Sunday, May 13, 2007

Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron are Liars

Well, I’ve watched a pretty good deal of the “debate” that ABC hosted in which Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron claimed they would present scientific evidence for God and the Rational Response Squad would refute their claims.

I couldn’t finish because it was just that awful. In the introduction, the pair claimed that they would prove God’s existence without invoking the Bible.

Ray’s first “proof” was the argument from ignorancedesign in which he says paintings need painters, buildings need builders, creations needs creators. Creator = God. His second was that we have the 10 commandments and that everyone is a thieving, lying adultering person who’s going straight to Hell. His third was that God gave us a conscience, so we know he must exist.

This should have been astoundingly easy to counter for the RSS, but they managed to screw it up. Perhaps part of the reason was that Ray and Kirk both lied through their teeth and the RSS wasn’t really prepared for it.

Ray had claimed that he was not going to invoke the bible, yet he did. Repeatedly. The RSS seemed so hung up on this that it threw the rest of their rebuttal into disarray. So much so that they bungled the refutation of Ray’s first, horribly ignorant claim in which he claimed creation needs a creator

What they should have pointed out is that every time we see something like a painting or a building, we know it has been made by a painter or a builder respectively because we've witnessed painters and builders doing precisely that. Thus, we can correlate the two with a good amount of certainty. But since we've never witnessed a mythical builder putting together universes, no correlation can be honestly made.

Additionally, every time we see these things assembled, it's done by a human. Thus, if we're truly going to follow the logic through, we must conclude that the universe was created by a human. Not God.

This is ridiculous and if we can find things that can be created without the help of such things, then the entire argument (everything needing a creator, whether human or magical), falls apart. Thus, we consider something similar to a building. Buildings are used for shelter. In ancient times, caves were used for shelter. But did the cave have to have a designer? Absolutely not. We know fully well that they are typically carved out by flowing water. Thus, the argument that things require a designer crumbles. We can only infer a designer when we have witnessed the creation of such objects in action.

The RSS hinted at this but it was very confused in the stating. They did rightly call him out for the blatant lie that he would not cite the bible however.

Kirk Cameron is a tremendous liar as well. He claimed to have done extensive research into evolution, and that his research had led him to conclude that evolution was false.

So how does he define evolution? Well, in his bizarre land, it starts off with an explosion…

Wait. Wha?

I think he’s trying to describe the Big Bang. But he even got that wrong. It wasn’t an explosion. It is an expansion. He also said that there’s no such thing as a transitionary fossil. Oh but there are! He then proceeded to say that a transitionary fossil would be a horrible chimera of half crocodile, half duck, or a half frog, half bull. Little does he know (I could end the sentence there) that this would entirely disprove evolution.

So here we have Kirk presenting a disfigured strawman. Either he honestly believes it’s all true, in which case he’s lying about his extensive research, or he’s lying to the audience about what evolution actually states. I wonder which it is…

One of the questions the moderator asked Ray and Kirk later, was if faith was a projection of culture, noting that certain religions are most prevalent in certain cultures. Apparently Ray isn’t bright enough to understand the question because he spent several minutes dodging it, saying no matter where he went in the world, he would feel God’s presence.

Entirely missed the point of the question and pretended that Christianity was the only religion on the planet. Apparently his research is more than a little lacking as well. He also said, “If you hear the gospel and call upon the name of God, He will reveal himself to you. You’ve got God’s promise.”

Funny. I know many, many atheists who have heard the gospel, called upon the name of God, and gotten nothing but a bunch of proverbial chirping crickets. Many of the atheists I know point out that they gave up on Christianity because they were tired of talking to themselves.

Kirk claimed to have gotten an answer when he tried this, but as the RSS pointed out, this is anecdotal evidence, and cannot be reproduced or tested in any way. Ray and Kirk claimed to bring scientific evidence, yet brought logical fallacies and personal testimonies; neither of which constitute science.

Which brings me back to the first point: Ray claimed that being a liar proved that there was a God and you needed him. If this is true, and considering his bald faced lies, who’s the one that really lacking morals here? Did God forget to install his conscience?

On a side note, one of the advertisements between the segments was for Nicoderm in which one of the people in the commercial said they “needed something bigger”. I suspect that, in this case, they didn’t turn to God.

14 comments:

mollishka said...

What really got me watching this was that, of all the people on stage, "Kelly" was the only one lacking a last name.

Stephen said...

Thus, if we're truly going to follow the logic through, we must conclude that the universe was created by a human. Not God.

Which is entirely true. I know, because i created the Universe. Here's how it went down. I defined the Universe as this really, really perfect playground to watch things happen. Now, a really perfect place that didn't exist wouldn't be very cool. And BOOM (sounds more dramatic than EXPAND), there it was.

I've been watching it evolve for quite awhile now, waiting for intelligent life to form. I expect it will be a bit longer before it happens.

DanielPalmquist said...

Unless atheists repent they will burn forever and ever. I love you enough to tell you that and will tell you and anyone else that again as many times as needed even on a dark alley in the ghetto! You know GOD exists research the law of thermodynamics and abiogensis there is no way to deny it! Read 2 Peter chapter 3. Later.

Anonymous said...

I want to get to the point of your saying about the cave. When he talks about creation, he isn't just talking about humans. He is also talking about the rock ( your cave ), and they chemicals made to create water to make it into a cave. He is also talking about creation of the atmosphere. The atmosphere the outer layer or whatever keeps the oxygen on the earth, from escaping. How would that form by itself if given no physics to make it mold that way? Also if it had physics how could it tell itself to make those certain physics to hold itself in place? Does it have some kind of conscieneness? And if so how did it gain conscieneness? And where did it get the knowelege before us humans? How does a big bang or expansion happen without creation of the atoms to do it? If you have a germ where does it come from if it wasn't created? So therefore if there is any kind of creation at all there has to be a creator. Or else how did you get here? The molecules in your moms body didn't create it's own physics or it's own conscieness to know how to make you. Something had to give it directions, and there is only one thing that can command something to do that. That is GOD.

Jon Voisey said...

Daniel: Your post makes it quite clear you have no clue what the laws of thermodynamics actually state.

I'm familiar with both them and abiogenesis. The former pose absolutely no problem for evolution when you actually understand what they say and not some creationist strawman version. Abiogenesis, while certainly not complete is still the single best theory supported by factual evidence rather than superstition.

And thanks for the bible passage, but I have read it. I've read the whole bible in fact. It's always failed to impress.

Anon: Your entire comment is an argument from ignorance. I'm well aware that Ray and Kirk weren't just talking about humans, but they, and you, selectively choose what they want to look at for design. If you choose a cave and single that out, it doesn't need a designer.

In fact, there's nothing that clearly needs a designer. In the end, it all boils down to just another cave.

Anonymous said...

You can't get a cave with no water there or rock, so to make the cave you do need a designer. 1. For the water to be made. And 2. For the rock to be made.

Jon Voisey said...

Pure speculation.

Keep swinging.

Anonymous said...

Speculation like that made by Anon and Daniel needs to be backed up scientifically for it to be accepted by the scientific community. Since they have no way of doing so, their comments are meaningless. Once again, "What created the cave? and the water? and the rock?" they're using the God of the Gaps argument all over again, but scientific analysis will be able to prove the processes by which this has taken place, if it hasn't already.

Anonymous said...

God created the laws of nature that atheists use to disprove the existence of God. Pretty devious, I know. But there is an underlying purpose.
Faith doesn't require proof.
Proof doesn't disprove anything.
Belief is all the evidence anyone needs.

Jon Voisey said...

Faith doesn't require proof.

Obviously. Which is why it's so hollow.

Unknown said...

You can't build something with faith alone. You CAN build something with science.

Faith is not quite as useful for making things as empirical knowledge.

It's amazing how ignorant most people are as to what the scientific method really is and how it works.

It's quite simple: science is based on empirical observation, and proof by experimentation and independent corroboration.

Religions can't agree on anything because faith has no means of corroboration.

How dangerous is it for people to be told they should believe something blindly?

Anecdotal claims of direct knowledge of god can be distinguished from hallucination how, exactly?

"Oh, I just KNOW"

The biggest irony, of course, is that these people who claim faith is useful are promulgating their beliefs on computers and devices created not by faith but by science.

The battle is already lost, people. Church vs. Galileo. The earth is not the center of the universe no matter how many blasphemers you murder.

izzy said...

IM not an atheist but the arguments used by creationists are only good (if they are any good) to prove a deist type of god -not a personal god

izzy said...

IM not an atheist but the arguments used by creationists are only good (if they are any good) to prove a deist type of god -not a personal god

FS3D said...

Speculation like that made by Anon and Daniel needs to be backed up scientifically for it to be accepted by the scientific community. Since they have no way of doing so, their comments are meaningless. Once again, "What created the cave? and the water? and the rock?" they're using the God of the Gaps argument all over again, but scientific analysis will be able to prove the processes by which this has taken place, if it hasn't already.