You Can Lead an Atheist to Evidence, but You Can't Make Him Think
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<blockquote>The staunch atheist has the zeal of a religious fanatic. He is fundamentalist in his belief that there is no God - and, armed with basic Richard Dawkins phrases, he is ready for a fight. He is unreasonable, angry, and bitter at God, and will color his speech with blasphemy of His name, despite the fact that he professes that God doesn't exist. The atheist is someone who pretends that there is no God.<ref>The "book" itself, page xi</ref></blockquote> | <blockquote>The staunch atheist has the zeal of a religious fanatic. He is fundamentalist in his belief that there is no God - and, armed with basic Richard Dawkins phrases, he is ready for a fight. He is unreasonable, angry, and bitter at God, and will color his speech with blasphemy of His name, despite the fact that he professes that God doesn't exist. The atheist is someone who pretends that there is no God.<ref>The "book" itself, page xi</ref></blockquote> | ||
| − | He may be right about the zeal thing, though. He also mentions how he was invited to meet a group of atheists at a local | + | He may be right about the zeal thing, though. He also mentions how he was invited to meet a group of atheists at a local Ihop at the John Wayne airport in Orange County, California. He talks about how they met and talked and had a very civil discussion about religion and god, and that it was all nice and good, and that how he felt that it was a pleasant evening and the atheists were nice people. But then within two sentences shows how much of a condescending dickhead he is by calling all atheist's good or bad "lost", real smooth ray. |
=== Introduction === | === Introduction === | ||
Revision as of 00:14, 9 March 2010
You Can Lead an Atheist to Evidence, but You Can't Make Him Think is a book by (mostly) braindead evangelist Ray Comfort, published in 2009 by professional wingnuts WorldNetDaily.[1]
Subtitled "Answers to Questions from Angry Skeptics", the book consists of questions asked of Ray on his blog together with his vacuous answers to them. Weighing in at a meagre 137 printed pages at a recommended retail price of USD 22.95 in hardback,[2] this slim and rather pricey volume is guaranteed to disappoint both believer and non-believer alike.
For those interested but too lazy or unwilling or uninterested or self-respecting to apply for the free offer, Google Books has a free preview up to approximately page 41 with only a few pages missing.
Numerous reviews of the book (not all of them helpful) can be found on Amazon.com. These are highly polarised, mostly being one-star or five-star with only a handful in between. Its "most helpful" five-star review may or may not suffer from Poe's Law. (Read it and weep, literally.)
Content and snarky commentary
Foreword
"Foreword by Darrin Rasberry, Atheist" (from the cover).
Preface
In the preface, Comfort sets out the strawman/men/women he will soon destroy:
The staunch atheist has the zeal of a religious fanatic. He is fundamentalist in his belief that there is no God - and, armed with basic Richard Dawkins phrases, he is ready for a fight. He is unreasonable, angry, and bitter at God, and will color his speech with blasphemy of His name, despite the fact that he professes that God doesn't exist. The atheist is someone who pretends that there is no God.[3]
He may be right about the zeal thing, though. He also mentions how he was invited to meet a group of atheists at a local Ihop at the John Wayne airport in Orange County, California. He talks about how they met and talked and had a very civil discussion about religion and god, and that it was all nice and good, and that how he felt that it was a pleasant evening and the atheists were nice people. But then within two sentences shows how much of a condescending dickhead he is by calling all atheist's good or bad "lost", real smooth ray.
Introduction
From the opening sentence, the book sets appropriate expectations for the reader, beginning thusly: "To be an atheist is to play Russian roulette with all barrels loaded." (Of course, this is a highly desirable state of affairs, as long as you can inveigle your opponent to play first.)
Ray goes on to outline the three things he knows. These are:
- Creation demonstrates there is a creator.
- Everyone knows there is a god, and that the god is described in the Bible. People only deny this so they can live debauched lives of merriment and revelry.
- You're a very naughty boy, and god is going to send you to hell.
Everything Ray says is a variant on one or more of these themes; in fact, this book quickly becomes quite tedious, as Ray isn't capable of knowing anything else. We've started, however, so we may as well finish.
Chapter 1: Creation Must Have a Creator
This chapter opens with a quote mine from Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time, which comes deep in the middle of a discussion of the universe's origins, the anthropic principle, and uniformity. As best as it can be "put in context", Hawking is being mocking when he writes:
It would be very difficult to explain why the universe should have begun in just this way, except as the act of a God who intended to create beings like us.
Since this game is so much fun, anyone can play. From a few pages earlier in the same chapter:
These laws may have originally been decreed by God, but it appears that he has since left the universe to evolve according to them and does not now intervene in it.
Note: For not capitalizing "he" as the godly pronoun, Hawking's comment would have been deleted from Comfort's blog: "Cuss words (mild or abbrev.), blasphemy, URLs, incivility, or failure to give the names 'God' or 'Jesus' capitals will be deleted."[4]
The first chapter is appropriately enough named after the first of the three things Ray knows. Ray goes on to describe why he thinks this, which predictably is a laugh riot.
Ray starts by telling us what he thinks evolution is. He speculates on the first modern human male, calling him Adam, and how "fortunate" it was that he evolved when there was air to breathe. This breathtakingly stupid observation tells you all you need to know about how much Ray understands about evolution. If that wasn't enough stupid for one book, Ray goes on to tell us that it was also fortunate that the air was exactly 78.09% nitrogen and 20.95% oxygen. Leaving aside the fact that the mixture of gases in the atmosphere demonstrably changes over time, people are perfectly capable of breathing other mixtures of gases. Just ask any scuba diver.
But wait, there's more! While we're still reeling from the previous paragraph, Ray hits us with this gem: He thinks females evolve separately from males. He tells us that the first female would have by chance to evolve at the same time as the first male, and then wander around until she finds him. This line of argument goes on, but there's no really need to torture you with it. Suffice it to say that Ray doesn't know squat about evolution.
Now that Ray has finished demonstrating his profound and unapologetic ignorance, he addresses his first question.
Am I a "false convert" because I doubt? Do you ever have doubts?
(page 3)
In answering this question, Ray exercises Things He Knows™ #1 and #2. He doesn't doubt because creation is absolute proof that there is a creator, and everyone knows there is a god. Of course, this is simply a semantic game. Something that can be described as a creation certainly does imply there is a creator. However, stating this fact doesn't get you any nearer demonstrating that humans, Earth or the universe at large can be accurately described as a creation. To do that, you would of course have to demonstrate the existence of the creator, that which is to be demonstrated. This is simply begging the question.
Ray's advice is to trust god even when such trust seems impossible. Great advice, Ray!
You err when you compare a "building and its builder" with a "human and his creator," they are not the same thing!
(page 3-4)
Ray doesn't actually attempt to defend his analogy; he just falls back on the argument from authority: The Bible says it; therefore it must be true.
He then goes off on a totally unrelated tangent, stating that, when one becomes a Christian, one suddenly starts to care about the unwanted in society. Nevermind that Ray, a Christian who personally rakes in almost a million dollars a year in donations alone (let alone sales of books and other merchandise), appears himself to have been unaffected in this direction.
Ray uses this purported Christian love a springboard from which to attack atheists. For atheism, it seems, is "the epitome of stupidity," "an intellectual embarrassment," but Ray loves atheists so much that he argues with them anyway, in spite of how "demeaning" he finds it. Keep it up, Ray! We're feeling the love already.
If you think that creation of the human mind is evidence of god, then I'd argue that you certainly don't think god does a very good job.
(page 4)
Ray answers that the human mind is in fact perfect; it's just that atheists aren't using it right. He then segues right in to an argument from beauty, trotting out the classic "look at the trees!" — the hallmark of a truly ignorant creationist. To Ray, however, this is all apparently common sense: The atheist, because he cannot see it, must have some form of mental disorder.
Lets look at your list of "evidence." Creation proves a creator. It most certainly does not. Even calling it "creation" shows your considerable bias.
(page 5)
For starters, we're treated to a rehash of the previous answer: To be an atheist involves a denial of "common sense," to which Ray adds a dash of "people are only atheists so they can ignore almighty god's moral laws." Say what you like about him, but no-one can accuse him of being an original thinker.
Ray goes on to assert that "Staunch evolutionists believe in the theory as though their life [sic] depends on it,"[5] and that's because their life does in fact depend on it. Questionable grammar, and still more questionable conclusions. This book just gets worse and worse.
If your deity can have always existed, so can the universe.
(page 6)
Ray quotes noted actual scientist (Stephen Hawking again) saying that the universe definitely had a beginning, and of course it almost certainly did, at the big bang. Given enough matter, however, it may well end in a big crunch. It's also entirely possible that the resultant singularity will go on to spawn a whole new universe, and so on ad infinitum. To assume that this is the first iteration of our universe is unwarranted self-aggrandisement.
After this brief interlude of intelligence, brightening our lives only marginally, Ray proceeds to whittle on about how his god, being a magic man, isn't subject to the same laws as the rest of the universe. Apparently, if only you believe in him, he'll make you magic too. The evidence? Well, he hasn't got any.
Why do you call everyone who disagrees with you an atheist? I believe in evolution, and I'm a Christian
Ray immediately launches in to a harangue of the hapless Christian: Evolution, he claims, is a false god that said Christian who isn't has erected in order to worship. (After all, your god evolution doesn't tell you lust is wrong, so you only worship it to can get away with being naughty.) How right the Bible is when it tells us to judge not lest we be judged. Since Ray is intent on being such a judgemental prick, we think we're justified in judging him to be a willy-eared bitch-wolf.
In the real world, evolution isn't a god to be worshipped; it's a scientific theory that best explains the diversity of life as we currently understand it. It neither provides nor abolishes any moral framework, so to tell a Christian he worships evolution so that he can "sin" is both presumptuous and flat out wrong.
Chapter 2: Our Conscience Testifies to a Creator and Our Need for a Savior
Chapter 3: Humanity's Sin Deserves Punishment
Chapter 4: Salvation in Christ - The Promise of Heaven and Eternal Life
Chapter 5: The Testimony of Holy Scripture
Chapter 6: What Sets Christianity and Christians Apart?
Chapter 7: The Witness of Jesus Christ and of God's Holy Spirit
Conclusion
Notes
See also
Footnotes
- ↑ ISBN 9781935071068
- ↑ Available free to self-professed atheists for a limited time [1] (5/13/09) - as of 5/18/09, 109 had taken advantage of this offer [2].
- ↑ The "book" itself, page xi
- ↑ The book this article is about, page xii
- ↑ Page number?