Ray Comfort is sure that his new book is selling poorly because of a conspiracy among atheists to give it bad reviews on Amazon.
But he said he’s sure his book sales have been affected because of the negative reviews, “because people purchase upon other people’s opinions.”
Has he considered that the book might just be awful? No, apparently not.
Still, he said, the book can’t be too bad.
…
Comfort said the strong opposition easily is explained.
“I simply expose atheistic evolution for the unscientific fairy tale that it is, and I do it with common logic. I ask questions about where the female came from for each species. Every male dog, cat, horse, elephant, giraffe, fish and bird had to have coincidentally evolved with a female alongside it (over billions of years) with fully evolved compatible reproductive parts and a desire to mate, otherwise the species couldn’t keep going. Evolution has no explanation for the female for every species in creation,” he said.
I know Ray is rather stupid, but who knew he could be that stupid. This has been explained to him multiple times: evolution does explain this stuff trivially. Populations evolve, not individuals, and male and female elephants evolved from populations of pre-elephants that contained males and females. Species do not arise from single new mutant males that then have to find a corresponding mutant female — they arise by the diffusion of variation through a whole population, male and female.
Rather than a conspiracy of atheists falsely downrating his book, there is a simpler explanation for his lousy sales: it’s a piece of crap written by an incompetent and idiot, and his complaint just confirms that he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
Note the not-so-subtle sexism of “Evolution has no explanation for the female for every species” — as if males were the default.
All of that is well and good–I’m sure the book is as terrible as Comfort’s illogic–but I would be surprised if the huge numbers of horrible online reviews didn’t have some impact on the book’s Amazon sales numbers.
Which is one of the nice perks of posting horrible online reviews of bad books, isn’t it?
How is it that Comfort is so certain that males would be first? Especially since if anything, asexual organisms more closely resemble females and maleness is what evolved to allow for sexual reproduction. It never ceases to amaze me the limitless nature of creationist stupidity.
“Nothing created everything”
I kinda like that ^^
It embarrasses even creationists, apparently.
Which is a considerable achievement.
While slightly less embarrassing, I think Expelled suffered for many of the same reasons, in that it was already embarrassing even before the creationists saw it.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/6mb592
I couldn’t help notice that this article is from World Net Daily, the National Enquirer and the Weekly World News of the far, far, far, far right. Some of their writers on there make the late Ruhollah Khomeini look like a bleeding heart liberal.
Does anyone else remember their little gem which blamed the suicide of a very disturbed teenager with a whole lot of problems sadly ignored by his family on Richard Dawkins and his “atheist” professors, claiming that a small college in rural New York was some sort of atheist nexus?
http://worldofweirdthings.com/2008/11/25/blame-it-on-dawkins/
Yeah, the same guys are writing this conspiracy theory as well…
You’ve cited some preposterous assertions in the past, but this one takes it to new depths of absurdity.
This stuff is formulated for and marketed to rubes with no standards. It’s resistant to rational argumentation because it has no basis in reality.
I do find it very funny what tags people give to his books on Amazon though:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/tags-on-product/1935071068/ref=tag_dpp_cust_edpp_sa
The British version of Amazon have the words ‘hogwash’ and ‘arsewater’ to add to this motley crew.
Banana man is not happy, first the offer to debate Dawkins and then this?
No doubt, it really is a conspiracy.
…erm, actually, no. … Sorry folks.
In fact, there is a conspiracy. We, the Illuminati, in cahoots with a super-secret MIT Kabbalistic knitting collective have been dissing Comfort’s books and surreptitiously redirecting his mail.
I’m not sure how he found us out, though his angelic super-powers may have had something to do with it. In any case, now that he’s on to us, we may have to resort to plan B.
[play dramatic sound here]
I’m now off to check on the shrieking eels!
I’m puzzled by the Amazon page for this book. Right at the top, beneath the title and author’s name, it says
but further down the page, under the heading “Product details”, it says
and when I follow the link to the reviews, there’s only one, giving it five stars with the comment
Something fishy appears to be going on here.
Interesting that when you check the Amazon page only one (ironically positive) review shows up. I wonder what could have happened to the other 106 reviews. Hmmm.
What is he talking about? There’s only one review, and it’s a 5-star one.
*raises hand
Also, please correct me if I’m wrong, it’s been a long time since I studied developmental biology but is the female not the default sex in mammals? All embryos start off female and it’s not until the Y chromosome kicks in that the foetus starts developing male features.
From that site:
I wonder what he was. A gibbering mess, no doubt
I’m sure that many atheists are negatively reviewing a book that they haven’t read. Of course “haven’t read” is a rather misleading statement, given the repetitiveness of Mr Comfort’s arguments.
In a way it seems like a bad thing – I wouldn’t personally go and review anything until I’d read it – but I do find it impossible to muster any sympathy for such an unashamed moron.
Guy
P.S. Does anyone have any recommendations (preferably online and nothing too heavy) for how sexual reproduction is thought to have evolved?
@ Johnny #5: And “elves”? Looks like the tagger had read Pratchett’s Discworld Science series. Very cool.
Tulse
Isn’t it a case that females are a “default” and males are simply due to an extra gene? [trying to remember biology courses from 10 years ago…]
I’m seeing the free preview in Amazon. It starts, right off the bat, quote-mining Stephen Hawking. That’s real classy, Ray!
So far, still only one review.
Come one people, we have to work together here! Lets prove Ray right and create a conspiracy of atheists to give him bad reviews!
Who knew? Come on, this is the guy who thought the cultivated banana was proof of God (which I am given to understand is still in his book). This is the guy whose compatriot brought us the “crocoduck.”
That being said I find your rebuttal rather weak. Yes, Ray is wrong about about the level at which evolution is measured. But the protest is the inability to grasp how sex itself could have evolved. Being only aware of the complicated plumbing we have developed for the purpose of procreation, it is natural for lay persons to wonder (and rubes like Ray to ponder slack-jawed) at how this differentiation from asexual reproduction could have occurred.
It’s true. All of the reviews are missing. Do you think “Silverchord” is really Kirk Cameron? Or just Comfort himself?
Comfort reminds me of the moon hoax conspiracy theorists who can’t figure out why Apollo photos contain no stars so they assume it must be a hoax instead of asking someone who might know.
Ok, I have read only half a page of the free preview and the stupid is already burning me. He marvels about how “miraculous” it is that the composition of the atmosphere happens to be the precisely the one we need to breathe. Why am I doing this to myself?
Actually if you take a look at the Y chromosome and compare it to the normal X chromosome, it looks like a tiny and shriveled version of the X and packs less genetic data. So the current theory is that females were the default and somewhere along the line, males evolved from a mutation in the X chromosome that turned it into a Y.
Of course they’re also newer additions as there were no sex chromosomes in the first animals. That we know of. Oh and they reproduced asexually or were hermaphrodites. I wonder if Banana Man has heard of either of these methods of reproduction…
Here I am, just an uneducated Systems Analyst, and I can find things like “Aromatase Inhibitors Block Natural Sex Change and Induce Male Function in the Protandrous Black Porgy, Acanthopagrus schlegeli Bleeker: Possible Mechanism of Natural Sex Change” (http://www.biolreprod.org/cgi/content/full/66/6/1749) and, um, hundreds of articles like this, that show that sex is a rather fluid property.
Ray can simply not be this stupid. He’s just a simple liar.
Regards,
David
Wait. Are we sure he actually debated at Yale University as in, in an official event? Or did he just street preacher soap box “debate” in the commons on campus?
I can find plenty of place pointing to the “fact” he spoke at Yale but nothing about in what capacity.
Anyone have a link for this?
I’m quite delighted an the notion that reviewing books on Amazon actually makes a difference.
Similarly, all those people who submit comments to newspaper editorials online when the writers are creationists might after all really have some impact on confused readers? Here is a good example of that.
When PZ announced this book last month, there were hundreds of reviews on the site, what has happened? Surely Amazon aren’t in the habit of bowing to pressure from authors to delete non-complimentary reviews? Something stinks here.
From Comfort’s book, page 2:
Ok, I quit. I need my head and I need my desk.
@ Andrés Diplotti
Should I mention that he stole that argument from Deepak Chopra who also talked about the “intelligence of the oxygen molecule” needed to breathe?
http://pharyngula.org/index/weblog/comments/moonbat_anti_evolutionist_deepak_chopra/
I”m probably making just the stupid burn worse, aren’t I?
Okay, my science education stopped in high school, but isn’t he just assuming that male organisms are the default and that nothing short of divine intervention would have created (gasp) two genders? And aren’t there a number of creatures who reproduce in less complicated ways, hinting that reproduction is a developmental process?
Ah, what do I know? I majored in literature.
My guess is that he convinced Amazon to remove all reviews that were made on accounts that didn’t buy his book. Which would suggest that only one person who bought the book actually reviewed it.
Actually, XY for males is only true in mammals and some insects — there are a variety of other ways that sex is determined in other organisms (see, for example, this simple summary). Notably, alligators and some lizards and turtles have their sex determined purely by the temperature at which they were incubated — in other words, as I understand it, there are no sex-specific chromosomes in these animals (I’m sure some experts here can elaborate on this).
And yet that seems to be exactly what happened. They seem to have agreed to wipe the slate clean. They tried to do that with the video Game “spore,” but had to reinstate the reviews after a public outcry. Amazon never did admit they deliberately wiped the Spore reviews.
However, the tags like “Bananaman” and “Cognative Dissonance” remain :-)
Scote @35
‘‘
I especially like breathtaking inanity and idealogical (sic) diarrhoea. ;)
What I find amazing is that everyone’s legs are exactly the right length to reach the ground.
While it is often clear that activist creationists are lying with full knowledge of their lies. More so, they have even crafted their lies carefully to muster the greatest confusion in less informed people.
However, I cannot help but think that Ray is simply as stupid as he comes across and he actually believes what he says – bananas and all.
Of course, then I realize that this may well be just a matter of acting. And he did team up with that actor from a goofy sitcom that no one can remember.
Stupidity: real or conjured – that is the question.
Oh I’m pretty sure that you can have negative reviews removed if you complain to Amazon that they aren’t actually reviews by people that read the book.
I know George Schollenberger did it with his book a while back, though it seems there is a new batch of reviews up there.
Though I’m not above such fallibility myself, I’m consistently amazed by people who claim to have great faith in the validity of their religion, while also having great faith in their own perception. It’s as if “faith” is the thing being worshiped, rather than God…
“The human brain evolved because the apes developed better spit”
What does that mean?
On a complete aside, is it all interesting that he places the mystery on the females – where did they come from. I think he has this all wrong.
It is the females the likely had the initial variations, and the less varied males that were more than willing to mate. This is just so obvious since males, even today, are always willing to mate…
And the evidence supports this, the mother of all modern humans existed about 200,000 years ago, but the father came along only about 50,000 years ago. See females first is clearly correct.
okay enough silliness.
Thank FSM that the oceans evolved in time to support all of the fish.
If they had not the fish would have squirmed in the sand, died with useless gills and, rotting in the sun, they would have stunk up the whole planet.
Since coincidence on that scale is not possible, FSM will take full credit for making it happen and will touch and molest you with his noodly all-creating arms (or are they legs? Whatever.)
It’s not a conspiracy; it’s just bad marketing.
If I were Comfort, I’d include a free banana with every copy.
That’s how Ray makes his money. Lying to the sheep. He could also be really dumb and delusional. We’ve seen plenty of functional people come on here and reason and logic are completely over their heads. I don’t know how they survive but the disconnect to reality does seem to have little effect on their everyday lives.
But I’m betting he’s just a con man. Much like Jesus was if he actually existed.
Where are you getting that from SF?
Atheist conspiracy! Where? How do I sign up? Will we be paid?
Actually, this and all the other “anomalies” that HB twinkies like to claim as their “smoking guns” have been explained countless times by people who really do know what they’re talking about- to such an extent that even a semi-interested layman like myself can understand them and explain them to others. The HBers just blithely ignore this and repeat the same discredited claims over and over again.
This behavior is common to pretty much all paranoid conspiracy theorists, who in turn share a set of mental failings with cretinists. No matter how many times a specious claim is refuted, demolished, destroyed, disembowelled, crushed, smashed, disintegrated and vaporized, you can count on its repeated reappearance in conspiracist discourse.
It’s like a Dracula movie. No matter how thoroughly the Count was dustified in the last flick, there’s always someone stupid enough to come along and pull the stake out just in time for the next picture.
What incentive do people who, like Comfort or, say, Alex Jones, who make a business of peddling falsehoods, have to abandon or correct claims that are proven to be unjustified or just plain false? After all, there’s sure to be a fresh crop of rubes who, in the immortal words of Honest John Barlow, “won’t know enough to do any smart checking”.
Sexual reproduction is ancestal for animals, and its origin lies far, far back in the phylogeny of eukaryotic organisms. As usual, ‘kipedia is as good a starting place as any.
Yes, it’s true that in all crocodilians, almost all turtles, and many lizards sex is determined by incubation temperature, and that a number of fishes can change sex (sometimes back and forth). In birds, there are sex chromosomes but two identical ones make males, whereas two different ones make females (the opposite system to mammals). Invertebrates have just about any system you can think of, and many you can’t. Sex determination is surprisingly plastic evolutionarily.
…
…
Um…
…
It’s a Cthonic sort of stupid. It’s the great Island of R’lyeh of stupid, with great hulking cyclopean stones of idiocy arranged in angles that can’t exist in mere 3D space. Your eyes slide off of it, you can focus on it, corridors have multiple vanishing points of intellect. Waves of ignorant smug lap up against its fractal shores, but never erode the beach.
Truly, it is foolishness man was not meant to know, and it only reinforces the horrifying fact that there exist forces in the universe stupider than any mere human comprehension.
Mr. Comfort should realize that biology, while far from 100%, is too well known to hide a fairy story in. The origins of rough sphere of spacetime we call the universe are far enough away, and a civilization/being with access to a ludicrous amount of energy could start a new universe, which would then evolve naturally.
George (#38): I am always amused watching children just learning to walk and the way they tentatively stretch out their legs, as though they’re not sure their foot will reach the ground !
The creationists’ arguments (similar to those of the climate change/global warming deniers) are akin to saying that Shaq dunking a basketball disproves gravity !
Comfort is just a lying toerag. He might not even believe the shit he spews. It works. Even if the sales for this book tank, and according to the same news? source on the 26th of February, his screed had knocked the God Delusion from the number one spot on Amazon, he is still making plenty from his propaganda ministry. Remember his shtick is for the fundietards. If they buy it he is happy.
If there is a conspiracy anywhere it is that of the presuppositionalists. In times of hardship with perhaps 20% of the US population primed to receive their message, merely being right is not enough to win. They will say anything that wins them the support of that 20%, and they are ruthless.
I just called Amazon to ask about the deleted reviews. (You might considering doing the same thing.) They claimed that the reviews were deleted due to technical difficulties and will be back online in several hours.
Yah, right.
I assume Mr. Comfort sees no character of conspiracy in the fact his only two “editorial” reviews come from Ken Ham and R.C. Sproul?
#3: it’s Christian thinking. A male would obviously need a sky fairy to make a female from his rib.
So then, Ray is arguing from the anthropic principle? Would somebody please tell Ray that the rest of the Universe doesn’t give a flying fuck about him or any of us? How does one go about coining a new term? I’d like to coin “Wolford’s Law”, which states that the first person in a debate to resort to the anthropic principle is assumed to have lost the debate. Maybe “law” isn’t such a good word.
Ray’s not even wrong.
I am reading this at the library and am fighting the urge to roll on the ground laughing. Comfort is completely clueless. He is the village idiot of the internet.
I’ll give him credit for one thing though. He allows critical comments on his blog, something almost unheard of for religious sites. His rules however still seem arbitrary:
I think this has been touched upon by other commenters but I remember lloking at the Amazon weeks a few weeks ago and there were many more than 4 reviews at that time (mostly 1-star), yet Ray calls Conspiracy. Something smells here.
Ray Comfort is a proven bullshit artist: How do I know? Take a look at the links I posted in the current post of his blog. I don’t know if it’ll be published, so I’ll just copy and paste the whole thing here. In his little brainless blog post, Ray replies to a commentator:
Nate…enlighten me then. Explain why and when females evolved alongside every species.
My reply:
—–
Sexual evolution has already been explained to you. Yet you’re the one who wrote a book with a title that says that you can lead an atheist to evidence but you can’t make him think?
Try doing some reading, starting with the comments posted to your own blog.
Maybe you’d better read what this commentator has to say:
Time and time again, you make these stupid pronouncements that show you have no understanding of what evolution actually is or what it predicts. Every time you do, you get schooled by dozens of people. Yet, you continue to repeat the behaviour over and over again.
The inescapable conclusion is either you are a total ignoramus or that you are a professional troll. I’m undecided as to which is more probable.
And you’ve just done it again.
As we saw in Dawkins’ talk last night, Ray Comfort is a perverted creep.
#30: I wonder what kind of predators gravity has to contend with… Eep! Giant space lion!
the Weekly World News of the far, far, far, far right.
The Weekly World News (alas, gone from us now) was most assuredly brilliant tongue-in-cheek even though they marketed it as a tabloid.
Ex. Atlantic ocean was drained for service one weekend (by a pool service contractor) and other nations were really pissed that US did not tell them in advance. An article on GWB that claimed his personal library consisted of the Bible and ‘My Pet Goat’ etc etc.
Somebody (in an earlier pharyngula) used Comfort’s line of reasoning by postulating how miraculous it is that our legs are just the right length to reach the ground. That couldn’t have happened by mere chance!
Ray Comfort (as quoted by PZ):
Actually Ray’s banana is a good example of why sex probably evolved:
http://normdoering.blogspot.com/2009/03/pretending-to-think-like-ray-comfort.html
The common banana Ray used in his old video was cultivated and made seedless. His banana example cannot sexually reproduce. It’s a clone. Those bananas are grown from offshoots of the parent plant rather than through the process of sex and fertilization that might otherwise take place.
One result of that is that the banana’s genetic information hasn’t changed as much as it could have if it were mixing its genes up sexually and evolving that way. The problem is that the world of plant diseases has evolved and changed and our commercial bananas were in danger because they haven’t kept up. However, genetic engineering may come to the rescue…
Actually (insert “stopped clock” cliche here) Ray is correct. There was a conspiracy. Jesus’ General wrote a fawning fake review–really a hilarious satirical eye-poke–and Amazon ran it for quite a while as the “pro” review. Lots of our folk clocked in and punched it up so it would stay there. (needless to say, lots of stump-dumb pro-comfort people bought it and thumbs-upped it too). Several posts urged readers of the blogs to keep it going. That seems like a conspiracy to me. A conspiracy to be awesome, sure, but still a conspiracy. That may also be why the reviews were deleted.
hmmm…I may have to revisit the banana assertion. Maybe Ray has a point after all! A vast conspiracy! I like it!
ice
In related news, my image search turned up this…
Comfort’s view that the sexes must have evolved along different paths is consistent with the Christian view of God as a male.
A male? How and why is God a male? It does not reproduce sexually, and would have no need to be able to reproduce sexually. It has no body. It has no sex organs. It has no hormones. It has no chromosomes. There is no ‘female’ counterpart. And yet theists have no problem agreeing with all of this, and then calling God a “He.”
Ask them if it is a metaphor — one which could be replaced with “She” — and they usually say no. God is male. But not male quite in the regular way.
No kidding. They model God on human images, treat God exactly like they would a human Father, and then throw in a bunch of transcendent characteristics on top of the anthropomorphisms, pretending this doesn’t cause any conflict or problem because it all mysteriously works out somehow. So that’s how they think evolution would work, too.
Comfort should welcome the negative reviews — and probably does. He’s crying persecution in order to whip up his potential customers. If the negative reviews had not been there, my guess is that he would have put them in himself:
“One star — as an atheist, I hate everything this book represents, because it violates my worldview which lets me do whatever I want with no consequences.”(Review by ‘Not Comfort’)
“Note the not-so-subtle sexism of “Evolution has no explanation for the female for every species” — as if males were the default.”
Well, didn’t they come afterward, from man’s rib?
Yes, Comfort understands human sexuality the only way he knows how – through the lens of his infantile fairy tale.
I didn’t think anything could get stupider than his comments about males as the default setting until I read Andres Diplotti’s comment #30 about gravity. This is beyond stupid.
You can’t actually parody this kind of thing, can you?
Something about the words “unscientific fairy tale” regarding evolution, coming from Ray Comfort chafes the brains…like beach sand in the nether-places.
I can’t compose my thoughts on the rest of the brief exerpt up there.
Oh my!!! I just looked at the 2nd page on Amazon and There is so much wrong in three paragraphs that I think I could build a good weekend symposium on “Why Ray Has His Head Up His Ass.”
I admit I didn’t really believe Andres @ 30. I was wrong. Comfort is really that fucked up. God created gravity so so Adam and Eve would not fly off into space? That has to be about the stupidest thing I’ve seen in print since the book “Hollow Earth”. (that’s where the flying saucers come from)
I also noted there are few comments – I suspect amazon is giving in to Ray’s whine.
Ray Comfort:
Does Ray Comfort know that sexual reproduction combines genes from a male and a female?
I was about to type “How strange it must be for Ray to live in a world where everyone is cleverer than he is” but then realised that if he’d be too stupid to notice.
@Sastra(#67): YHWH, the Christian god, does have a female counterpart: Ashera. She was his bride, and they ruled together for a time. As Ashera worship caught on among non-Hebrew peoples, while their Yahwistic cult didn’t, YHWH more or less divorced her and the Hebrew Yahwistic cult abandoned the pantheon entirely, aside from maintaining a tradition of “Household Gods” for a time- guardian spirits over families.
@ 37: Mine aren’t. They only go half way to the ground, then half way more, then half way more…
Warning!! If you have made purchases from Amazon and you look up this book, subsequent visits will result in a long list of more of this drivel for you to consider.
Let’s not forget Parthenogenesis, whereby females produce cloned (genetically identical) offspring without males (found in the animal kingdom among reptiles, amphibians, fish & birds).
Or maybe they are actually radical lesbian feminist atheist animals with an anti-religious agenda?
I thought Ray Comfort’s book was a comedy. Its probably not selling well because its misclassified as a serious book.
So Comfort’s assumption is: males come first, females not at all?
(/Must… resist… obvious… Austim… Powers… reference…)
Jaycubed:
Don’t forget the virgin birth by a reef shark in Virginia (seems appropriate, eh?) DNA checks show it was not a case of sperm storage – the mother – Mary – and the offspring – Jesus have the same DNA. The second Coming??
Oh man! I didn’t see the quote block at #30. Gravity eh? “First man and his first mate”…
The mate was a mighty sailing man,
The skipper brave and sure.
Five passengers set sail that day
For a three hour tour, a three hour tour.
The weather started getting rough,
The tiny ship was tossed,
If not for the courage of the fearless crew
The minnow would be lost, the minnow would be lost.
Hell yeah, lost in the “infinitude” of space. Which brings to mind another old TV show, but I digress.
Like “Hefalumps” and “Woozles” Ray Comfort is very
“Confuse-al”
And as far as “Croco-duck” is concerned, all I can say is “Croco-Stimpy”.
Now it’s coffee time.
“What I find amazing is that everyone’s legs are exactly the right length to reach the ground.”
And our arms are just long enough for us to comfortably reach our genitals. Looks like God/Jesus does love us after all.
By the way, if you’re interested in dealing with religious types that aren’t complete morons I’m getting into it with a fairly well-informed Catholic about Aquinas and Plantinga:
http://normdoering.blogspot.com/2009/03/aquinas-and-plantinga-part-1.html
I could probably use some help if Kenneth Hynek takes me up on this.
1) I picked this book up in a bookshop and put it down after 5 mins…utter drivel
2) I looked at Amazon last week and there was more than 50 review..mostly negative.
3) There is something fishy going on…
4) Don’t forget the loony godsqadders always demand and expect special treatment..hence amazon giving in and deleting all the negative HONEST feedback
What I find amazing is that everyone’s legs are exactly the right length to reach the ground.
The amazing thing is the ground is exactly far enough away so you don’t have to stretch or bend or float away or climb out of a hole. Isn’t it miraculous how the planet adjusts itself to be just the right distance away?
Who’s angry now, Banana Man?
Chimp @46
“Evolutionary research — like the research that claimed that the human brain evolved because apes got better spit — is a real “shovel ready” project, in the sense that a lot of folks would like to take a shovel to it.”
This is from the Egnor letter cited in the top of the thread. What RESEARCH is he talking about?
Ray Comfort believes that males come first because of the sexist ideology that is his starting point. Whether he draws this from society at large, or the Bible in particular, the idea that the ‘male’ represents the species is pervasive in his writings.
The obvious hilarity of his ‘alternate’ explanation of the origin of the human female eludes him. Maybe we should just tell him that they evolve from male ribs?
Somehow i doubt that he’d go along with calling ’em “pre-males.”
But I could be wrong…
Rays is just peeved because truthiness impacts his bottom line. He’s been making a major push to get on the airwaves and in press of late. Apparently he wants to be the Rush Limbaugh of the religious wingnuts.
Ray doesn’t know the half of what the atheist conspiracy has been up to. Wait till he finds out we’ve been jamming his brainwaves AND contaminating his precious bodily fluids!
I had the most helpful negative review, which got deleted. But I saved a copy and just posted it again. I think that other people who have read the book should do the same.
The first time I heards of Comfort was when someone showed me a copy of one of his previous works that had been pressed into his hands by some jeezus-nut. Seeing that the back-cover blurb was by Kent Hovind told me all I needed to know about the book and its author. The Banana Sketch is just icing on the cake ;-).
OMG, is it too funny that I didn’t understand just how stupid Comfort’s arguement was until you explained it. I mean, I read it twice and didn’t get what his point was. That is so basic a mis-understanding it is blinding!
Dr. Myers, you certainly have a way of drumming up sensationalistic wishful thinking and getting your lemmings to follow along. As the article said, people were clearly planning on how to give bad reviews while making them SEEM genuine even though they were not. I quote:
***
“Mithridates” also commented, “Pro-tip for people reviewing the book: giving it one or five stars makes it painfully obvious that you’re just giving it that number because you feel the author to be on or against your side. To actually make it look like a real review you’re going to want to go with two or four stars.”
***
Is critical reading really that difficult for you all?
Nicky my boy, what about the godbots slamming books on evolution without reading them. Either have them stop doing that first, or shut the fuck up.
The funniest part of the article is that Comfort does not seem to see the blatantly obvious sarcasm in the ***** reviews.
Nick are you claiming, ignoring any targeted negative comments, that the book is actually good?
Posted by: Nick | March 5, 2009 1:41 PM
This is one of those posts about which it is impossible to determine whether the commentor is, indeed, a raving looney, or an adequate parodist.
Just one thought, should you be serious in objecting to the manipulation of the reviews: it’s called “rat-fucking,” and it is an ancient and honorable profession. In fact, the only reason hat we do is called “blogging” at all is that there is still a strange reluctance in culture to call it “rat-fucking.”
But rat-fucking it is. The biggest, smartest, orneriest rat-fucking collective EVAR!
Um, according to him and his retard logic, shouldn’t females be coming from ribs?
Yeah, it looks like Ray-O pulled some strings and got all the reviews deleted for his book. Anyone that reviewed it may want to re-submit it. Save a copy to your hard drives in case it “accidentally” happens again.
Sorry Atheists, but I KNOW there is a God and we were intelligently designed.
Stolen from Benny Hill, incidentally.
Long before we invented eyeglasses, look where HE put our ears!
Nick:
Reading page 2 was about all the critical reading I could handle at one sitting. There is so much wrong with his statements about atmosphere, gravity and the rest, there really is not a lot than can be said that is positive about the book. Do you buy the stuff about god inventing gravity so A & E didn’t become the first star voyagers? Did you read it critically?
Anyone know who the author of the forward to his book was? Supposedly an atheist who converted to Comfortism shortly after reading the book.
Why was I not informed of this conspiracy? I would of loved to get on the Ray Comfort book bashing atheist conspiracy! I guess I should read that weekly Atheist Conspiracy newsletter you automatically get when you become an atheist.
I’m pretty sure Benny got it from Voltaire.
“Comfortism”! Nice, I like it. It does really sum up a certain ignorant/arrogant creationist way of thinking. And he does seem to have a cult-like group of followers. I’ll have to start spreading the term around.
@104
Like the rest of Ray’s book, that too, is apparently fiction.
This Comfort guy just has to be a Poe. He’s found out how to make good money from Poe-ing and he can keep a stright face better than Edward Current. I have stopped believing he is serious.
If he truly loved us, our necks would…
Oh never mind.
Late to the party again!
I have always assumed that stupidity was like temperature – in that there must be an absolute zero of stupidity beyond which it was impossible to go. After reading this blog for the last few years and coming across such brazen brain-melting bollocks such as
@104: I wouldn’t be surprised if Kirk Cameron wrote the foreword. His wiki page says he used to be an atheist. He also wrote the foreword to one of Comfort’s other books.
Oops – blockquote fail. Nuts.
El
woodHmmm- I could go for a banana right now… a non-modified banana… and break my teeth on them- cuz god made it for ME. And the monkeys.
I’m betting this whole Comfort thing in a brilliant Poe.
@112 Doesn’t seem to fit though with his claim that:
“The atheist who wrote the foreword backslid,” Comfort said. “I sent him a copy, and a week later he wrote to me and said that he was no longer an atheist.”
I can’t make the “look inside this book” work on Amazon to find out who wrote the foreword.
The problem on Amazon can not be related to “only people who have purchased this book can comment on it”. I was not able to comment on the book as I hadn’t purchased from Amazon (I bought “You Can Lead an Atheist..” at a local bookstore that had to special order it in) so I purchased a second copy – through Amazon.
If the negative reviews don’t re-appear, Amazon has some serious explaining to do.
In all fairness to Ray, people aren’t being honest when they select “1 star” for their rating of the book. People aren’t, however, intentionally “lying” by giving it 1 star – Amazon doesn’t give the opportunity to choose no stars.
I can appreciate it when people try to make arguments for dog but when people (clearly and intentionally) lie to make their case, the book deserves to fail.
The forward was written by Darrin Rasberry.
If you carve away all the stupid, there’s at least an interesting question vaguely associated with his ramble: why are sexes differentiated in most complex organisms? I can understand the gene-swapping benefit associated with exchange of gametes, but the development of two different sexes seems an unnecessary complication. Is there some idea of the evolutionary pathway along which this development occurred? Since sexual differentiation is almost universal, I’d presume it’s an early development, from eras and in organisms of which we’ve got incomplete fossil records, but do we have any good hypotheses as to how different sexes developed?
t3knomanser #50
THAT’s what I was trying to say!
t3knomanser, you must be a poet.
El
woodLooks like my comment got in after all.
I’m kind of surprised, really.
Of course, one of the theists over there has to whine about this blog:
A lot of these phony reviewers are coming from professor PZ Myers’ blog Pharyngula. I won’t link to the blog, though, because it’s incredibly vulgar. Vulgar atheists? Gosh, imagine that…
And he claims that christians don’t do such a thing.
Didn’t Jinx get banned from this blog once?
@ 118 Thanks. I could not read that through the “copyrighted material” on the cover.
It looks to me as if Comfort’s strategy is to out-stupid all the other creationist morons. He’s up against some pretty stiff competition but seems to be ahead.
“…I can appreciate it when people try to make arguments for dog but when people (clearly and intentionally) lie to make their case, the book deserves to fail.”
And I of course agree with that. Problem is though, the right wing publishes so much chum with such abandon that their books inevitably sell well, regardless of how pathetically illogical and contemptuously vitriolic their crap is. Sure some of their books have been found to have had the numbers inflated by selling large quantities of the books to themselves or highly sympathetic organizations who pass them out to their Stepford supporters, but some have certainly sold without such antics.
“Who’s angry now, Banana Man?”
This should be the title to a very tauntful song some atheists should put together, post on YouTube, and then seed his websites with the URL. Digg it just for good measure.
QUITE interesting that Ray Comfort things the female must have evolved after the male and that this is the problem. But I guess anyone who follows the misogynistic crap that is the bible must automatically think in male-first terms and probably doesn’t even notice he’s forgetting any other possibilities.
He would praise god if there were good sales, and he blames atheists for bad sales. Apparently we are on the same level as gods.
http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2008/11/greetings.html
“Darrin Rasberry, atheist”, author of the foreword. Curious.
Why are the reviews missing? Possible explanation:
Amazon does not like 1-star reviews. The more 1-star reviews they have, the less people buy the product, and the less money Amazon makes.
Some serious ownage there, I literally laughed out loud! Scathing!
Those wondering about the origin of sex;
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12058375 would be one place to start.
Oh, and SF, I traced the origin of the spit reference in 5 mins of googling. You are lazy as well as ignorant and petty.
There was a contest on Ray’s blog to pick an atheist who’d get his or her entry to be picked as the forward for the book,for which the winner would get a copy of Ray’s book.
Among the comments about how odd it is to ask someone to write a forward for a book that they’ve never yet seen (the book wasn’t published yet), the winner was picked
my wife and I both have legs that reach all the way to the ground, yet my arms reach higher than hers! Does that make me more holy, or something?
Not surprising Ray thinks this way since whole populations springing from two animals is the only way that stupid flood story makes sense.
That it’s mentioned on wingnut is pretty good evidence that it’s pitched at morons – quotes suggest it may be below average even for wingnut!
In fairness to Ray, there are some negative reviews of his book on Amazon.com from people that openly admit that they have not read his book. It’s fully understood that Ray does not break any new ground, but it’s not entirely right to give the book a bad review without reading it just because we know him to be an ignoramus. There’s other places and forums for that to be done. To say that it’s a conspiracy is absolute lunacy and a result of the persecution complex that fundies have unsurprisingly gotten to and whip out like a loaded Desert Eagle. The reviewers that did not read the book at least openly admitted to not doing so, but the ones that did read the book lambasted it heavily for the horseshit it was.
I think there may be something to the “atheist conspiracy” thing. Ray Comfort is obviously a plant by atheists designed to make creationists look like total frackin’ morons. Can there be any other explanantion?
Further reinforced by the fact that “Ray Comfort” is an anagram of “Ram Foot, Cry”
He set up that website where he made many ridiculous claims, he deserves to be mocked in whatever platform others can get.
maybe comfort should have not published page after page of him regurgitating into a word processor?
What I find amazing is that everyone’s legs are exactly the right length to reach the ground.
OK, that’s the funniest thing I’ve read in a while.
Thanks.
Of course males came first. It’s in the Bible! Checkmate, atheists!
But… if men came from dust, then… why is there still dust?
Evolution has no explanation for the female for every species in creation,” he said.
Nice, Ray. Great example of how the right wing considers the man to be the norm from which the female “deviates.” Wonderful example of downright fucking sexism, Ray.
WorldNutDaily just proved they’re not journalistic.
They wrote about a book and its reviews on Amazon. They interviewed the author about it. And in the entire article, nowhere did they mention that the publisher of the book…
Is WND Books!
Talk about conflict of interest.
I am writing a Amazon review that goes and refutes everything Ray Comfort says in the Amazon book preview paragraph by paragraph. It is incredibly painful, but once it’s done I’ll post the review and then post it here. If my brain doesn’t melt down from the stupid, I hope to get it done soon.
Actually, most mammals, except for monotremes (eg., the platypus) and some rodents have the XY/XX system while other species have other sex-determination systems.
Sexual reproduction evolved as a genetic material exchange system, and as such, its oldest ancestor is the bacterial plasmid. Because it considerably accelerates the rate of adaptation in a species (you’ll see if you allow recombination/crossover in any evolutionary algorithm), it is very much favored by natural selection.
There is only one known example of species which lost sexual reproduction in the course of its evolution. I don’t remember its name, but I know it’s something marine, and the hypothesis is that the species started when a female of the species somehow duplicated by parthenogenesis, producing a long line of slowly mutating clones.
In many species, sexual reproduction is much more blurred than in mammals, and is sometimes optional rather than necessary like in our case.
If you really take a hard long look at what’s out there in the natural world, it’s not very difficult to find intermediates to our complex sophisticated reproduction system and to imagine what how it evolved.
A straw man argument peppered with ridicule; really professor can’t you do better than that? Tell me which of your theories depend on there being no God and why attack people who are different than you? It appears that you doubt your position to the point that you are unable to tolerate another. If belief in God is such an inane quality why does it unsettle you? Are you so noble that you want to save people from themselves or are you just preaching to the choir?
Oh, I don’t know…
This ?
But Kemist,
That is not from belief in god. That is belief in a false god, of course.
So then, how about this.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crusade
Tell me which of your theories depend on there being no God
The entire practice of rigorous, empirical study of the natural world depends on there not being the kind of incompetent tinker god that dumbfuck Comfort and his kind pretend to believe in. Are you a Deist?
and why attack people who are different than you?
Creationism is an attack on science. Authoritarian scumbags carrying bibles and wrapped in the flag are attacking our civil liberties constantly. If “people who are different” were content to suck up to Sky Fairy in the comfort of their own homes and churches, I highly doubt there would be an issue.
It appears that you doubt your position to the point that you are unable to tolerate another.
Uh huh. Strong, vocal, rationally argued opposition to your beliefs means they must be right. Cover your ears, close your eyes, and repeat. It’s still stupid.
If belief in God is such an inane quality why does it unsettle you?
It’s utterly inane. But see above regarding who’s attacking who. If nobody were compelled to act on their inane beliefs, I doubt there would be an issue.
Are you so noble that you want to save people from themselves
The ranks of the unbelievers are growing, and vocal advocacy is one reason why. We’re tired of knuckling under to you scumbags.
or are you just preaching to the choir?
You’re here, aren’t you?
Because widespread, fervent inanity is unsettling? Just a thought.
Mmmmm…
Let’s look a little closer : what about the thread just above this one ?
You’re probably thinking of the bdelloid rotifers, not a species but a whole class. They’re very cool.
@Sven : That they are ! I didn’t know they could do that. Hee hee… just when you think humans have done outraging (to some) things that are not “natural” like gene splicing, you find something in nature that’s been doing it regularly it for millions of years.
Thanks for that link.
Well, the male is indeed the default in all cartoons. Maybe that’s where he did his research.
As a female, I must say that after forty-plus years of this @#$%, it’s really starting to make me mad.
I don’t know what Comfort is complaining about. A friend of mine, who is pastor of a fundamentalist church, recently wrote a novel and asked me to review it. He wanted my “honest opinion, even if you hated it”. Which I did, and offered not to post the review on my blog. He said to go ahead, which I will be doing soon.
All the reviews on his website and on Amazon so far say that it’s a great book, they couldn’t put it down, etc. Possibly he realizes that a negative review from an atheist will help his sales.
Really? Can you specify what straw man argument you’re talking about?
Ray Comfort does, in fact, have a new book out attacking both atheism and science based on the most jaw droppingly inane arguments. There is also an article at WND in which he claims that it’s poor sales are a result of a conspiracy by atheists to give his book bad reviews.
This all seems pretty straightforward to me.
Actually, it’s Comfort that thinks that the Bible trumps science. Doesn’t that answer your question?
#137 – You may be on to something. Think about it — Ray Comfort is friends with Kirk Cameron, actor in the movie adaptations of LaHaye and Jenkins Left Behind series, which is a good contender for the Worst Books Ever Written. Entire bookshelves worth of dreck (religious fiction, lol) might be products of a huge atheist misinformation campaign the size of which none of us has yet to grasp fully. How large has the atheist shadow-op movement gotten? Rick Warren, triple agent?
It may well be that Ray Comfort’s book-reviewing conspiracy, is merely a part of a much, much bigger atheist conspiracy. Godless speed operative Deep Comfort! Deep Banana?
I would like to point out also that the lack of evidence for this, and especially the evidence against, simply proves the existence of the conspiracy. Checkmate, sheeple!
Also I like how pharyngula is a “vulgar” blog. It makes perfect sense from the kind of people who post in places where not capitalizing the G in god or the J in jesus (burn) is grounds for immediate post deletion. I don’t really see much in the way of actual vulgar thoughts, but if you include their “spiritual” vulgarity/baggage, this place is like a demon pit. Of course, so are most other places that resemble anything close to a free exchange of ideas. Imagine PZ putting a conditional like “any comments failing to capitalize the B in biology or denying the value of zebrafish research will be deleted no exceptions”
Hey Stephen, god is a false dogma, but I don’t particularly care about that. What bothers me is that many of those who harbor such delusions try to force them on others. The other reason is that science is under threat from religion like never before since the time of Galileo, case in point: Ray Comfort and the rest of anti-science gang. Tell me, when evolution deniers write books they only make fools of themselves and show they have no clue about the subject, is that the best your camp can do? Or troll the internet, like you personally?
Allen @ #76
If you want to browse the stupidity of this book without Amazon making recommendations based on it, just delete it from your Amazon Browser history page (somewhere on the right-hand side of the page).
If you look at this and don’t reset your browser history, you’ll get recommendations for movies staring Kirk Cameron. This is, categorically, a Bad Thing.
All of the 70+ reviews of this book got deleted!!!!!!!
This is along the lines of another hilarious diversionary tactic that I found in WP yesterday:
Go Ray!
There are quite a few species that have lost sexual reproduction- is been seen in several lizards. The Bdelloid rotifers (as mentioned) are the only example of a whole group that abandoned sex and went on to be successful. It usually crops up in isolated species (often on islands), and tends not to last very long.
Plenty of insects and other invertebrates save sex for special occasions- aphids spend most of their time pumping out cloned daughters with a bout of sex at the end of the season.
I strongly recommend Olivia Judson’s “Dr Tatiana’s Sex Advice To All Creation”. If you can find it the musical series they made from it was pretty good too.
At least in the best understood cases, whiptail lizards that used to be Cnemidophorus (but I think are now called something else I’m too lazy to look up but starts with ‘A’), the unisexual parthenogenetic “species” arose by hybridization, so strictly speaking they do not illustrate “a species losing sexual reproduction.”
However, there are also parthenogenetic geckoes that I don’t know much about.
Good. Lord. I recall when I was a youngster in the Jehovah’s Witnesses cult, one of the “elders” when proselytizing carried a Creationist tract around with the same sludge. It wasn’t an official JW-approved text, I don’t think, but apparently was one of the few products of enemy Christendom worth borrowing.
I can only recall two points in its list of “proofs” that evolution is impossible: 1) “the chances of evolution producing a horse are four gajillion to one” and 2) “Now, what are the chances that Mrs Horse also came along at the same time?”
Apparently, such lackwits believe (or wants the gullible to believe) that evolution says, “Poof! One day a solitary horse appeared!” Which they deride as impossible, and on that point they’re CORRECT – but the claim that comes immediately after is, “One day the Magic Man waved his hand, and poof! A solitary horse appeared!” Oy vey…
The stupid is mind-searing and heart-rending. No matter how many times such drivel is explained away using simple words and bright primary colors, the genuinely retarded kids like Comfort will jump right back at it.
Gotta also note the theist obsession with “men first”. Why not claim that the mare came first, and the stud later? Ah, because the theist God made man first, and woman as an afterthought. Got it.
And this, from the linked page: “…evolution opens the door to a whole lot of sinful delicacies such as pornography, fornication, lying, theft…”
Hey, Ray! You forgot “Naziism”!
*tee-hee*
Ray’s god planned out the detailed sex lives of fruit flies, praying mantises, flowers, iguanas,duck rapists, hag fish, etc. Funny. A bit cruel
Ray prays to a very funny cruel god… with very prurient interests, I must say. It almost makes me want to buy the book just for teh lulz.
It would be nice if Ray Comfort saw the bug’s phallic picture we were treated to by PZ a few days ago. Now it is Ray’s god making a medieval torture device for a sexual act. Methinks sadomasochists do nothing other than act on their “god given” desires…if Ray Comfort is to have any credibility.
Ray Comfort is the Fredo Corleone of Creationism:
“I’m not dumb, like everybody says. I’M SMART, and I want respect!”
Comfort is dumber than a rock. The x chromosome is so much stronger than the y that a human female can survive with 45 chromosomes. The x can stand alone, the y can not.
Kristine wrote:
It’s not just Ray. Here’s a quote from Thomas Aquinas:
Posted by: Tommykey | March 5, 2009 9:00 PM
Ray Comfort is the Fredo Corleone of Creationism:
You’re not wrong Tom. The “Michael Corleone” of Creationism (whomever that may be) may want to think about whacking him sometime soon…
“I know it you Fredo… I know it was you and it breaks my heart.”
Posted by: Tommykey | March 5, 2009 9:00 PM
Ray Comfort is the Fredo Corleone of Creationism:
You’re not wrong Tom. The “Michael Corleone” of Creationism (whomever that may be) may want to think about whacking him sometime soon…
“I know it was you Fredo… I know it was you and it breaks my heart.”
This reminds me of the campaign to attack atheist videos on youtube (even though he is imagining this)… though, I’m sure his book is a load of crap and is probably just earning the majority of those poor reviews.
(OMG, 78 people said his book is bad, its a worldwide atheist conspiracy. I think the fact that his book is currently ranked as high as 1284 in books is the biggest travesty involving his book. If you want to see a real ‘conspiracy’ to alter ratings, check out Spore http://www.amazon.com/Spore-Pc/dp/B000FKBCX4/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1236313016&sr=8-1 which was attacked for its use of DRM)
I get 137 customer reviews, so they didn’t disappear permanently. Unless you lot are really fast writers?
There are species of rotifers in which a male has never been seen. It’s obviously the male that needs to be added later, and a few rotifers got swept under God’s rug.
Ray, Ray, Ray. If your book is not selling well, you know what to do: Blame yourself or God.
It looks like most or all of the original reviews are back.
Over on Comfort’s blog, a commenter there is asserting that he was reporting reviews from people who appear to have not read the book and got a few taken down.
Re #165 Mr Horse and Mrs Horse,
When God created all the animals, he presumably made males and females of each (didn’t he?) so they could go forth and multiply, but no female counterpart for Adam. So if Adam had a dick, but nowhere to stick it, was God aiming for some deity-on-man action? – a bit like Dr Frank N.Furter and Rocky Horror. That might explain the wrath thing – when Adam decided he wanted to hump someone of the opposite sex, just like all the other animals.
If Ray does scrape together $100.000 to debate with Richard Dawkins, I feel sorry for Dawkins already.
I can understand the banana-argument being meant as a joke, but this is just sad.
I agree that Comfort is an idiot, and that by posing questions about evolution does not prove “god done it”. But as to his question (how did sexes emerge), I find the answer that it’s just a gradual shift through a population somewhat incomplete and unsatisfying. Even a gradual shift needs to start somewhere. Do biologists have any hypotheses as to precise mechanisms which led to the sexes?
The stupidity of Comfort’s argument lies in his assumption that sexual reproduction must re-evolve de novo for each speciation event. The actual origin of sexual reproduction itself is a fascinating topic. Here’s a good starting point:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_sex#Origin_of_sexual_reproduction
Poor New Zealand. So often it has to claim ownership of vitriolic idiots. Ray Comfort is surely one of the most prolific, which is all the more embarrasing.
It’s just really a shame that we even have to waste breath and blog space on an idiot like this. Even his Christian allies ought to be ashamed of what an idiot he is. Ray Comfort could give nothing but a bad name to anything and everything he’s involved in.
It’s just really a shame that we even have to waste breath and blog space on an idiot like this. Even his Christian allies ought to be ashamed of what an idiot he is. Ray Comfort could give nothing but a bad name to anything and everything he’s involved in.
His feeble ranting demonstrates the inherent misogyny of organized religion (it’s ultimate and final purpose for existence):
males come first.
Unfortunately, I think FW is correct. While I do believe (in what PZ would call the imaginary sky wizard), I don’t believe in pushing my beliefs on people, and I think that is why I receive a good reception here. I would point out, though, that arguments like Comfort’s seem to resonate with the crowd, given that they are not detailed and fall right into line with the crowd’s predetermined beliefs. You cannot get past the 10 second sound bite. I wish I knew the answer to opening people’s minds, but. . .
Just wondering if you could direct me to physical evidence of transitional fossils for “populations of pre-elephants.” I’d love to see them.
Here you go
Mr. Comfort’s Noah’s Ark conception of evolution may indeed be stupid but the good prof’s rebuttal hardly ranks as a brilliant precis of Darwinian theory. “Species do not arise from single new mutant males that then have to find a corresponding mutant female — they arise by the diffusion of variation through a whole population, male and female.” Ultimately, however, a species can still owe its origin to that single mutant, male or female. A grazer produces a sport (male or female) with a uniquely long neck which enables it to access foliage that is beyond the reach of its siblings, in consequence to which it thrives and survives and produces a disproportionate number of offspring with similarly long necks. More realistically the evolution results from the slight advantage which even small variations in neck length endow certain individuals across eons of time. Eventually the adversities of environment “select” long-necked grazers over short necked and the long-necked types eventually become so differentiated as to form a new species. Enter the giraffe. Where’s the problem, Ray?
Ray is right! when you reject the Bible as the source for truth, you end up in fairytale land. You atheist “believers” have the same problem that “false Christians” & all other false religions have. You lean on your own understanding rather than seeking the Truth from God (found in the Bible). Pray & ask “if there is a God, please show me the truth”. Then read a little bit of the Bible each day. God will reveal who He is & who you are through the scriptures.
We reject the bible as the source of truth because the more you read it and compare it to what we know about the world around us, the more you realize it has no purchase in reason or reality.
Greg, a lot of atheists have read the bible (myself twice). Reading the bible causes one to realize the Yahweh is one sick bastard, who condones wholesale rape against virgins and slaughter of babies. If you want to follow such a sick god, you can do so. Also, all the morals seem to contradict one another, which means instead of a book inspired by god, you have a book where all the author’s put in their concepts. In other words, likely a book of fiction. So when you stories of why people became atheists, one of the major things you hear is “I read the bible cover to cover”. Maybe you should really read your bible cover to cover.
I don’t think Ray is the “idiot” or “stupid” there’s plenty of scientists who for scientific reasons reject atheistic evolution… http://answers.net.nz/Evolution/Gre.Sci..htm
And good reasons for God’s existence…
http://answers.net.nz/Other/atheis1.htm
If anyone’s a fool, it’s he that says ‘there is no God’.
Its Meyer fits that bill and he’s known around the world for his rudeness & foul language. His idea, “populations evolve, not individuals” is an oxymoron. :) That’s like Dawkins saying, ‘evolution happens, but we don’t see it’.
Disagree let me know – Mark [email protected]
Yawn, and ignorant godbot. Your god doesn’t exist because no physical evidence is there to show it exists. So all deists are deluded fools. The atheists are on the ones with the clear vision. Oh yes, Comfort is a fool. That is well documented.
Comfort is a fool, yawn.
Idiot troll.
PZ is not known around the world for being a rude foul mouth. He’s a lovable fuzz ball.
I’m the rude foul mouth. Also vulgar, mean, obscene and gruesome. Want some?
Evolution as a science is no more atheistic than the theory of gravity. Ray Comfort is an ignorant fool because he has repeatedly demonstrated that he doesn’t have the slightest clue how evolution works. If he actually understood the theory and talked on scientific terms why it’s wrong, then people would have a different opinion of him. Instead he constructs elaborate straw-men arguments. If his opinion of evolution is that males and females evolved independently and just happened to match up, then of course evolution is going to sound stupid. But evolution does not work that way, and even a glance at a book on the subject will show him why he is wrong.
Comfort is a fool, and has shown repeatedly that he is a fool. Do you think his internet infamy is just the big bad atheists beating up on the quacky kiwi? Or could it be that his idiocy makes even the most feeble-minded theists look intelligent by comparison?
Mark Purchase: you misunderstand the term ‘oxymoron’.
Purchase is an ox and a moron.
The good reasons for god’s existence must be a riot.
Banana!
With the free ice cream for being an ilk, Banana Split!
mark I see by the inclusion of your email (stupidly I might add, spambots feast on those things in comments) you probably aren’t returning. However, I just spent 2 hours out in the marsh trying to get a particular photo only have have it ruined by a a couple of dumb ass fishermen, so…
Ray is both an idiot and stupid. He may have some business acumen as he’s been using his blog to collect atheists quotes to fill up the substance of his books but he is 100% both an idiot and stupid among other things.
Only an idiot would say the things he does and then defend them no matter how many times he has been shown to be wrong. He has been shown how exactly wrong he is in his straw-man description of various scientific facts but he revels in his willful ignorance. He’s proud of how much he just does not know. As a matter of fact the less he knows in actuality, the more he thinks he knows. He just makes things up to fit his stunningly dumb version of many things.
He’s not only stupid and an idiot but he is also a liar. A liar that claims to be working for Jesus. He misquotes people frequently, twists the meanings and quote mines. He is a liar. Period.
Now you come here defending him and appealing to false authority pointing to a link of a list of scientists (many of whom are not even in the field of biology) who reject evolution. Well that’s a pretty small list considering there are hundreds of thousands of scientists who accept evolution as the best explanation for the biodiversity on earth. Perhaps you should look up Project Steve. Never mind, I’ll do it for you. That is 1000 scientists named Steve who accept evolution. That’s just some of the ones named Steve.
And your little list of “good reasons” are a circular wankfest. One I’m sure you enjoy participating in.
by coming here in support of that waste of a human mind that is Ray Comfort you yourself are showing that all that gray matter up there is wasting away. Put your mind to use man. Educate yourself. Stop remaining willfully ignorant about the reality of our existence and the things around us.
Mark Purchase: Two words about that list of great scientists who were creationists. It’s stupid. Most of the scientists on that list were dead, before The Origin of Species was published, or they lived when evolution was still a matter for scientific debate (a period that ended, to be generous, by 1900.)Furthermore, precious few of living or recently living scientists on that list are/were biologists. Being smart about electronics doesn’t mean one knows shit about evolution.
( I also noticed that they left “war criminal” off of Von Braun’s list of titles and accomplishments.)
Its Meyer fits that bill Mark Moron Purchase
How do expect to be taken seriously when you can’t even get the name of the person you’re insulting right? Go and swap your head for a lump of concrete – if you can find anyone stupid enough to make the trade.
I got two mouse clicks down on the proof of gawd page. It’s so stoopid the banana actually looks good. Gawd is spirit outside human consciousness and if gawd didn’t exist law enforcement would collapse….gag.
There’s more if you have a strong stomach.
I disagree. Have a look at yeast.
Or at plants, where isospory comes before heterospory…
Unlike chimps, we express an amylase* gene in our salivary glands (as opposed to just in the pancreas). This allows us to eat starchy food (like tubers) more efficiently, and glucose is what the brain needs, so some biologists smell a connection. They may well be right that this was a prerequisite for the further bloating of our brain.
* The enzyme that hacks starch into maltose. Then maltase, an enzyme expressed in the gut, comes along and turns the maltose into glucose.
The Onion should plagiarize a random chapter and see if Comfort sues. If he does, laugh. If he doesn’t, admit the plagiarism and laugh.
With considerable individual variation. Mine, for example, are a good deal longer.
(Ermp. The arms, I mean.)
I think we have a winner.
With the thin walls here, I wonder if the neighbors have heard me laugh…
In 3 % of the cases. 97 % lead to death before birth.
And when you don’t reject the Bible, you stay in doublethink fairytale land — the two creation stories contradict each other (everything else first, then man & woman last and at the same time, vs man first, then everything else, and then woman, for example), and most books of the New Testament contradict each other and often even themselves on the necessary and the sufficient conditions for salvation (faith, works, words, being a male virgin, and so on…).
Atheist, or believers? Which is it?
Been there, done that, got not even a T-shirt.
Pray and ask if there is a gawd, please show me the truth.
Did that. Can’t you think of anything new?
Let me always seek the truth.
Let me not depend on others to show me the truth.
Let me search for truth myself.
I will I grow as I search.
I will know what I know.
I will know why I know what I know.
Let me compare my work with other’s work.
Let us see if we agree.
Let me learn from other’s work.
Let me share my work with others.
Let us seek truth together.
If there is truly a God, I will find Him.
If there is no God, I will be truly human.
Just a small correction Rev: That isn’t just 1000 scientists, that is 1000 working biologists named Steve who accept evolution.
I fail to understand how his whole banana and coke bottle argument is any different from the watch and world argument presented in the 19th century.
Same premise and conclusion, different objects. Recycling a false argument and changing the words doesn’t stop it being false.
“What I find amazing is that everyone’s legs are exactly the right length to reach the ground.”
“And our arms are just long enough for us to comfortably reach our genitals. Looks like God/Jesus does love us after all.”
And, as a poster on Unreasonable Faith pointed out, bananas can fit other orifices! What is God’s Master Plan for Ray Comfort?