Any Toe Left to Stub?

The other half of the photo session of the death match actually relates to Ray's The Universe Eternal post. I created some inspirational posters relating to Ray Comfort.

I think Maragon made a decent summary response to Ray's Second Law of Thermodynamics post, pointing out the hypocrisy of using science to support claims.

Funny how theists hate and fear science when it says something about their worldview that they disagree with, but love and accept science when they think it's proving their point. You can't have it both ways; science either has the power to explain the universe around us, or it doesn't. Pretending to accept science when you mistakenly believe that it disproves other science is intellectually dishonest and a testament to how little you understand about the workings of this academic discipline.

I think there are two things to also point out, though. Her post overlooked the image. Darwin's theory has nothing to do with the big bang. I think "evolution" and "Darwinism" are used by Ray to mean anything which contradicts his scientific reading of the Bible, including evolutionary theory, radiometric dating, cosmological model of the universe, and so on. Ray also managed to overstep the broader question of the poster that the universe can't be eternal while God can, which is perhaps a subject for a later post.

In this post, Ray quotes Stephen Hawking from a 2004 lecture. The lecture he quotes from relates to a previous passage from A Brief History of Time he quote mined to suggest that Stephen Hawking believed in a Creator behind the Big Bang. As I pointed out in Another Toe-Stubbing Post on Hawking, though, the chapter discusses laws breaking down at singularities, finite space-time, and self-containment, and concludes 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?

As a fan of Hawking (and knowing Ray's propensity to quote mine), I spent some time reading the lecture. The lecture he quotes from actually covers much of the same stuff. When reading the lecture, I wondered where Ray got the quote from (as I doubt he has read the article, details further below). In searching for this quote to see if it was on a prominent site for quote mining, I found it posted a lot in forums with the follow statement made by posters at a few:

This is a very recent lecture. While he may have supported a universe without a beginning earlier in life, this definitely shows that he has changed his mind in favor of a beginning of the universe and time. (paraphrased)

This is to fundamentally misunderstand the nature of Hawking's work and shows ignorance of it. To just provide you with a simple demonstration of this, what I quoted in a my previous post came from A Brief History of Time in 1988, the lecture was in 2004, and the following is from A Briefier History of Time (a revision and updating) in 2005 from the conclusion to Quantum Gravity in chapter nine (pg 103): (luckily I brought this book with me on my trip)

If there is no boundary to space-time, there is no need to specify the behavior at the boundary -- no need to know the initial state of the universe. There is no edge of space-time at which we would have to appeal to God or some new law to set the boundary conditions for space-time. We 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. As long as we believed the universe had a beginning, the role of a creator seemed clear. But if the universe is really completely self-contained, having no boundary or edge, having neither beginning nor end, then the answer is not so obvious: what is the role of a creator?

This is something the lecture touches on and if read to try to understand, rather than to quote, it becomes obvious. He discusses often what could have preceded the Big Bang, and then always dismisses them as speculation with the comment that we cannot know what happens before that as the laws of science break down in it. He mentions this even in the lecture Ray quotes from:

At this time, the Big Bang, all the matter in the universe, would have been on top of itself. The density would have been infinite. It would have been what is called, a singularity. At a singularity, all the laws of physics would have broken down. This means that the state of the universe, after the Big Bang, will not depend on anything that may have happened before, because the deterministic laws that govern the universe will break down in the Big Bang. The universe will evolve from the Big Bang, completely independently of what it was like before. Even the amount of matter in the universe, can be different to what it was before the Big Bang, as the Law of Conservation of Matter, will break down at the Big Bang.

Since events before the Big Bang have no observational consequences, one may as well cut them out of the theory, and say that time began at the Big Bang. Events before the Big Bang, are simply not defined, because there's no way one could measure what happened at them. This kind of beginning to the universe, and of time itself, is very different to the beginnings that had been considered earlier. (emphasis added)

I emphasized the passage where he discusses the beginning. He speaks of this "kind of beginning" of time (the big bang) is "different to the beginnings that had been considered earlier." What beginnings were considered earlier? The beginning of the universe as created by an external agency. And when Ray quotes that "this argument about whether or not the universe had a beginning..." is referring to this, as the section that precedes it reads:

It was therefore natural to believe that the human race, and maybe the whole universe, had a beginning in the fairly recent past. However, many people were unhappy with the idea that the universe had a beginning, because it seemed to imply the existence of a supernatural being who created the universe. They preferred to believe that the universe, and the human race, had existed forever. Their explanation for human progress was that there had been periodic floods, or other natural disasters, which repeatedly set back the human race to a primitive state.

What I find especially humorous to Ray using this lecture is that Hawking actually specifically addresses the beginning of the universe which Ray supports (biblical/created) and the different "kind of beginning" which the Big Bang is. This is the continuation from the previously emphasized passage:

These [different kinds of beginnings considered earlier] had to be imposed on the universe by some external agency. There is no dynamical reason why the motion of bodies in the solar system can not be extrapolated back in time, far beyond four thousand and four BC, the date for the creation of the universe, according to the book of Genesis. Thus it would require the direct intervention of God, if the universe began at that date. By contrast, the Big Bang is a beginning that is required by the dynamical laws that govern the universe. It is therefore intrinsic to the universe, and is not imposed on it from outside.(emphasis added)

After this he discusses some historical attempts to get around the Big Bang beginning, then past light cones, then quantum effects impact on the Big Bang theory, then imaginary time and its implication on real time, and then finally the self-contained, no boundary condition. If all this seems confusing (as it should) but at the same time interesting (as it also should), I strongly recommend reading the lecture yourself, reading some Wikipedia entries on the subjects, and also reading A Brief History of Time, A Briefer History of Time, and The Universe In a Nutshell by Stephen Hawking to find out what Hawking really believes, studies, and lectures on, rather than listening to Ray to divine such knowledge.

A New Comforting Quote Mine!

The header has been updated with two new Ray Comfort quotes. This does mean that the Hawking quote had to be removed, but I quite prefer that as I rather dislike the idea of summing up the beliefs of a man like Hawking from one quote in a header image.

As for the two new quotes, as with the two previous quotes, I am not like Ray. As such, I will provide the proper context for these two quotes.

First Quote:

I want you to know that I believe Jesus Christ is the only way to God; there's no other way! Not Hinduism; not Buddhism; not Islam. There's no way you can get to God but through Jesus Christ. I'm what you call a bigot; a fundamentalist. I believe what the bible says and there's a reason for that. (source)

Fourth Quote:

Here's the build-up to my question: Some say Jesus of Nazareth was a great teacher. Others say that He was crazy, while others (a few) think that He didn’t exist at all.

I think that "great" teachers don’t say the sort of weird things He said (believe His words and you have everlasting life, that His voice would raise the billions of the dead human race, etc.), and if He didn’t exist, who said these amazing words? So, I think that there are only two reasonable options. He was either a crazy liar, or He was the Son of God. (source)

As an atheist, my mission in life is to edit everything Ray Comfort writes so I can make him look like an idiot.

No, The Banana *Is* Proof

I thought I would have to make a post today about things my fundamentalist father had told me while growing up and becoming a man which convinced him of the truth of the Bible. Thankfully for you, my readers, Ray Comfort has made a monkey out of himself with his latest post today.

In my inaugural post, I made the following remark on why I am doing this blog:

Sometimes he makes arguments which sound very nice to the average reader. When he talks about atheists not having absolute knowledge of God, someone needs to be there without absolute knowledge of Bigfoot. When he says that God controls the rain and fires ripping through the gay-marrying California, someone needs to be there to point out that God also controls the rain and lightning flooding the non-gay-marrying Midwest. And every time Ray holds up a banana, someone needs to be there to hold up a coconut.

This blog is my personal coconut.

Where does this banana-coconut thing come from? Here is a (humorized) one-minute segment of Ray Comfort presenting his banana argument:



This is, of course, a fallacious argument from design. This one is asinine as he makes the argument that the banana:

1. Is shaped for human hand
2. Has non-slip surface
3. Has outward indicators of inward content:

   Green — too early

   Yellow — just right

   Black — too late

4. Has a tab for removal of wrapper
5. Is perforated on wrapper
6. Bio-degradable wrapper
7. Is shaped for human mouth
8. Has a point at top for ease of entry
9. Is pleasing to taste buds
10. Is curved towards the face to make eating process easy

You can check out the Iron Chariots article debunking this ridiculous argument. When I first heard the argument, my first thought was: If the banana proves God, then the coconut must disprove God. I remember my first time trying to eat a coconut; I had no idea how it was done. I must have spent fifteen minutes banging on it and trying all sorts of things until I found out that you must: drive a screwdriver into the one soft spot in it to drain the liquid, wrap it up in a towel (to prevent damage and losing parts of it), whack it with a hammer or the thick end of a butcher's knife, whack it many times around its circumference, then use some sort of tool to separate the meat from the shell.

But anyway, Ray made a post on the argument he conceded two years ago by remarking that:

Thanks to Youtube I realize that I will have to say this over and over. Many times I have compared a banana to a coke can (with its tab at the top, etc.) using something called "parody." This is arguably a humorous way of making a point. Atheists removed the coke can and said that I believe that the banana is proof that God exists. In doing so they did a good job and making a monkey out of me.

A "parody"? What exactly is a parody that it must be surrounded in quotes? "Parody" means a humorous way of making a point? Nice try Ray, but I happen to have a dictionary at my disposal.

parody (v): to imitate (a composition, author, etc.) for purposes of ridicule or satire.

That's another entry for the Dictionary of DisComfort. What Ray was actually doing with the coke can and banana was called "analogy":

analogy (n): Logic. a form of reasoning in which one thing is inferred to be similar to another thing in a certain respect, on the basis of the known similarity between the things in other respects.

Indeed, what Ray has done is taken William Paley's watchmaker argument and substituted it with another false analogy. Just as his watchmaker argument has been debunked, as has Ray's banana argument been debunked. The difference is, though, that Ray's version has even more wrong with it, which is why he conceded the argument when being interviewed on it by an atheist:

Alleee : I'm just saying that, that there are very few plants, and we argue - with some environmentalists a lot who don't believe in bioengineered food, because all, because most of the food that we eat of course is farmed, and is done through horticulture, and we've engineered these - these fruits and vegetables to be more tasty to us. So actually, the banana seems to be not, not made by God at this point, it's more like um... what, what came first, the banana or the hand ? [laugh] You know ? Man took the banana and made it better for man...

Ray Comfort : Okay, you've got that one. You can have the banana.

While Ray's latest post is entitled that the banana isn't proof, I must disagree. It is indeed proof; proof of his dishonesty. He makes no mention of why he conceded the argument or that he even conceded it. In fact, he continues to make the argument at the end of the post, merely omitting bananas:

The banana isn’t proof that God exists--the whole of creation proves that there’s a Creator. This includes apples, oranges, pears, peaches, apricots, grapes and other succulent fruits that God has placed into our hands. They didn’t come from a big bang. That is mindless. They came from the creative genius of a benevolent and holy God, who also gave you life itself, and eyes to look at that which He has so kindly lavished upon you.

Either he never learns, is foolish, or is dishonest. We can chalk this up as at least another example of dishonesty, as he stands with egg on his face.

What's very humorous about the post, though, is the cartoon that accompanies it:

Hi there, I'm an atheist!
It's my mission in life-
To edit everything Ray Comfort writes,
So I can make him look like an idiot.

Hmm... doesn't this sound like someone we know...

Hi there, I'm Ray Comfort!
It's my mission in life-
To edit everything Einstein writes,
So I can make him look like an idiot.

After all, an idiot is what he makes Einstein look like by claiming he takes the fables of the Bible as inerrant, wise, and divine.

(Edit 6-29-08)
I forgot to make this point here until I made it in a comment to the post. I always try to point out when Ray makes claims to pull out his absolute knowledge shtick, so I thought I'd copy it from my comment to here:

Also, you say that atheists clipped out the coke can portion, but how do you know that? It could have been a fellow Christian who simply spotted a bad argument. As you have posted before: To say that an atheist did it you have to have absolute knowledge. To make such a claim means that you are omniscient. But you aren't. Only God is, right?

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.

Stepping on a Comforting Quote Mine

The header has a new quote from Ray Comfort! The first quote of the image used to respond to the Einstein one Comfort has in his header to suggest that Einstein believed in the type of God Ray does. My quote used to be:

I do not believe in a personal god and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly.

This has been replaced by a quote of Ray Comfort regarding Einstein:

I have never said that Einstein was a Christian, that he believed in Jesus or in a personal God. He wasn't dumb.

He made this in a comment to Quote-mining From an Atheist Site. Let me play Ray Comfort towards the above quote. Ahem: "As you can clearly see, Ray concedes that Einstein was an atheist. He admits he wasn't a Christian and did not believe in a personal God, so therefore he believes in no form of a God whatsoever. And as you can see from the concluding sentence, Ray also concedes that anyone who is a Christian, believes in Jesus, or believes in a personal God is dumb. These are not my words, they are his. Read them for yourself!"

Of course, just like Ray does with Einstein, Darwin, Hawking, and countless others, I have performed a minor form of quote mining wherein I took it out of context (it isn't exactly quote mining, though, because it isn't taken from a large volume of text). I have been dishonest and compromised my intellectual integrity, just as Ray does every time he does the same. I have lied to my readers by deliberately misleading them, just as Ray consistently lies. By analyzing his quote out of context, I am dishonest. By analyzing others' quotes out of context, Ray is dishonest.

To redeem myself somewhat, I will do what Ray never does. I will give you the context I have excerpted this quote from:

"Benjamin Franklin said... seriously, Ray, I think that it is disingenuous of you to have that quote from Einstein at the header of your website.Einstein was not a Christian, and he did not believe in Jesus, nor did he beleive in a personal God.You should remove that quote and replace it with some bible verse."

I have never said that Einstein was a Christian, that he believed in Jesus or in a personal God. He wasn't dumb. He knew there was a Creator, because creation couldn't have created itself. Something that didn't exist, can't create itself...because it didn't exist. It's impossible. Whatever created, had to be eternal. That's obvious to a thinking person. (emphasis added)

While I have provided you the context for Ray's quote, it is shameful, utterly shameful, that he does not do the same for his readers when he sullies the good names of great men like Einstein and Hawking to distort their words to conform to his own warped ideas.

Einstein MUST Have Believed in a Creator

One of the many things I genuinely appreciate about Ray Comfort (and there are many) is that he actually reads and replies to some of the comments in his blog. He does not ignore them, nor does he only reply to those praising him. As such, I was going back through his recent posts since he posted that despicable post about Einstein believing that the Bible is the "Word of God." In a comment to the post Quote-mining From an Atheist Site, one individual writes:

Seriously, Ray, I think that it is disingenuous of you to have that quote from Einstein at the header of your website.

Einstein was not a Christian, and he did not believe in Jesus, nor did he beleive [sic] in a personal God.

You should remove that quote and replace it with some bible verse.

To this, Ray had the following to say:

I have never said that Einstein was a Christian, that he believed in Jesus or in a personal God. He wasn't dumb. He knew there was a Creator, because creation couldn't have created itself. Something that didn't exist, can't create itself...because it didn't exist. It's impossible. Whatever created, had to be eternal. That's obvious to a thinking person. (emphasis added)

Firstly, from this I have a new quote I can mine to put in my header, namely:

I have never said that Einstein was a Christian, that he believed in Jesus or in a personal God. He wasn't dumb.

But secondly, I think this comment really sheds light on why he uses these mined quotes and also how he could so mangle a quote by reading his own view into it as to argue that Einstein believed the Bible was the "Word of God." It is because Ray's argument is that Einstein must have believed in God. He says that Einstein knew there was a Creator and then tacks on his argument about creation couldn't have created itself. Where has Einstein ever said this? Where has he ever said there was a Creator? He lived a little before the time of Hawking's developments, but I am sure he wouldn't play a god of the gaps type argument.

Nonetheless, this post shows why Ray interprets the quotes the way he does. He doesn't understand how someone could not believe the same as He. As such, he reads his own arguments, understanding, and definitions into the writings of great men. To his oft-repeated argument:

Something that didn't exist, can't create itself...because it didn't exist. It's impossible. Whatever created, had to be eternal. That's obvious to a thinking person.

Then, as a "thinking" person, Ray, you must also concede that the Creator must have at a Creator-creating Creator. After all, the Creator "can't create itself... because it didn't exist."

I know what he's thinking: "But ah! JT! That only applies to things that didn't exist; God, however, always existed." That's Ray's false premise. "Something that didn't exist." Absolutely, something that didn't exist could not create itself. But that argument for God only works if you assume that everything at one point didn't exist and that God always existed. That is called the fallacy of begging the question and an arbitrary false premise.

As anyone who has read Stephen Hawking's many books and articles knows, which you must have seeing as how you quote him in your header. The quote Ray has mined from Stephen Hawking comes from Chapter 8: The Origin and Fate of the Universe from his bestselling book A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes (it may have also come from A Briefer History of Time, but I am still in the middle of that book). The quote comes from roughly the middle of it when he is discussing the governance of the universe and some people's view of the role of God. In the same fashion as Ray, I will also quote from the same Chapter 8, with context, by leaving you the concluding paragraph of that chapter:

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?

Expelled's Quote Mining

Ray Comfort posted a singing praise about the Expelled movie. The review itself really exposes how frail Ray's mind is if he can succumb so greatly to a propaganda fluff piece. This post isn't a review about Expelled, as many (many, many, many) have already done so and pointed out its flaws. There's two things I wanted to note about it, though. Firstly, Ray fell right through the trap door of it linking "Dawinism" (whatever that is) to the Holocaust. That he can believe that the cause of the Holocaust and the cause of Action T4 was the scientific theory of evolution speaks monuments about his intellectual dignity. It shows he is blithely ignorant of history and the fact that eugenics actually had support of Christians in America.

Nevertheless, I had always thought something special of Ray for using the correct term instead of "Darwinism" until this review. It showed that he could be taken in by simple propaganda slogans. Why do they call it Darwinism? So that they can do the following spiel: "Darwinism leads to Social Darwinism which leads to Nazism which leads to the Holocaust." Nevermind the fact that actual Darwinism or even the theory of evolution has absolutely nothing to do with Social Darwinism.

Just as the Nazis had their 100 scientists dissenting from Einstein, the Discovery Institute (the thinktank for the Darwinism leads to Social Darwinism propaganda) had their 100 scientists dissenting from Darwin. Too bad modern dissenters from Einstein (notably the Christian geocentrists who think the Sun orbits the Earth) don't have the strategists from the Discovery Institute or they could have made a fluff piece like Expelled by calling the theory of relativity "Relativism." Then, they could come up with the slogan "relativism leads to moral relativism leads to Nazism leads to the Holocaust."

But I digress. The second point of this post goes to the issue covered in the last two posts: quote mining. The Expelled creators, just like anti-science Christians like Ray, like to mine quote. Just as Ray takes quotes completely out of context and mangles them, as did the propaganda piece Expelled. To show that Darwin was racist and a proponent of forced euthanasia, they mine the following from his masterful Origin of Species:

With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated. We civilized men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination. We build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed and the sick. Thus the weak members of civilized societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. Hardly anyone is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed.

It's easy to see why an uneducated mind, such as Ray's, which has never been exposed to a reading of Origin of Species could fall for such a mined quote. The actual quote, in full context, with the omitted parts in bold, is:

With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated; and those that survive commonly exhibit a vigorous state of health. We civilized men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination. We build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed and the sick; we institute poor-laws; and our medical men exert their utmost skill to save the life of every one to the last moment. There is reason to believe that vaccination has preserved thousands, who from a weak constitution would formerly have succumbed to small-pox. Thus the weak members of civilized societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. It is surprising how soon a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to the degeneration of a domestic race; but excepting in the case of man himself, hardly anyone is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed.

The aid which we feel impelled to give to the helpless is mainly an incidental result of the instinct of sympathy, which was originally acquired as part of the social instincts, but subsequently rendered, in the manner previously indicated, more tender and more widely diffused. Nor could we check our sympathy, even at the urging of hard reason, without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature. The surgeon may harden himself whilst performing an operation, for he knows that he is acting for the good of his patient; but if we were intentionally to neglect the weak and helpless, it could only be for a contingent benefit, with an overwhelming present evil.

Yeah, that Darwin! He was an evil man indeed.

You can effectively measure how much a person's mind has been compromised by the anti-science propaganda against the scientific theory of evolution with the following five questions:

1. Do they refer to evolutionary theory as Darwinism?
2. Do they refer to defenders of evolutionary theory as evolutionists?
3. Do they state that evolutionary theory teaches that humans evolved from monkeys?
4. Do they state that evolutionary theory teaches that life just happened or came about from "lightning striking a mud puddle"?
5. Do they link evolutionary theory with atheism?

If, on the above five accounts, you have answers of "Yes," then you are dealing with an uneducated person who has been taken in by propaganda. Ray Comfort, like Ben Stein, fail on all five accounts. It's difficult to judge from his blog, but I wonder if Ray shares Ben's sentiments that "science leads you to killing people"?

His Learning Stumbling Block

Does Ray Comfort never learn? I made my first post about him quote mining Einstein and then twisting it around to read his own version of God into it. I speculated that someone must have pointed out his shenanigan to him, after which he promptly deleted the post so as not to look like an even greater fool to an even greater audience. Apparently, he has posted the message he received:

"Ray wrote: 'I have never said that Einstein was a Christian, that he believed in Jesus or in a personal God. He wasn't dumb. He knew there was a Creator...' No, when he denied that there was a personal God, he was denying that there was a creator. His concept of a non-personal God was of physical laws bringing about the universe, not of a pre-existing creator who willed it to happen. You still don't get it, Ray . . . Quote mining is ignoring the real meaning of what a person is saying and instead repeating snippets that, on their own, convey a false impression of the author's intent." Applejack

Notice, though, Ray does not mention at all his original post which also discussed Einstein believing that the Bible was the "Word of God."

Does Comfort acknowledge the mistake he made by using the quote to say that Einstein believed that the Bible was the "Word of God" as I pointed out yesterday? No. Does he acknowledge that he's never read anything by Einstein or Hawking, other than mined quotes? No. Does he acknowledge that it is wrong to post quotes out of context and on their own to distort to his own perspective? No. So, what does he post in his reply to the above? More Einstein quotes so that he can make him into a Christian or a deist!

And how does he do this? By picking words out of the quote which Einstein uses in a different sense than how Comfort uses them. When he talks about God, he isn't talking about an omnibenevolent, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, etc God that Ray is referring to. He had to repeatedly clarify his position due to people like Ray Comfort in his time. He has clarified that when he says God or Spirit, he meant that he believe in "Spinoza's God, who reveals Himself in the lawful harmony of the world, not in a God Who concerns Himself with the fate and the doings of mankind." What is Spinoza's God? It's a concept that nature and God are the same thing, that "God is the natural world and He has no personality." When he talks about Divine Will, he refers to that which is expressed in the natural laws. When he talks about being a religious man, he meant that "if something is in [him] which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it."

Ray Comfort did not at all acknowledge that he mangled Einstein's quote to conform to his own view that God wrote a book called the Holy Bible. He did not at all acknowledge that, apparently, he realized what he was doing and how he got it wrong. He did not post a retraction. Ray Comfort is dishonest.

As I have said, it matters NOT that Einstein disbelieved in God (the traditional definition of which). That is not why people, both atheists and theists, attack quote miners like Ray Comfort for distorting Einstein's views. Comfort does a great disservice to history with his revisions. We stand on the principle of the matter. Many people more well read than Ray Comfort have addressed Einstein's religion and the, unlike Ray, have actually read his great writings. The verdict is in, Ray, you need only go to your local library and check some books out or consult an encyclopedia.

Since I have scruples, I do not quote mine Newton, nor do any atheists. Newton was a brilliant man. He was one of the greatest minds to have ever lived. He established classical mechanics, was a brilliant mathematician, astronomer, and natural philosopher. Being a computer scientist, I have run into his basic ideas in calculus and physics and they are simply marvelous. The brilliance of this one man was awesome (awe-some).

And you know what else? Newton was also a theologian, a devout Christian (and his interpretation differs from that of Comfort's). He wrote more on religion than he did on science. But I, as noted in the above passage, admire, respect, and revere Newton too much to take quotes out of context (which I well could) to distort them to my own personal view of religion. Why? Because doing so would denigrate the man himself.

The other reason why I do not quote mine Newton in the same way Ray mines Einstein and Hawking is that I don't need Newton on my side. I can think for myself. I can reason for myself. My view is fully supported by reason, rationality, and thought. I don't need to rest my view on the shoulders of Newton as my views can stand alone.

Ray Comfort disrespects Einstein.

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.