Ray Comfort, unlike the banana, is perhaps the greatest boon to atheism since Darwin discovered the process of evolution. His sheer idiocy, voiced with childish certainty, is almost incontrovertible proof against theism’s view of humanity’s place in the cosmos. What sort of malicious, foul entity would create a creature such as Ray Comfort as the pinnacle of all existence? What madman would set this moustached buffoon at the center stage of the universe? Nay, no morally perfect being with any sort of competence would deign to do such a thing. A glimpse into Comfort’s beady eyes, an examination of his tiresome and relentless stupidity, or a simple glance at the insufferable tripe that constitues his blog are enough to send even the most ardent theologian backwards in shock, his hands to his face in horror, as he racks his brain for whatever theodicy could possibly refute this stark, moustached testament to God’s nonexistence. There is no such theodicy.

Take for instance, the following remark from Comfort:

Atheists don’t hate fairies, leprechauns, or unicorns because they don’t exist. It is impossible to hate something that doesn’t exist. And that makes the point.

This argument, aside from being poorly phrased and incomplete, has somehow managed to condense a wide array of logical fallacies and factual errors into only a few short lines. If stupidity were alcohol, this would be 190 proof.

Let’s take this apart bit by bit. First he claims that atheists don’t hate fairies, unicorns, and leprechauns. This simply isn’t true at all. Ever since I was a young child, for instance, I have hated leprechauns. Indeed, anyone who has ever seen Leprechaun in the Hood has inevitably come away from the film with an uncontrollable rage directed at leprechauns everywhere. Of course, because Ray insists it is impossile to hate something that does not exist, it follows that this leprechaun from the ‘hood truly exists. According to Ray Comfort’s strange existential proof, it also follows that hated fictional entities the world over actually exist, whether it be Jar Jar Binks from Star Wars or Allah. Comfort, naturally, can take solace in the certainty of his own existence without seeking the logical certainty of Descartes’ cogito by simply ruminating on the fact that he is hated and despised by people who value intelligence throughout the world, from which it follows from his own distressingly silly reasoning that he must exist. So clearly it isn’t true that nonexistent entities can’t be hated, but an unstated presupposition of this “argument” is that atheists hate God. For my own part, I can readily admit that I do hate the God as described in the Bible as an uncaring monstrosity, which differs little from my hatred of Leprechaun in the Hood, aside from the fact that the murderous leprechaun is at least mildly likeable and will at least allow you to look at more than just his hind parts. However, many atheists do not hate God at all, and in fact think the idea of God as expressed by many Christians is a lovely and beautiful concept. So as can be readily seen, Ray’s argument is fraught with errors and implausibilities. When the explication of everything that is wrong with what you’ve said more than quadruples the size of the original remark, then you know you’ve said something tremendously, stupefyingly stupid.

Of course, Comfort’s most oft-repeated argument in recent days has been the following:

Atheist: someone who believes that nothing made everything. A scientific impossibility!

The audacity of this remark lies not in its bold and outright strawman of the atheist position, but in the sheer hypocrisy. Presumably, Comfort believes that God created the universe as it is described in Genesis. That is, God created the universe from the void, from nothing, ex nihilo. Obviously, if this accurately describes Comfort’s account of creation, then the basis for his argument applies just as well to his own position, for he believes that everything was made out of nothing, an account just as hard to envision as nothing making everything. Of course, Comfort could try to avoid such a criticism by positing a sort of eternal silly putty that always existed alongside God, but then God becomes an unnecessary hypothesis, as the material silly putty no longer requires an explanation for its origin.

Beyond that, though, is the fact that many atheists don’t claim nothing created everything. Prominent cosmological models of the recent past posited a singularity as the initial condition of the Big Bang, which may have always existed in that state of infinites. Current views seem to disregard this because it relies on relativity, which breaks down at quantum microscopic levels. Various alternatives are hypothesized, but as yet none have been proven to any reasonable degree, and string theory models are prominent in emphasizing the concept of multiverses, which is a far cry from creation by nothing. Some philosophers, like Quentin Smith, have advanced scientific arguments for big bang cosmology in regards to atheism by showing that the universe could have arisen from what is essentially “nothing.” The details are over my head and outside my expertise, but I gather it has something to do with quantum vacuum fluctuations or matter and energy being “cancelled out” by equal amounts of anti-matter or dark energy being brought together. So the basic point is that those atheists who do make a claim similar to what Comfort asserts are a bit more nuanced about it and certainly not saying anything nonscientific, whereas ultimately the best we can say is that the answer is unknown and awaiting confirmation. I guess it is hard to embrace uncertainty when the evidence is inconclusive if one believes in a God that will punish you for not accepting things on blind faith, though.

Here is one more quote from Ray:

Imagine being there when the first dog evolved. Let’s say it’s the African hunting dog (Lycaon pictus), the wild canid of Africa. There was a big bang, and millions of years later an animal with a tail and four legs, a liver, heart, kidneys, lungs, blood, ears and eyes evolved (through natural speciation) into the first dog. Fortunately for him, his eyes had evolved to maturity after millions of years of blindness, so that he could see the first female dog that had evolved standing by him. It was actually very fortunate, because if the female dog hadn’t evolved also and been at the right place at the right time, with the right parts and the willingness to mate, he would have been a dead dog. He needed a female to keep the species alive.

After reading this drivel, it really is no wonder that more than half the population in America doubts the theory of evolution. Like a similar sister criticism often advanced by clueless gits, “I don’t believe in evolution because I’ve never seen a dog give birth to a cat!”, this argument falls flat simply because it demonstrates more about the speaker’s ignorance of evolution than it does about evolution.

Notwithstanding his obvious errors in terminology (hearts, kidneys, and other organs are not species, you fucktard—they are produced through natural selection, not “natural speciation”), the whole blathering tale is so riddled with misconceptions that one wonders if Comfort is simply making this all up as an elaborate ruse, only to exclaim “GOTCHA! I don’t actually believe that evolution posits each individual of a species arising separately—that would be stupid!” Unfortunately, it seems he is serious. The basic error with his silly thought experiment is that he doesn’t understand that evolution affects populations, not just individuals. In a sexually reproducing species, the opposite gender doesn’t have to arise independently because the genes that produce phenotypic variation and survival advantages end up being spread through a population in gradual degrees for each variation. Offspring are genetically different from both parents through a variety of mechanisms, including the mixing of genes from both parents, recombination, and the occasional mutation. Each generation varies only slightly from the preceding, so the differences are not so great that they cannot mate with other members. Over time, as these variations slowly accumulate, another population may arise that has evolved some novelty that enhances its survival. Comfort’s criticism would only make sense as applied to a model of evolution that saw speciation occurring in a single generation (a dog being born from a completely separate species) and thereafter being unable to mate without another partner also being produced in a single generation. As I alluded to earlier, this is nothing more than Comfort’s fancy way of saying, “I’ll believe in evolution when a cat gives birth to a dog … twice!” Perhaps if we all shout at him in unison, “And we atheists will believe in God when you fuck a broomstick” he’ll realize that his own argument has just as little to do with evolution as this had to do with belief in God.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 16th, 2009 at 12:07 AM and is filed under Atheism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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