Answers-in-Genesis: Answers-for-Comfort

Answers in Genesis shares Comfort's anti-science view of the world in that it is a young-Earth creationist organization. Like I do with Ray's blog, I subscribe to Answers in Genesis. The thing I find most humorous about Answers in Genesis site is they write volumes of articles aimed at fellow young-Earth creationists to dissuade them from obviously flawed arguments so as not to be further embarrassed by them (such as this 20 page article urging young-Earth creationists to stop making biblical arguments for geocentricity).

Ray has recently written a series of blogs defending his use of quotes from Hawking and Einstein to paint the picture that they believe in God. This is, of course, an obviously flawed use to any educated individual. Like they so often do, Answers in Genesis has published an article urging young-Earth creationists (like Ray Comfort) to stop doing this.

...Hawking's phrase [to know the mind of God] is shorthand for the Theory of Everything. All three physicists — like most physicists of this century — describe themselves as agnostics or atheists. They do not believe in a Person who created the Universe.' Likewise, Professor Davies does not believe in a personal creator-God either.³

Physicists tend to use religious terminology because it graphically expresses the religious/philosophical nature of their thoughts and the sense of almost religious reverence they feel about their subject. Like the 'liberal' theologians, they use the language of orthodox Christianity, but in using the words they do not mean what we may think they mean.

Ray should really take a note from his anti-science fellows. Quote mining is despicable, especially when done by the anti-science uneducated.

Another Toe-Stubbing Post on Hawking

Congratulations everyone! Ray has finally given context to the Stephen Hawking quote in his header with his latest post. Or... has he? Here is what he gives us:

"In the hot big bang model described above, there was not enough time in the early universe for heat to have flowed from one region to another. This means that the initial state of the universe would have to have had exactly the same temperature everywhere in order to account for the fact that the microwave back-ground has the same temperature in every direction we look. The initial rate of expansion also would have had to be chosen very precisely for the rate of expansion still to be so close to the critical rate needed to avoid recollapse. This means that the initial state of the universe must have been very carefully chosen indeed if the hot big bang model was correct right back to the beginning of time. It would be very difficult to explain why the universe should have begun in just this way, except as the act of a God who intended to create beings like us." Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time, p. 127.

Yes, that is what is written at the end of a paragraph on page 127 in chapter eight. Referring to the book which I own, it is the concluding paragraph of a four page discussion of what the anthropic principle is The chapter is concerning the origin and fate of the universe. Since it is concerning the origin of the universe, he naturally brings up the perceived role of God, as he does elsewhere in the book. What Ray neglects to mention is that the chapter ends on page 141.

What happens between pages 127 and 141? What happens is the context he does not give you. He sets up the rhetorical proposition on page 127 and after explaining more of the origin of the universe and how it started, he revisits it briefly on page 136:

If Euclidean space-time stretches back to infinite imaginary time, or else starts at a singularity in imaginary time, we have the same problem as in the classical theory of specifying the initial state of the universe: God may know how the universe began, but we cannot give any particular reason for thinking it began one way rather than another. On the other hand, the quantum theory of gravity has opened up a new possibility, in which there would be no boundary to space-time and so there would be no need to specify the behavior at the boundary. There would be no singularities at which the laws of science broke down, and no edge of space-time at which one would have to appeal to God or some new law to set the boundary conditions for space-time. One could say: "The boundary condition of the universe is that it has no boundary." The universe would be completely self-contained and not affected by anything outside itself. It would neither be created nor destroyed, It would just BE.

It was at the conference in the Vatican mentioned earlier that I first put forward the suggestion that maybe time and space together formed a surface that was finite in size but did not have any boundary or edge. My paper was rather mathematical, however, so its implications for the role of God in the creation of the universe were not generally recognized at the time (just as well for me). At the time of the Vatican conference, I did not know how to use the "no boundary" idea to make predictions about the universe. [...] (emphasis added on parts about God)

After a little more explaining about the implications of his proposal, discussion of evidence, discussion of the nature of time, he concludes by weighing in on the rhetorical proposition which he set up on page 127 by concluding the chapter with:

The idea that space and time may form a closed surface without boundary also has profound implications for the role of God in the affairs of the universe. With the success of scientific theories in describing events, most people have come to believe that God allows the universe to evolve according to a set of laws and does not intervene in the universe to break these laws. However, the laws do not tell us what the universe should have looked like when it started -- it would still be up to God to wind up the clockwork and choose how to start it off. So long as the universe had a beginning, we could suppose it had a creator. But if the universe is really completely self-contained, having no boundary or edge, it would have neither beginning nor end: it would simply be. What place, then, for a creator? (emphasis added on parts about God, which happens to be all of it)

Ray's extraction of one or two sentences or even an entire paragraph is the essence of quote mining:

Quote mining is the practice of purposely compiling frequently misleading quotes from large volumes of literature or speech.

Again, we (theists and atheists knowledgeable in the writings of these great men) do not protest because we wish to have these great men on "our side" (which especially isn't the case for protesting theists); we simply want these men's beliefs accurately portrayed and not mangled by the likes of Ray Comfort. To the point, one of the greatest men, if not the greatest man (at least in science), to have ever lived was Isaac Newton. We do not protest when Ray trots his name out as Newton was a devout Christian and wrote at lengths on it. Using Newton as an argument for theism, or Hawking and Einstein as an argument for atheism is ridiculous, though, as it is a fallacious appeal to authority.


As a final thought, I think it's interesting the nature of the rhetorical proposition Stephen Hawking made. He makes the statement that it seems that there must have been a Creator, based on the origins of the universe. There's a famous quote mining example from Darwin wherein he makes a similar rhetorical proposition that there seems there must have been a Creator, based on the complexity of the eye. In fact, Ray also does quote mining on Darwin with this very passage. The embolden part is the part which is quote mined from it:

To suppose that the eye, with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree. Yet reason tells me, that if numerous gradations from a perfect and complex eye to one very imperfect and simple, each grade being useful to its possessor, can be shown to exist; if further, the eye does vary ever so slightly, and the variations be inherited, which is certainly the case; and if any variation or modification in the organ be ever useful to an animal under changing conditions of life, then the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection, though insuperable by our imagination, can hardly be considered real. How a nerve comes to be sensitive to light, hardly concerns us more than how life itself first originated; but I may remark that several facts make me suspect that any sensitive nerve may be rendered sensitive to light, and likewise to those coarser vibrations of the air which produce sound.

Ray was being deliberately dishonest in this latest post by making it appear he's giving it context. In fact, he's not giving you anymore context; rather, he's just taking more out of context. Given the context of the rest of the chapter, it clearly shows he is using it as a rhetorical statement.

Does this matter to Ray? Of course not. He is disinterested in the truth or sound arguments, as it seems.

With Egg On His Face

Have you noticed the quotes in my header image? It's a response to Ray Comfort's header image. In it, he lists three quotes:

"In view of such harmony in the cosmos which I, with my limited human mind, am able to recognise, there are yet people who say there is no God. But what makes me really angry is that they quote me for support of such views. " -- Albert Einstein

"Atheism is so senseless" -- Isaac Newton

"It would be very difficult to explain why the universe should have begun in just this way, except as the act of a God who intended to create beings like us." -- Stephen Hawking

EDIT (6-27-08): The first quote of my header image used to be from Einstein: "I do not believe in a personal god and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly."

Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking of course do not believe in God. Or, let me rephrase that. They do not believe in a personal God (e.g. the Christian God). They believe in Spinoza's God. Or at least I can say so for Albert Einstein. For Stephen Hawking, I couldn't say if he would claim the same "belief."

But what these men's beliefs are is not what is at issue here. Ray Comfort is willfully ignorant. He made a post today which shows that he is definitely willfully ignorant and when he removed it, one must conclude that he is also dishonest. Don't bother searching for this post, he has deleted it. But I took a screenshot for proof:

Lore Weaver said..."The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish." -- Einstein

I never knew that Einstein believed that the Bible was "the of Word of God." I knew that be was a believer in God's existence (see quote on Blog-header), but this quote is very encouraging. The Scriptures sure were an honourable product of human weakness. God chose to inspire the weakness of men to write His Word to humanity. Albert naturally reacted to it as I did before my conversion. This reaction is explained in Scripture: "But the natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness to him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned" (1 Corinthians 2:14).

Reread the quote posted and then read his analysis of it. Einstein addresses the "word God"; he does not address the "Word of God" as Ray quotes in his analysis. The quote is clearly stating that Einstein believed God to be a childish concept which was the embodiment of human weaknesses. Ray, though, is willfully ignorant. His mind is closed off to reason and rationality. He seeks proof of God in everything he sees. He sees a banana and says it is proof of God given its design, while ignoring the coconut. He sees this quote and all he takes in is "God is for me" and "Bible is honourable."

He posted this at 10:39am CST on June 26, 2008. I read it then on his site and decided I would email him about it when I got back home. By the time I arrived home at 7pm, it was deleted.

I was quite shocked by this. I thought Ray was ignorant and perhaps an idiot (n: "an utterly foolish or senseless person. "), but I did not think he was dishonest. This is because, unlike Ray, I do not think people are wicked, heinous, evil people. He deleted this, though, probably after someone pointed it out, and he posted no retraction. He posts no clarifications. He posts no acknowledgments that he's wrong. He removes not the misleading quote from Einstein from his header. Ray Comfort is dishonest.


Ray thought he was pretty clever in his analysis to point out the quote of Einstein in his header and use it to conclude that he "was a believer in God's existence." Well, allow me to point to my header. It is clear from this quote (which, like Ray, I have taken completely out of context) that Ray agrees with me and believes that if you believe such fantastic stories as Noah's Ark, a Virgin Birth, Jesus magic, zombies, or Jesus flying up to heaven, you have surrendered your intellectual dignity. Let's be clear of what Ray means: dignity is the "quality or state of being worthy of esteem or respect." Therefore, as you can see from his quote in my header, if you believe such fantastic stories your capacity to think, reason, know, and understand ("intellect") lacks the quality of being worthy of esteem or respect. Ray Comfort disbelieves the Bible. Or, perhaps, this is just an admission on his part that he has no intellectual dignity.

Ray Comfort is one of the worst offenders today of quote mining. Albert Einstein does not define God as a magical man who sits in a cloud, granting wishes, sending fires to California to give the marrying homosexual a glimpse of Hell, created the universe 6,000 years ago, created man when he got lonely, wrote a book when he felt ambitious, had a son whom he lost to a tragedy, etc etc. Einstein's definition of God is nature itself and the beauty of the universe and the laws which govern it. By that definition, I also believe in God and its majesty. However, I do not use a term so as to avoid being quote mined by the likes of Ray Comfort.

As a concluding thought, here, I do not think Ray mined these quotes himself. I believe Ray has never read anything Einstein wrote, never read anything Hawking wrote, never read anything Darwin wrote, and never read anything Newton wrote. I believe someone else has mined the quotes and Ray simply lacks the reason, rationality, and intellectual fortitude to look the stuff of himself. It is also obvious, by his caricaturing of evolution that he is not a well read or well informed man. I assure you, had he read any of these men's works, he would be and I doubt he could sully their good name by perverting their writing.

I want to make a note, though, that he has Newton's sentiments spot on! I will give you the full context of it (and also for Ray, as he's probably never read it either):

Atheism is so senseless & odious to mankind that it never had many professors. Can it be by accident that all birds beasts & men have their right side & left side alike shaped (except in their bowels) & just two eyes & no more on either side the face & just two ears on either side the head & a nose with two holes & no more between the eyes & one mouth under the nose & either two fore legs or two wings or two arms on the shoulders & two legs on the hips one on either side & no more? Whence arises this uniformity in all their outward shapes but from the counsel & contrivance of an Author? Whence is it that the eyes of all sorts of living creatures are transparent to the very bottom & the only transparent members in the body, having on the outside an hard transparent skin, & within transparent juices with a crystalline Lens in the middle & a pupil before the Lens all of them so truly shaped & fitted for vision, that no Artist can mend them? Did blind chance know that there was light & what was its refraction & fit the eyes of all creatures after the most curious manner to make use of it? These & such like considerations always have & ever will prevail with man kind to believe that there is a being who made all things & has all things in his power & who is therefore to be feared.

And... so? It does not matter that Newton believed in the Christian God anymore than it matters that Hawking disbelieves in him and that Einstein calls the very notion of the Christian God "childish." It is a fallacious argument from authority.

The question remains... why does Ray take these mined quotes and also search frantically, as he did in the deleted post, to find some intellectual who he can distort to agree with him? Why do any of the creationists do? It because they are insecure and feel they have to build themselves up with esteemed intellectuals so as to bolster their case.

I wouldn't care if every other person in the world believed in the Christian God anymore than I would care if every other person in the world believed the Sun orbits the Earth. It doesn't change the fact that we live in a heliocentric Solar System and that the Christian God doesn't exist. If he thinks he is going to convince any intelligent atheist to suddenly start believing in God because Einstein or Hawking do, he seriously misunderstands what it is to be a rational individual.