Nobody gets to call me arrogant ever again


I’ve been outclassed. Every scientist in the world is a modest little mouse in comparison. All of you readers: humble, demure, and retiring. Ray Comfort has just compared himself favorably to Einstein, saying that he has made a discovery more important than E=mc2. He even has a painfully vainglorious animated image on the page showing his face morphing into Einstein’s.

I think Ray Comfort tried to look up “humility” in a dictionary once, but after slowly sounding out as far as “h – u -“, he got stuck and settled for “hubris” instead. Close enough for a brain-dead Christian, after all!

Comments

  1. says

    Personally, I think Ray Comfort tried to look up “humility” in a dictionary once, but after slowly sounding out as far as “h – u -“, he got stuck and settled for “human” instead, grossly over inflating his capacity for rational thought (:

  2. says

    Big difference between the two: Einstein knew what science was, and recognized that invoking unknown “causes” explains nothing at all:

    To assume the existence of an unperceivable being … does not facilitate understanding the orderliness we find in the perceivable world. – Albert Einstein, responding to an Iowa student who asked, “What is God?” July 1953; Einstein Archive 59-085

    Oh yeah, and Einstein was smart. OK, maybe Ray was too, but clearly he’s not now, so I suppose that Einstein being dead and Ray being brain-dead could be a similarity between the two.

    Glen D
    http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7

  3. tsg says

    Feel free to disagree and to be passionate about your beliefs (open discussion is healthy), but keep in mind that comments that use cuss words (even “mild” words and abbreviations for cuss words), blasphemy, a lack of civility, or those that fail to give the name “God” or “Jesus” capitals, will be automatically deleted.[emphasis mine]

    In other words, feel free to disagree, except don’t disagree.

  4. llewelly says

    As pointed out by a commenter on FriendlyAtheist, Ray fumbled the formula; not superscripting the 2 implies multiplication rather than squaring – which results in incorrect units. Additionally, that formula is the relationship between mass and energy, not the theory of relativity, contrary to what he assumes in his article.

  5. Adam says

    I care what Einstein liked (and believed) because his name epitomizes intelligence. It is synonymous with the word “genius.”

    This guy really is some “Einstein”.

  6. RT NZ says

    Ray, stand up ….. oh you are standing….oh you are standing on a box ….. sorry my mistake.

    Mental midget.

  7. Sastra says

    Very odd. In order to “discover something” in religion in a way analogous to what Einstein discovered in science, you can’t just buy into and reinforce an already existing system. You’d need to be claiming special revelation status, as a prophet given new and startling information direct from God.

    I only listened to bits and pieces of “Hell’s Best Kept Secret,” but it appears to be nothing more than reading bits of the Bible and using it to advocate the tired, trite, and common old view that Christianity isn’t for making you feel good about yourself and happy in your life, it’s about the fact that WE ALL DESERVE HELL.

    Big whoopy-doo.

  8. chirs says

    What did he discover? I don’t really feel like patronizing the suggested link. Plus I have to leave soon to catch the bus home from work. Dirty, stinkin’, liberal hippy riding public transport.

  9. Kenny P says

    From Ray Comfort’s blog: “Many times I have been told that I look like Albert Einstein. A few years ago when I was in Phoenix airport boarding a flight to Los Angeles, I gave million dollar bill tracts to four Moslem women and a little girl who was traveling with them. They were grateful, and told me that I looked like Einstein.”

    After reading this, I wondered if this was the kind of money used for the reconstruction of Iraq.

  10. Doug Little says

    WTF, was that??? I feel like I’ve just been side swiped buy a fully loaded 747 full of stupid.

    Man I don’t normally like visiting sites like that and I’ll be careful in the future to never go there again. Is that guy for real? Is he the world’s most deluded individual?

    I think he needs to get a better understanding of Einstein’s concept of gawd first of all.

  11. says

    Of course Ray is brilliant. He has already proven himself a brilliant botanist with his great discoveries about the banana.

  12. Celtic_Evolution says

    I’ll bet ol’ Ray considers the Greek myth of Narcissus just plain pre-christian religious nonsense. What marvelous irony.

  13. Chris says

    Yes, Ray’s for real. I’m the “Chris” Ray is replying to in that post.

    He thinks Einstein believed in God. He puts a quote of Einstein’s in his blog header (along with one of Newton and Hawking) which he thinks agree with his fundamentalist mindset. He’s a quoteminer of the worst order, and doesn’t even know what “quote mining” means.

    When he was asked why he put a quote of Einstein in his blog header, given that Einstein didn’t believe in his god, Ray claimed that it was because Einstein didn’t like atheists quoting him. (In all fairness, there is a quote from Einstein which support’s Ray’s view of this. I don’t know how up-to-date the quote was though, and whether it reflected his views in later life.)

    I was, understandably, somewhat surprised with Ray’s assertion that he was quotemining Einstein out of respect for him. So, I asked Ray about it, and got a fresh set of tripe to contend with.

    When Ray is pretending to be humble at the end of his post, and admits “Intellectually, I’m not worthy to wash his socks”, he’s still over-rating himself with regards to his scientific ability.

  14. Benjamin Franklin says

    Oh No! I feel like Dr. Frankenstein. I have created a monster!

    Comfort’s post is in reponse to a reply to his reply to my post.

    I wrote-

    You should really take off the Einstein quote from your header. Einstein differed from you in virtually every theistic concept.

    Einstein never accepted Jesus in his heart.

    Einstein didn’t accept the divinity of Jesus.

    Einstein held no belief in prayer.

    Einstein said “I do not believe in free will.”

    Einstein said ” I cannot believe in a personal God…”.

    Einstein held no belief in judgement by God.

    Einstein said “I do not believe in immortality.”

    Einstein held no belief in the soul.

    Einstein considered religiousity like yours “naive”.

    Einstein said “Religions are an incarnation of the most childish superstitions.”

    Einstein said “the Bible is …a collection of childish primitive legends.”

    So, unless you really feel in your heart as Einstein did, why do you continue to quote him on your banner?

    Comfort responded to me-

    “Because he hated it when atheists do what you have just done.

    Chris wrote-

    “Ray, two questions:
    1. How do you think Einstein would like what you have done with your banner ?
    2. Why would you care what Einstein would like ? You have very little in common with him.

    And now Comfort shares with us his commonality with genius and delusions of intellectual grandeur.

    I kinda wish Ray had responded to my followup on the thread-

    “What makes me really angry is that you quote Einstein for support of your views, which Einstein so emphatically and absolutely opposed.”
    .
    .

    I think my post made Ray a little unComfortable.

  15. gir says

    I’m sure it’s cliched to bring up Poe’s Law, but I had to dig around the site for a while before I was really convinced it was not satire.

  16. Ray Little says

    PZ — two suggestions: get somebody to photoshop your picture into, say, Michelangelo’s God, and Ray Comfort’s picture into Nym Chimpsky.

    All the best, and keep up the good work.

  17. Pocket Nerd says

    I want to live in the crazyworld inhabited by Ray Comfort, Rush Limbaugh, and Ann Coulter, where other people mistake my arrogance and knownothingism for charisma and wisdom, and where I can make a living trumpeting my smug stupidity on blogs, television, or radio.

  18. aratina says

    That I have little in common with Einstein. That’s just not true. We are both Jewish.

    What the…? I thought Ray was an evangelical Christian. Guess I’d better go look up his bio on Wikipedia.

  19. Holbach says

    How demeaning for that demented moron to compare himself with Einstein! I wish Al was alive and informed that a half-wit was comparing himself to him. I’m willing to bet Al would not speak kindly of this shit head having known about him. Isn’t it just like Comfort and his ilk to quote comments by Newton and Hawking who intruded religion into their “unsure” works and mind. Why doesn’t the asshole quote Holbach and all the other renowned atheists who were also scientists? Let him quote them and then try to pick their solid reason and atheism apart.

  20. kraut says

    “We both believe that we were intelligently designed by God.”

    I guess this is typical for a blackfaced evangelical liar – or an evangelical jew, or whatever reliogious idiocy he subscribes to.
    Maybe he missed the latest batch of letters by einstein.

  21. Benjamin Franklin says

    Oh, this is much worse than me just putting a bra on my head and creating Kelly LeBrock in my garage.

    I have created Ralbert Comfortstein

    Perhaps there is a nice position for him at the Prussian Polytechnic, or the Swiss patent office.

  22. Ale says

    Ray Comfort is, truly, stupider than we can suppose. I can’t fathom how can he be so incredibly full of himself as to miss the vast intellectual chasm that separates him from a normal person, let alone such a creative and dedicated physicist as Einstein.

    Somewhere in Ray Comfort’s distorted little mind there are reasons enough to justify the comparison, though. And I think part of these stem from the pop-culture icon status that Einstein has developed. People just use his name as a placeholder, completely unaware of his contributions and their consequences and importance. If Ray Comfort had spent whole nights trying to understand differential geometry, and then the Ricci tensor, he would not regurgitate “E = mc2” without even getting the exponent right. His all consuming, puerile egocentrism is almost as appalling as his monumental ignorance.

    As long as the common layperson is as uninformed of science as it is now, imbeciles like Comfort will be able to mindlessly drop some scientific sounding names or concepts and elicit nods of agreement. That is our challenge. Every time we help laypeople understand science, we neutralize a little the horrendous influence of these idiots.

    Thanks PZ, for doing your part. I hope I could do more.

  23. Feynmaniac says

    “Many times I have been told that I look like Albert Einstein.”

    LMAO!

    What might be going on here is that Comfort says stupid things all the time only to be met with the sarcastic phrase “Nice one, Einstein”. His stupidity got him to miss the the sarcasm and his ego welcomed the remark.

  24. says

    My contribution :

    I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own — a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty. Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotisms.

    Albert Einstein, obituary in New York Times, 19 April 1955

    Tell us Ray, given Einstein is on record as rejecting the personal God, where do you think he is spending Eternity?

  25. synthesist says

    A comment from the website:-
    “It’s funny how atheists (dale) say that Christians have no sense of humour.”
    Contrariwise – Christians DO have a sense of humour – witness Ray Comfort’s great fruity comedy sketch.

  26. Mooser, Bummertown says

    What the…? I thought Ray was an evangelical Christian.

    There is nothing intrinsic about Judaism or indeed, any religion. One may change one’s religion every 15 minutes if one wishes.
    I usually change mine for the two reasons most people change religions in America; cause I think they have money I can get, or daughters I can sleep with.

    When someone says “I am a ——” (insert your choice of religion here) it is a meaningless statement on it’s face, it is only meaningful in terms of what effect the speaker thought his verbal avowal of any given creed would have on you.

    Most of the time, when someone (like me) says it, they are saying either “You can trust me with your money” or “Let me sleep with your daughter”

  27. says

    I have some masochistic thing with Ray. My forehead shows the scars of the many /headdesks I’ve self inflicted after being beaten about the head and shoulders with Ray’s dumbfuckery.

    I need help. Is there christoblogoholics anon? Hopefully it’s not some strange 12 step run by Scientologists.

  28. Sven DiMilo says

    Who cares what Einstein thought about god(s)?
    I mean, really. It’s not like whoever’s opinion best matches that of the guy who came up with relativity almost 100 years ago Wins or anything.
    On questions of pre-1960s physics? Mathematics? There I might go to Einstein. But on questions like: Do god(s) exist? Beatles or Rolling Stones? and the like (i.e., almost everything), who cares about Al’s opinions?
    I really don’t get the quotemine-Einsten game, played by anybody.

  29. says

    @ Pocket Nerd #20:

    I already live in that kind of crazyworld. Unfortunately, it’s my living room, and it needs tidying up right now…

  30. says

    In 1982 I found something in the Scriptures that is infinitely more important and has far greater repercussions than the Theory of Relativity (see LivingWaters.com/learn/ ).

    I’ll say it right now:

    DEMENTED FUCKWIT.

  31. says

    Except, Sven, it’s pretty clear that Ray Comfort is making use of Einstein to bamboozle his flock.

    Saying that we shouldn’t care about Einstein’s opinion is about as meaningful as saying that we shouldn’t care about 2nd law of thermodynamics “arguments”, or BS about how life is “too complex to evolve” (uh, idiots, it’s complex in a distinctly (non-teleological) evolutionary manner). Of course it’s so much stupid confusion, but it still has to be countered if we aren’t going to give up on trying to educate the ignorant.

    Glen D
    http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7

  32. says

    Sir, I served with Albert Einstein: I knew Albert Einstein; Albert Einstein was a friend of mine. Sir, you are no Albert Einstein.

    PZ, how about you take it up a notch and start comparing yourself to one of their heroes, say Jesus Christ? Say you are like Jesus because you both have beards, challenge authority and have a bunch of disciples who will follow you and end up betraying and denying you. Oh, and Kenny is Satan.

  33. Knight of L-sama says

    llewelly @ #4

    Additionally, that formula is the relationship between mass and energy, not the theory of relativity, contrary to what he assumes in his article.

    Actually if I remember the paper correctly the legendary E=mc^2 actually falls out as a consequence of Special Relativity and thus it’s not incorrect to classify it as part of Einsteinian Relativity.

  34. Kenny P says

    #33. Hey, Rev. BigDumpChimp, at least you are not (I am guessing) homosexual. Homosexuals Anonymous has a fourteen step program for those who want to straighten themselves out of the world and into the closet and that imaginary place, Heaven!

    http://home.messiah.edu/~chase/h/14steps.htm

    Just throwing that into the discussion as it always makes me laugh when I read these steps to straightdom.

    If you want to really torture your mind, read the “hell’s best kept secret” pdf that can be found through Ray’s link. I could only stomach reading the first two pages.

    I can still remember the shocked look on her face when I told my evangelical sister that I didn’t believe in either heaven or hell.

  35. BlueIndependent says

    Right. Ray Comfort discovered something in the Scriptures that no other human that’s read them, let alone spent entire portions of their life perusing over, translating, and pontificating about, has yet found.

    Put it this way: He doesn’t just sound like a self-congratulatory idiot with no expertise whatsoever in science or the debunking of it, but I would guess some of his fellow religious apologists may think he’s bitten off a bit too much as well. I won’t even address the Einstein garbage he’s spewing; it’s worth so little and yet so absurd. But what gets me is this “interview” he plays it up as. Who is the interviewer? What was the interview about? He considers a couple questions an interview? The man practically speaks of himself in the third person here. No more analysis required.

  36. Helioprogenus says

    What’s wrong with being called arrogant when you happen to know more then someone else? We’re not going around singing and dancing about how intelligent we are, but as soon as we open our mouths with any item of substance to ignorant assholes, we’re deemed arrogant. Well, so what? We don’t respect your stupid idiotic childhood belief in some fantasy, then suddenly, we’re arrogant?

  37. Kenny P says

    From Ray Comfort’s “Hell’s Best Kept Secret” (on page 2):
    I was in Australia recently ministering; Australia is a small island off the coast of New Zealand.

    Apparently, Ray Comfort isn’t much of a expert in geography either.

    Anyhow, it did make me laugh. Maybe he is a satirist savant.

  38. says

    I’ll say it right now:

    DEMENTED FUCKWIT.

    Posted by: Blake Stacey

    You know, Blake? Even with the bold and the italics, it’s still an understatement.

    We may very well need to invent a new language just so we can adequately describe Comfort’s level of insanity.

  39. says

    I have some masochistic thing with Ray. My forehead shows the scars of the many /headdesks I’ve self inflicted after being beaten about the head and shoulders with Ray’s dumbfuckery… I need help.

    Intervention!

    You there! Stop. I see your hand on that mouse button. You were gonna click the link, weren’t you?

    Before you do, just ask yourself this: what happened last time? Did it take you anywhere you want to be? Was it anything like the beer commercials with the hot babes frolicking by the crackling fire, Did you get to go parasailing? Did you get to go heliskiing? Did any of that stuff happen? Did any of those things the evil blog companies imply are associated with reading Ray’s blog–the fast cars, the fast women, dancing on the decks of yachts, adventures in exotic locales–did any of those things happen?

    No. They didn’t, did they? Instead, you wound up sitting in the alley behind a dumpster cuddling a bottle of Listerine and talking to a guy with no teeth about the government, didn’t you?

    Think about that. And remember, before you touch that button: it’s your life, to ruin, or to run with. Your choice. Now what’s it gonna be?

    I know, I know. You don’t wanna hear this. You think we’re butting in. And okay, we are. But we’re your friends. We had to do somethin’…

    After all, friends don’t let friends read Ray Comfort…

  40. says

    We both believe that we were intelligently designed by God.

    Ray Comfort’s delusional state is worse than we thought.

    When that douche turns theoretical physics and the understanding of reality on it’s head, then maybe he can even mention his name on the same page as Einstein (Though not in drawing comparison. Maybe saying how great Einstein is with his name as the author) but until then, some brainless twit who thinks a human-cultivated plant is proof of God should not even think to touch on anything scientific. Ray Comfort = pure phail

  41. LisaJ says

    Wow, I cannot believe what I just read!

    I also cannot believe that ridiculous, extravagant story about how people apparently think he looks like Einstein. He’s just trying to get us upset, guys, by stealing one of our guys for his side. I mean, how would he feel if we stole, say Jesus for ourselves?! I think we should set up a picture of PZ’s face morphing into JC. This will really get him!

  42. Michael X says

    No, no, I discovered something with farther reaching implications than even Ray.
    The FSM has told us of beer volcanos in heaven. But the eruptions would disrupt the carbonation of the beer leaving it flat. Therefore, the best place to get beer in heaven is in the rivers under the volcano.

    So there you have it. Ray may have thought he struck on something about where we’re going in the after life, but I’m telling you what to do after you get there. This has much larger and farther reaching implications than just what the possible destination is, I’m sure you’ll agree.

    {I can’t think of a witty conclusion, so insert your own banana one liner here}

  43. Patricia says

    No Chimpy, NO!! Don’t go there again. He’ll catch and covet you. He’ll strap you to a pew and preach!
    Somebody loose the SLUTS!

  44. Boosterz says

    What is hilarious is that he fails to grasp the irony here. The image of Ray Comfort holding a banana is pretty much the single best example of religious stupidity I know of. For him to turn himself into an everlasting icon of teh sTupid and then compare himself to Einstein is just priceless. If we were playing chess with Ray, right now would be the point where he would yell out, “King me!”.

  45. Helena says

    I am somewhat behind the curve on Comfort. I just saw the banana video last week. I sent him an e-mail explaining that God shaped his mouth to precisely fit P Z Meyr’s membrum virile, so he must now understand what God wants him to do.

    He sent me back an e-mail asking for money.

  46. says

    Whew… That was close.

    Now off to less painful things, photoshop and the 1500 images I took this weekend…. wait a minute?! That is painful.

    Now if I can only make myself take Ray off my feed burner…

  47. says

    Aaarrrgh! Why, oh why do I click on links to the latest outrage on Comfort’s blog? Do I have some deep-seated masochistic need to feel my intracranial pressure skirt dangerously close to the structural limits of my skull? Is it because I secretly enjoy spending the next several hours trying to think of the rejoinder that could shatter the stupidity equivalent of unobtanium? Why?

    This one is a new level, even for him. And he should think twice about giving religious tracts to kids.

  48. Craig Holman says

    We need a contest: Who can come up with the best Ray Comfort-morphing-into-an-(ugly)-ape or Ray Comfort-morphing-into-an-(aging)-banana video?

    Perhaps a vid of Ray Comfort morphing into a banana that then gets eaten by an ape that morphs into PZ…

  49. says

    What I really like about this is that he got his hero’s famous formula wrong.

    He has it as E equals m times c times 2. Not E equals m times (c squared).

    I wonder if he even knows what the formula means. I’m guessing not.

  50. Heraclides says

    I’ve given up trying to get my post to work on their site (might just be some dumb browser cookie business), so I’ll dump it here so that I can at least get it out of my system!:

    At least get the basics right.

    “Atheists say […] that anyone who believes that G-d exists, hates science.” — Most atheists simply believe that theists believe in a G-d. (Note the lack of mention of science.) After all, that is the definition of theist in the first place… (There is, of course, a subset of theists that are anti-science.)

    (re: Einstein) “We both believe that we were intelligently designed by G-d.” — Simply not true and he said as much himself. (Let people speak for themselves, etc.)

    “Special note to atheists: that was like a joke” — You don’t say. Sarcastic put-downs don’t make you look better.

    Its a pretty sad person who believes that by placing their own words in famous people’s mouths they can gain credibilty in others’ eyes.

  51. shane says

    Kenny P, when Ray said I was in Australia recently ministering; Australia is a small island off the coast of New Zealand., that is just your typical lame Kiwi humour. They print t-shirts in NZ with a large north island and south island and a tiny little Oz labelled west island.
    Sheep shaggers. ;-)

  52. Heraclides says

    @64: And “Sheep shaggers” is just your typical crude Australian humour, I guess… ;-)

  53. amphiox says

    PZ Myers as Jesus? That is a swell idea.

    So when the creos take over the government in 2012, and they come for PZ in his garden (lab?), which one of us will be Judas and kiss him on the cheek? Who will be Peter and deny him three times? Who will be Mary Magdalene and go find his tomb empty? Who will be Thomas and deny his resurrection? Who will be Paul and reinterpret everything he wrote into the opposite meaning, all the while turning the memory of this blog into the foundation of a new worldwide faith? And who will be Constantine and force this new faith down everyone’s throat by the sword?

  54. Chris (in Columbus) says

    Wait, that’s not actually Ray Comfort’s blog…is it? I mean, I am being completely serious…that is a joke right? The whole “no cussing, you must use a capital G when referring to God” thing is satire…right?

    I know I sound like I’m being facetious, but I’m not. I simply cannot believe that is anyone’s ACTUAL blog, it’s so beyond…well, stupid.

    Please, please, please tell me that is a satire blog, like “www.shelleytherepublican.com” or something. If not, WOW, Ray Comfort is so much dumber than I ever imagined…

  55. says

    @64: And “Sheep shaggers” is just your typical crude Australian humour, I guess… ;-)

    Crude? Oh heavens no. That’s our term of endearment for Kiwis, our way of showing affecting to Australia’s Canada. When we want to be crude…

  56. Kyle says

    I think he’s using subliminal advertising for Religulous. Seriously, in the middle, I swear it’s Bill Maher.

  57. themadlolscientist says

    WTF, was that??? I feel like I’ve just been side swiped by a fully loaded 747 full of stupid.

    Would that be an intelligently designed 747, or one that spontaneously came into existence when that tornado came through the junkyard the other day? I’m inclined to think it was more likely the latter, given the cargo involved.

    Either way, behold, thou hast verily been Smitten: and mighty indeed was the Smiting with which it hath Smitten thee. And if thou wouldst be delivered safely from the Smiting, thou must answer the Eternal Burning Aeronautical Question:

    What is the airspeed velocity of an African swallow?

    he doesn’t say what or where Pharyngula is

    I notice he doesn’t allow posting of URLs. Maybe he’s afraid someone will follow the link back here and get an accidental dose of reality.

    Meow. =^.^=

  58. Hessenroots says

    @ 76

    Do with it as you please, it was all of 5 minutes in Photoshop.

    I’m sure one of those old timey photo labs they have in malls will put pictures on a mug, mousepad, t-shirt, temporary tattoo…whatever you like.

  59. Yocco says

    OT: I am in college and have to decide if I am going to be Biochem or Microbiology. I imagine this is the best crowd to ask which of the two would be the more economically promising degree to attain.

  60. alex says

    Richard Eis #81

    you beat me to it. there’s certainly more of a resemblence to Barry Chuckle than Albert E.

  61. says

    My word! (I am actually nearly out of those right now)

    I honestly don’t know how to put my current state into words. I feel like my IQ just dropped several digits, I want to slap a certain someone around the ears and call a good friend to hack this same certain someone’s website. How can anyone be so clueless and at the same time so arrogant? It is mind-boggling.

  62. Nick Gotts says

    Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotisms. Bryan Coughlan, quoting Albert Einstein. My emphasis.

    Now that’s spooky. It’s as if Einstein could see into the future, and saw… Ray Comfort.

  63. Craig Holman says

    To #78: Screw ‘economically promising’.

    Pick the major that turns you on the most.

    Life’s too short to settle for anything else.

  64. Andreas Johansson says

    While secularists sleep well-funded creationists are on the march in Europe (by Peter Kjærgaard) It also mention Creationist Muslims, which is a new one to me.

    In response to the call for action from the Assembly, only the Swedish government acted promptly, swiftly issuing a general ban on the teaching of creationism and Intelligent Design in their schools.

    Banning something that’s already forbidden isn’t acting promptly, it’s pretending to act to camouflage the fact that you’re not going to actually do anything.

  65. Jay says

    To Riva (#82) –

    No, Ray is the real thing, and unfortunately he has a fairly large pool of acolytes. The arrogance (and ignorance) on display when he compares himself to Einstein are typical of him.

  66. Nick Gotts says

    @85 Bryan->Brian. Sorry Brian, first your nationality, now your name!

  67. Dirk Diggler says

    This story reminds me an announcer on Monday Night Football a few years back…

    “Nobody in the game of football should be called a genius. A genius is somebody like Norman Einstein.”
    -Joe Theismann, Former quarterback Washington Redskins

  68. Chris (in Columbus) says

    No, seriously. Will someone answer my question?! (#69) I seriously cannot believe this blog is real. Is stupidy really that rampant?

  69. Hessenroots says

    @ 69 & 91

    Sadly it is quite legit. If your mind and stomach can endure it, try reading some of the archives. You’ll see a consistent level of ignorance that even the most talented satire would have a hard time maintaining.

    After all, this is the same guy that brought us the “Atheist Worst Nightmare” video…

  70. Tex says

    #69

    Unfortunately Ray Comfort and his blog are real. As Einstein said (or at least shoulda said), “The two most common elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity.”

  71. Sceptical Chymist says

    Not only did Albert Einstein not believe in a personal god, he never wore socks! So Ray’s comment that he is not worthy to wash Einstein’s socks seems particularly pointless and fits right in with the rest of Ray’s claims. Perhaps Ray should learn a little more about Einstein. This man’s ignorance is exceeded only by his arrogance.

  72. Barry says

    What a dipshit. Comfort’s unverifiable, useless discovery is more important than Einstein’s?

    Clearly, he did this to get a rise out of us, and it seems to have worked.

  73. J says

    Someone please adumbrate for me: what’s this “discovery” that Comfort refers to?

  74. says

    Oh, good grief.

    Many times I have been told that I look like Albert Einstein. A few years ago when I was in Phoenix airport boarding a flight to Los Angeles, I gave million dollar bill tracts to four Moslem women and a little girl who was traveling with them. They were grateful, and told me that I looked like Einstein.

    Yeah, they probably thought it was real money, Einstein! I hope they didn’t get arrested trying to spend it somewhere.

  75. Hessenroots says

    @ 97

    That is a fine question. I tried reading the 10 page PDF of his “discovery” but it’s nothing but parables broken up with the occasional (and expected) literary diarrhea of bible verses.

    I found it painfully incongruent and nigh impossible to follow.

    There’s a video and audio version of it but my eyes and ears won’t endure the massive influx of ignorance.

  76. Mark says

    FTA: “Intellectually, I’m not worthy to wash his socks. But I guess you already figured that.”

    Way ahead of you there, Ray, ole buddy.

  77. Ray (not Comfort) says

    Hey! Photoshoppers! Get with it! I just saw a morph from Emma Watson (Hermione Grainger in the Harry Potter movies) to Richard Dawkins, and it was waaa-ay more convincing than the Comfort/Einstein morph.

    For heaven’s sake, I want to see Ray C as a chimp – and please add a banana, for the sake of poetic justice.

    PZ thanks as well for your tribute to Henry Morgenthaler, one of the few authentic heroes of our lukewarm Canada.

  78. P.C.Chapman says

    That’s it!! I’m pulling an L.Ron Hubbard.
    I am going to have a couple of Vodka Tonics (hell ,to achieve the proper IQ level for this project I might need a liter) and invent a new religion. I’m going right past any Poes Law quotient and putting together every trick in the Western canon.
    1) Secret codes in Scripture. Open only to me and those willing to pony up.
    2) Special books of revelation. Secret gospels left behind by alien species.
    3) And the kitchen sink.
    I can’t think of any more because I haven’t had the Word relayed to me yet through that vodka bottle.

  79. says

    Okay, I posted it:

    Many times I have been told that I look like Albert Einstein.

    Albert Einstein will not be forever remembered for an argument about how well his, er, banana fit his hand.

  80. OctoberMermaid says

    After the banana thing, nothing this Raytard does can surprise me.

  81. amphiox says

    I think the concept of hubris is probably beyond Mr. Comfort. Not only is it greek, but it’s also pagan.

  82. amphiox says

    I’ve just come to the realization that there is one aspect in which Ray Comfort is exactly like Albert Einstein.

    His thought processes are about as organized as Einstein’s hair.

  83. Hessenroots says

    @ 101

    I’d do the morph but I won’t have time until next week. There’s got to be someone else here that can pony up.

    Have to settle with my PZ Christ (#74) for now, sorry!

  84. DingoDave says

    “I am going to have a couple of Vodka Tonics (hell ,to achieve the proper IQ level for this project I might need a liter) and invent a new religion…I can’t think of any more because I haven’t had the Word relayed to me yet through that vodka bottle.”

    I like to see people being creative under the influence of the holy ‘spirit’.

  85. says

    hah! You think Ray Comfort is bad? Some of his commentators are worse! This guy here..for instance.

    Just look around on the Ray Comfort threads I linked to to find more of him, and some people who are almost as crazy.

    Sad, eh?

  86. Badger3k says

    Urgh – went there to burn my mind with The Stupid (it deserves capitals, but not all caps – I’m no theotard), couldn’t find the Hells Secret link, but got disgusted by the Comfort-Einstein Morph that he has up. The man has no shame.

  87. Badger3k says

    Nevermind – found it on his site. Gak. I made it to the second or third paragraph, where he gives that bizarre Transference of Responsibility idea that they have, the one that basically gives you a “get out of jail free” card. Sad. I did think that he was describing something (although the $25,000 fine was hilarious – I could never see that as real, not for the supposed crime) but then I saw that it was completley made up instead of an anecdotal story, and just shook my head in pity for him. Well, for a moment at least – I feel more sorry for the fools who fall for it.

  88. Coy Romfart says

    You ignorant athiests. This is Theology 101.

  89. 1. Banana
  90. 2. ???
  91. 3. God!!!!
  92. jeebusinvests says

    I am constantly amazed at how seemingly intelligent people can spend so much time arguing fiction.

    I was directed to this blog post by a friend, and from here clicked through to Ray’s highly amusing blog. What I can never understand is why one would even bother commenting or arguing on a blog such as that. What’s the odds of even making the slightest impression on those who frequent such a website out of choice?

    Why argue with people who are incapable of perceiving reality on any level other than described by a inherently contradictory synthesized conglomeration of fiction? Ok, that’s a reference specifically to the christian bible, but still holds true for other religious scriptures.

    I guess we have to try, religion has already left enough scars on the face of humanity. How much damage, on the other hand, has been inflicted by atheism?

    Ray brought a Futurama quote to mind which I feel applies;
    “People used to call me stupid, but I proved them!” -Philip J. Fry