Critique of Ray Comfort arguments

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Ray Comfort
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Ray Comfort has made many statements in his career about the nature of God, the nature of Christianity, and the nature of Science (specifically evolution).

Some of his most famous arguments are summarized here, and then explored and critized at length. Surely, something he says must be truth, right? Something? Somewhere?

Contents

[edit] Salvation by faith, not deed

Ray believes that once someone is born-again, God forgives them for all their sins, no matter who they are or what they did, simply by "accepting Jesus as your Savior".

However: Think carefully about what he is saying. He admits that any person can be saved and clean of sin the second that they repent, making Christianity a get-out-of-jail-free card. Ray believes that the Bible says that we are saved by grace alone and not by works. This means murderers, rapists, and even truly evil people can be just as wicked as they want for their entire life -- right up to their last minute. In that last minute, all they have to do is become "born-again" and God forgives them. Ray Comfort fully buys into this, and when questioned about it during a debate on Nightline with the Rational Response Squad he had nothing to say except silence.

So what does the Bible say about salvation? Is it by grace alone and not by works? Comfort quotes Titus and Ephesians 2:8-9, which says that souls are saved not by works of righteousness, but according to God's mercy. But Psalm 62:12 disagrees: "For you render to each one according to his works." Matthew 16:27 spells it out nicely: "For the Son of Man will come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and then He will reward each according to his works." That does seem as if the Bible has no idea what it thinks. But, Ray, he knows. His views about salvation being "by grace alone" has drawn criticism from many theologians and religious leaders.

[edit] On Knowing God by "common sense"

When asked how does Ray know that there is a God, he says he knows God the same way he knows his wife. By "common sense".

Ray claims that he felt God and came to know God through personal experience, which is his greatest argument. Ray claims that a person cannot know if something exists until they feel it. He often says people who get an electric shock no longer believe it is harmful, but now know it is harmful. However, personal experience is not sufficient because it cannot be empirically tested, and personal experiences can produce countless feelings that seem so real. For example, many people are convinced they experienced alien abductions. Many of these experiences have been tested several times over the years. The reason why these experiences seem real is because the area of the brain (amygdala, hippocampus, limbic system, etc.) produce feelings near the frontal lobes (the area that determines what is real via touch, smell, taste, etc) and often produce vivid experiences that seem very real. However, Ray has not ever produced any model or method to distinguish what is real or not, whether his experiences are natural occurrences in his brain or some supernatural interference.

Every religion claims to believe as they do because of experience, reason, education, or intelligence given by their god in revelation. But whether they admit it or not, all of them are assuming their preferred conclusions on faith, and this would still be true even if all of their gods exist. Believe as hard as you want to, but convincing yourself however firmly still can’t change the reality of things. Seeing is believing. But seeing isn’t knowing. Believing isn’t knowing. Subjective convictions are meaningless in science, and eyewitness testimony is the least reliable form of evidence.

For example, if I go into my front yard and I see a large sauropod walking down the middle of my street, I will of course be quite convinced of what I see. I may be even more satisfied when I follow the thing and find that I can touch it, maybe even ride it if I want to. When I gather sense enough to run back for my camcorder, I may not be able to find the beast again, because I don't know which way it went. But that doesn’t matter because I saw it, I heard it, felt it, smelt it and I remember all that clearly with a sober and rational mind. But somehow I'm the only one who ever noticed it, and of course no one believes me. Some other guy says he saw a dinosaur too, but his description was completely different, such that we can’t both be talking about the same thing. So it doesn't matter how convinced I am that it really happened. It might not have. When days go by and there are still no tracks, no excrement, no destruction, no sign of the beast at all, no other witnesses who’s testimony lends credence to mine, and no explanation for how a 20-meter long dinosaur could just disappear in the suburbs of a major metropolis, much less how it could have appeared there in the first place, -then it becomes much easier to explain how there could be only two witnesses who can’t agree on what they think they saw, than it is to explain all the impossibilities against that dinosaur ever really being there. Positive claims require positive evidence. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and that’s what I’d need –since what I propose isn’t just extraordinary; its impossible. But since there's not one fact I can show that anyone can measure or otherwise confirm, then my perspective is still subjective -and thus uncertain. Eventually, even I, the eyewitness, would have to admit that, although I did see it, I still don’t know if it was ever really there –regardless whether I still believe that it was.

It doesn’t matter how convinced you are; belief does not equal knowledge. The difference is that knowledge can always be tested for accuracy where mere beliefs often can not be. No matter how positively you think you know it, if you can’t show it, then you don’t know it, and you shouldn’t say that you do. Nor would you if you really cared about the truth. Knowledge is demonstrable, measurable. But faith is often a matter of pretending to know what you know you really don't know, and that no one even can know, and which you merely believe -often for no good reason at all.

[edit] On Creation requiring a creator

Ray's argument about Creation requiring a Creator is structured as "A building means there was a builder, a painting had a painter, a watch had a watchmaker, therefore creation must have a creator." What Ray is doing here is simply asserting and assuming that we live in a creation without any verification or justification. His only and best response to this is "common sense." Common sense may suggest there is something inherently implausible about a loving God who allows hell and that’s just one example where Christianity goes against common sense. It looks like common sense applied only in ways that Ray Comfort likes and common sense should be disregarded whenever Ray and/or other fundamentalist Christians dislike the conclusions.

  • Have we seen a building been made without a builder? How about a bridge? Actually, yes we have seen bridges form without a builder. Look at this one or this one.
  • Likewise, we have seen traps form on their own. Ever heard of the Venus Fly trap? It is a plant that traps flies, and we know how it evolved without a creator.
  • How about a motor that was made without a motor engineer? Absolutely, behold the bacterial flagellum. The Matzke Model explains and demonstrates the steps to how the flagellum naturally evolved without a designer.
  • How about artworks of lines and patterns. Take a look at these designs in sand dunes.
  • Forget paintings, have we ever seen a sculpture form without a sculpture? Look at the rock formation in Maui's Iao Valley State Park that bears a striking resemblance to President John F. Kennedy in profile; the eroded mountain on Mars that under coarse-grained resolution looks like a face; or the eagle rock off the 134 freeway in Southern California that overlooks the town Eaglerock.
  • Have we seen other human-like faces pop up naturally in nature? Sure, Christians love to cheer every time they see Jesus' face appear of grilled cheese sandwiches. Same thing with Mother Teresa or the Virgin Mary.

Overall, ALL of these things occur naturally without invoking an intelligent designer. Since the human brain is hard-wired to detect patterns, we base nature as designed based on our experience of human artifacts. We see patterns in clouds, crystals, and snowflakes, but we already know that they all manifest naturally without a designer. We can test and prove that snowflakes, while having many geometrical patterns, form naturally in the clouds under certain conditions. We also know that evolution of living organisms can develop characteristics that give the illusion of design. The point is, all these things were made naturally without a designer. Comfort presupposes that everything around him is designed, particularly life. The issue here is that there Comfort does not distinguished between naturally made objects versus artificially made objects, rather he seems to insert they are all the same thing. This is why he compares man-made buildings with naturally living things that does not need a designer. This is going way beyond comparing apples and oranges (or perhaps bananas).

Not to mention, Ray’s logic fails when you ask certain questions; like if everything requires a creator, this begs the question who created God? Ray's response to this question can be seen in his book School of Biblical Evangelism: "No person or thing created God. He created “time,” and because we dwell in the dimension of time, reason demands that all things have a beginning and an end. God, however, dwells outside of the dimension of time." However, when Ray states that "reason" demands that everything had a beginning and end, and yet Ray presents something that does not have a beginning and end, then clearly reason never did demand such a thing, or that God is indeed a created being.

While the laws of physics states that matter cannot be created, Ray continues to assert that matter must be the result of divine creation. After all his faith demands that his God must be responsible. Comfort goes a bit further into absurdity by reasoning since the smartest person in the world cannot make anything from nothing, then God must have been responsible for creating everything. Basically, since we cannot demonstrate that matter can come from nothing, then Ray says God made it magically out of thin air. Ray believes that if his God is not the creator, then there is only one default position: that everything came from nothing. Unfortunately, this is not true. Science has demonstrated that the universe does not require any creator or divine/supernatural entity to start the universe. The universe is made of matter and energy, and science reveals that energy and matter cannot be created, and this fact alone dismisses Ray's presupposition that there must be a creator. The evidence thus far points to the Big Bang Theory which does not say that the universe was created from nothing ex nihilo —— that is a common straw man constructed by creationists like Ray Comfort.

[edit] On statements that God can be proven by science

Ray believes that God can be scientifically proven without invoking faith or the Bible, he made this bold statement when he challenged the Rational Response Squad to a debate (Spoiler: Ray failed).

The simple fact is Ray does not know how science works. He believes science just means "knowledge" basing it from its definition. Nevertheless, simple knowledge is not science. Science is a way of discovering truth by repeatably testing, making accurate predictions and engaging in peer review. Ray believes the only test you need to prove God is "common sense", really he believes that. Unfortunately common sense told us that the earth was fixed and everything moved around us. What Ray repeatedly fails to do is actually test and produce empirical data or a testable model that proves his narrow version of God. If you cannot demonstrate it, then you do not know it, and you should not claim to know it. Therefore Ray does not know there is a God, meaning he lies every time he claims otherwise. Instead, all Ray has to justify his belief in his version of God is simple blind faith.

[edit] To be a good person, you must have God

Perhaps, his most popular argument of all, the "are you a good person?"[1] tactic. Hardly a program, book, or interview goes by where Ray Comfort does not use this argument. It is also presented in practically every gospel tract printed and distributed by Way of the Master.

Basically, the argument tries to use the Ten Commandments as a model for discovering sin. Ray asks you if you have ever lied, stolen, committed adultery in your heart by looking with lust, and taken God's name in vain. Once a person is found guilty of one or all of these, Ray jumps in and declares this is why the person should turn to Jesus. Ray is either simply ignorant or deliberately dishonest. For instance, there is no Commandment anywhere that forbids lying (the Commandment is "Thou Shall Not Bear false Witness Against Thy Neighbor" which deals with misrepresentation in courts, not lying in the broad sense).

Ray is also wrong in regards to taking the Lord's name in vain. To Ray, that means saying things like "OMG" or "oh my God!" This is incorrect, the Commandment forbids taking the Lord's name "Yahweh" under a false oath or a promise not kept, thus making it in vain.

Comfort believe that all forms of lying is prohibited.

The dictionary defines a lie as a false statement deliberately presented as being true; a falsehood; something intended to deceive or give a wrong impression. People often claim that they have told only a “white lie.” But there is no difference between a white lie, a half-truth, a fib, or an exaggeration. All are lies in the sight of God. How many murders does one have to commit to be a murderer? Just one. In the same way, if they have told even one lie, no matter what color or size, that makes them a liar. The Ninth Commandment requires the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. God is a God of truth and His Law demands absolute honesty from the heart. Yet the human heart is deceitful above all things. It has been well said that taking the easy path is what makes rivers and men crooked.[2]

So all forms of lying is wrong. God deems it just and righteous to sen you to an eternal damnation if you lie to your spouse that they look good in their jeans. Apparently, if you lie to a Nazi that you are hiding a Jew in your home, you are just as guilty as if you murdered 100 people, despite you just lied to save a life. Ray Comfort claims he knows the Bible and read it every day without fail for many years, and yet he misses the story of the biblical prostitute Rahab was considered virtuous because she lied to protect Israelite spies (James says Rahab was "righteous" in James 2:25).

As for stealing, Ray includes even children are held accountable (going against the Christian doctrine Age of Accountability, which holds that children are born in sin, they are not accountable for their actions). In the book of Genesis, Jacob steals from his brother, lies to his father, and is continually rewarded by god. Jesus himself is fine with stealing where he tells his disciples to go into town and take a horse without paying for it, regardless if the owner is willingly or not to give up the horse (Mark 11:2-4, Matt 21:2-3, and Luke 19:30-31). Is stealing always bad? Don't we consider Robin Hood a folk hero?

Finally, looking with lust does not count as adultery. "Adultery" in the Bible did not depend on the man's marital status, but the woman's. Bloodline was reckoned through the male. "To adulterate" means to introduce a foreign substance into something, thus adultery meant corrupting another man's bloodline by having sex with another man's wife.

Finally, this argument assumes that Ray's God is real and Christianity is true. It is no better than using the Five Pillars of Islam to prove Allah. Also, this argument is useless against those who do not believe in the Christian god.

[edit] On Evolution

Ray Comfort strongly opposes the theory of evolution. Ray calls evolution many things, from a "fairy tale for grown ups" to evolution being a farce; intellectual-free zone; bogus science; and many more slanderous words without any support for his claims. Ray has made many attempts to refute his perspective of evolution in his books, videos, programs and constantly on his blog Atheist Central. Of course Ray does not have a slight general understanding of evolution, nor does he make any attempts to learn it correctly. At one point, Ray compared evolution to the Cinderella story of a pumpkin turning into a chariot.[3]

Ray claims to know the difference between what the theory of evolution really is and what the misunderstandings and fabrications (which he claims are the average persons belief) about it are. And he admits that he chooses to argue against the fabrications instead of the real thing.

The average person on the street who believes in the theory of evolution isn't as sophisticated as the staunch believers on his blog. You have your "scientific" definition--"The gradual change and diversification of life on earth," and other people (the great majority) have theirs. I’m interested in reaching the average person with the message of everlasting life, therefore I speak their language and address their beliefs.[4]
Steven, I have in the past explained that I address the "street" understanding of Darwinian evolution. You are a sophisticated and committed believer in the theory. You have no doubts at all. The average street believer doesn't believe as you do and it’s easy to make him doubt. He knows nothing of mutations, bacteria, populations, that he is supposed to be an ape, and a cousin of bananas. All he believes is that man evolved from apes, and is quick to add, "But I'm not an expert." So I address him where he is at, and show him that evolution has no scientific basis, and that it's an idea—a fairy tale that he can only receive by faith (as you do). It is not observable in the slightest. I ask where he thinks males and females came from, and why there are male and female in all of the 1.4 million kinds, why fish would evolve lungs while under water, and other questions that make him think about his beliefs. If that offends you and other atheists because you don’t think I have the “right” facts about your beliefs, so be it.

This basically shows that Ray has no intention of having an open and honest discussion with scientists regarding the evidence for evolution. All Ray is concerned with trying to convince the lay person that special creation is the only answer, and he will sell them any lie he can to convince them.

The majority of Comfort's arguments are the typical creationist arguments that have been refuted a thousand times. Ray Comfort is a friend and fan of Kent Hovind, and Comfort believes that quoting a dozen or so sources (like popular magazines, non-scientists, an non-biologists) that diss evolution as proof against the theory of evolution without even examining the actual evidence presented by scientists that prove evolution and common descent. However, some of Comfort's arguments against evolution have been incredibly feeble and so outright ridiculous, some have speculated that perhaps he does not believe what he actually says.[5] Perhaps Ray is just saying it because his followers want evolution to be false so badly and they will flock to any person who finds an argument against it, subscribe to him, and even pay him to lie to them. Whether or not he really believes his own arguments is irrelevant: false information is false information. If Ray knows that he is deliberately being dishonest, shame on him - especially when he goes around the world accusing the public and total strangers of being filthy liars who deserve eternal torment. If truth cannot help a person like Ray Comfort become an honest decent person, then neither will Jesus Christ (so already most of us can ignore the empty promises tossed around by people like Comfort that Jesus will make us a better person if we accept him). Alternatively perhaps Ray believes every ridiculous argument he uses and we can forget any hopes we may have that his type of Christianity will make us into a sensible person.

Ray Comfort has made multiple arguments that are pro-creation, such as the argument from design and "Creation requires a creator" and of course the banana. However this section will only address his worst anti-evolution arguments. However, Ray has built an extensive list of ridiculous arguments on his own.

[edit] Evolution Must Explain Everything

To this day, Comfort falsely links the Big Bang theory and abiogenesis with evolution as if they are one in whole or they are dependent on the other, but the fact is they are separate fields and do not require the others to stand on their own.

Okay, here's then what evolution folks think. They think that evolution has no intelligence. It is responsible for the making (oops! I blew it again, by using the word "making," when evolution doesn’t make anything)... it is responsible for the ever so slow development of the human eye, the brain, the blood, the heart, kidneys, liver, the perfect mix of oxygen in the air, the positioning of the sun and the planets, the seasons, male and female of all animals, birds, fish and insects, gravity, the amazing seas, the succulent fruits, beautiful flowers and massive trees.[6]

Evolution only deals with biology and explaining the biodiversity. It does no comment on anything outside biology, and thus does not make any claims about the origin of the universe, galaxies or the earth. Evolution certainly does not claim that "Everything came from nothing." Evolution does not attempt to explain the origin of life. Creationists habitually misdefine their terms, and commonly insist that evolution means “life from non-life”. But of course that’s not right either. Evolution explains how life diversifies, not how it began. Since evolution at every level is -by definition- limited to the variation of allele frequencies inherited over generations of living organisms, then it obviously can’t operate where no genomes yet exist. The evolutionary process starts with genetics and can’t start before it. So how the first genes came about may seem similar to evolution, and may even involve a form of natural selection in some way, but it is in fact a very different chemical process called abiogenesis.

[edit] Which Came First? Chicken or Egg questions

A large portion of his objections against evolution are argument from ignorance, god of the gaps and argument from incredulity -where Ray tries to ask chicken or egg questions to combat evolution. One example: "as blood began to evolve, it couldn't get around the body, so he evolved a heart to pump it around. The heart would take a long time to evolve, and it also needed a complex system of blood vessels to evolve. So survival was impossible for the first pre-human primitive life form. But that doesn’t matter to an atheist. It just happened. Evolution-did-it."[7]   Here Ray just shamelessly pulls things like this out of thin air. It is obvious that he did zero research of the earliest living organisms and how did blood first flow. Some animals and organisms are alive without blood, such as the jellyfish and plants. Some animals have blood but no heart. But keep this in mind, blood has to change too. Not all blood has ever been the same as human blood. How did the blood transfer through the body without a heart? Every organism has some muscle-like functions to spread things inside the body, such as digestion. The first veins may not have been veins as we picture them, but as some form of muscle that would assist in blood flow. After many generations when the species grow in size, it makes sense that a device that would help move the flow of blood (like the heart) would be very advantageous so those without it would tend not to compete well.
It is common for Ray Comfort to ask when life began to come onto land, did the first animal have lungs or gills? "Here is this sort of animal who's coming out of the ocean without lungs, so he comes out with gills, goes [gasping noises] runs back to water and just keeps coming out until lungs develop?" Ray Comfort, to this day, claims that there is not scientific evidence whatsoever to support either of these.   Comfort is now using a straw man against Lamarckian evolution, not Darwin's theory of evolution. Lamarck's concept pre-dated Darwin. Under Lamarckian evolution, physical traits were passed from parent to offspring (i.e. the muscles of your left arm were particularly strong from constant weight lifting, therefore your offspring will have a more muscular left arm).

Again, it is clear that Comfort is completely ignorant of several facts. Gills pre-date lungs; however, several fish are able to modified gills to exchange atmospheric gases. One such group is commonly referred to as lungfishes The lungfish is a freshwater fish that is best known for retaining primitive characteristics within the Osteichthyes, including the ability to breathe air with lungs, thought to be modified gas bladders. Fossil evidence and the swim bladders of some modern fish support the lineage from gills and gill-like features to lungs in the earliest amphibians. Ray, in attempting to make this sound as absurd as possible, relies on our inherent inability to properly conceive of large spans of time, portraying one individual creature, at one point in time. This oversimplification of speciation doesn't accurately reflect scientific explanations.

Several transitional fossils possess four pseudo-limbs, lungs, and internal gills.

[edit] Dogs and Evolution of Sex

Comfort used the dog as an example on Pat Robertson's show:
There is a big bang, life forms, and after millions of years a dog evolves. It is the first dog. He has got legs, tail, teeth, eyes - and it's good he has good he has eyes because he has to look for a female, he has been blind for millions of years but now he can see. He has got to find a female. She has got to be evolved at the right place at the right time with all the reproductive organs and a desire to mate. Because without a female, he is a dead dog.
  Is that how Darwin described it? Is that how any evolutionary scientist ever described it? Absolutely not. What Ray fails to understand to this day is that the female (not the male) is the foundation of the species and animals certainly do not live for millions of years and then suddenly grow features along with a mate that comes from nowhere. There was no first dog, there were carnivores, males and females able to reproduce together and gradually over millions of years evolving to become more dog like. And yet Ray is perfectly fine to believe that the wives of Cain and Seth just appeared out of nowhere and certain biblical figures (like Adam and Noah) lived for several hundred to thousands of years.

It seems that Ray thinks that evolution claims that a dog can exist and live for millions of years. Not only is he so old, he is without eyes or sight. This entire time he is alive, there happens to be no female dog, but then how was he even born if not from a female? The biggest piece that reveals Ray's vast ignorance regarding the theory of evolution is that the theory does not claim the individuals evolve, but populations evolve, so there would already be males and females present at all times.

On Comfort's blog[8], he wrote;
Darwin theorized that mankind (both male and female) evolved alongside each other over millions of years, both reproducing after their own kind before the ability to physically have sex evolved. They did this through "asexuality" ("without sexual desire or activity or lacking any apparent sex or sex organs"). Each of them split in half ("Asexual organisms reproduce by fission (splitting in half)." Ask A Scientist, Biology Archive, [2].)
  Darwin "theorized" no such thing. Humans reproduce sexually, as do all primates, as do all mammals, as do most vertebrates, as do a great many animals. There was no period where males and females evolved separately. The nice quote from Ask a Scientist refers to single-celled organisms — no human being has ever reproduced by splitting in half. We evolved from precursor populations containing both males and females.

Ray Comfort cannot understand the difference between cells and humans from an article, how doe one expect him to get the basics of biology right?

In response to PZ Meyers, who wrote a blog explaining the evolution o sex and elephants for Ray comfort, Ray responded with the following:
Let’s go back even further (100 million years ago) to pre-pre-elephants that also contained males and females. At what point of time in evolutionary history did the female evolve alongside the male? And why did she evolve? Then explain, if you would professor, why horses, giraffes, cattle, zebras, leopards, primates, antelopes, pigs, dogs, sheep, fish, goats, mice, squirrels, whales, chickens, dinosaurs, beavers, cats, human beings and rats also evolved with a female, at some point of time in evolutionary history. Professor, I know you believe, but please, give us who are healthy skeptics some empirical evidence. Remember, stupid people like me want good hard evidence before we, like you, become believers in Darwin’s theory.
  For starters, why does Ray insist that the male came first?

Second, if we all share a common ancestor whose population consisted of male and female, and given varying genetic frequencies among reproductive populations (leading to (usually subtle) changes in their morphological or physiological composition, which –when compiled over successive generations- can increase biodiversity) and the fact nothing can’t outgrow heredity (due to Dollo's law of irreversibility), it is no surprise that horses, giraffes, cattle, zebras, leopards, primates, antelopes, pigs, dogs, sheep, fish, goats, mice, squirrels, whales, chickens, dinosaurs, beavers, cats, human beings and rats all have male and females. How hard is that to grasp? On top of that, the scientific evidence heavily supports this is exactly what happened.[9]

[edit] Transitional Fossils and Kinds

Ray repeats a lot of common dishonest creationist arguments, such as "there are no transitional fossils at all." Ray has written twice about an National Geographic article about 7 found "missing links" and then immediately stated that the fossils in the article are missing and completely imaginary.
In 2009, the National Geographic News reported that leading scientists were asked for their picks of the most important fossils that show evolution in action. They headlined "Seven Major 'Missing Links' Since Darwin," and the number one missing link was a "Fishapod." They don't have empirical evidence for the Fishapod, but they do have a painting. This is an artist's rendition (his mental image) of what the Fishapod may have looked like. He did a good job.[10]
  The image of the Fishapod is not an fictional image of what the creature may have looked like. We have the very fossil of the exact creature right now.
Then a few months later, despite all the corrections he got the previous time, repeats the same line again
So there you have it. The "Fishapod" is a crocodile head and a fish body. Another name for the fishapod is "Tiktaalik." I don't believe that this crocofish is a missing link. But many do. The article then said, "The discoveries of these and other 'missing link' species have helped dispel what Darwin called perhaps 'the most obvious and gravest objection which can be urged against my theory' of evolution--the former lack of transitional fossil species. But they haven't helped in the slightest. These seven missing links aren't found-links at all. They are just more wild imagination (lies, lies) from the minds of speculators who can't find anything to back up a theory that has to be believed (received with blind faith), and one that has no basis in true science.[11] (emphasis added)

Ray asks for hard evidence, but when given some literally hard evidence, he can with a wave of his hand pretend it imaginary. And not a single follower of his seemingly cares that his statement is false.

  Not once in this entire blog or any other material does Ray Comfort give any valid explanations or any form of scientific inquiry to explain why he does not accept Tiktaalik as a transitional fossil. All he has in response to the evidence presented to him (the very hard evidence he constantly demands for) is basically "I don't believe it," thereby making an argument from incredulity. This sort of mentality is no more different than Ray basically denying disease-causing germs.
Ray Comfort, like all creationists, constantly uses the word "kind" - a noun that is typically never properly and consensus defined. On his blog, Ray describes "kind" as,

"Kind," in creationist jargon, generally refers these days to groups larger than a species but still thought to be related by common descent, such as entire genera or families (e.g. the "cat kind"). There are "species-to-species" transitions in the fossil record (e.g. Stephen Gould described a sequence of transitional fossils between two species of the snail genus Cerion), but presumably if you bothered to consider that rather than simply regurgitate your standard list of slogans, you dismiss this example as "they're still snails" (which of course is on some other creationist's list of standard slogans). Since "kind" is undefined, it's difficult to find a good example of a "kind-to-kind" transitional series....The fault isn’t with the definition of the word "kind." It hasn't changed in the slightest. One more time; here’s the definition: dog-kind, cat-kind, horse-kind, snail-kind, human-kind, etc. The atheist's difficulty is with the so-called evidence for evolution. There isn't any."[12]

  In this quote, Ray admits transitional fossils do exist (contradicting himself) but he is either ignorant or wilfully ignorant of the transitional fossils between two distinct animals such as land animals and whales. There are numerous transitional fossils between genera's and families, however, Ray Comfort's faith demands that he willingly dismiss them outright. Although, if Ray accepts that transitional fossils exist between snails, but still calls them snails, then he must accept that transnationals exist amongst apes and he should call humans apes. No matter how much Ray will deny it, the fact is human beings are apes just as tigers are cats.

Evolution never permits one thing to turn into another, fundamentally different type of anything; that would violate the laws of evolution. All of this is vindicated with independent peer-reviewed empirical research. Everything evolutionary science actually demands are things we actually do see throughout biology. Consequently, evolution is a unifying theory explaining virtually everything we can prove to be true of biodiversity.

[edit] Footnotes

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