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Saturday, August 2, 2008

Ray Comfort Feels So Threatened By Atheists . . .

. . . that his only defense is to flat-out deny that we exist!

They, as the Bible says, “hate God without cause.” They see the expression of His utterly brilliant handiwork. He gave them the gift of life itself, and painted the landscape of this world with breath-taking beauty, and they scrape any semblance of His name from the canvas. They distain (sic) the God who gave them life simply because of His moral government.


As the nun on "House" said, you can't hate God and not believe in him, so Ray obviously believes that we really do believe in God -- we're just pretending we don't.

The only thing I have to say in response is that Ray is absolutely right to view the existence of atheists as a threat. Whether he regards it as rational or irrational, the very fact that nonbelief exists contradicts the most central tenet of evangelism: that God, an all-powerful being, has a very, very important message for all of humanity. If this were true, then God would deliver that message directly, and even if we rejected the message, scraped his name off the painting or whatever, we would nonetheless have to admit that, yes, I received a message from that God fellow, and yes, that's what he told me.

Ray is smart enough, I think, to realize that his worldview entails precisely that state of affairs, and that the absence of that state of affairs disproves his worldview. His only hope, then, is to hold the position that that state of affairs does, in fact, obtain -- and, because such a position flies in the face of common sense, he can only suspend his own skepticism with respect to it by stating it -- publicly, repeatedly, and very loudly. Michael Martin's paper "Are There Really No Atheists?" refutes this position well enough for any purposes, and I refer the interested reader to that link for more information.

So Ray Comfort denies the existence of atheists because he has to -- because the only alternative is to become one himself. And then where would his paycheck come from, to say nothing of his daily ego boosts?

8 comments:

  1. A top link, thanks, my printer is buzzing as I type.

    It is the same logic for his hatred of evolution. For an inerrant, literal bible believer, evolution cuts the legs out from under him. If evolution is true then, for Ray, then the Bible is not literally true. That means he would have to decide what in the bible is figurative, poetic, metaphoric and what is literal. And that would put him on the same footing as the false christians he despises as much as he hates atheists

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  2. I just pretend to not believe in Superman.

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  3. Think its the other way round, why would you go as far to create a blog about Ray. Is it not you threatened by Ray. Just asking?

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  4. We are threatened by those who do believe in god. Why? Look at history. Centuries of persecutions, the origins of anti-semitism and the foundation for the holocaust were laid by those who share Ray's faith.

    Read the pharyngula blog for more information about that!

    Those people are forcing their religious views into science classes by dumbing down or passing over the theory of evolution and the age of the earth. Check out Texas and Louisiana.

    Not only that, the creationists like to portray those who practice good science or try to teach it, as enemies of the children or at least as enemies of "free speech" or "academic freedom". Never mind the fact that at the time of the Scopes trial no one on the religious right was talking about "academic freedom" then! Only once their ideas got discarded did they think that up.

    Many teachers buckle under that kind of pressure.

    Those people have their institutions where they themselves don't pay taxes, etc.

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  5. Reynold said...
    We are threatened by those who do believe in god. Why? Look at history. Centuries of persecutions, the origins of anti-semitism and the foundation for the holocaust were laid by those who share Ray's faith.


    umm actually Christianty has nothing to do with what you mentioned above. The bible is the basis for any morality and peace in the world.

    Christianity is a threat to atheists because it only exposes how wrong they are - obviously...

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  6. Jean:

         Revelation reveals that your god has no interest in peace. Every calamity therein is ordain by your god. That is even true of those for which you say the "antichrist" is instrument. No, christianity does not get to wash its hands of its past. People like John Hagee are actively seeking global destruction. That is the face of christianity.

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  7. pvblivs- I have already answered Reynold and would say the same to you.
    Dont know much about John Hagee. though have heard of him. If how you describe him is true, then he is not a Christian, he is a false prophet.
    They are many people who do things in the name of Christianity, that does not make them Christians. Maybe you dont know what a Christian is, would advise you to read Romans in the bible and that should make things clear for you. If you do not want to read the bible - A Christian is a person that has been saved by grace, they have repented of their sin and put their trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. By that I mean they stop doing things that are wrong. When they die they go to heaven and spend eternity with the Lord.

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  8. Jean:

         Bzzzt. I will accept any definition that allows you full "cop-out" privileges. Unless I can rule that someone is a christian by my own direct observation during that person's lifetime, I must reject the definition as a cop-out. So, unless you can provide a valid definition, those were real christians. So, remove the nebulous claims like "saved by grace." It's something you can always deny later. Since Jesus supposedly cursed a fig tree for not giving him fruit out of season, you can also drop "stops doing wrong things."

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