Fresh off his earthshaking debunking of the whole of evolutionary biology with his classic “banana” and “coke can” arguments, Ray Comfort has a compelling new argument against atheism: the electricity argument. It’s a little story about “three wise fools” who are exposed to electricity for the first time, and who refuse to believe in this amazing invisible force, and refuse even to test it. Obviously, the “wise fools” are supposed to be modern scientists, and the invisible force they refuse to acknowledge is a god. Comfort tells the tale to make the scientists look like obstinate idiots who refuse to look at the evidence in the natural world and instead make rabbinical arguments about authorities and texts and…hey, wait a minute! Who’s being parodied here?
Anyway, his parable is a patent lie, and he completely misrepresented the events in the encounter. I know. I was there. The full and accurate transcript of the actual test follows.
The scene: Ray Comfort leads three people into a bare and dimly lit room. The only furniture is a plain table with a lamp and a book on it, and an ordinary light switch on one wall.
Ray Comfort: Gentleman, electricity is a modern marvel. To see it demonstrated, simply flick the switch on the lamp. You will be amazed. It will light up the entire room. The manual on the table is to give further instruction to you, if you decide to purchase the lamp.
Wise Fool #1: Uh, Ray, I’m a girl, and we know what electricity is, and we know about lamps. Why have you asked us to witness a lamp?
WF #2: Yeah, I thought you said you were going to prove to us skeptics that god exists. Hey, what is this?
[Wise Fool #2 picks up the rather garish manual on the table and leafs through it quickly. WF #3 looks over his shoulder.]
WF #3: That’s not a manual. That’s an old Reddy Kilowatt comic book, and you’ve used white-out on the word balloons and scribbled in Bible verses — it’s hard to read. Flick on the light, WF #1, willya?
[WF #1 flips the light switch. Nothing happens.]
Ray: Hallelujah! The light is on!
[WF #1 flips the switch a few more times…still, no light comes on.]
WF #2: What are you talking about, Ray? The lamp isn’t working.
[WF #1 flips the switch to the off position.]
Ray: The light is off!
[WF #1 flips the switch to the on position. It’s still dark.]
Ray: The light is on!
[With a disbelieving look at the beatific Ray, WF#1 turns her body to obscure the view of the light switch, and flicks it rapidly and repeatedly, and then with her hand over the switch, turns to Ray and lifts one eyebrow, quizzically.]
Ray: The light is … on?
[WF #1 lifts her hand; the switch is in the off position.]
WF #1: Nope.
Ray: It’s a miracle! Praise Jesus!
[WF #1 flips the switch to the on position. It’s still dark.]
Ray: See? Still on. Go ahead, read the manual.
[WF #1 contemptuously flicks the switch to off.]
Ray: Now the light is off, exactly as it was foretold in the manual. All is proven.
WF #3: You’re just making this all up, aren’t you? Let’s take a look at this lamp…
WF #2: It isn’t even plugged in! Whoa…there aren’t even any electrical outlets in this room!
Ray: Electricity is invisible and immaterial, just like God. You don’t have to plug yourself into a wall to pray, and just so, electricity will flow if only you believe in it.
WF #3: Is that in the manual?
[WF #1 pulls a screwdriver out of her pocket toolkit (three wise nerds is more like it) and unscrews the wall switch.]
WF #1: This switch isn’t wired up to anything! And jebus…there’s someone on the other side!
[WF #1 jumps back. An eye is seen looking out through the hole in the wall]
Hole: Hi! My name is Kirk Cameron, and I used to be a child star and atheist!
WF #2: What’s he doing over there?
Ray: That’s just a bathroom stall. Never mind him.
[Ray pulls a banana out of his pants pocket and slides it into the hole.]
Ray: Here, Kirky, gnaw on this for a while, and let the grownups talk.
Hole: Thanks, Ray! You’re the best! I love it!
WF #1: That’s…disturbing.
WF #2: Look, Ray, I know a little bit about electricity. I know that you’ve got to conduct the current from a source to the appliance, and that lamp isn’t plugged in—there isn’t even a place to plug it in. And the switch has to be part of a circuit, and there aren’t any wires here.
Ray: You deny the existence of electricity?
WF #3: No, Ray. We deny the existence of any electrical wiring or power source in this room.
WF #1: And we think you’re a loon.
Ray: This is a scientific demonstration — see the lamp and the power switch? — and you foolishly refuse to even test it. You are all fools. You disbelieve electricity even in the face of overwhelming evidence, just as you deny the proof of God.
[WF #1 picks up the disconnected light switch and flicks it a few times.]
Ray: Light on! Light off! Light on! LIGHT OFF! LIGHT ON!
Ray: See? It all works, as I promised. I have proven electricity exists, and therefore god exists. You’re all just a bunch of atheists.
WF #1: Yeah, I am, but you haven’t.
WF #2: I am too, but that hardly matters. We can see the light doesn’t work.
WF #3: Uh, guys, I’m not an atheist. I’m a Methodist. But I’m also an electrical engineer, and I can tell this guy is nuts.
WF #1: I know you want to compare modern technology and all of its documentation to the words of the Bible, Ray, but it just doesn’t fly. There isn’t any similarly practical information about testable, material science in the Bible, and there especially isn’t any in this cartoon version of electrical theology you’ve shown to us.
WF #3: And even though electricity may be invisible, we can manipulate it and use it and measure its effects—it’s not comparable to God, unless you’re arguing that you have the power to manipulate God, or that you have some instrument that can measure the sacred.
Ray: Hellbound! All of you! I can recite random facts about Thomas Edison that will prove I’m smarter than you!
WF #2: Oh, man, I am so out of here.
WF #3: Me, too. This was a waste of time.
WF #1: Hey, you guys want to join my “Ray Comfort is a frackin’ idjit” group on Facebook?
Hole: Ray? Ray? Can I have another banana?
— fin —
I roffled.
it’s not comparable to God, unless you’re arguing that you have the power to manipulate God
Actually, I do think that many self-identified Christians believe that God can be invoked and manipulated. They may use the words “scripture” and “prayers,” but conceptually they don’t distinguish these from grimoires and spells.
I think the reason they see Satanists hiding around every corner is that their own thinking is indistinguishable from witchcraft, except that their daemon familiars are called God, Jesus, and the Holy Ghost.
Most modern Christianity would be considered heresy in a less “enlightened” age.
All this time, I thought that skeptics rejected various ideas because the were not demonstrable, not because we could not see it. Just think of all the things all of us wise fools reject:
-the Earth as a sphere
-the Earth orbiting the Sun
-atmosphere
-cells
-atoms
-atomic theory
-gravity
-magnetism
It would be so easy to go on. If we cannot see it, it is not real. Oops, we cannot see evolution. There goes are “religion”.
It seems that Comfort not only think that we skeptics are stupid but also everyone else who follows his lead.
lollerskates
Ray would actually have a point if his subject was Bigfoot, but it would still be irrelevant.
And the part of Simplicio will be played by Ray Comfort.
Comfort tells the tale to make the scientists look like obstinate idiots who refuse to look at the evidence in the natural world and instead make rabbinical arguments about authorities and texts and…hey, wait a minute! Who’s being parodied here?
Hilarious!! Thanks.
This is probably a bit off topic, but comment #2 brought to mind a little anecdote. It’s my understanding that the original meaning of “don’t take the name of the lord in vain” was not to prohibit people from saying “God dammit” but rather a warning not to call upon god to do your bidding – “Oh, God, please strike my homosexual neighbor dead”, for example.
God will decide what’s to be done, not the humans.
Seems a few Christians today could take that advice.
To be fair to Comfort, it should be noted that the room was dimly lit by the warm glow of his spiritual aura.
Who needs electricity?
I thought after the fold you were going to reprint that comic from last month with the normal person v. scientist getting zapped with electricity. :)
That’s some pretty good creative writing there, though.
You know, I actually read the whole parody-conversation (which is brilliant, btw) before I read the Comfort article and I thought the “random facts about Thomas Edison” was an absolute stroke of genius alluding to the Xtian fondness for claiming that complete non-sequiturs back up their arguments.
Then I clicked over to the Comfort article and saw the footnotes … lolol!!! These clowns are like a parody of themselves.
I didn’t know Reddy Kilowatt died on the cross for my sins. That clears a lot up.
Comfort tells the tale to make the scientists look like obstinate idiots who refuse to look at the evidence in the natural world and instead make rabbinical arguments about authorities and texts and…hey, wait a minute! Who’s being parodied here?
I’ve found alot of arguments by “devout” christians are like that.
For example. I have two very, VERY christian friends. I showed both the banana video. Both wanted to punch Ray in the face after seeing it. That should tell you something.
If anyone is interested in t-shirts and bumper stickers protesting the creation “museum” they can be found
twincats says
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Callandor says
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lurker says
m’kay, my HTML didn’t work. Here’s the link:
http://www.cafepress.com/defconamerica
Can’t forget oxygen if we’re totaling invisible things. And carbon monoxide. Sure, it can kill you easily, but it’s invisible and therefore doesn’t exist!
“WF #3: Uh, guys, I’m not an atheist. I’m a Methodist.”
Nice to see a friendly face in your parables, PZ! It was a good parable, as well.
(On a related note, it’s amazing how many of my high school biology students this year are citing Pharyngulites on their final project, an essay on evolution…I’ve seen Larry Moran, Jason Rosenhouse, etc. Unfortunately, I’ve already have one student quote Comfort’s ‘coke can’ arguement approvingly, as well)
Well, Ray Comfort has devastated my position yet again. Ben Franklin and Thomas Edison were, after all, good Christian men. Everyone knows that.
Are you implying that WF #1 and WF #2 are not friendly faces? All the atheists in my stories are very nice people, really.
What is the link to the post you made about some sort of special type of argument that is used a lot. Later on you posted about Richard Dawkins mentioning it.
Was it called “forber type?”
I don’t think so because I searched your blog and found nothing like that.
I remember it starting with a an F … Please tell me, whoever.
I think the reason they see Satanists hiding around every corner is that their own thinking is indistinguishable from witchcraft, except that their daemon familiars are called God, Jesus, and the Holy Ghost.
a fancy way of saying…
projection.
@ #13:
“I visited the Creation Museum and all I got was stupider”
Ha, priceless. If I wasn’t broke, I’d definitely order one.
On topic, it’s pretty frustrating to constantly be exposed to Comfort’s total misunderstanding of atheism and skepticism. I mean, anyone who knows even the slightest bit about atheism would never claim that atheists (or scientists, for that matter) only believe in what they can see. It’s really too bad that stupid isn’t a felony…
“Look, Mr. Comfort, when I flick this switch, electricity causes the lamp to light the whole room.”
“It’s a lie! Nowhere in the Bible says anything about this ‘electricity’ of yours.”
“But, Mr. Comfort… It’s lighting the room!”
“Only God creates light. Your ‘electricity’ is teaching that anyone can play God and make their own light! There’s clearly an atheist agenda behind it. I know for a fact that Thomas Edison was an atheist.”
“Well, he wasn’t, but that’s not relevant to…”
“He certainly didn’t die an atheist! I heard he converted on his deathbed and recanted his theory.”
“Mr. Comfort, really… Can’t you see the light?”
“Stop babbling. This Edisonism turns people away from God, and is therefore immoral and a lie. There’s no way you can convince me otherwise!”
“Look, Mr. Comfort, when I flick this switch, electricity causes the lamp to light the whole room.”
“It’s a lie! Nowhere in the Bible says anything about this ‘electricity’ of yours.”
“But, Mr. Comfort… It’s lighting the room!”
“Only God creates light. Your ‘electricity’ is teaching that anyone can play God and make their own light! There’s clearly an atheist agenda behind it. I know for a fact that Thomas Edison was an atheist.”
“Well, he wasn’t, but that’s not relevant to…”
“He certainly didn’t die an atheist! I heard he converted on his deathbed and recanted his theory.”
“Mr. Comfort, really… Can’t you see the light?”
“Stop babbling. This Edisonism turns people away from God, and is therefore immoral and a lie. There’s no way you can convince me otherwise!”
Very good but did you really need to include that part with Kirk Cameron and the banana ?
Damn. I have apparently been eating bananas the wrong way.
Kirk’s way sounds kind of inconvenient though, since it appears to require two people. But I guess then it makes sense that God created two people! Once again logic and fruit triumph over unbelief.
Agree with #23, it was unnecessary.
I get the feeling that Ray doesn’t actually understand how electricity works, he just accepts it as true. Perhaps this is analogous to his belief in God?
It’s a bit generous to call it a “misunderstanding”. Don’t the fundies think that atheists know about God, but deny him out of spite? This is just a dishonest attempt to expose the “inconsistency” of atheism.
Adrian Clement asked:
“What is the link to the post you made about some sort of special type of argument that is used a lot. …
Was it called “forber type?”
…
I remember it starting with a an F … Please tell me, whoever.”
Foley?
Oh, sorry, that’s a catheter.
I meant the Forer effect.
Aww, come on guys, Kirk Cameron is hilarious. He and his Magic Banana bring mirth and bemusement to every proceeding.
I see we get to look forward to a book which cleverly contains the word “Delusion” in the title. I wonder where he got the idea for his title? From McGrath, perhaps? One commenter gushes “Can’t wait for the book!”
I think we have read it.
Oh, and I have seen electricity, btw. More than I can say for God.
Flick off, Ray.
Ray clearly needs to read this comic.
Thanks for putting that ridiculous argument in it’s place.
Are you happy to see me or did Kirk Cameron put something in your pocket?
Windy #27,says: “Don’t the fundies think that atheists know about God, but deny him out of spite?”
I can answer that one…yes.
Good Christians everywhere are convinced that atheists actually do believe in the God of the bible, and that deep down we know that ‘Jesus is King’. We deny it, however, because we are too willful and the devil has gotten into our hearts.
They believe this, and know that it’s true, because they get together quite often to tell themselves that it’s true. Oh, they also feel lots of intense emotions in church, which is proof to them that the bible is the word of God.
There is only one way to chip away at such mindless tradition and irrational thought, and that is set good examples of rational behavior by being impeccably truthful and precise in everything we say. Well, at least when we’re not being irreverent goobers. :)
Hey, if I can get out from under it, then there’s hope for young Brian Benson.
I wonder how many Christians cringe every time Ray Comfort opens his mouth. I know the fundies eat it up, but there has to be many millions of Christians that would like to disown him.
OEJ
Sure he did. Apparently, Ray’s “special demonstrations” room features The Power and The Glory hole, and the world deserves to know.
Don Andres (#23),
Pray take up your pen again to extend the thesis, amuse & enlighten! May we applaud your return to the pub with a Piper’s welcome.
That would be so much more accurate if they replaced “electricity” by “ghosts”. As it is, it’s about two whisps of a straw man.
No Susan, that’s not what I was talking about. I’m talking about a post PZ Myer’s wrote a type style of writing that theists use. It stars with an F I think… Forber type or something like that… I really want to know.
Ooh, he’s writing a book! Watch out Harry Potter, Ray Comfort is on the way..
Comfort says that these three men were invited by “Edison Electric”, but there’s no corporation of that specific name to my knowledge. Edison himself began the “Edison Electric Illuminating Company”, so I’ll assume that’s the one he means, which places this story at the end of the 19th century.
He claims that these “smart people” wouldn’t accept electricity because they didn’t believe in things unseen! I guess they didn’t breathe or ever notice the wind blowing.
With the naked eye, you cannot see electrons, of course, but people could readily see what they do every time a thunderstorm hit. This has been known since Ben Franklin’s time, long before the setting of Comfort’s fiction, so the story’s atmosphere is hardly, shall we say, electric….
Without the work of scientists, we would never have electricity or its associated modern conveniences, including the computer which Comfort uses to post his diatribe. Yet it’s this same monumentally successful scientific method which he hypocritically derides every time he tries to pretend that the Theory of Evolution is baseless or unscientific.
Are we to take it that these skeptics believed that Edison invented the first commercially successful incandescent light, yet they don’t believe in electricity? That they believed that this non-existent electricity was used to kill animals – yet they don’t believe in electricity?
Comfort seems to be admitting here that the Bible is worthless as proof of, evidence for, or even as a guide to any god!
Well here’s my challenge to him: Enough of the plate and switch, Ray Comfort. No more circuitous arguments. If you want resistance to disappear, power up this God and let us see the light.
His “argument” has failed to electrify me, I’m unshocked to say. And he transmits this material on cable?! It fails to answer the age-old questions “Wire we here?” or “Watt will become of us?”. Instead of being direct, his arguments aren’t current or even ample, alternating from bad to oersted with great frequency.
It hertz to say this and I hate to give him all this static, but his dishonesty will get him run out of his ohm sweet ohm and will land him in joule sooner or later. I hope he doesn’t ever run for electron. I certainly wouldn’t volt for him. It’s filamentary, my dear Edison.
But I’m glad he keeps plugging along, generating these positive claims for a god even though we make light of them. His capacity for entertainment is inestimable, which is why we should try not to be negative when we bring him down to earth, but instead say, “Socket to me, Ray!”.
Budikka
Well, technically what you’re seeing when you see lightning is not electricity itself but rather the air in the current path being turned into superheated plasma by the energy lost to heat due to the high resistance of air. However, you can still say that you have seen undeniable evidence of electricity in action and its presence, and you know that it is at work in your heart–both being more than you can say for God.
#8 ZacharySmith said:
“It’s my understanding that the original meaning of “don’t take the name of the lord in vain” was not to prohibit people from saying “God dammit” but rather a warning not to call upon god to do your bidding – “Oh, God, please strike my homosexual neighbor dead”, for example. God will decide what’s to be done, not the humans.”
That has been my understanding too. So much for the efficacy of “prayer”.
You know, Budikka/Ian, if you polarize this discussion of the field of creationism any further, I’m likely to blow a fuse. It might even induce me to ground you from posting such a series of charged comments here, though I’m reluctant to do that.
“…a warning not to call upon god to do your bidding”
Or more simply: God is a mean SOB, do not attract his attention unless you absolutely have to. In the same way, ancient Finns were not supposed to say the word ‘bear’ in vain.
Well, Randy, under a battery of such charges, resistance is a weak force. I could hear Comfort crying “Watt can I do?”
I know it’s not an original thought, but this brand of apologetics isn’t just terrible science, it’s terrible theology. The whole point about electricity (and other “invisible” phenomena) is that it can be measured, tested and controlled. The Bible is pretty clear that none of those things apply to God. It’s the sort of thing that would get you excommunicated if you were a Catholic.
Boy, I haven’t seen Reddy Kilowatt since I was a kid growing up in Minneapolis. Don’t recall ever seeing him on a cross, though.
Anyway, even as a child I knew that Reddy Kilowatt made electricity because he said so on TV, right before Clancy the Cop came on. Reddy said it. I believe it. That settles it!
#8, #42
I’ve heard that too, but I don’t if it’s true.
I used a similar tactic once when I was having a cold one in a local bar. One of the fellows overheard me talking about some biological point to do with evolution and he let fly that he didn’t believe in evolution. Not that he was particularly religious, just didn’t see it. I gave him my usual explanation which is too long for this writing, but goes into chromasome numbers of cats, dogs, horses/donkeys, and giraffs. It may sound weird, and it is, but the usual high school educated guy gets it.
This guy was a little more obstinate, saying he couldn’t belive he was related to a chimp, just didn’t see how one thing could change into another, God must at least direct it. Instead of going into an explanation about common ancestors. I asked him what he did for a living. He is a carpenter. Then I asked “are you a great electrician”? He responded “I don’t know anything about electricity”. I asked him “do you belive in electricity”? Looking credulus he says “of course”! So I told him “you can’t balance a load, calculate watt/hrs, or properly size a breaker, and certainly wouldn’t climb a light pole, but you belive in it”? “yea” he says. Well I tell him “imagine a cult that doesn’t belive in electricity, they flip the switch and it tells God to turn on the light. One day it doesn’t work. They pray, perform purification rituals, call in an excorcist, dance with snakes, sacrifice a goat. Nothing works! Those of us that believe in electricity simply change the bulb, and it works! Thats how evolution works. You don’t have to know how it works, leave that to the experts. Just know that it is true, that it works, and that experts use it to solve problems that improve our lives.”
I don’t know if he left converted, but he definitely felt a little foolish about his argument, and that’s worth something.
This post is too flaky to comment on, but does Ray Comfort realize that everything he says about the banana also applies to a guy’s erect penis, and could be used as an argument in favour of wanking and/or fellatio?
This post is too flaky to comment on, but does Ray Comfort realize that everything he says about the banana also applies to a guy’s erect penis, and could be used as an argument in favour of wanking and/or fellatio?
Unless they have a very unusually sized penis… this may explain something about creationists.
One also doesn’t invoke the faerie (hence the “fair folk,” the “lords and ladies,” the “good neighbors”).
This doesn’t seem to be the reason for not invoking the Hebrew god, however. After all, Old Testament figures are invoking his ass left and right. Rather, the key to the prohibition here is in vain. If you say “God dammit,” you’d better want God to actually damn it. If you say, “May god strike you dead”–or, quite especially, “May god strike me down if I lie”–you’d better mean it.
Oops… I screwed up the tagging on the quotes…
I so completely DID NOT NEED the mental image of Kirk Cameron glory-holing Ray Comfort.
I’m gonna make you pay for my therapy, PZ.
Owned.
This is “Planet of the Hats” quality smackdown.