinformation (such as the bizarre idea that male and female have to evolve separately for each species . . . " Euphimist

It’s difficult not to be repetitive with accusations such as the above. But here goes. There are an estimated 1.4 million species on the earth. Each species has both male and female (not counting worms and a few others). Let’s believe that each species did evolve. Let's then zero in on the giraffe. After the big bang, there was a pre-giraffe animal. Millions (perhaps billions) of years pass until today, and now we have a male and female giraffe. Evolutionists believe that the two didn’t evolve separately. Such a thought is "bizarre."

I know that you think I am intellectually slow, so please be patient with me and explain to me in very simple terms where you believe the female giraffe came from, and then explain how and why the other 1.4 million species ended up with both male and female.

I look forward to your comments.

I believe this level of density is sufficient explanation as to why I don't bother posting on Ray's blog myself.

This is from sisterdanger posting in my comments here

"You know that old saying, if you can't beat em, join em.
I was reading
Comfort's blog the other day, as you know, and came to the conclusion that it
really is just a bad idea to put credible arguments on there. But I couldn't get
over the idea that "evil persists when good men do nothing" [paraphrase].

And I got to thinking that there must be a way to seize control of the
game and expose it for the joke it is. So I was reading about that study with
the little israeli kids (I think they were israeli) where they were asked if
Joshua (in the battle of Jericho, which entailed the utter genocide of all of
Jericho, and their property, cattle, holdings, everything burnt down to the
ground) was justified in doing what he did and they said yes for various reasons
all having to do with their religion one way or another (to prevent
inter-breeding, because he was commanded by god to, etc). The control group was
given the same question but had the names switched out for something like
General Lin and the Chinese Army, in which case the children by and large
answered that Lin was not justified in having obliterated this small town (I
think you'll be familiar with what I'm referencing without me having to be 100%
acurate on details).
Suffice it to say, I started to think more about this;
how when stripped of their familiar religiosity, the same scenario would become
morally different (somehow). And then I began to wonder...

What if we all created FSM Diciple characters, and posted on Comfort's
blog denouncing Christianity in favor of Pastafarianism and used their own
argument tactics to support the FSM instead of God? Surely it would have the
awesome effect of illuminating absurdity without requiring the actual work that
legitimate scientific responses does?
Not to mention, our very presence in
such a fashion would just highlight how 'not worthy' of actually accredited
argument he is.

We could adopt names like "Agnolotti" or "Anima", "Bucatini" [fits the
piratey theme] "Candale", "Macaroni" [the mormon implications on that one crack
me up], "Pastina" (I kinda like Pastina myself :)"

I have to admit I agree that this would be an interesting experiment to implement. I intend to create a second blogspot blog to join this movement and see how it goes. I'm not sure how much will be replied to, since Ray's kind of a cock and is too cowardly to allow open posting on his Blog. Anyone interested? I plan to create a hub blog for it, though it really is
sisterdanger 's idea.

Note, i don't expect anyone involved to be dedicated or put a huge amount of time in this. I look at it as mostly an experiment on how the reactions will be and whether Ray will even acknowledge his own arguments lack of sufficiency seen through another lens. My experiment hypothesis is "no". Yarrrr!

Ray Comfort and the fantasy version of reality

Ray comfort is going back home to New Zealand to debate his insane view of creation. And boy howdy he's got a loaded gun filled with arguments... that have been soundly refuted time and time again on his own damned blog. Here's the outline he posted on his blog annotated with my responses:

1. An atheist is someone who believes nothing created everything. If he denies that and believes that “something” created everything, he’s not an atheist.

• Wow Ray. Still believing the "Nothing Created Everything" argument. Most cosmologists and atheists believe that the universe as we know is was created in what is called the "Big Bang." This is where all matter in the universe exploded in a singularity which is still expanding. However what caused the Big Bang is currently an unknown factor. There is a possibility that the universe is in a constant state of expansion and contraction and it could have happened billions of times already. We don't know the cause. Yet. This doesn't mean God is the culprit. I can still be an atheist and not know. I don't know, 100% positive there's no God. But I'm damned near sure, enough to say I do not believe there is a God, and take me out of the agnostic ranks.

2. Man can't create a grain of sand from nothing. How intellectually dishonest is it then to say that there was no Intelligent Designer?

• Cosmological theory is that all matter that is and ever will be in our universe has been there from the beginning. Once again, we don't have knowledge of initial cause, but that's not relevant here. That said, a grain of sand formed on this planet and any planet in the formation stages of the planet when various atomic particles came together. Through billions of years, water and wind erosion, chemical reactions etc we end up with sand. Its not that complicated and was certainly not an intelligent process that came up with sand, but a natural one.

3. Where did females come from (in every species)?

• Let's ignore the patriarchal condescension of the words used, implying that males are the default and females therefore secondary and address the actual non-issue at hand. I will refer readers here for basics on the evolution of sexual reproduction. Ray demonstrates here his absolute lack of understanding regarding evolutionary theory here. Speciation is not spontaneous. We don't jump straight from, say Australopithecus Afaransis straight to Homo Ergaster. One species does not give birth immediately to another. It is the gradual changes over many many generations that change a species into another, and the newest members of the species are compatible with previous members of said species until the genetic differences diverge too far. Normally in a continuous population, evolution will occur while all members o f said population being compatible indefinitely. It is through long separation and genetic change that things evolve along different lines. Males and females don't "evolve" seperately. The population's males and females are not some seperately evolved phenomenon.

4. Which came first? The blood, the heart or the blood vessels?

• Blood.
  

5. There are variations within species, but no species to species transitional forms in the fossil record.

• Disproven so many times that its almost insulting to address this. Firstly, there's Tiktaalik the fish with leg-like protrusions and which may have been partially amphibeous. There's Ambulocetus which is an obvious ancestor to modern whales. And let us not forget Archaeopteryx, the hybrid bird-lizard. You got some 'splainin to do Ray. And don't try the crocoduck line, its not cute, its actually rather pathetic.

6. God made Archaeopteryx with teeth and a tail. It’s a bird, not a dinosaur. He made many weird animals. There's a huge mouse with a pocket in its front that hops all over Australia, horses with stripes, weird desert animals with humps on their backs . . . and He made some birds with teeth.

• Nice assertions Ray! Care to provide any evidence that God did this? All you've proven is that there are many different types of animals on this planet. You haven't proven that God made Archaeopteryx a bird with teeth and a tail. the trouble with this argument is its a complete non-sequitur. It proves nothing, and adds nothing to the debate. Bald assertions are not evidence of God. find something scientific if you're trying to disprove science. Wow. novel idea.

7. Paleontologists have a huge incentive to twist the truth, just a little. If they can find a bone with a lump on it, theorize that it was a limb or a feather, give it an impressive name, say it is 73 million years old, and suddenly he has his picture on the cover of National Geographic magazine, has a book deal and lectures for life. The human propensity to gullibility is evidenced by evolution's many believers. Malcolm Muggeridge: "I myself am convinced that the theory of evolution . . . will be one of the great jokes in the history books in the future." Evolutionists have done to science, what hypocrites have done to religion. We have men who call themselves scientists, when they should have instead got a job with Disney as imagineers.

• Let me state first, that scientists don't normally get on the cover of just about any magazine. Scientists are rarely well known enough outside their own field to be a draw for magazine sales, even for national geographic. What Ray's forgetting is that any scientist who could disprove evolution would want to do so. He would be immediately famous and a scientific icon with... well, book deals, lectures for life, and probably a nobel prize. the incentive is certainly there. Why hasn't anybody done it? Because with the given evidence they can't, and having seen the evidence it is fairly certain they never will.

Ray, if these are really your best, i have all confidence whoever you debate in NZ will stomp on and humiliate you.

I feel clever

My parody response reponse to Ray Comfort's arguments. Originally posted on Amazon.com

Theists are those who pretend there is a god and a hell, because they can't imagine some way to be moral without being threatened by the great sky daddy with eternal punishment if they aren't. They really know there is no God or Hell, but are so outraged by their lack of an ability to supply themselves with a moral compass that they decide to hate the obvious scientific conclusions, and happily pretend there is such an improbable, despotic being reigning over their morality.