In my post on Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort’s dishonest and ignorant ramblings, I mentioned they had produced a little booklet of tips for converting atheists. Some of that booklet can be found here (thanks Atheist Jew). Check it out, it’s most amusing. It would appear that Ray’s tips will not win you over with any atheist who knows their stuff, but make you look decidedly moronic and ignorant. As a service to any honest theists out there, I will point out a few reasons why. You can then tell this idiot to shut the hell up; he’s making you look bad (or worse perhaps).

Ray begins with the ‘banana was designed by God for our consumption’ argument, which I’ve already covered. He then uses an oft quoted passage from Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species:

"To suppose that the eye, with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree."

This passage is often used by creationists. What they always fail to mention is what follows: Darwin’s explanation of how the eye has formed over many generations by incremental improvement in accordance with his theory of natural selection. Using this passage on its own is about as dishonest as you can get. Comfort’s explanatory paragraph is a ripper:

“If man cannot begin to make a human eye, how could anyone in his right mind think that eyes formed by mere chance? In fact, man cannot make anything from nothing. We don't know how to do it. We can re-create, reform, develop . . . but we cannot create even one grain of sand from nothing. Yet, the eye is only a small part of the most sophisticated part of creation-the human body.”

Idiotic strawman – evolutionary theory does not say the eye formed by chance. Honestly, a ten year old could understand this stuff. We can’t make a human eye? True, but we can produce machines recreating its functions. Cameras, for instance, can work better than the human eye – they have a zoom function. What follows is even more perplexing; he seems to think that evolution, in forming the eye, created matter out of nothing in order to do so. Wow, that’s really, really, really fucking dumb.

Ray then uses two more quotes to back up his position; one from George Gallop, who demonstrates his idiocy and ignorance, and one from Albert Einstein. Granted, Einstein often used peculiar language prone to misinterpretation, but he did not believe in a personal God. Here are a couple of quotes, whereby Einstein definitively states his position:

1. “It was, of course a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal god and have not denied this but expressed it clearly. If something is in me that can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.”
2. “I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own — a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty. Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotisms.”

Ouch Ray, now that’s gotta hurt! Here’s the lesson: if you’re going to use arguments from authority (fallacious anyway), it might be a good idea to find out what that authority really thinks, or you risk looking a tad silly (or sillier, but that’s hardly possible with this idiot).

Ray then takes it upon himself to redefine the term 'atheist' as someone who has a positive belief that there is no God (strong atheism), rather than someone who simply does not believe in God. So Ray, how is strong atheism less reasonable than belief in God? It's a much more reasonable position, given the evidence and the findings of science. He feels that strong atheism is an unreasonable position because:

"Let's say that this circle represents all the knowledge in the entire universe, and let's assume that you have an incredible 1% of all that knowledge. Is it possible, that in the knowledge you haven't yet come across, there is ample evidence to prove that God does indeed exist?"

Oh, so we should believe in God because there may be evidence that we are unaware of. According to this insane illogic, not only would we have to believe in God, but every single thing that we can possibly conceive of. I wonder if Ray believes in fairies, as well.

Further on, Ray has this to say about the problem of evil:

“Perhaps you have questions that hold you back from faith. First, almost every question you have about suffering humanity etc., can be adequately answered.”

Can they, adequately? Well, why didn’t you? I’m willing to bet his answers would include the following stupidities:

1. The Lord works in mysterious ways.
2. It’s God’s will, and we lowly humans cannot comprehend it.
3. God is pissed off because not enough people are sucking up to him, or following his stupid rules.
4. Satan is bad, and he dun all the badness.
   

Adequate answers within the framework of religious claims about God? I think not. Here are the real reasons for human suffering:

1. People are idiots; and
2. There are too many people; and
   
3. Shit happens.