by Jesse Galef
Ray Comfort recently decided to pollute the waters of intellectual integrity by printing his own edition of Darwin’s Origin of Species putting his own 50-page foreword [edit: corrected spelling throughout] at the beginning. This foreword misrepresents the theory in an attempt to discredit evolution, connect Darwin to Hitler, and generally mislead students.
Students? Yes, Ray Comfort’s Living Water Ministries is threatening to distribute these books to college students free of charge. How kind.
Who better to counter this nonsense than the Secular Student Alliance? I recently took a volunteer position with the organization as Communications Director, and earlier this week we put out a press release announcing our intention to mobilize our groups against the deliberate attempt to mislead students:
“We’re asking students to respond proactively. We believe the best way to respond to misinformation is with a positive, educational campaign,” says August Brunsman, executive director for the Secular Student Alliance.
…
Students are aware that the distributors have the first amendment right to pass out their anti-evolution literature, but are being encouraged by the Secular Student Alliance to use their own rights to respond with a friendly, science-based message.The Secular Student Alliance at Yale University, for example, has plans to set up a table promoting “alternative theories on sexual education,” appropriately named Students for Stork Acknowledgment.
I am clearly not an unbiased observer, but I think this is the right way to counter ignorance and misinformation: with education and friendliness. To my surprise, our press release just got posted verbatim at Ray Comfort’s blog! There are 83 comments as I write this, with a surprising number of supporters commenting.
Personally, I think we would benefit from printing a copy of the Bible with a foreword at the beginning explaining how each chapter got considered canon or not, how the book is mistranslated, and what Jesus’ followers thought at the time. Essentially, I want to put my college professor Bart Ehrman’s books inside the front cover of the Bible. And then we could distribute that to Sunday school classes.
I read the (95 when I checked) comments and just found the theist posts extremely depressing. They’re attempting to debunk a theory when they don’t even know what that theory says. Honestly, they seem to make something up which they know is nonsensical, call it “evolution” and then proceed to debunk it. Badly. What’s really depressing is that it’s probably not even worth trying to educate them – because they just will never listen.
I read through quite a few, but then I couldn’t stand it anymore; all of a sudden I closed the tab as if I wasn’t controlling my own motions. It is intellectually exhausting to read through those sad comments. Maybe I’ll try again tomorrow…
I expect that it would take too much time backtracking into epistemological territory to make significant progress with the Ray Comfort crowd, but students are much more likely to listen and see through the nonsense.
I really want to read this forward…
I think you can find it here: http://assets.livingwaters.com/pdf/OriginofSpecies.pdf
Read enough of it to know that Ray Comfort doesn’t actually have a clue what the theory of evolution is. He’s writen a foreword for a book he’s clearly never read. What a dick.
It’s not just the forward, guys. Ray removed 4 entire chapters from the book, making the entire thing nonsensical. I say we reprint the Bible with our own forward, and then randomly remove chapters from various books.
From Eugenie Scott in USA Today:
I think the version he’s planning to hand out on November 24th has those four chapters, if I’m reading this article correctly. Still, ‘almost everything’ is not ‘everything’.
Have you ever considered the fact that acts like these are not HURTING your cause or HELPING the Christian cause? You should feel grateful that these things happen, because they only serve to make the Christian community look crazier (despite the fact that it’s just fanatics) and the Atheist community increasingly more clever and wittier (from blog postings such as these). And the only people who will read and take seriously his “work” are people who are already incorporated into that respective community and who likely will not change.
Then again, the Atheist community removing a bunch of chapters from various books of the Bible would probably seem like a dick move to most faith and faith-less communities around the world, and given the same amount of credibility as Ray Comfort and his shenanigans.
The atheist community removing a load of books from the bible because we don’t like them? Been done. By the first pope. Just after he found a body and decided for no particular reason that it must be St. Peter.
Well, I don’t know if the first pope would constitute “the atheist community.” But ok.
Ha…and apparently Ray Comfort and I agree about this one:
“Besides, if they think my arguments have no merit, why
are they so upset? They should actually enjoy the fact that I’m spreading more
of my idiotic claims that intelligent students will see right through – that way
my stupidity will be that much more apparent.”
The problem is that Comfort intends with malice aforethought to twist the book into something that supports his nonsense, rather than tending to debunk it as it in fact does.
Do you think that if his disingenuous preface were torn out and the four “edited” chapters put back in, he’d still distribute the book? Of course not.
So instead he poisons the cup of knowledge before it’s drunk. Bravo Mr. Comfort. Very Christian of you.
There’s a special place for people who lie, isn’t there? I think Mr. Comfort’s god would be a little steamed at him for stooping as low as he does.
After studying a bit of Daniel Dennett and listening to his lectures online, I have begun to understand the point of view that identifies some of the very high-up theocrats as some of the biggest non-believers. I post far too many long-winded comments, so I won’t go into outlining what he says about it – but it is fascinating…great intellectual journeys in a few short ideas.
I deeply recommend looking into his work – a great start is listening to lectures on YouTube, etc. Dawkins has reported that Dennett is one of the men/thinkers he looks up to most in the world that is still living.
I love Dennett. I was at the AAI Convention last month and got to attend his talk on how nonbelieving members of the clergy or divinity students can stay in their faith – that might be one of the ones you’re talking about.
It’s on youtube somewhere if someone wants to search for ‘Dennet AAI 2009′
I have to object to your caveat “(despite the fact that it’s just fanatics)”.
It’s not even close to being just fanatical christians who deny evolution. Something like half of all Americans don’t “believe” in it. I quote the word believe, because a lot of religious people think their beliefs don’t need to reflect anything that actually exists, or for which there is compelling evidence, in the real world. They just think they can “believe” things into or out of existence simply by uttering the word. This is a widespread problem; a complete cognitive dissonance which manifests itself at will and with the mere conjuring of a single word.
If a mere 10% of Americans had such a childish and dangerous way of thinking about the world they live in, it would be cause for alarm. The fact that so many people align themselves with this delusional anti-logic should scare the living crap out of everyone else. The first step in defeating rampant ignorance is avoiding any attempts at dishonestly or naively trivializing the problem. Muttering the word “believe” will not change the realities of our universe, and referring to widespread illogic and agressive ignorance as a problem shared by only a few “fanatics” (despite the obvious fact that is not the case) will only serve to undermine any attempts at moving beyond the problem.
Is there a list somewhere of which universities Comfort will be handing out this book at? I haven’t seen a list yet and didn’t find one on Comfort’s web site, but I want to know if it’ll be going on at my school.
I’d like to know that also.
For sure, if anyone knows this, let’s hear it. Perhaps they are ambushing each campus guerilla-style to avoid organized intellectual efforts against them. Let’s hope not.
He’s been deliberately vague about which schools he’s going to… if he pre-announced where he was planning to go he’d be met with far too much opposition! He’ll show up unannounced for sure…
To answer my own question, I just found this list at the Panda’s Thumb, which in turn comes from Don’t Diss Darwin.
Here is the preliminary list, apparently it was expanded so it might happen at some schools not on the list. http://www.secularstudents.org/node/2823
It’s “Foreword”, as in a piece of writing found in the front of a piece of literature. “Forward” pertains to movement.
What’s scary is that this free garbage from Comfort will be more widely read by xians than the actual “Origin of Species”, which might do a little something to dispel the abhorrent ignorance surrounding the theory of evolution.
Yup, good catch. I’m changing that now
My Catholic bible, that I love to read when debating believers, has an amazing preface for the complete work, and introductions for each individual book, that poses as a sort of historicity and explanation for the work, or the particular book, respectively. The intro’s are amazing to read, especially for the really wacky books of the OT, and are really nothing more than apologetics for the obvious problems that face scriptural followers. It’s fascinating reading. I may have to feature some of it on my blog.
While I agree with the spirit of your post, treating the Bible the same way Bananaman Ray has treated Origin of Species will only strengthen their argument that we, as skeptics, have deified Darwin. Hand out pamphlets with refutations of Comfort’s arguments (such as they are). That will have a much more positive effect than a foreword to their Scripture.
This is a false equivalence to say that we’re “treating the bible the same way” that Comfort has treated the Origin of Species. He is attempting to undermine the validity of a scientific text. Those students are using satire to point out foolishness of his position. They are not the same thing at all.
It seems that The Big Blue Frog is writing about their (the anti-evolutionist crowd) argument about people who understand/accept Darwinian theory. That is, if people did the same sort of slimy move with a bible, Ray-Ray and friends would spout off about evolutionists worshipping or deifying Darwin – or, more in my own words, that scientists and people who understand and accept evolution “believe” in it. And, moreover, the anti-evolutionists then claim scientists and those that accept evolution need just as much faith to accept evolution as they do to believe in god.
It’s the old “I’m rubber, you’re glue. Bounces off me and sticks on you” argument. It was retarded when we used it as children, and it remains so.
2011 will be the 400th anniversary of the King James Version (KJV) of the bible. For many fundamentalists, the KJV is the perfect translation, also inspired by god. It would be a good time to print a special edition, state mistakes in the translation and that King James may have been gay.
A.S.S backwards. Just like creationism. Love it.
Ray Comfort is a liar. After all, he must have lied once in his life and therefore he’s a liar. (Just using his own absurd ideas against him.)
“Personally, I think we would benefit from printing a copy of the Bible with a forward at the beginning explaining how each chapter got considered canon or not, how the book is mistranslated, and what Jesus’ followers thought at the time.”
Wow.. I had the idea, though I’m sure many people did, but you said it so well.
We definitely should print Bibles with an appropriately rational forward. We should distribute them the way the Gideons do.
We have something similar.
skepticsannotatedbible.com
foreword
Thanks, changing that now.
I like the idea of the edited Bible. Nobody could argue with giving out the Bible, but it would have the additional information with info most believers don’t bother to consider. For example, a few months ago, I was telling a long-time friend how some of the doctrines, Jesus/God/Man and some others came to be decided upon. His response was “I don’t care about history, I just believe the Bible.”
Well Duhh!! So give them a Bible that opens up some historical truth!
Aaaauuuuuuuuuggghhhhhh!
Ray Comfort! Before I discovered Unreasonable Faith, I was innocently unaware of his existence. Now at random, senseless moments he galls my days and nights.
I can think of plenty of evil, obnoxious, pig-headed fundamentalist figures, but none so retchingly stupid as the banana man.
Hahahaaa…
Thanks claid, that made me laugh out loud.
Comfort’s 150th Anniversary Edition of On the Origin of Species was being handed out at my campus today, and I just thought it might be useful to interested parties here to get the link to the special foreword by Ray Comfort: http://www.livingwaters.com, up for those who want “to learn what some don’t want you to know.”
Its utterly ridiculous religious propaganda, and to me it seems terribly misinformed. Would someone like to create a special foreword for this special foreword?