Ray Comfort is a Hack (Guest RE-Posted AGAIN)

Good day and welcome to today's special edition of Ray-a-Day, written by me, Gordon, master and commander of this defunct blog. Much thanks and hugs should go to the wonderful Ziztur and Flimsy for hosting this book review party. Please grab a comfy seat, a stiff drink and try not to spill anything on their upholstery.

Today's "angry skeptic" is somewhat peeved at Ray Comfort over something:

I just wanted to let you know that you're an @$#!! You start out talking to people by questioning them on their bad behaviors, then you tell them they're gonna burn in hell. After scaring them with this method you turn around and start running your mouth about Jesus and how he died for them and how you don't want to see them go to hell, which then makes them sad. You think you're getting results when you do this? You think you're changing lives? Maybe for those couple of seconds when you twist people's emotions around and warp their mind into believing they are terrible people and they will die and go to hell. You talk to them like you're the @!#$& higher power! And you have the nerve to talk about self righteousness? You're a joke, take a good look in the mirror before you go out judging others. Who knows, that may be you burning in hell's eternal flames, and your little %$@!# buddy too...

Allow me to begin by confessing, I have no idea what this person is referring to when he/she is slagging off Comfort. My only exposure to Comfort prior to reading Ziztur's review of his book, is a clip of Comfort performing this comedy routine:

Seriously, to this day I still believe this was a silly attempt at Poe-rady, and I harbour half a hope that Ray and Kirk would pop up one day and say, Python-esque: "Sorry, ladies and gents, that was all for a lark. Wasn't it tip top stuff, eh?". That's the thing about Poe's Law, there's always a non-zero percentage chance that this would happen in the future.

But thanks to this book review assignment, I am forced to dig up Comfort's other works, better known as "The Way of the Master" ministry. A sample of what they... em... "do", is in videos like the ones below:

After witnessing these few videos I am even more convinced Comfort is a parody and, as the "angry skeptic" have pointed out, a joke. How anyone can attempt such a blatantly transparent three card trick in this age is certainly laughable. (Thunderf00t offers a simple refutation of this clumsy ploy, from 02:30-07:20, or what I like to call "The Heathen's Gambit")

Yet Comfort and his crew of evangelists seem to win many fans amongst their quarter, so for the moment I shall grant him the benefit of doubt and treat him as a serious preacher and not as some sly street-corner snake-oil salesman.

Comfort's reply to the "angry skeptic" is as thus:

It's true that I do ask people about their bad behavior, and I do tell them what the Bible says about hell. But how could I not? If I am fully persuaded that someone is in terrible danger, I have to at least warn them.

...

There is one thought that skeptics don't seem to take into account. What if hell does exist? What if the Bible is right? What if God is holy and just and will punish murderers and rapists in a terrible place called hell? What if every single person will get what's coming to them? If what we say is the gospel truth, then what we are saying is justified and most necessary.

Ahhh, the familiar yet severely vulture-pecked carcass that is Pascal.

Ever since I was a little kid, I often wondered what is the deal with the theological preoccupation with this Hellfire thing, and why is it at all frightening? Sure, eternity is a long time ;-) , but being roasted continuously... hmmm... on a pain scale of one to ten register no more than a mere six. And it doesn't score much on the imagination scale neither.

If I was to be scared of hell, it would a hell where 10,000 volts are jolted through every one of my appendages, whilst I am languishing in a sea of Sulphuric Acid, at the same time crushed on all sides by a tonne of radioactive fissionable Plutonium-239, where they easily achieve critical mass to cause a nuclear chain reaction around my material body... as well as within my immaterial soul... for all of eternity. Now that is a ten out of ten kinda hell!!

Now for argument sake, I am "fully persuaded" that:

1. The almighty Flying Spaghetti Monster exists, and he presides over this Electric, Acidic, Nuclear Hell^TM.


2. The noodly FSM considers anyone sporting any facial hair to be a abominable sinner.


3. The merciful FSM will send all such sinners straight into this special Hell^TM.

I am duty bound to warn Ray Comfort that his afterlife is in peril and he must repent to FSM, to shave off his moustache and do the chicken dance after downing 14 shots of vodka. If he doesn't, a grim radioactive annihilation awaits him.

So should Comfort follow the bidding of the lord FSM? I certainly hope not.

For fear not, young Ray Comfort, this Hell^TM have as much evidence for its existence as your standard garden-variety fiery hell. And if any fundamentalist FSM worshippers try to convert you with such a shallow sales pitch as "What if Hell^TM does exist? What if the FSM is holy and just and will punish the beardy and the moustachy in a terrible place called Hell^TM?", you are well within your rights to laugh vigourly at their faces, like any rationally thinking folks will do for you.

Ray continues by insisting he is able to critically examine himself when it comes to his own sins:

... I am as bad, if not worse than most of the people to whom I speak. I have broken all of the Ten Commandments, in spirit if not in letter. I have committed a multitude of sins, and that's why I need a Savior. Being a Christian means that all that sin is forgiven.

Sorry, come again?

Being a Christian means that all that sin is forgiven.

I just want this statement to sink in a little bit here.

Which brings us back to this point, there is something truly appalling about this whole enterprise which can arbitrarily set the definition of a sickness, a sin, and then arbitrarily prescribe a cure only they can administer. But for Comfort to parade around his contemptuous banner of "I am saved, but you will burn (if you don't do as I say)", is compounding the bile that rises in my throat.

Only now can I truly appreciate what this "angry skeptic" is railing against, the comedy act that is Ray Comfort is beyond a joke. A hypocrisy dressed up as a self-righteous pretension. You sure can lead an atheist to evidence, but so far all I can witness from Comfort is an argument of "neener-neener-neener, God likes me better than you".

And this makes his "Banana ergo Deus" argument positively cerebral.

Sometimes the World is an Alright Place

An Afghan journalist/student, Sayed Perwiz Kambakhsh, jailed and sentence to death for the crime of "Blasphemy", after he downloaded documents about women rights and Islam, have been pardoned.

He should not have been charged from the beginning, but this is a story to demonstrate that sometimes, just sometimes, a wrong can be righted (through international lobby group and foreign government pressures).

Jesus vs. Tai Chi... Let the battle begin!!

I just love these religion vs. religion stories:

A group of senior Tai Chi practitioners are kicked out of a church property because their eastern "philosophies were incompatible with the Bible's teachings."

No seriously.

And this quote by the church leader Rev. Morse show the level of miscomprehension on his part about meditation and Christian's beliefs:

"It's about a type of meditation, and what they call search for enlightenment, where you go into things like yoga do (yoga do) or, like in the martial arts, meditations where you just emptied your mind and let it go wherever it wanted to.

"Well that stands in opposition to Christianity, which says we are to be in control of our faculties."

In control of our faculties? Where in the Bible does it say that?? (Commandment XI: Thou shall possess control of all thou faculties??)

And what ever else he may object to, meditations is the practice of controlling your mental faculties. But I digress.

Quote of the Day: Does Science Make Belief in God Obsolete?

The John Templeton Foundation ask a number of prominent thinkers: Does science make belief in God obsolete?

The best answer is undoubtedly provided by this man: Prof. Pervez Amirali Hoodbhoy of Quaid-e-Azam University in Islamabad. Witty and dry in style, his answer is quoted in full below:

Does science make belief in God obsolete? Not necessarily.

But you must find a science-friendly, science-compatible God. First, try the pantheon of available Creators. Inspect thoroughly. If none fits the bill, invent one.

The God of your choice must be a stickler for divine principles. Science does not take kindly to a deity who, if piqued or euphoric, sets aside seismological or cosmological principles and causes the moon to shiver, the earth to split asunder, or the universe to suddenly reverse its expansion. This God must, among other things, be stoically indifferent to supplications for changing local meteorological conditions, the task having already been assigned to the discipline of fluid dynamics. Therefore, indigenous peoples, even if they dance with great energy around totem poles, shall not cause even a drop of rain to fall on parched soil. Your rule-abiding and science-respecting God equally well dispenses with tearful Christians singing the Book of Job, pious Hindus feverishly reciting the havan yajna, or earnest Muslims performing the salat-i-istisqa as they face the Holy Ka'aba. The equations of fluid flow, not the number of earnest supplicants or quality of their prayers, determine weather outcomes. This is slightly unfortunate because one could imagine joining the faithful of all religions in a huge simultaneous global prayer that wipes away the pernicious effects of anthropogenic global climate change.

Your chosen God cannot entertain private petitions for good health and longevity, prevent an air crash, or send woe upon demand to the enemy. Mindful of microbiology and physiology, She cannot cure leprosy by dipping the afflicted in rivers or have humans remain in unscathed condition after being devoured by a huge fish. Faster-than-light travel is also out of the question, even for prophets and special messengers. Instead, She must run the world lawfully and unto the letter, closely following the Book of Nature.

A scientific Creator should certainly know an awful lot of science. To differentiate between the countless universes offered by superstring theory is a headache. Fine-tuning chemistry to generate complex proteins, and then initiating a cascade of mutations that turn microbe to man, is also no trivial matter. But bear in mind that there are definite limits to divine knowledge: God can know only the knowable. Omniscience and science do not go well with each other.

The difficulty with omniscience - even with regard to a particle as humble as the electron-has been recognized as an issue since the 1920s. Subatomic particles show a vexing, subtle elusiveness that defeats even the most sophisticated effort to measure certain of their properties. Unpredictability is intrinsic to quantum mechanics, the branch of physics which all particles are empirically seen to obey. This discovery so disturbed Albert Einstein that he rejected quantum mechanics, pronouncing that God could not "play dice with the universe." But it turned out that Einstein's objections were flawed - uncertainty is deeply fundamental. Thus, any science-abiding deity we choose may be incompletely informed on at least some aspects of nature.

Is one being excessively audacious, perhaps impertinent, in setting down terms of reference for a Divine entity? Not really. Humans have always chosen their objects of worship. Smarter humans go for smarter Gods. Anthropomorphic representations - such as a God with octopus arms - are a bit out of fashion today but were enormously popular just a few centuries ago. As well, some people might object to binding God and human to the same rules of logic, or perhaps even sharing the same space-time manifold. But if we drop this essential demand then little shall remain. Reason and evidence would lose meaning and be replaced by tradition, authority, and revelation. It would then be wrong for us to have 2 + 2 = 5, but okay for God. Centuries of human progress would come to naught.

Let's face it: the day of the Sky God is long gone. In the Age of Science, religion has been downsized, and the medieval God of classical religions has lost repute and territory. Today people pay lip service to trusting that God but they still swallow antibiotics when sick. Muslim-run airlines start a plane journey with prayers but ask passengers to buckle-up anyway, and most suspect that people who appear to rise miraculously from the dead were probably not quite dead to begin with. These days if you hear a voice telling you to sacrifice your only son, you would probably report it to the authorities instead of taking the poor lad up a mountain. The old trust is disappearing.

Nevertheless, there remains the tantalizing prospect of a divine power somewhere "out there" who runs a mysterious, but scrupulously miracle-free, universe. In this universe, God may choose to act in ingenious ways that seem miraculous. Yet these "miracles" need not violate physical laws. Extraordinary, but legitimate, interventions in the physical world permit quantum tunneling through cosmic worm holes or certain symmetries to snap spontaneously. It would be perfectly fair for a science-savvy God to use nonlinear dynamics so that tiny fluctuations quickly build up to earthshaking results - the famous "butterfly effect" of deterministic chaos theory.

Nietzsche and the theothanatologists were plain wrong - God is neither dead nor about to die. Even as the divine habitat shrinks before the aggressive encroachment of science, the quantum foam of space-time creates spare universes aplenty, offering space both for a science-friendly God as well as for self-described "deeply religious non-believers" like Einstein. Many eminent practitioners of science have successfully persuaded themselves that there is no logical contradiction between faith and belief by finding a suitable God, or by clothing a traditional God appropriately. Unsure of why they happen to exist, humans are likely to scour the heavens forever in search of meaning.

- Prof. Pervez Amirali Hoodbhoy, Physicist
Essay for The John Templeton Foundation, 2008

Irony is made of these...

Catholism Faith Healing vs. Reiki Spiritual Healing...

Both seems impossible yet millions swear by it. So which one is more effective? The vatican believe they have the trump card, but somehow I would lean towards Reiki, because their claims are far less incredible.

Richard Dawkins on Religion and "Memetics"

Q&A with Richard Dawkins @ UC Berkeley

Quote of the Day: Belief in "Belief-in-God"

It is seldom remarked (though often observed in private, I daresay) that many, many people who profess belief in God do not really act the way people who believed in God would act; they act the way people would act who believed in believing in God. That is, they manifestly think that believing in God is—would be—a good thing, a state of mind to be encouraged, by example if possible, so they defend belief-in-God with whatever rhetorical and political tools they can muster. They ask for God's help, but do not risk anything on receiving it, for instance. They thank God for their blessings, but, following the principle that God helps those who help themselves, they proceed with the major decisions of their lives as if they were going it alone.

Those few individuals who clearly do act as if they believed in God, really believed in God, are in striking contrast: the Christian Scientists who opt for divine intervention over medical attention, for instance, or those who give all their goods to one church or another in expectation of the Apocalypse, or those who eagerly seek martyrdom.

Not wanting the contrast to be so stark, the believers in belief-in-God respond with the doctrine that it is a sin (or at least a doctrinal error) to count on God's existence to have any particular effect. This has the nice effect of making the behavior of a believer in belief-in-God and the behavior of a believer in God so similar as to be all but indistinguishable.

Once nothing follows from a belief in God that doesn't equally follow from the presumably weaker creed that it would be good if I believed in God—a doctrine that is readily available to the atheist, after all—religion has been so laundered of content that it is quite possibly consistent with science. Peter de Vries, a genuine believer in God and probably the funniest writer on religion ever, has his hyper-liberal Reverend Mackerel (in his book The Mackerel Plaza) preach the following line: "It is the final proof of God's omnipotence that he need not exist in order to save us."

The Reverend Mackerel's God can co-exist peacefully with science. So can Santa Claus, who need not exist in order to make our yuletide season more jolly.

- Prof. Daniel Dennett, Philosopher of Science,

Interview for Science & Spirit, 2007

Religion: Why it Should Affect Your Vote

Why should you vote for a Christian when you are a Muslim, a Buddhist or a Jew? And why should you vote for a Catholic when you are a Protestant, or a Baptist, or even a Mormon?

I think Scott Adams have pose a good question and provide a great answer to this conundrum. Go and read it in his blog about:

Religion and Politics

I am now an "Atheist"!!

As I said at the outset I'm reluctant to use the word 'atheist' to describe my own unshakable disbelief and that's not because I'm ashamed, afraid or even embarrassed, but simply because it seems so self evidently true to me that there is no God that giving that conviction a special title, somehow dignifies what it denies. After all, we don't have a special word for people who don't believe in ghosts or witches.

- Jonathan Miller, Director & Author,
"A Brief History of Disbelief", 2007

God dammit!! In a feeble attempt to boost my readership levels (from the current zero readers who read this blog, to something even resembling half a reader), I have signed up to Mojoey's Atheist Blogroll and the OUT Campaign Blogroll, both of which is a conglomeration of blogs written by atheists, secularist, brights, agnostics, skeptics, non-theists, humanists, anti-theists and so on.

In the process, I guess I am now "outing" myself as an "atheist", whatever that means.

So what is an atheist anyway? How do we begin to define a group of people who lack the imaginative powers to believe in any form of supernatural agents, playing checkers using our arses as the pieces.

I can't really begin to fathom the idea of atheism, because it is much too broad and varying of a term. Similarly, theistic beliefs are very hard to nail down as well, since no two Christians (or two Muslims, two Jews, two Buddhists, two FSM-ists) of the same denomination would ever believe in exactly the same bucket of religious ideas.

So it is pretty meaningless to say that I am an atheist, not because I am not an atheist, but the labeling of myself as one is pretty pointless to say the least. It doesn't say that anything about me as a person at all.

Still anything and everything to pander for some readership, eh? ;-)

PS. Please have a look at the some of the other blogs on Mojoey's Atheist Blogroll, some of them are quite good.

Monkey God Attack!!

Today is plagiarism day. Yay! So please read Scott Adams post about:

Monkey God on the Attack!!

Too funny not to re-post....

Quote of the Day: Probability and Religion

All religions were forged as defences against this virus, chance. Once you have dreamt up a god or a goddess, you can abase yourself, offer up burnt offerings, put your knees to the ground or your bottom to the air, all in the hope that by fawnings and repeated praise you may ward off ill fortune, or gain an imaginary better world.

- Brian Aldiss, Science Fiction Novelist,
"Fiction or Prediction?", 2007

Bible Study

The Book of Genesis explained:

More of the Same...

Here is some more religious bashing stuff, brought to you by George Carlin:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uBAPbOWLxc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CitfTtMIx8

Found these at RichardDawkins.Net...

Things I am Doing When I Should be Doing Other Better Things

Sorry I haven't posted in awhile, my excuse is that I have been busying myself with reading. Yes, reading...?!?

What am I reading? Recently I am (for some reason) intrigued by religion, namely the organised kind. You know the faith healing, money grubbing, hate promoting, sin pushing kind.

And by coincident I bump into these two resources that has truly captured my imagination:

• The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins - Scientist, Philosopher and Intellectual
• A Piece of Blue Sky: Scientology, Dianetics & L. Ron Hubbard Exposed by Jon Atack - former Scientologist and archivist

The fact that I am reading both books in unison is indeed a strange and somewhat enriching experience. But this doesn't leave me much spare time to blog.

I will report on my findings of these readings soon. Stay tuned...

Everybody Loves Farfour

Finally, after years of exhaustive search, authorities have been able to locate the illegitimate love-child of Adolf Hitler and Mickey Mouse. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you "Farfour", everybodies' favourite hate-spouting gun-toting rodent:

It seems that Farfour is trying to gain media attention by presenting a children program called "The Pioneers of Tommorow" shown on the Palestinian (Hamas) state-owned TV channel "Al-Aqsa".

"The Pioneers of Tommorow" is your usual "Wiggles" type of entertainment show, you know, stuff like singing, dancing, shooting, murdering and genocide-mongering:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s70KlZwb9RE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lv3dvYhFk_Y

Of course, there are some subtle differences between "The Wiggles" and Farfour, due to cultural (and dare I say, religious) gaps in the ideals of the programs.

• Instead of songs like "Hot Potatoes, Hot Potatoes" and "Go to Sleep Jeff", Farfour will be singing catchy tunes like "Hot Grenades, Hot Grenades" and "Die!! You Filthy Zionist Swine".
• Instead of "Captain FeatherSword" and "Dorothy the Dinosaur", there are other fun characters like "Captain FeatherSabre (Not a Disney Ripoff)" and "Abdulla the Incompetent Martyr".
• And instead of having nap time, they have "let's strap this stick of C4 on your chest and then have a really really long nap time".

I can't wait til the big mouse starts his touring schedule. Remember kids, watch out for Farfour in a busy marketplace near you. Your life will truly depend on it.

"You say to-may-to, I say to-mah-to..."

As you may have read from one of my previous blog entry, two sets of parents in Lexington, Massachusetts are suing a kindergarten for spreading, what they decided to call, "gay propaganda" using children books. You can get all the details from this news article.

The parent's lawyer have stated that his clients do not wish to dictate the curriculum of the education board, they merely want to yank their children out of the classroom anytime and every time when "homosexuality or gay marriage is being discussed" while in the care of the school. The lawyer further quoted:

"What they fear is that their children are being brainwashed."

Hmm. This pose a very intriguing question to me: How do you separate what is Learning and what is "Brain Washing"?

This is an utterly serious question.

On the day we are born, we all begin as blank canvases. And through the many life lessons we encounter, we will paint and repaint every part of our cognitive map. We will be continuously learn and relearn every part of our understanding of our world, of our ideas and of our assumptions.

So isn't the entire human experience just one massive brain washing session?

I understand that those parents in the US are disapproving of the school's attempt to open the minds of these young impressionable children to a world that their parent frown upon. But is there a possibility that this is just a matter of education of young minds? Could the parents be preventing the children from learning about reality?

Also, every time the dad storm into the kindergarten, huffing and puffing, fire and brimstone, dragging his kids out of the classroom by the arm before the teacher can begin to discuss about homosexuality, could this be brain washing?

I guess it just depends on the perspective of the speaker when using the word education and brain washing.

"I am right, therefore I am teaching the kids the right things. They are wrong, therefore they are a bunch of brain-washing tree-hugging hippies."

Well, my perspective is simply that we are all brain-washers and we are all being brain-washed at the same time. It is all one big sud party, yeah... and I am just going to hang mine out to dry right now.

Reality is Bad, Mmm-kay...

A few days ago, two sets of parents in Massachusetts (David and Tonia Parker, Joseph and Robin Wirthlin) sued a kindergarten for issuing fairy tale books to their kids that depicted reality.

**Cue dramatic music** The Shock!... The Horror!...

You can read the article here: "Parents are dead set angry about reality in fairy tales"

The lawyer representing the parents cited the reason for the lawsuit was that the children books are "a form of propaganda that goes against the parents' religious beliefs". The parents are simply "fearing their children are being brainwashed" by the unscrupulous fairy tale.

I can only assume they would much prefer their children to read beautiful stories with good morals such as grand theft and first degree murder. Or better still, they may urge their offspring to delve into traditional fairy tales that depict terrorism and mass genocide.

Wholesome stuff, you know, not all that new-age fang-dangle hog-wash.

(Okay, okay, I'll stop with the religion bashing for the next few posts.)

Stupid and Inane?

A very entertaining and enlightening read about religion, namely "Christ-inanity":

So Many Morons, So Little Time

The Case for the Accused

Dear God,

This is Reverend Ted Haggard speaking, your humble servant and popular televangelist personality. You may have seen me in a few TV sermon special such as "The Light of Love: Shining Where the Sun don't Shine" and "The Fall of Sodom: Choir Boys Swimsuit Reenactment Special".

I am praying to You to proclaim my eternal love for Your holiness, my savior... Yo my main man, Dawg... also I want to state for the record that I am in no way a homosexual. No-sir-ree. I am "completely heterosexual". Yes-sir-ree.

You see, all that business with that man-whore, that shit is in the past... ancient history. God, just because I was paying him big bucks for the pleasure of smacking his sweet round rump for three years, that don't make me no pillow biter. No way man, I was just "acting-out situations" and cosplay and stuff. It wasn't a "constant thing" at all. It's more like an in-and-out kinda thing.

Besides, it was just the one dude. I mean if I walloped the entire Denver Bronco offensive line then, yeah, that would be pretty gay. But it was just the one male prostitute, You can't accuse me of being no homo, right?

To top it off, I was suffering from a bad case of "sexual immorality" at the time... you know, for the last three years. All I need was to attend "three weeks of intensive counselling", took a couple aspirin and hey presto, I feel all better already. I haven't even thought about tapping any big sweaty blokes for, like... 48 hours, totally... I swear... Honest to You!

Oh my Lord, I am all cured and shit! Praise Your name! It's a Mee-Ra-Kle!

(Boy, I need) Amen...

(Did I say that out loud??)

What a Mind Trip!

The reason why I love reading Scott Adam's blog is that he always find some way to make me:

1. laugh loudly;
2. think deeply;
3. question reality as we know it.

These blog entries is of the latter categories, where he attempts to define intelligence and what entity actually possess it:

• Intelligence and The Big Bang
• Objections to his definition of Intelligence

Please engage an open mind and enjoy his wacko theories.