OMG the world is going to end in 2012! No... it's not.

This is a cross/guest post from The Alien's Blog.

A transcript of a statement from David Morrison at NASA!

...I'm a space scientist at NASA Ames Research Center. For the last two years Ive been answering hundreds of questions from the public about 2012 and the supposed threat to earth. And so now I want to take a chance to talk to some of you more directly.

There is no threat to earth in 2012. There is no danger. All of the talk about a doomsday is a big hoax perpetuated on the Internet and with people trying to make money. So please dont worry about it. Let me talk about some of the specific things. There has been a lot of talk about a Planet-x, or a Niburu as a giant planet that's going to hit the earth or at least come very close in December 2012. The simple fact is Nibiru does not exist.

Aside from worrying about the weird places, the ideas came from, all you have to do is ask the astronomers. If Nibiru or Planet-X were going to come into the inner solar system in 2012, astronomers would have been tracking it for the last decade. All over the world, amateur as well as professional. And it would be visible now to the naked eye. Its not there. Its a no-show. There's nothing to worry about some object coming and striking the earth or damaging us.

There's also been concern about a so-called galactic alignment. Because in December of every year the sun is roughly in the direction of the galactic center as seen from earth. This happens every year, it really does not mean anything, and there is nothing special about 2012. If you're not worried about December 2009, don't worry about December 2012. In fact, alignments, although it may sound scary to some people, are just not an issue for scientists. There are no special forces when planets align, or the sun aligns. It is sort of a curiosity, but not something of real scientific interest.

There's also been concern that somehow the earths poles are going to flip. No one quite explains how this could happen, and if you're talking about the rotation pole of the earth, that cant change. It never has and it never will. Some people however are concerned about the change in the magnetic polarity. A shift of the north and south pole which does take place every few hundred thousand years. But there is no reason to think it will happen in 2012, and actually no evidence that it would do any harm to us, even if it did happen. Some people couple this with ideas of solar outbursts, of flares, or coronal mass ejections, which could do great damage to the earth. Well, the solar maximum takes place every 11 years, and occasionally there is some damage to satellites in orbit. And we see bright aurora or northern lights here, but very little real damage is done. And there's no solar maximum predicted in 2012. The next solar maximum is predicted for the spring of 2013, and its actually anticipated that it will be much lower than usual.

Again, all this 2012 talk is just a hoax. Its a fake. Its nothing you should worry about. I get questions from many people who are really scared, even some young people who have said they are contemplating suicide, this sort of thing. Its really sad. And the point of my talking to you now is just to explain to you that there is no problem there. And the many things you see on the Internet and Youtube where people claim that there is some horrible threat about to descend on us are not true. Don't worry about 2012, and enjoy 2013 when it comes...

No-matter what 2012 brings, I'm sure it will be no more than any other year brings, and I bet you we are still here in 2013.

I blatantly stole this from Combom's website, a website almost entirely dedicated to Doctor Who. The link to the article directly is here and the link to the rest of the blog is here and I sure hope he does not mind me taking it given the need to repost this information as many places as possible so we can prevent loads of people from doing something stupid in 2012. I hope to also convince a few of my friends to repost this on their Athiest/science blogs so as many people out there can comfort the scared that all is well. I thank Combom so much for his blog and for posting this information.

Interview with Ray Comfort!

The other day I got the opportunity to send Ray Comfort (who blogs here and writes just about everywhere) some questions. Here they are!

Dear Mr. Comfort,

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to e-interview you on my blog. I know you do lots of interviews, so I tried to ask you some questions in this interview that are a little bit out-of-the-box. Of course, you're not obligated to answer any of them. Some of them are questions that were suggested by my commenters.

A very odd thing happens when I try to talk to Christians about this famous Christian named Ray Comfort – none of them seem to know who you are! Do you think you're more well-known to atheists or to Christians, and why?

Not every Christian watches TV or reads books. However, it seems that most atheists (thanks the Richard Dawkins and others) are pretty familiar with the brainless idiot known as "banana-man."

(Asked by my friend Pastor Keith): What is the gospel?

In a nutshell--that Christ died for our sins and rose again on the third day. The word "gospel" means good news, and the gospel doesn't make sense until we see why we need it, in the same way the good news of a cure makes no sense until we understand that we have a disease. The terminal disease is sin. If it's allowed to take its course, it will not only kill us, it will justly take us to a terrible place of punishment called "Hell"--because each of us has violated God's Law (the Ten Commandments). He sees lust as adultery and hatred as murder. He is morally perfect, and that leaves us all in big trouble. The good news is that God is rich in mercy, became a human being, and took our punishment upon Himself. That means, because Jesus paid our fine and rose again from the dead, God can legally let us walk out of the courtroom. He can forgive us and let us live. Our case can be dismissed upon repentance and trust in the Savior. The good news is that any of us can have everlasting life. Read the Gospel of John for details.

(Asked by reader Gord) Can you define "kind"? What is the closest equivalent to "kind" in taxonomy? Species? Genus? Something else?

The word "kind" is the biblical word for "species." God created dogs to reproduced dogs, cats to reproduce cats. Every animal was created to bring forth after its own kind. The Book of Genesis repeats this many times in the first chapter to make it clear, for those of us who are a little slow. We see evidence of this, both in the fossil record, and in living creation. The meaning of the word "species" has changed over the years. At one point it was synonymous with "kinds." However, nowadays it is used differently in different circles.

(Also asked by Gord, long question): Have you met, chat[tted] with or otherwise communicated with an Old Earth Creationist named Adnan Oktar (pen name of Harun Yahya)? His argument for creation is that despite Millions of years of existence, the fossil record shows that all kind[s] of creatures does not display any form of change at all. A fossil of a fish seems to be the same as a modern fish, a fossil of a bird seems to be the same as a modern bird, etc. He says that this clearly shows that creative genius of his Creator, Allah. What fossil evidence can you point out to him that he is clearly mistaken, that micro-evolution does happen and that an ancient fish is very dissimilar to a modern fish. An ancient bird is very dissimilar to a modern bird, etc.? What physical evidence can you show him to demonstrate that the God of the Bible is the creative force behind all of these micro-evolution? Evidence that is so compelling that nothing in the Koran can dispute to it's truth?

I have never heard of Mr. Oktar and I am therefore not familiar with his arguments, other than what you have related. Those who believe that a fish fossil is "ancient" reveal their unquestioning faith in dating methods. The fact that a fossil of a bird is different from a modern bird simply means that the Creator made them different. There was no transition from one species to another, so micro-evolution has nothing to do with Darwinian evolution. We can see micro-evolution throughout the entire creation of God--both in the fossil record and living things--from the small finch to the large albatross, from the massive Great Dane to the tiny chihuahua. These are variations within species.

As for the God of the Bible being the Creator. That's simple. The moral Law , which Moslems embrace (the Law of Moses), leaves all of humanity condemned to death and on the path to Hell. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is the only God-given means of escape. Islam has no answer to that, our biggest dilemma (see John 8:31-32).

(Asked by EdW) You have talked to a huge number of people about their beliefs over the years, atheists and Christians alike. According to your understanding of Christianity, broadly speaking how many would go to Heaven if the world ended tomorrow?

God only knows. The only way anyone can have assurance of everlasting life is to repent, trust Jesus alone for their salvation (without good works--see Ephesians 2:8-9) and show the genuine nature of your repentance by living a life free from hypocrisy (something the Bible calls "holiness"). You don't have to be a rocket scientist to know that there aren't too many who do that. The modern church is full of pretenders, and they will be sorted out from the genuine, on the Day of Judgment.

Can you comment on the claim that part of your introduction to the 150th anniversary edition of Origin of Species was plagiarized?

No.

You're voting in a local election, and you have a choice of voting for two candidates: one candidate advocates all of the policies you advocate for, and seems rather intelligent, qualified and is an atheist. The other candidate stands against all of the policies you stand for, does not seem qualified, seems a little dim and is a Christian. Who do you vote for and why? (For me, if the situation were reversed and I had the choice of voting for an unqualified atheist or a qualified Christian, I would not hesitate to vote for the Christian)

I would never vote for anyone who advocated the murder of children in the womb. If an atheist was pro-life, of course I would vote for him. However, I will qualify that answer. A person who is surrounded by creation and yet denies the axiom that there is a Creator, isn't smart in the truest sense of the word. So an atheist disqualifies himself from the race, by the very nature of his life-philosophy. Any person who is a Christian, however dumb he may be in your eyes, is very wise because he has obeyed the gospel and has everlasting life. The day will come when you will see that to be true.

Have you ever been really stumped by a question someone asked you on the blog or on the street? If so, what question stumped you?

There are many questions I can't answer. One is why God allows suffering (it's not that suffering exists--the Bible explains it in that we live in a "fallen" creation). But why does God allow it? This is a mystery but it is not a dilemma to me. The day will come when we (those that love God) will have complete understanding. In the meanwhile, I trust Him with all of my heart, mind, soul and strength (almost every other question has a rational answer. I published something called The Evidence Bible that contains 100 of the most commonly asked question of the Christian faith).

What do you think of all of the atheist billboards that are going up across the USA?

I love them. They make people think about God.

Do you think that atheists and theists should try to coexist? Why or why not? How?

Yes, I think we should co-exist. There is a problem though. I regularly pray for atheists, buy them meals, send them money/vouches to restaurants, give them gifts, and yet they return hatred for my love. If you think I am exaggerating, Google my name and get ready for your ears to tingle. So the problem isn't with Christians--we love atheists. It's with the angry, militant, God-hating, God-blaspheming, God-denying atheist, who sees it as his mission in life to rid our country of any semblance of God. These folk meet regularly to talk about God and how He doesn't exist. They write books about Him. They hang around Christian blogs like bugs around a campfire. They put up billboards about God, and they see us as the enemy. So if a sword exists, it comes from your side, not ours.

Obviously, I have read your entire book (You Can Lead an Atheist To Evidence, but You Can't Make Him Think), given that on my blog I responded to something on almost every page. What books by modern biologists or atheists have you read? Have you read any to the same depth?

Evolution For Dummies (I'm sure some would say that that is an appropriate book for me). The Wild World of the Future talks about future evolution speculation, as opposed to the usual evolution speculation of past. The last book I read was the modern biologist's bible--On the Origin of Species. I read it from cover to cover and found it a difficult read because most of it is pretty boring. I have heard atheists say the same thing. However, thanks to our generous giveaway of a total of 205,000 copies, others can read for themselves what Darwin actually believed, and make up their own minds. Thanks for letting me give my side of the argument. Best wishes.

Petter on Statistics and Medicine

Petter is such a good blogger, I am inclined to make him a contributor.

Once again, my most awesome commenter Petter Häggholm who wrote this guest post and this Ray a Day post and blogs over here (or by RSS; you can use tags to narrow it down to essay-style posts, or only posts related to skepticism or religion), has extended his EPIC WIN BRAINMEAT to my blog. Enjoy!

During my coffee break, I read an article in Scientific American Mind called Knowing Your Chances (available online). I think it is an outstanding article, and you should read it. The most evocative part may have been a simple example:

Consider a woman who has just received a positive result from a mammogram and asks her doctor: Do I have breast cancer for sure, or what are the chances that I have the disease? In a 2007 continuing education course for gynecologists, Gigerenzer asked 160 of these practitioners to answer that question given the following information about women in the region:

• The probability that a woman has breast cancer (prevalence) is 1 percent.
• If a woman has breast cancer, the probability that she tests positive (sensitivity) is 90 percent.
• If a woman does not have breast cancer, the probability that she nonetheless tests positive (false-positive rate) is 9 percent.

What is the best answer to the patient’s query?

1. The probability that she has breast cancer is about 81 percent.
2. Out of 10 women with a positive mammogram, about nine have breast cancer.
3. Out of 10 women with a positive mammogram, about one has breast cancer.
4. The probability that she has breast cancer is about 1 percent.

Before you read on, take a brief moment to think about it, but also note your gut feeling. Done? Let’s continue:

Gynecologists could derive the answer from the statistics above, or they could simply recall what they should have known anyhow. In either case, the best answer is C; only about one out of every 10 women who test positive in screening actually has breast cancer. The other nine are falsely alarmed. Prior to training, most (60 percent) of the gynecologists answered 90 percent or 81 percent, thus grossly overestimating the probability of cancer. Only 21 percent of physicians picked the best answer—one out of 10.
Doctors would more easily be able to derive the correct probabilities if the statistics surrounding the test were presented as natural frequencies. For example:

• Ten out of every 1,000 women have breast ­cancer.
• Of these 10 women with breast cancer, nine test positive.
• Of the 990 women without cancer, about 89 nonetheless test positive.

Thus, 98 women test positive, but only nine of those actually have the disease. After learning to translate conditional probabilities into natural frequencies, 87 percent of the gynecologists understood that one in 10 is the best answer.

I’m happy to say that I did get it right on the first try, but I strongly agree witht the authors’ opinion that it is not intuitive when the statistics are cited as probabilities rather than natural frequencies. The reason I got it right is because I’ve done a bit of math and a wee bit of stats, I enjoy reading some blogs that talk about medical statistics, I know some of the not-quite-obvious ground rules of probabilities; I know what Type I and Type II errors are (even if I occasionally mix them up)…

…And, perhaps crucially, I’ve spent time thinking about false positives in medical testing before. When I get my periodic routine screenings for STIs (I’ve never had symptoms or tested positive for any, I’m glad to say, but I feel a responsible person should get tested anyway!), I’ve asked myself the hypothetical question What if it did show positive for, say, HIV? What are the odds that I would actually have it? (It turns out that if you’re a heterosexual male, and if you test positive for HIV, there’s about a 50% chance that you don’t have it! You should play it safe, but get re-tested and don’t panic. Some people commit suicide when they get positive test results, even though they’re as likely as not to be healthy.)

Still, while my gut told me the answer was not A (wherein I did better than most of the gynecologists), I had to think about it for a minute to figure out which was the proper answer. People need to be educated on this stuff. Meanwhile, if you haven’t had the benefit of statistical education, keep this one thing in mind: The obvious answer is not always correct, so if you’re unsure, ask someone who can do the maths. And, sadly, even your doctor may not know. I actually find it rather sad that as after learning to translate conditional probabilities into natural frequencies, 87 percent of the gynecologists understood that one in 10 is the best answer, this means that even after simplification, more than 1 in 10 gynecologists didn’t get it. Your doctor can spot the symptoms and order the right tests, but you may need a mathematically inclined friend to actually calculate the risks.

The God Virus: Darrel Ray Interview

Awhile back, I promised that I'd be interviewing Darrel W. Ray, who wrote The God Virus: How Religion Infects our Lives and Culture.

My original review of the book can be found here.  Enjoy!

 

1. In your chapter on guilt, you talk about the guilt instilled by the church regarding masturbation. I think that certain religions attempt to make people feel guilty about the absolutely healthy activity of masturbation, because most people have a very powerful instinctual urge to masturbate. How can we get someone bound by religion to see this from an objective standpoint? How can we convince them that forcing yourself to refrain from masturbation can lead to negative consequences?


Religion puts a huge amount of time and resources into the guilt channel, but especially the sexual guilt channel because it is so irresistible.  Religion is not trying to stop masturbation, sex before marriage, masturbation in marriage, etc. It is trying to create a guilt cycle in a person which then binds the person closer and closer to the religion.  It defies logic, because there is nothing logical about guilt that was learned/taught when we are too young to have rational defenses against it.  As a result, it is very difficult for intelligent and otherwise rational religious people to see and understand how they were programmed.  In my work as a psychologist, I have found that it is extremely difficult for people to understand and change their childhood programming.  They simply cannot see how much religion played in programming them to feel this type of guilt.  How to show them? I think they have to come to some understanding of other ways that religion has manipulated them or their family.  Once they can acknowledge some level of manipulation, they may be able to see other areas as well.  Sex is probably one of the last places they will be able to see and understand in themselves.  I certainly would not start there, if I were working with someone.

2. You mentioned in your book that Hawaiians had rather unregulated sexual contact, being sex-positive to the point that they were known to engage in coitus in front of their children. In  America , I can barely talk about kissing my boyfriend’s kneecaps on my blog without disturbing people. What are some ways you think we can work to make our culture more sex-positive?


We can talk about it out loud.  We can be more forthright about our sexuality.  I don't try and shock people when I do my presentations, but I do not shy away from using language that celebrates sexuality and gives people permission to think differently.  I did a presentation recently where 5 students from a local fundamentalist college attended.  I intentionally made clear and unambiguous references to masturbation and sex before marriage as good and desirable things.  Needless to say their mouths dropped open, but I noticed that they stayed a half-hour after to talk and ask questions.  I try to talk about sex in a totally matter of fact way, just like I might talk about any other topic.  I try and normalize it in my presentations and conversations.  This takes away the power of fear and guilt that is so automatic in religious people.  They are not used to someone talking so naturally about a taboo topic.  The more we normalize it, the less we give their view of sex respect by avoiding it or pussy footing around it, the more it challenges their world view.  Tip toeing around sex gives it power and perpetuates the myths surrounding it.  Listen to the power religious people give it in their conversation.  Why should be buy into their world view.  I have no respect for their fears and guilt and don't intend to cow tow to the viral programming that they carry with them from childhood.  In essence, I want to say in my actions and casual conversation, "Get a life, sex is part of living and good sex is part of good living. Your god created you with a huge sexual desire, yet he hates you to use it?  Sounds sadistic to me! Is your god kinky?"

 3. Whenever I mention to someone who is religious all of the very obvious ways in which religious morality has changed, they sometimes continue to insist that it hasn’t. Religionists also often say that their morality is absolute, even when you point out exactly how relative it actually is. How can we show people who are religious that the morality of their religion ebbs and flows with the morality of the culture?

For one, they probably won't listen to any kind of reason, because logic is not the answer.  We could list a host of ways that religion changed dramatically in just the last century, but that is not the point.  Religion has nothing to do with logic.  It is an infection of the mind that turns off very specific cognitive and perceptual functions.  If you want to help someone see their world differently, you must use their world view in new ways.  I recently wrote an article on this technique.

    4. Why do you think the myth that religion leads to decreased crime continues to propagate, despite the fact that statistical analysis across the board has shown that this is not the case?

The idea of a mental infection explains this exquisitely.  Data and statistics mean nothing to a mind that cannot see it.  Religionists are programmed to believe that a man rose from the dead, wine becomes blood during communion, prayer can heal cancer, etc.  Part of that deep programming is that religion makes people good or better.  It is a faith statement that is not open to challenge by the data.  People see confirming evidence all around them and ignore the discomfirming evidence.  An interesting example is the beatification process of the Catholic church.  The criteria for Sainthood in the Catholic Church does not require that a saint be a good person with high ethical standards.  It only requires that the candidate have  been exemplary in upholding the church.  This allows some pretty questionable characters to become saints as we are seeing in the beatification of Pope Pius XII who undoubtedly cooperated with the Nazis in the Holocaust, yet he is on the fast track to sainthood.  There are a lot of saints that killed, tortured, and otherwise harmed people in the name of the church.

We can also look at what is criminal in one generation, is not in the next based on the dominant group's view what is criminal. Dominant groups will have the upper hand in staying out of prison, while those in the non-dominant group will be more likely to be criminalized.


   5. How can we discuss the differences in IQ between believers and non-believers without sounding like we’re insulting the intelligence of people who believe?

I don't know how you can do that.  The virus programs people to be immediately defensive when the viral programming is challenged.  At the same time, most people believe they are above average in intelligence regardless of objective measures to the contrary.  Half of the population has to be below 50%, but experiments over the years show that 80% or more of people believe they are above average and 20 believe they are average.  No one thinks they are below average.  In other words, its not just religion but the whole self concept issue.  There is a lot of evidence that those who are most religious are on the whole, less intelligent, but we always have to remember that the bell curve covers the full spectrum in the religious and non-religious.  It is just skewed higher for the non-religious.  There are very intelligent religious people but there are a lot more less intelligent religious people than non-religious.

 6. A lot of people find the title of your book, “The God Virus” to be offensive, including some atheists.  Is there a way to reconcile this?

Yes, I have encountered that. I don't really care.  The metaphor works, so I don't feel the least bit defensive about it.  If they read the book they will see how appropriate the title is.

   7. What do you think your book says about religion that anthropology of religion, sociology of religion, and neuroscience does not say about religion?

Having studied these disciplines most of my life, none seemed to provide an overarching theory of religion as a natural phenomenon.  When I read Dawkins essay, "Viruses of the Mind" I instantly saw how well the virus metaphor ties sociology, neuroscience and anthropology together into a unifying theory.  The God Virus makes the observations of each of these disciplines more understandable than any of them standing alone.

8. People who are religious often say that religion has the upper hand because it is not constantly changing, whereas science is constantly changing. Can you comment on this?

If religion were not constantly changing women would be silent and wear head covering in church.  Women would not be able to choose their husband and divorce would be unheard of.  If religion never changes, then Martin Luther would never have posted his 95 theses and John Calvin would not have preached against the Catholic church and John Wesley would have been a priest.  Science and religion are both changing, the difference is that science has a self correcting mechanism where religion only has a cultural adapting mechanism.  No priest or minister ever tested the Trinity to see if it is true.  The Mormon Church preached that blacks were inferior and ineligible to hold office until the culture shifted under their feet.  Then they changed in a decade or less.  The story can be repeated for the Southern Baptist church regarding slavery, Catholics regarding capitol punishment (remember the inquisition), and much more.


   9. Near the end of your book, I liked what you said about scientific descriptions all being false at some level. To some people who believe in god, this might be a means by which to say that science is false at the “god level”. Can you comment on that?

When the religionists find a way to test the god hypothesis, I will listen to them.  Until then, I am happy to test evolutionary theory, quantum physics, theory of relativity, the theory of gravity and all that is available to study and understand in nature.  In the mean time, my Flying Spaghetti Monster can beat up your Yahweh and Allah.


10. What kind of impact do you think that the idea that “salvation is by faith, not works” has on society?

The concept was Martin Luther's main contribution to the religious debate and the idea undermined the foundational principles of the Catholic monopoly in the 16th century.  It in essence, individualized religion in new ways.  It reduced corporate control from the Catholic church.  It was a new religious paradigm, albeit just as crazy.  It was a direct challenge to the Catholic God Virus.  The subsequent division allowed brave people of the enlightenment to question both Catholic and Protestant viruses.  The result was the beginning of secularism.  In a round-about answer to your question, the unintended consequence of "salvation by faith" was that it allowed the roots of secularism to take hold in the cracks between the Catholic and Protestant viruses.

11. If you could pick one group of people as the greatest target audience for your book, which group would it be?

I think the people who are on the edge of religion are a key group. They know at some level that it is a ridiculous proposition, but don't have a map to help them escape.  People who are already non-theists find the book very useful as a model for talking to religious people, but those who are on the edge need a path.  I have discovered this inadvertently as I speak around the country.  I have had many people tell me that the book made a huge difference in their ability to make the final break with religion.  That is also why I started the Recovering from Religion organization.  People often stay in religion to get their social needs met but they also have to endure the infection of religion to stay.  Recovering from Religion is designed to help people find a path to escape religion and get their normal human social needs met.

A big thanks goes out to Darrel Ray for taking the time to answer my questions!

Ray a Day Guest post: Sam

 Today's Ray a Day is from Sam of Jesus Was a Tit Man.

Last month, Sam debated Ray Comfort at a University on New Zealand. So, he is yet another cool atheist making up for Ray's abuse of the awesome Kiwi accent.

Ray a Day 7:4
In which an angry skeptic asks why if god is so great, does he spend so much of the Old Testament acting like Hitler in the grips of three-week coke binge.  

So when we last left Ray a Day an angry skeptic was asking Ray whether god in his infinite righteousness, forgiveness and mercy could ever be such a douche that he couldn’t forgive himself? And Ray was answering by saying that

“God… is perfect. He is without sin. He is absolute purity of holiness. He cannot have an evil thought or make an evil decision… all of his judgments are righteous and true altogether.”

While this has already been dealt with by Ziztur, this is worth considering here as it demonstrates that Ray is not only a lousy human being, a woefully incompetent writer, a liar, a fraud, a mountebank and an embarrassment to the south Pacific - if not the whole Pacific - but also an incompetent Christian who knows no more of theology than the pope’s cat.

The question of how god could be all good and all-powerful is a major problem, as it is, as Ziztur pointed out, logically contradictory and impossible.  If god is all-powerful he must be able to commit evil acts, meaning that he is not perfectly good. Conversely if he is perfectly good and could not commit evil then he is not all-powerful. Matters were made worse by Anselm of Canterbury’s positing of god as “that than which nothing greater can be conceived." As such if it turned out that god was limited either in his goodness, or his power, then his perfection and therefore his godhood would be rendered partial as one could always conceive of another being of greater power, or more perfect goodness.

Anyhow the solution they came to was what was called Devine Volunteerism, or the compromise that though all-powerful, god had chosen in his perfect goodness to constrain himself to be only good. While this might seem a piddling distinction, there is an important implication here as, god’s goodness is, as the term implies, voluntary and could be retracted at any time.

And this is where Ray shows himself to be not only an ignorant idiot, but also a dangerous idiot. Although Ray often comes over all flushed and dizzy when considering the immorality of the godless (see Ray a Day 5:9), Ray himself possesses such a twisted and repulsive lack of any, even adumbral understanding of morality, as to put one in mind of Nietzsche’s warning that  “if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.”

To look into the craven and sinisterly empty mind of Ray is to look into the mind of every Eichmann, SS Officer, death camp guard and secret police gun thug and death squad trigger man, and revolutionary guard strong man, who ever gunned down pregnant women, or shepherded a Jew into a gas chamber, or made a troublesome teenager disappear or raped a young girl so she could be hung without breaking the Islamic prohibition on executing virgins, and who slept soundly that night, secure in the knowledge that they were just following orders. If you think this is going a touch far, consider that when asked the perfectly valid question of how a moral perfect god could have spent so much of the old testament ordering rape, genocide and slavery, Ray replies, with all the baleful and blood curdling enthusiasm of a Klan rally:

“If you think that was bad, how about the fact that god has proclaimed a death sentence upon every man, woman and child? It gets worse. Eternal Damnation in a terrible place called hell awaits everyone who has done evil. Everyone. The day will come when absolute justice will be done. That’s wonderful news … if you’re not a criminal in god’s eyes. And if his judgment upsets you, here’s a verse to think about: “ All of god’s judgments are righteous and true altogether.” I trust him and I am not at all offended by anything he does.”

I understand that it is all too easy to become inured to Ray’s deceptive demagoguery and bloody minded bombast,  and think that, whatever he says is just Ray being Ray. However, to put the above in some sort of context I would urge you to compare it with Rudolf Hess’s claim that

“The National Socialism of all of us is anchored in uncritical loyalty, in the surrender to the Fuhrer that does not ask for the why in individual cases, in the silent execution of his orders. We believe that the Fuhrer is obeying a higher call… There can be no criticism of this belief.”

If you can spot a substantive difference here, then I would be glad to hear it. And this is where the rubber meets the road. Ray is that most dangerous of all moral degenerates, the slimy little sycophantic spit licker who is evil not because he enjoys it, or revels in it, but simply to show his loyalty and dedication to his unrequited love. As such, Ray is convinced in his own moral righteousness and ethical purity, though neither ethics nor morals have the power to touch him.  For Ray is, by his own lights, always right. As whatever he does is the will of god, and as god is the well spring of all morals (as demonstrated by God’s righteousness, which, as it can only be measured against god’s self same righteousness) is always perfect.

And it is this terrifying tautology that marks out the true maniacal menace. For, to return to the beginning, what happens when and if god gives up his self-imposed and voluntarily goodness? What happens if Ray wakes to find god, booming in his head about the need to kill the queers or liquidate the libertines? From what Ray has said, we can only assume that he would mutter “the ways of God are strange,” as he pulls on his boots and checks the edge on his knife.

Ray a Day Guest Post: Marc Newcomb

Aww, have you guys missed Ray a Day? Well guess what, our friend Marc decided that it was his turn. Enjoy:


As Ziztur's now busy with reviewing the trip to the Truth About Origins seminar, I'm doing a guest post to help with the extremely lengthy task of correcting the many errors in Ray Comfort's new book.

Today's "angry skeptic" states,

"The God that I read about in the Bible is quite capricious. You never know when he might smite one."

In the first part of his response, Ray claims that the skeptic only thinks this because he is unable to understand God's judgments.

"I can understand why you feel that the God of the Bible is capricious. To you, His judgments make no sense. That's because you are not God. I'm not being facetious. I'm reminding you that you aren't omniscient. It is because He has all knowledge that all of His judgments are righteous and true altogether. Your knowledge is extremely limited, so how could you begin to understand the judgments of Almighty God?"

Obviously the skeptic has made no claim to omniscience. It is possible to admit that our own knowledge is limited, while using what limited knowledge we have to form ideas about morality and assess whether certain characters (such as Jehovah) appear to be acting morally.

If our knowledge is just too limited to make any judgment at all on the morality of God, as Comfort seems to be claiming here, then the logical response is to withhold judgment, refusing to call God's alleged acts either good or evil. Comfort generally rejects this option, and chooses to judge God's actions as good, despite having the same limitations as the skeptic. He doesn't seem to realize that by calling God's actions good, he is making a judgment on God's morality just as much as any skeptic is. Judging God's actions to be good is still judging them. It is hypocritical of him to dispute the right of others to make the same kind of judgment just because they come to a different conclusion. Asking how the skeptic can possibly understand the judgments of God is especially hypocritical when Ray makes far more precise and wide-ranging claims about God's judgments than any skeptic does.

Comfort continues,

"Let's look at your moral judgments for a moment. Do you think homosexuality is morally wrong? Of course you don't (I'm guessing). How about fornication? Adultery? Murder? Rape? Lying and stealing? If you say that any of these things are morally wrong, from where do you get your standard of judgment? Is it your own moral standard? Perhaps you say that it's whatever society considers to be morally correct."

But where does Ray get his moral judgments from? The commands of God? Why does Ray consider that a good moral standard? Perhaps he think that he owes God for the good things God has provided. But then don't we have a similar obligation to society, for the things society has provided? What consistency or basis does Biblical morality have that makes it any less arbitrary than just following society?

"So then if society says that homosexuality is morally okay, then you agree. If society says that fornication (sex outside of marriage) is okay, then you agree."

And if God says marrying and having a child with your half sister is okay (as Abraham did, with God's approval), then Ray must agree.

"Then if society says that it's morally right to exterminate Jews, then you must say that it's okay, because you have no moral absolutes."

And if God says that it's morally right for those same Jews to be tortured in Hell for following the right God in the wrong way, then Ray must agree. If God says that it's morally right to exterminate Amalekites, then Ray must say that it's okay, because Ray has no moral absolutes. He has only blind obedience to, and approval of, commands which he does not understand.

Most people that I have met, whether skeptic or Christian or anything else, seem to base their morality on empathy and enlightened self-interest. Despite the claims of Ray Comfort and other Christians, people in general are not wholly evil and selfish, and even if they were, most people can appreciate that injustice and random violence are not in their own best interests.

Ray's amorality continues into a final paragraph:

"The thought of you ending up in Hell grieves me. I can hardly entertain it. But I know that if a holy and perfect God judges you by His perfect moral standard, that is where you will end up."

It grieves Ray? He can hardly entertain it? Why is Ray Comfort so grieved by what he considers justice? Is it so regrettable for justice to be done? How can Ray be sorry that I am going to Hell, and yet approve of the decision to send me there? The inconsistency here reveals that Ray is instinctively against punishment in Hell, but ignores its obvious immorality because he thinks God demands it.

"You may go kicking and screaming (like a murderer to the electric chair), but you will still go there. Please look for a moment at the Ten Commandments. Go through them and ask if you have kept them in light of what Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount. If you are honest, you will come to the same conclusion that I came to one night in 1972. I am a sinner. I need a savior."

Ray's answer ends as it began, with a collection of unsupported statements. Apparently Ray's idea of being "honest" means accepting God as a moral authority. Blindly obeying a God whose reported acts seem to me to be immoral is not my idea of honesty. Ray has provided no evidence for the claim that there is a God judging us, and even if there is one, there is no guarantee that denying our own morality to obey the commands of an ancient text will make that God approve of us. We can't know how a god might judge us, but we can be loyal to our own sense of morality and reason. As a certain Jean-Luc Picard once said, if we're going to be damned, let's be damned for what we really are.

The Beautiful Kind vs. Jehovah's Witnesses

This is a blog post by my fellow blogger (who is a sex-positive kinkster) The Beautiful Kind. Her moniker is, "Be open and honest. Don't be ashamed of your inner pervert. Work the kinks OUT." She was recently visited by some Jehovah's Witnesses, and she blogs about her experience here:

The other day I was sitting around enjoying my lady of leisure status when the doorbell rang. I was wearing clothes for a change, so I answered it.

As soon as I did I thought, "Oh here we go again!"

I have a rule that if a religious person ever seeks me out to talk about their religion, I gladly take them up on the offer. I have an open mind, and love hearing what they have to say. I have to admit it is incredibly amusing. I feel like a cat batting around a mouse. I'm not mean or snide at all about it, in fact I pretty much act delighted with everything they say. And I ask them A LOT of questions.

The two at my door were Jehovah's Witness, a black matronly woman and an Asian middle aged woman. The black woman was in charge. She introduced herself and told me she wanted to talk to me about some amazing things - Jesus was alive and there would be no more suffering in this world. People would come back to life, and we would return to the state of Eden.

This was all pretty incredible, so I responded appropriately. "REALLY! Oh my gosh, that is AMAZING! I know Jesus just had his Easter party didn't he? So he keeps coming back to life right?"

"Well he's in heaven now," she explained.

"And I'm ALL about reducing suffering in the world. That's why I'm vegetarian - it's humane, and we were vegan in Eden, did you know that?"

"Yes, that's right," they said.

"You should be vegetarian, it's really good for you. Factory farming is a cruel industry, you know. I refuse to support something like that." It seemed only fair that if they were going to push their agenda, I would plug mine as well.

They nodded and smiled politely.

"But back to what you said about how people can come back to life - that is awesome! I've never heard that before. I always thought death was final. Doctors should know about this - they could really use the information! I'm so glad you are spreading the word!"

They asked if I'd like to do bible study with them. I said SURE! I'd love to learn all about the bible. I asked them to come back at 11 the next day.

The next morning I finished my porn review, masturbated, then got dressed for bible study. It was so cool they were coming to me, and bringing me a bible and everything.

They asked me which section of the study guide I'd like to know about. I picked the one about Spirit Creatures.

This time the black woman brought her adult daughter with her in lieu of the Asian woman. They sat on the couch and asked me to read parts of the study guide and bible to them. I LOVE reading out loud, so I was glad to do so. The problem was, everything I read MADE NO FUCKING SENSE.

Here is an example: "Angels are sons of god. God created ten thousand times tens of thousands angels through his firstborn son."

So I asked questions.

"Wait, so angels are boys? I thought they were girls. How come all the angels depicted are beautiful women?"

They said those were artist interpretations.

"And is Jesus an angel?"

"Yes."

"So god created heaven, then Jesus, and then Jesus created all the angels?"

"Yes."

"So where are the angels?"

"They are invisible, and up in heaven."

"Why are they up in heaven?"

"So they can do god's bidding. They are his army."

"OH so Jesus is like the sergeant, and then other angels are soldiers?"

"Yes they have different ranks - sherubs and cherubs - "

"Cherubs are those fat little baby angels, right? Oh but wait they are invisible. So does god really tell them all what to do? I mean how can he keep track of all of them? Don't they get bored hanging around heaven waiting for orders? I mean what is there to DO in heaven anyway? It's not like they have ditches to dig or anything."

They tried to get me back on track, but the whole thing was so confusing. We only made it a page into the study guide, cuz every sentence required clarification. I never even got to the evil demon part of spirit creatures. I wanted to ask them how they KNEW which spirits were good and bad, cuz if they were invisible, couldn't a bad spirit just SAY he was a good guy?

Finally they suggested that we try starting at the beginning for our next lesson ("What is the Truth About God?") That might answer all the questions I was having about god. I was agreeable.

They told me I had a lot of great questions, which was nice of them. Unfortunately they didn't have a lot of great answers. :(

But that's OK, we'll give it another go. In fact, I plan on meeting with them as many times as they want before they finally give up.

In the meantime, I better hide my bible from Beast...  (link to http://www.thebeautifulkind.com/2008/11/19/three-days-solo-in-a-hotel-room/ )

Ray a Day Guest Post: Augustine79

Here is a guest post by Augustine79, our resident ethical Catholic!

In Ray Comfort’s book, You can lead and Atheist to Evidence but You Can’t Make Him Think, he proposes that Christian theology purports that human moral action does not lead one to salvation. In other words, God does not care about right living with a pure conscience, as long as a human being believes in Christ. My intention here is to expose, to the best of my ability, accurate Christian teaching that flows from human reason, from scripture, and sacred tradition.

Logically, if God is just then it would follow that the deeds of His creation would be taken into account depending on upon whether their actions are immoral or moral. Otherwise, humanity would have absolutely no intrinsic value and goodness, insofar as it can be known either through reason or divine Revelation, would mean nothing.

Before I refute Ray’s uncompassionate, heart-wrenching view of God, here is the actual excerpt I will be contesting:

“All manmade religions still offer sacrifices. That’s the altar upon which they are built – the sacrifice of prayer, of giving money, of giving time, doing good works, of doing penance, of fasting, etc. They have to sacrifice, because they still have guilt, because the conscience demands a continual sacrifice. Not so with Christianity. The guilt is removed because the sacrifice was accepted. Completely. And our guilt is dismissed through simple repentance and faith in Jesus.”

Most of the audience who reads this passage would be quite bewildered by these clearly contradictory statement to Christian living. The Bible explicitly states that good works are organically linked to faith as a part of the equation of infused salvation. Ray subscribes to Sola Fide, or faith alone; bringing one to salvation. Ray, and many fundamentalists hold this view based on Romans 4. However, St. Paul never used this term, and furthermore exposed that justification by faith is something you have you do as well as believe. The only place in the Bible where ‘faith alone’ is used is in the Epistle of James. This passage also proves that salvation involves right action. ““What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can such faith save him? …You see then that a man is justified by works, and not by faith only…? For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.” (James 2:14, 24, 26)

In addition to this, the sacrament of Baptism is known in scripture and tradition to remove original sin. However, Ray would view this as a human work, therefore no grace would be infused within the individual. It is arrogant for Ray to assume that he is saved for eternity based solely on belief, and moral works are superfluous.

Here are excerpts from catholic.com providing scriptural and traditional evidence that this notion supported by most fundamentalist protestants is one hundred percent plain wrong.

“Scripture teaches that one’s final salvation depends on the state of the soul at death. As Jesus himself tells us, "He who endures to the end will be saved" (Matt. 24:13; cf. 25:31–46). One who dies in the state of friendship with God (the state of grace) will go to heaven. The one who dies in a state of enmity and rebellion against God (the state of mortal sin) will go to hell.

For many Fundamentalists and Evangelicals it makes no difference—as far as salvation is concerned—how you live or end your life. You can heed the altar call at church, announce that you’ve accepted Jesus as your personal Savior, and, so long as you really believe it, you’re set. From that point on there is nothing you can do, no sin you can commit, no matter how heinous, that will forfeit your salvation. You can’t undo your salvation, even if you wanted to.”

“Regarding the issue of whether Christians have an "absolute" assurance of salvation, regardless of their actions, consider this warning Paul gave: "See then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God’s kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness; otherwise you too will be cut off" (Rom. 11:22; see also Heb. 10:26–29, 2 Pet. 2:20–21).”

“One can be confident of one’s present salvation. This is one of the chief reasons why God gave us the sacraments—to provide visible assurances that he is invisibly providing us with his grace. And one can be confident that one has not thrown away that grace by simply examining one’s life and seeing whether one has committed mortal sin. Indeed, the tests that John sets forth in his first epistle to help us know whether we are abiding in grace are, in essence, tests of whether we are dwelling in grave sin. For example, "By this it may be seen who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not do right is not of God, nor he who does not love his brother" (1 John 3:10), "If any one says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen" (1 John 4:20), "For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome" (1 John 5:3).”

“Likewise, by looking at the course of one’s life in grace and the resolution of one’s heart to keep following God, one can also have an assurance of future salvation. It is this Paul speaks of when he writes to the Philippians and says, "And I am sure that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ" (Phil. 1:6). This is not a promise for all Christians, or even necessarily all in the church at Philippi, but it is a confidence that the Philippian Christians in general would make it. The basis of this is their spiritual performance to date, and Paul feels a need to explain to them that there is a basis for his confidence in them. Thus he says, immediately, "It is right for me to feel thus about you all, because I hold you in my heart, for you are all partakers with me of grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel" (1:7). The fact that the Philippians performed spiritually by assisting Paul in his imprisonment and ministry showed that their hearts were with God and that it could be expected that they, at least in general, would persevere and remain with God.”

It is important for theists and atheists/skeptics alike to know this simply because most people receive incorrect information regarding Christian doctrine, and are consequently turned off from organized religion altogether. Its astounding and appalling that Ray dismisses sacrifices that are inherently part of Christian living. Prayer, fasting, charity, and putting yourselves before others are all integral to the Christian faith. Christianity is not only about saving yourself, but spreading peace throughout our world through humble servitude. St. Augustine stressed in his grandiose work, The City of God, that Christians are on this earth to improve upon the temporal world by serving the interests of society in general through the enhancement of social ethics and morality.

Ray a Day Guest Post: Tom

May I introduce to you, Mr. Tom!

This segment of Ray's book opens with our atheist asking,

I would like to ask you a couple of relevant question pertaining to the "sacrifice" of Jesus and its purpose. Please logically explain why an omnipotent, omniscient, and omni-benevolent God would need to sacrifice Himself(as Jesus) to Himself(God) in order to forgive man of sins against Him(God)? The entire premise seems totally absurd."

     When I read this, I was looking forward to read how Ray was going to justify this "sacrifice", and hopefully understand this for as I've been wondering this myself. Now, the first part of his reply, on the surface at least, appears to be agreeing with our atheist, by saying "I appreciate the way you said that the sacrifice of the Cross seems absurd. It does." Did anyone else catch that? If read quick, it appears as though he is agreeing with our atheist's saying that the sacrifice seems absurd, while in reality, he isn't.

Instead, he goes on to one of his little stories to try to explain his point of view, in a very similar manner to the one he used back in Ray a Day 3:1.

He starts it out with "Imagine if I said to you, 'I just sold my house, my car, and used all my savings to pay a fine for you.'" And then, in the very next paragraph, he rewords his whole story to take it from making no logical sense, to making even less sense, by making it sound like the person with the fine has really messed up, with the fine coming from numerous violations that just mount one on top of the other. And now, out comes the use of verses from the bible to try to support his point. Here, I actually did something that I haven't done in a while, got out a bible and looked them up, so that I could see exactly what he was referencing.

He claims that we don't know that we've broken God's law and are in trouble. And, just for good measure, he tries to put down atheists by saying that are in a "drunken atheistic stupor" before continuing to say that we have ignored our conscience while rushing to sin. Last time I checked, paying attention to your conscience and being an atheist, or any religious preference for that matter, are mutually exclusive. From here, he goes on to describe how god is "all knowing", and how our "behavior" has made him angry at us.

At this point, he is referencing verse after verse to support his point, and so far they are in support of his point.

Now, he decides to show how as you lie to people that are more important, the punishment goes up. That's something that I've known since I was little, and most other people also know.

And now, a demonstration of Ray's logic, just to prepare you.




We're back, and Ray is going on about how sacrifice doesn't work to reconcile your "sin", and how the Aztecs would conduct human sacrifices to appease the gods when they felt that they had angered them, and then says that "any sacrifice we make is an abomination to God."

Here, I must contradict Ray, by also quoting verse. If you look to Leviticus 1:1 to 7:18, it not only outlines how to make sacrifices and offerings, but also how to atone for one's sins and transgressions as well. If god were so against sacrifices, why then would he have told Moses the process, in detail, for conducting sacrifices and offerings? The only part of what Ray said regarding sacrifice that agrees with this part of the Bible is that human sacrifice isn't acceptable, and is an abomination.

Then, he goes back to trying to explain how Jesus' dying on the cross was a sacrifice to save everyone from sin, after saying himself that all sacrifices are an abomination. And what's he do, quote another verse. Here he introduces a rather interesting irony. Jesus was actually god on earth, but of the three verses he referred to, one actually says it, one implies it, and one is barely even related to what he is trying to say. Now, if Jesus was god, then how is sacrificing him actually a sacrifice? Going back to his story, it would be like the one who was going to pay the fine for you being the one that it was paid to. Doesn't look like much of a sacrifice if you ask me.

Ray is trying to claim that the fact that Jesus was sacrificed on the cross was too save us from death by mentioning that he was raised from the dead. This, when looked at from a scientific standpoint, and knowing what happens when someone is crucified, would be impossible. When someone is crucified, from the angle that they hang at on the cross, their lungs will start to fill with fluid. They also have a hard time breathing, and the only way to get a deep breath is to pull their body up with their arms, which from the location of the spikes, creates excruciating pain. Those two things together, along with exposure, combine to kill the victim. And, once dead, your body immediately begins to decay, and the brain is the first thing to be affected functionally, while the digestive tract is where the main decay begins at. This would make his rising from the dead impossible, and based scientific fact regarding what happens after you die, the biggest hoax in human history.

He's tries to use this to show why giving money to charities, praying, and other self sacrifice won't help you when it comes to sins. If you look at the fact that when the bible was originally written, livestock was the measure of your wealth and social status, then this actually makes very little sense. If you were to update the instructions on how to make a sacrifice according to what is written in Leviticus to modern terms, you would literally give money to the church, for the priest to sacrifice for you, to atone for your sins.

He proposes that the whole reason that god sacrificed Jesus as atonement for our sins is that it would be out of his character to just forgive us. Now, if it were out of his character to forgive us, then why would he have Jesus die for our sins as a sacrifice, after providing everything needed? If his character isn't one of forgiveness, and he were bound to his character, then why would he go out of his way and give us a means to forgive those sins? It just doesn't add up. Only for him to say that if we don't repent, we'll pay the price. Now, if you don't believe in a heaven, hell, or afterlife, then what price could he be talking about? There has yet to be any solid scientific proof that heaven, hell, or any other afterlife exist that I've seen, so how would we pay for not repenting? By dying, which everything that is living is bound to do at some point.

Ray finishes up by claiming that he has proven his point, which he has danced around as carefully as he could. He failed to logically explain the "sacrifice" of Jesus. Nowhere did he say or explain how it makes any sense to make a sacrifice to yourself, and still have it count as a sacrifice.

He closes this section up by saying "For the message of the Cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God," only to throw in a post script saying that if it still seems absurd to read that quote through to figure out why it seems absurd.

From reading this, he seems to only like the parts of the Bible that he can use to support his opinion, and to pretend that the others don't exist. And the whole while, when asked a question that needs a logical explanation, to dance around it and provide no real answer to the question. If I were to base my religious decisions off of Ray Comfort, I would be looking more at anything other than Christianity.

This has been Tom doing my guest Ray A Day post. Hope you all have also seen the lack of true logic that Ray uses. Thank you Ziztur for this opportunity.

Ray a Day Guest Post: Alien

Here is a guest Ray a Day by The Alien, who is my longtime friend (we've known each other like 10 years):

I am sure I am adding to the beating of a dead, decimated, now barely visible as once a living being horse here with my post, however that does seem to be the point of the Ray A Day blog entries, so I will also enjoy adding to the sense-ful beating. Ray says:

Yet God, in His justice and holiness, cannot let our sins remain unpunished. More than that, because of His love for us, He hates it that sin separates us from Him. He knows even better than we how desperately we need saving, and the only One powerful enough to save us is the One Who created us in the first place. God, therefore, did the only thing He could do that would satisfy both His justice and His love for us. In the Person of Jesus Christ, he took our sins upon Himself, thereby paying our debt and offering us a chance at salvation and a restored relationship with Him.

The Alien holds her head in her hands as she reads this, amazed at the fact that a rather educated-seeming man could write something that contradicts itself not once, but twice, in just one paragraph. It starts with idea that God is All. There is Nothing Without God - note that starts the bible itself. It's the first...words. "In The Beginning God Created the Heavens and the Earth."

If God created everything, and everything is created by God, then nothing can be not created by God. The snake, the devil, all was created by him...and what the Alien fails to understand how the Devil cannot be his creation or become something different than his creation - if nothing else exists that is not of God's creation. I will attempt to render this in mathematical format as I see it. Let's represent God as one. We'll represent the Devil as 0 as it is seen as different, outside of God.

1=1 (there is nothing else)

1+0=1 (Even with the addition of something new, everything still equals God.)

We'll take more numbers here. Thinking of everything God has created, we can assume that they were all a part of him at some point as everything was God to start. The number is huge, so I will make a more comprehensible number here, let's say 321.

321 = 1^321  (All parts of God)

321+0=321 (All parts of God plus devil...don't do anything)

No matter what we do mathematically here (in basic math anyway), the devil does not, cannot, hurt anything. It cannot separate or divide something which is part of a larger something. How is it, Mr. Comfort, if 0 cannot separate 321 parts of God, how can the devil? He cannot, of course, because in the normal world (not the mathematical one), he does not exist! He cannot exist as away from God when it is impossible by the words of your own bible, to be separate from him! No matter what we do, feel, think, or say, we are saying everything that can only exist because we are a part of Him!

Of course, the next part just reads even more insensibly using my same thoughts above. By the words of the Bible and by Comfort here, apparently a Part of God came down to reside in another Part of God to help cleanse other Parts of God from something that does not exist.( I shall use the |, which means Restriction.) Mathematically, 1+1=2 | 0

So us Parts of God needed another Part of God to pay our debt against a nonexistance that does nothing to us in order to guarantee our restoration of a relationship with God.

The Alien wonders if any Christians actually think of the mathematics behind their God and Devil's existance -  because no matter what way I crunch the numbers, even if God exists, God is highly more likely to exist than the Devil is, and Jesus suddenly seems...unnecessary.

Ray a Day Guest Post: Nigel

Here is a guest post by Nigel!

This section was quite interesting as it's something I have never really looked into very much 'End Time Prophecy'

Here is what the 'Atheist' has to say.

The question raises (for me at least) the whole issue of the rapture. Proof for the existence of God? I think that would pretty much do it for me... According to the myth, people will vanish, the dead will rise and head off to heaven - and will most likely be under the control of a Jewish homosexual world leader... Let us not forget that we will also get a red moon and a black sun - a huge meteor will burn one third of the grass and trees - 200 million horse like creatures will run rampant - oh and fresh water will become blood. Tell you what, if all that bunk comes to pass - I will have another think about this god, I can't promise anything, even then, but I will certainly have another think. Really water turned to blood and horse-like creatures - golly.

Wow scary stuff. I thought I better look up and see if his claims really fit the bible. Now some of this stuff was actually a lot harder to pin down than I expected. Lots of hits in google for Homosexual Jewish Antichrist, but frankly not many of them seem to specify bible verses to back up the claims. This is nothing against our 'Athiest' because a quick google will indicate that many many people (like John Hagee) think this is all true, but the biblical basis is actually pretty thin.

Apparently the origin of the Antichrist being Gay Jew is this verse.

Daniel 11:37 Neither shall he regard the God of his fathers, nor the desire of women, nor regard any god: for he shall magnify himself above all

And Jewish is also apparently from a Tribe (Dan) being mentioned in Jerimiah 8:16 and NOT mentioned in Revelations 7.

Here is the relevant verse about the sun and moon being covered.

Revelation 6:12 And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood;

And of course Water to Blood is a relatively common bible theme including

Revelation 11:6 These have power to shut heaven, that it rain not in the days of their prophecy: and have power over waters to turn them to blood, and to smite the earth with all plagues, as often as they will.

Revelation 16:4 And the third angel poured out his vial upon the rivers and fountains of waters; and they became blood

The Meteor has name by the way, 'Wormwood'.

Revelation 8:7-11 The first angel sounded, and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood, and they were cast upon the earth: and the third part of trees was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up

And the second angel sounded, and as it were a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea: and the third part of the sea became blood;

And the third part of the creatures which were in the sea, and had life, died; and the third part of the ships were destroyed.

And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters;

And the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter.

And here is our Army of Monsters. (Horse-like doesn't really begin to describe it)

Revelation 7-10,16

And the shapes of the locusts were like unto horses prepared unto battle; and on their heads were as it were crowns like gold, and their faces were as the faces of men.

And they had hair as the hair of women, and their teeth were as the teeth of lions.

And they had breastplates, as it were breastplates of iron; and the sound of their wings was as the sound of chariots of many horses running to battle.

And they had tails like unto scorpions, and there were stings in their tails: and their power was to hurt men five months

And the number of the army of the horsemen were two hundred thousand thousand: and I heard the number of them

Wow some fantastic stuff there, lets see what Ray has to say.

May I say respectively, you may have been watching too many Hollywood movies, or the Discovery Channel, or maybe reading stuff on weird Web sties, or eating too much cheese before you got to bed (that can cause bad dreams).

I wonder if Ray included Kirk's 3 'Left Behind' films in this assesment?

I would suggest that you take a deep breath, then read the Bible with a humble hear, praying that God would show you what is prophetically symbolic and what is literal. If you don't do that, you will end up with the nightmare that you have just related. The Bible is a book filled with symbolism - from Ezekiel's wheels, to the dreams of Joseph and Daniel, to the Book of Revelation, and of course, many of the words of Jesus. Again some things are literal and some are symbolic.

Wait, what? Did I read that correctly...

Again some things are literal and some are symbolic.

Huh, ok, so Ray is quite happy to accept that some of the Bible is symbolic. Just not Genesis 1&2 I guess. Couldn't possibly be, No way, No how.

When Jesus said that He was "the Door," He didn't mean a do with literal hinges that swing back and forth. He is the entry to heaven(see also John 14:6). When He said that his flesh was meat and we were to eat it, He wasn't speaking of cannibalism. We spiritually "taste and see that the Lord is good." When He held the cup of wine and said "This is My blood" and told us to drink it, He wasn't speaking of His literal blood (He couldn't have been, because His blood was still running through His veins)

Wine is often used as a symbol of blood - Jesus turned the water into wine at the Cana wedding, and God turned water into blood with the plagues of Egypt. All these symbols and events have hidden and wonderful meanings behind them for the are willing to dig a little. If you think about it, thing that we value in life usually have to be searched out - gold doesn't just like on top of the ground. You have to search for it. It's the same with the silver, diamonds, pearls, etc, and it's the same with Biblical gems. You have to dig a little to find the riches.

Alright so this hits on one of the I find quite interesting about the way people view the bible. You read it, and then interpret it. You decide to take what sections literally, and what symbolically, and then decide what the verses actually mean. It really is a case of 'Pick your own biblical meaning', no wonder there are so many branches of the church.

As much as I would like to be, I am not a prophecy expert of a even a prophecy buff. I don't get too deeply into it, because so many people end up with weird and strange scenarios, and what's more they all they it right. I prefer to put my time into trying to read people like you with the Gospel. Your salvation is finitely more important to me than my eschatological interpretation.

So basically Ray is saying "Eh, I don't know anything about bible prophecy, don't ask me, get saved"

Then why include this question in the book?

Ray a Day Guest Post: X-Zilla

Today's Ray a Day is by blogger/commender X-zilla, who blogs over here.

Here is the text I chose to send off to him, in it's entirity:

Just how long are the “last days” supposed to last?... The Bible says that none knows when the end will come, but then it gives some clues. And the clues it gives are all things that have happened since the dawn of human beans.

Yes, the questioner did write “beans” instead of “beings,” revealing that he has a strange belief about where we sprouted from, or he’s a big Mr. Bean fan, or he’s just like the rest of us and makes mistakes when typing.

Human beings are prone to err, and the greatest error any of us can ever make is to be wrong about God. The religious leaders at the time of Christ made that mistake continually. They came to Jesus with questions for which they didn’t really want answers. Instead their intent was to trick Him so that they could catch Him in His words. One such time was when they asked Him about the resurrection. They concocted a scenario in which a woman had seven husbands who died one after the other. Then they asked, “In the resurrection, when they rise, whose wife will she be? For all seven had her as a wife.” Jesus answered, “Are you not therefore mistaken, because you do not know the Scriptures nor the power of God?” (See Mark 12:18-27 for the whole story.)

The same answer could be given to 90 percent of the questions asked by skeptics. According to the Bible, “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; a good understanding have all those who do His commandments” (Psalm 111:10). So a professing atheist who has no fear of god also has no understanding at all of the character and power of God. Even those of us who know Him know only tiny drop in an infinite ocean of his greatness. He is omnipresent-he dwells everywhere, filling the infinitude of space. Every tiny atom in the universe is displayed before Him. He is omnipotent-nothing is impossible for God. He is omniscient-seeing every thought of the human heart. These thoughts are too much for human brains that can barely juggle a few thoughts at a time, let alone comprehend the greatness of the God who gave us life.Skeptics also don’t know the Scriptures. Most of the verses cited in questions are read with an ignorance of corresponding verses to give them their biblical context.

So, in answer to the question: God’s timeframe is different from ours-“For a thousand years in Your sight are like yesterday when it is past…” (Psalm 90:04), and “…with the Lord one day is a thousand years and a thousand years as one day” (2 Peter 3:8). The Bible tells us that the “last days” began on the Day of Pentecost (see Acts 2:17). We have been in the last days for two thousand years (not much in God’s timeframe). Most of the signs that the Bible speaks of have been around for many years; however, prophecies about the increase of travel and the increase of knowledge are far more evident in recent years. And, of course, the Jews obtaining Jerusalem in 1967 is the fulfillment that started the prophetic clock ticking. How long will the last days last? God only knows… but we are certainly getting close to when the door of His mercy closes.

 X-zilla says:

The question presented is not the question of a ‘skeptic’ or an atheist. It is a question from a person who is curious. The question alone does not indicate any belief system. It does however indicate a healthy curiosity about the world and the constructs we live under.

End time prophecy surrounds us in American culture. The Weekly World News, the A&E and History channels, Evangelical Protestants, Catholics, Hollywood movies, the Left Behind book series, Tom Robbins, Muslims, and Jews present and/or perpetuate myth about the end of the world. The concepts of a prophetic end of the world envelopes our culture. The power of these myths is fascinating. The deconstruction of prophecy is interesting. More interesting is the progression of these ideas over time. That these ideas subtly and dangerously permeate our politics and diplomatic agendum is frightening absolutely terrifying.

Fortunately for me and the spot on my wall where I bang my head in flabbergasted frustration Comfort does not deconstruct Revelations or Daniel for us. He ultimately answers the question with, “God only knows” so repent and accept Yeshua as Jesus Christ before the horn blows and the righteous disappear leaving nothing behind but sinners and neatly folded clothes.

Comfort begins his response with a lighthearted teasing about a typing error on the questioner’s part, noting that he’s just like the rest of us and makes errors. This is used as a segue into the danger of being wrong about god. The next segue is a subtle and scary one. Comfort equates questioners now with the skepticism of religious leaders during the week leading to the crucifixion (picture Jewish caricatures ala Mel Gibson jeering at Christ) which does nothing but further the divide between non believers and Comfort believers. His example is taken out of historical and political context as well. Yeshua (a member of a fringe Judaic group) came to town, declared himself the Messiah (Christ) and then flipped over the money changers table in the Temple (this sealed his fate, if you want to get nailed to a tree so you can suffer the sins of man and grant absolution and then prove this through resurrection and ascension the thing to do would be to espouse radical concepts and go after the money changers). Other people had reported miracles and supernatural attributed to Christ but that was other people’s observation and Christ himself refused to perform miracles for skeptics to validate his claim. I am one to seriously avoid victim blaming but really if Yeshua was treated poorly and looked upon with disdain by the powers that be it was because he was seriously asking for it. Many people before and after Yeshua have claimed to be a prophet or even the Messiah. It is good whether you believe in no god or Yahweh or whateverism to ask or even demand verification of such claims. Comfort claims that these skeptics do not know the power of god and neither do current skeptics. In order to understand even a little bit of the power of god you must fear him first. In the interest of finishing this review part I’m just going to state that fear is not an effective vehicle for promoting understanding and knowledge.

“Skeptics also don’t know the Scriptures”, Comfort states. Some believers also don’t know the scriptures (are they true believers then?). Some believers and skeptics are well educated in regard to ‘the scriptures’. Using blanket statements about a skeptic’s ignorance of the scriptures is not enough to validate your belief in what they mean.

In the final paragraph of his answer Comfort provides us with verses that indicate he has a non literal interpretation of time as represented in the Bible. Apparently time exists differently for us than it does for god (Does that make god a singularity or does he just live in one?). References to time are metaphorical and not literal. Except of course in Genesis where it is the literal inerrant word of god. Confused? Thankfully we have Ray comfort who knows which is which and what is what.

Ray a Day Guest Post: Gordon

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 mustache 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 worshipers 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 vigorously 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.

Ray a Day Guest Post: Petter

For those of you just joining us, I've decided to let my commenters take a crack at doing Ray a Day blog posts. Originally, I was going to start them next week, but I've just been hit with a load of work - I'm graduating in May! Thus, I am eternally thankful for Petter who got his post to me early, which lessons my burden. Here we go:

Hi there, fellow Zizturians. I’m Petter, a materialist rationalist atheist humanitarian who runs Ubuntu, all of which makes me feel kinship directly or analogously with Ziztur herself; and I have been invited to tackle an installment of Ray-a-day. If you read this and want to read more of my thoughts once the exhaustion wears off, you can find my blog here (or by RSS; you can use tags to narrow it down to essay-style posts, or only posts related to skepticism or religion).

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When I first saw the snippet from the book that Ziztur had assigned to me, my initial reaction was disappointment—it seemed so trite and vacuous that I wasn’t sure I could write anything about it. Upon further reflection, though, it provides a fairly illustrative microcosm of his style as a whole; and since I am but a guest poster, I shall deconstruct it at some length, such opportunities being rare… I’ll intersperse my own thoughts among the Comfortian ejaculations, but first, let’s set the scene. The “Angry Skeptic” asks,

The difference between the Bible and an instruction book is the myriad of untestable (and detestable) claims the Bible makes. How do you know that if I “sin” I will go to hell? Only from the Bible, which is a source of such dubious credibility as to be laughable. Can you prove to me that ANY of what the Bible claims about hell and “sin” is true? Can you prove to me that hell exists? If not, you, along with all your pulpit-pounding ilk, are nothing more than a carnival ride of empty threats.

To which Ray replies,

Hell is no empty threat. If I believed it was, I wouldn’t bother warning you. However, the way for you to avoid the subject is to say that you don’t believe in God. That cuts the problem off for you at the Source. All you have to do is ignore your God-given common sense. He doesn’t exist because you don’t believe in Him. You could carry this further if you didn’t like gravity, history, the wind, or love. These things can’t be seen, and therefore wouldn’t exist if you didn’t believe in them either. Anything that you don’t like will not exist if you just say that you don’t believe in it.
The key to being a committed atheist is to be totally unreasonable. When someone denies the obvious, you can’t reason with them. That’s why you can be presented with the absolute and clear evidence of Creation (which screams of a Creator to any reasonable person), and you can say that there’s no evidence for God.

We first notice that, true to form, Ray’s immediate response is to avoid meeting the question. The ad hominem accusing every skeptic of being dense, unreasonable, and lacking in common sense has all been seen before—Ray is increasingly looking like a one trick pony. What should leap out at us is that if we go back to the “Angry Skeptic’s” question, the question does not in any way imply that the questioner is an atheist. For all we know, the question could have come from a deist, a non-Christian theist, or a different flavour of Christian who doesn’t accept the Bible as an authoritative source and doesn’t believe in hell. Ray’s accusation, therefore, isn’t just avoiding the question and issuing an ad hominem, but also a red herring, packing a remarkable number of fallacies and dishonesties into such a short space.

(May I suggest a side project, Ziztur, of measuring the book’s fallacy density? I suggest that a fallacy density of N per thousand words, N being established by critical analysis, be dubbed a “kilocomfort” [the “comfort” being the average fallacy/word ratio]. People like Carl Sagan and Richard Feynman presumably deal in microcomforts or less, C.S. Lewis in decacomforts, Ray by definition in kilocomforts, and slime like Phelps in the same ballpark.)

Belief in a ‘Creator’ does not necessitate the belief in the god of the Hebrews and Christians, Yahweh. Belief in Yahweh does not necessitate belief in the Bible as inerrant—while this sort of literalism is characteristic of Islam, such a blindly literal and accepting reading is not diagnostic of all Christianity. And even if you believe in the Bible, there’s precious little mention of hell… He never does return to why belief in a Creator necessarily implies a belief in hell; he simply asserts that the one must lead to the other. (Granted, attempts to do so have always been a bit heavy-handed and short on intellectual persuasion. For example, a sect in mediæval France believed in the New Testament, but saw the wrathful tyrant God of the Old Testament as a different entity altogether, and rejected the Old Testament as lies of the devil. They were wiped out in a brutal crusade. It was in the siege of one of their cities that the cardinal leading the attacking army was asked how the soldiers should tell heretics from innocent city-dwellers and famously replied “Kill them all; the Lord will know His own”.)

Ray also trots out that tired old horse, flogged perhaps to death and beyond, that “you can’t see the wind, but you know it exists; God is the same way”. But this is a stunningly naïve assault on empiricism. We philosophical materialists certainly acknowledge the reality of wind, but we do so precisely because it can be empirically verified to exist. In attempting to find something that cannot be seen but both sides agree upon, the apologists necessarily eviscerate their own argument. The painfully obvious reason is, of course, that seeing isn’t the only way of materially perceiving, and we happily rely on our other senses, as well as mechanically, electronically, optically, and otherwise enhanced versions thereof. It’s true that the wind doesn’t cease to exist if I cease to believe in it, but my belief can be shown to be erroneous by use of a balloon, windsock, or weather-vane.

A related argument is that “you can’t see love, but it’s real; God is love or is analogous to this”, which appears to assume from an agreement that “love exists” that we also agree that love is something justifiably reified. But love can be observed to exist only where it is expressed in words or actions. Underlying it may very well be something as material as neurochemicals and electric impulses through neurones and glia. To say that God exists in a similar way is trivial and uninteresting: Certainly God exists as a concept, but not all concepts deserve to be reified, let alone deified.

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Next is the moral portion of today’s Ray—by which I mean “the portion concerned with morality”; moral it is not. In fact, it is so full of egregious errors and immoralities that I hardly know where to begin. Here’s what Ray has to say:

If you were reasonable, I would say that we know that hell exists because we know intuitively that God is good. And if He is good, He must by nature punish a man who has tied up and raped three teenage girls, and then one by one, strangled them to death. In this case, justice delayed is not justice denied. God will bring that murderer to judgment and see that he gets exactly what he deserves, and hell is the place of God’s justice. It’s His prison. Common sense says that if God is good, it is right that He is also just. However, God is so good He will also punish thieves, liars, fornicators, adulterers, blasphemers, and everyone who has violated His perfect and holy Law. That leaves us all in big trouble. Without a Savior we will get exactly what we deserve, and that is a terrifying thing, whether we believe it or not. If you want proof, then simply repent and trust Jesus Christ, and you will know that what I am saying is the Gospel truth.

The simplest way to address this is to say that even if we accept a number of propositions that I am not prepared to actually subscribe to—“God/Yahweh exists”; “God is good”; “God is just”; “God punishes sinners”—it does not therefore follow that all punishments should be or necessarily are equal. While Ray and his peers may claim at the pulpit that multiple rape and murder is equal to telling a lie in the eyes of God, as both are sins and both fall short of Divine Perfection, I expect that no one actually feels that they are equivalent. Rape and murder are terrible crimes that destroy lives; telling a small lie may hurt no one at all (though I advocate and practice a policy of never telling lies, because dishonesty morally offends me and because honest communication is conducive to good and healthy interpersonal relationships). Even if I were to accept that they both deserved divine punishment, I would never accept the notion that they deserve equal punishment. And, as has been often pointed out, infinite torment is by definition out of proportion to any crime it could possibly be inflicted for.

But I take a further objection to this whole idea, because it appears to be entirely based on human desires for retribution. These are natural and serve a useful function in our biology and social lives, not because retribution is somehow morally appropriate and good but because it provides a deterrent to wrong-doing. If we weren’t vengeful, bad people wouldn’t hesitate to take advantage of us. Knowing that we will take offense and may take revenge, they are deterred. Prisons and corrective facilities serve as this sort of deterrent. We don’t send them to prison because it’s morally right to imprison criminals. Maybe they “deserve” it, but we don’t send them there because they deserve it—we send them there to scare others away from doing harm; or we send them there to prevent them from doing more harm; or perhaps we send them there in the hopes of reforming them. “Deserving” it is the moral justification that gives the rest of society a right to do so, but it is not the motivation. In other words, the whole point of our judicial system (and, I confidently hypothesize, of the vindictive instinct itself) is not predicated on a goal related to criminals, but making life better for non-criminals.

From this point of view, Ray’s view of divine justice seems extremely misguided. Terror of hell is indeed a deterrent in the same way (qualitatively) as fear of imprisonment or execution. The other goals, however, fly right out the window: We don’t need eternal torment to keep dead criminals out of trouble (it’s quite enough that they are dead; obliteration is more than sufficient), and clearly there is no hope of reforming (they are tormented eternally no matter how much they repent).

What, then, is the purpose of inflicting eternal torment to punish a victimless crime? It doesn’t help anyone—there’s no victim to help. It doesn’t help make the sinner a better person; he is denied any possibility to improve. All it does is increase the level of suffering of humanity as a whole. It is the human instinct of vindictiveness raised to an ideal, the inflicting of suffering for its own sake rather than for anyone’s benefit; a horrifying climax of the uglier side of human nature.

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Having read and thought about this, it seems abundantly clear to me that Ray’s book is not actually intended to persuade anyone of anything. The arguments are far too vacuous, all questions too consistently evaded rather than answered. I cannot believe that Ray is so stupid—or rather, that the conglomerate of Ray along with his flunkies, editors, agents, and aides are all so stupid, in the face of feedback, blog comments, and so forth—as to be less than perfectly aware of how flimsy his arguments are, how inaccurate the strawmen of concepts like atheism and evolution. He has no intention of addressing them honestly; if he did, he’d have done so by now.

Instead, this book is intended to insult us; its target audience is not skeptics, not even agnostic fence-sitters, but the most insulated and uneducated masses; those either most stupid, or least availed of education and critical thinking skills (or both). It is, in a sense, very much the mirror image of the book that many Christians have claimed that Dawkins’s The God Delusion is, with the difference that Dawkins actually attempts to answer theists’ questions head-on. Ray provides no mirror image of that honesty; he never gives a straight answer where he can deliver an ad hominem; never accuses anyone of being misinformed when he can accuse them of being unreasonable or morally deficient.

And from this perspective, the possibility emerges that it’s not that Ray doesn’t care about representing his opposition honestly; rather, it is in his best interest not to do so. If he presents skeptics’ arguments in a straightforward manner and tackles questions like evolution honestly, if he acknowledges the real intellectual and moral positions of atheists, then he exposes this potential target audience to reasonable counter-arguments. Argue against the reality of evolutionary biology and you have to present present an argument (compelling or not) against a well-reasoned theory; if all you want to do is cater to the ignorant and despise the enemy, it is much easier, indeed strategically a better idea, to say “Hur-hur-hur, those stupid evilutionists think that men and women just happened to evolve to have tab A compatible with slot B”. It also explains the infamous banana video, which otherwise invokes nothing so much as Poe’s Law.

I do not mean to say that he would necessarily undercut all of his arguments and conclusions—I’m sure that he could address the real concepts of evolution and atheism and still believe as he does. But if he presented the real opposition rather than strawmen, his readers would be forced to acknowledge that even though they reject the alternatives, there are alternatives. Some of them might think; some of them might falter. And that’s not what anybody wants: You can lead an atheist to evidence… isn’t about making people think, or tackling serious challenges to apologetics. It’s about keeping the ignorant ignorant and provide a sense of superiority in their ignorance, a theocratic circle jerk; about bolstering the faithful’s misconceptions and ensuring that they continue to take an unreasoned stance against propositions they do not understand.