Via Jesus Needs New PR, here’s a well produced animated clip from Living Waters (Ray Comfort’s group).
To my (former Episcopalian) eyes, it looks like Protestant theology, streamlined and blown up to the point of caricature. No one is good enough to deserve Heaven, and so only thorough God’s grace are we truly saved from death. To receive that grace, we must believe that Jesus was the son of God who died for our sins.
One thing confuses me: who’s the intended audience here? If you believe in the Christian heaven, you’re likely to believe in the Trinity and salvation through the sacrifice of Jesus. If you believe in a type of heaven, but are Jewish or Muslim, then you’re hardly going to be impressed by some theological assertions derived from another person’s holy book. If you’re a non-believer, you likely don’t believe in heaven, hell, a theological type of sin or any of the rest of the package.
So who are Ray and Kirk talking to?
The target is those who don’t really know what they believe and are looking for direction. This clip is so over the top though that I’d find it hard to believe it would convert anyone. Then again, I find it hard to understand how any adult that was not raised in a religion would come to it, and yet they do.
I’m with you. I think it’s a bit black-and-white to say either you don’t believe in heaven or you already subscribe to a religion. As far as I’ve seen, there’s a pretty large middle ground of people who don’t identify as Christian (not explicitly anyway) but have absorbed ideas about heaven and an afterlife through a kind of cultural osmosis.
The farmer knows the paddock door is locked and bolted, but he still makes a motion in front of the sheep to show that the door is still locked and bolted.
(totally off topic, have any of you ever seen an atheist in these debates, losing the argument and claiming to be tired and need some sleep, grin)
I don’t know what debates you mean, but an atheist would have to be in coma to lose an argument with Cameron or Comfort.
Moderate, kinda-sorta, nominal Christians. The kind of people who tend to think highly of themselves and believe they are a good person – like most people believe they are going to heaven no matter what they do, but don’t actually think about Jesus most of the time except when they need a favor.
So…
God is NOT a corrupt judge, he demands perfect justice. That’s why he won’t just forgive you, even though you ask for forgiveness. Instead, him being the judge, he’ll send his son to your community so you can beat him and torture him and ultimate kill him. Presto!, and you’re magically pardoned for all your hundreds of thousands of crimes. That’s not being corrupt at all. Actually, I have no idea what that is, but it’s NOT corruption.
Makes perfect sense.
You know, when my electrical appliances short circuit, they burn up and stop working. How Ray’s brain hasn’t melted from short circuiting yet is completely beyond me.
Makes sense.
So in order to get into heaven you have to beat up some holy guy called jesus?
And this guy will get rid of all your sins. Cool!
What I would buy a box of popcorn to watch with is for one of those really crazy street preachers to have a go at Ray Ray, condemning him and telling him that he is going to hell.
Comfort’s audience is people who were raised with some type of Christianity around them, but either “backslid” or never really made a commitment to the faith of their upbringing. His tactics would make little sense to someone from a different religious background.
I think you just included me in Ray Comfort’s target audience. I was raised with some type(s) of Christianity and then definitely backslid without ever making a commitment.
Yup, me too. Though I was a committed Christian for 20 years. I was a false convert according to Ray, he told me so in the comments on his blog. I’m so proud. ;-)
hehe, did you tell him that you like bananas?
Ha! No, I foolishly tried to have an actual discussion with him.
“So who are Ray and Kirk talking to?”
The person behind them
Kids.
127,000 sins in 70 years? I masturbate that many times in a week.
Masturbation isn’t a sin. It couldn’t be, whatever parts you have seem to have been made to perfectly fit the design of your hand. Clearly this is evidence of an intelligent masturbator.
It’s almost as if Ray said it himself.
hahaha
lmao
The biggest problem with this theology is that by these standards, even Jesus was not perfect, and therefore he could not been the perfect sacrifice and paid for our sins. Hebrews 4:14 says, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin.” But here Ray Comfort (and Jesus, if that is what he meant in the Sermon on the Mount”) says that thoughts themselves are a sin. If Jesus even once was tempted with lustful thoughts, he sinned and was not a perfect sacrifice. If he never encountered lustful thoughts, then he was not tempted in every way as we are. On the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says that anyone who is angry with his brother is guilty of murder, and anyone who says “You fool” is in danger of hell, but Jesus himself showed anger and called people “fools”. If stealing a candy bar as a kid is a damnable offense to God, what about when Jesus stole the donkey in Luke 19, or stole grain in Matthew 12?
So Ray’s theology is left with a self-contradiction. If Jesus was tempted in every way just as we are, then he sinful thoughts and could not have been the perfect sacrifice. If Jesus never had sinful thoughts, then in what sense could he have been tempted in every way we are?
A self-contradiction in Christian theology? Surely not….
I had the same thoughts about the stealing of the donkey. What are the mental gymnastics to get over that bar?
And, besides, it’s not supposed to be about our own sins anyway. Why is so much time being spent trying to convince Mr. Nice Guy that he deserves Hell because of the bad things he’s done when in reality, they say, he was born deserving Hell? How much hotter does Hell get as you add your own sins to Adam’s?
Yup. Kids and other christians wich don’t belong to their sect. They don’t need to sell it to any other person, they are not doing this because they want to save anybody’s soul. They only want to be in christian news and keep doing profit.
Hokey! Mr. Nice Guy is plainly too stupid challenge any of this dreck.
Well, he IS voiced by Kirk Cameron.
So mr Nice Guy once stole a candy bar, occasionally exclaims “Oh my God”, has looked at women, and has no doubt commited various other innocuous transgressions. Therefore, in the name of justice, God will deliver him to agonising torture in Hell.
God’s sense of perspective works in mysterious ways.
“Who is Ray Preaching To?”
Notashamedofchrist.
Another thing I don’t get….”What do we call a person who steals?………..A thief.”
Really? Maybe a person who steals all the time, or a person who steals something big, like a car. But to label Mr. Goodguy a “thief” because he stole a candy bar once when he was a kid? That’s a bit extreme. I played golf once when I was in high school. Does that make me a “golfer”?
I actually think Ray makes these videos for a market of people who already believe it. Having read some of his stuff, it’s clear to me that they aren’t written to persuade.
They are written to cement the beliefs of the believers, and give them “tools” for converting their friends and loved ones.
Now, the tools don’t actually work. But that’s not the point. The point is that the consumer of Ray’s DVD collection BELIEVE they work. And so he sells more DVD’s.
Ray is very popular here in Southern California. I know of at least two places where every Friday and Saturday night there are small groups of Ray Fans doing Ray’s patented schpiel (“would you say you were a good person, have you ever told a lie….”).
The fact that most street preachers I see are literally saying Ray’s lines, and handing out Ray’s patented leaflets (that he generously sells on his website in bulk), tells me that his “product” is tools like this.
Unworking tools, but tools that FEEL like they COULD work to people who already believe.
I had a friend use the Banana argument on another friend of mine. Seriously. A guy I know went into the office of an atheist co-worker and actually used the banana argument, literally with a banana.
Ray knows what he’s doing. He’s selling tools.
Go to the Way of the Master online store. Take a look at how he sells his crap pamphlets in bulk for 70 bucks a box. Just LOOK at all the crap he sells. He’s got 48 different bulk boxes of pamphlets alone. Then there’s books, DVD’s etc….
That’s his market.
I’m in the wrong business.
This is too funny… Seriously – they honestly believe this shit?!
i did for the last nineteen or so years of my life. curious thing–when i deconverted, it was easier for me to stop “sinning.” when you believe that there is an insurmountable force ruling your life and causing you to do bad things, you tend to feel helpless.
like nietzche said, “christianity came into existence in order to lighten the heart; but now it has first to burden the heart so as afterwards to be able to lighten it.”
sadly, the fictitious force of sin often manifests itself in ones life whereas the fictitious salvation and following “sanctification process” are no match.
Reducto ad absurdiem time just from the choice lines in this video:
Argument from what the FUCK?!
1) God defined “good” and “bad”, and filed “bad” under “sin”.
2) God created imperfect men and women who are incapable of living without “sin”.
3) God decided that anybody who sins gets tortured for all eternity.
4) God LOVES humans so much that he incarnated himself as his own son and had his son/self tortured to death and sent back to heaven as a bribe to himself to forgive humanity for behaving exactly as he designed them to behave.
Therefore God Exists.
That’s a bit like an abuser repeatedly smashing his wife in the face while shouting “I LOVE YOU! SEE HOW MUCH I LOVE YOU? I’M HURTING MY FIST SO THAT I CAN FORGIVE YOU FOR BURNING THE DINNER!”
I’ve seen the abused spouse metaphor crop up a few times as a suitable description of how god’s eternal love works, and it is chillingly appropriate. It is a very damaging relationship and sadly, as with spousal abuse, it is one where often people cannot turn to their family/community members for support and end up feeling isolated. How do you tell your family you are breaking up with god?
This is part of the reason I despise any efforts to capture and convert children to belief in religious dogma. Threatening children with eternal pain and torture for thoughtcrimes and other petty nonsense is despicable. If, when they grow up, they choose to follow a particular faith then that’s their business, but trying to market it to them and manipulate them into following for what is essentially their own safety is outright predatory.
Worse, the community in this situation is often in exactly the same cycle of abuse as the individual. So the community will act as enablers of the abuser in the absence of any actual, corporeal abuser. They will also often shun and isolate the abused individual.
So, to carry the metaphor forward, on top of the bit where it’s hard to break up with god, the individual is often in a situation where their best friends, family, and close support network is siding with the abused spouse. Rather than realizing the abuse and, say, pulling up the U-Haul and moving the abused person to a safe place they’re saying, “If you don’t figure out how to appease that wonderful, loving person you live with and make it work we’ll stop talking to you.”
I just looked at the video. Wow, doesn’t that guy ever write any new material?
Anyway, yeah, I think he’s trying to snare kids and make them ashamed of their own natural sexual development. The references to secret thoughts, and God giving you new desires are pretty plain. This is about sexual guilt and masturbation.
Love this stuff :-)
He stole candy because there were no bananas.
“The standard is God’s law, not other people”. So God and Jesus both fail that one. As does Mary (Jesus’ mum).
“You’ll have to answer for every sin on judgement day”. That’ll be a long day.
“Read your bible and obey it” – especially the bit that says stone your disobedient children and enjoy several wives and concubines.
Sweet. That’s a lot of sandwiches.
What about all the people who died before the Ten Commandments were written and before Jesus sacrificed himself?
Is taking an egg from a chicken stealing?
Is telling a robber that you’re the only one home, even though your family is in the basement hiding, a lie?
Is killing a person in self defense or during a war a murder?
What if we find an alien race, are they held to the same standards? What if we kill them, is that murder?
LOL
Well I assume Christ couldnt even sin even if he wanted because he’s God himself, but whatever. Sure you can find a lot of contradictions specially if you apply pure logic rationalism to the Bible. It’s not really about how God did X, but why he did it, the answer in every case is the same, because he supposedly loves us no matter what. The suffering of his son, resurrection is like some kind of obscure, evil yet wonderful plan.
People abuse of the epicurean argument very often, that’s so 300 B.C!
I have a friend who is an evangelist, he says he oftens get epicurean arguments like ‘if God loves us why made us capable of suffering, why doesnt he stop wars, etc etc. He said something that, to this day, still makes me think:
‘Would you play a game in which the only possible outcome is that you win?’
(it’s not hard to tell english is not my first language, isnt it? :) ), sorry.-
Actually, it is hard to tell. Your English is flawless except for one tiny slip-up: a direct translation of abuser de. The verb takes a direct object in English, with no “of”.
I abuse the French language much worse than that. :)
‘Would you play a game in which the only possible outcome is that you win?’
Yes.
Particularly when the stakes involve some one else’s suffering.
Conversely, one might ask: Is it moral to construct a game in which billions suffer and die through no fault of their own?
Ah, it’s always easy to play the morality card, when convenient, isn’t it. It would be the theological equivalent to a ‘thought experiment’ we see in physics. Questioning the morality of a being we have no direct knowledge of is like shooting a gun in the dark and claiming you have killed someone before turning the lights back on.
Your English is fine, but that metaphor is baffling.
I don’t quite get that. If you believe that morality comes from God, and that he has made us aware of such morality through the use of “sin”, then how can you not hold him accountable for the same laws? How does being another being make killing an okay thing?
“I have a friend who is an evangelist, he says he oftens get epicurean arguments like ‘if God loves us why made us capable of suffering, why doesnt he stop wars, etc etc. He said something that, to this day, still makes me think:
‘Would you play a game in which the only possible outcome is that you win?’”
I have heard much better arguments than that. One I like is something about how God is POWERLESS to do anything that would affect out choice, because if he ever did (such as with a flood) that would be taking away our choice and therefore our choice to come to him through faith (or some such bollox)! Which is apparently why he had to “let” Satan and a bunch of angels “leave” heaven, instead of just destroying them (also because torture gives god a hard-on).
The bit about the game is a bit odd to me too. If all this stuff about the magical God and the end times and the sun dancing is really true, and all you have to do is say “I love Jebus” and you get an eternal good time (if you consider having to WORSHIP for eternity a good time) then you ARE playing that game.
You live in a fantastic world filled with crazy magical things and you are so high on yourself (not directing that at you, just how I’m phrasing it) that not only do you not fear death, but you look forward to whatever ends up killing you because it means your “short time on this earth” has ended, your suffering is over and you can be happy and great forever.
I have to say that the friend you are talking about playing a game you always win really doesn’t seem to understand his religion. Most christians I know seem to believe they will win no matter what they do unless they renounce Jesus. I know there are games I like playing where I know there is little or no chance of losing just to relax to.
I have never heard that god is powerless before but have heard he has a plan and without what we call evil it wouldn’t work.
Sorry, bad quoting of me. I was replying to “poinsot” and I had quoted a large amount of what he said but forgot to mention who I was quoting.
Talk about not seeing the beam in your own eye. Whenever Christians are unable to defend the morality of God’s actions they never fail to pull out the old “God is unknowable” card. How convenient is that?
You say we can’t judge the morality of God? I say it’s quite easy. Let’s take a look at a typical human. Many people live miserably in poverty, sickness, injustice and grief, especially in the third world. For the unluckiest of them, their life is a living hell. According to standard Christian doctrine, for most of these people their miserable lives will be followed by an even worse afterlife in Hell because they failed to believe in Jesus. That is not moral by any standard. Nor is it loving. Nor is it just. It is simply God being a complete bastard, be he unknowable or not.
And I might point out that many, if not most, Christians claim to know that this is how the afterlife will play out, so they can’t use the “unknowable God” argument to defend it.
The problem of evil and suffering isnt really a problem for christianity though, christians (I’m not a christian) defend that eternal life is worth the most terrible suffering.
Dawkins is right about the God of the old testament being ruthless and, appaently, evil. But people at the time were like, ‘boy, I bet God is planning something big’. Indeed, one day he sent his only son to die for us all, christians say that with that action he gave us everything we needed to be saved, and most importantly, God doesnt owe us anything anymore, so the idea is that by sacrificing is son, God ‘casted a shadow’ over every possible suffering.
Yes this is debatable, I know. I know what your concern is, that someone who never had the chance to read a Bible or even heard the word ‘Jesus’, will he/she be saved? Sadly I cant answer that. If you construct stuff in the bible as if it was a couple of propositions that build a theorem like
Prop 1.
You accept Christ into your heart => You are saved
You are saved => ??? You have accepted Christ into your heart.
A implies B, but does B imply A? This is not the case for many mathematical theorems, and probably not for this matter either. Who knows…
Well, I have more than one problem with eschatological apologetics, one of them being that it’s unfair to demand people believe in Jesus – not because they’ve never heard of him (not many haven’t at some point), but because people’s “choice” of faith is largely a matter of where they were born, and it’s unrealistic to expect them to just abandon their existing faith.
Another problem is how God’s punishment (torture in Hell, temporarily or eternally) is completely out of proportions with the “crimes”.
Or the problem of why God is unable to forgive those who don’t believe in him and worship him. I’m able to forgive people without having them grovel to my demands, but allmighty, all-loving God apparently is not.
But seeing you’re not a Christian, all this is probably for another discussion at another time.
Makes me think of this classic DarkMatter2525 youtube video which is especially relevant to the conversation in this thread relating to the absurdities in the redemption through Jesus line of reasoning. Especially starting at the 3 minute mark.
The video is a list of reasons why one should avoid subscribing to Comforts version of ‘The Nonsense’. What on earth is appealing about it? It wants to rule my life, make me behave a certain way. All based on a promise that can never be proven and based on things allegedly written by bronze age nomadic goat herders. Spread this one around, on its own, it’ll deconvert many and back up those who’ve avoided being sucked in by the vigorous fraud of religion.
Very interesting to go over to JesusneedsbetterPR.com where the original video was posted, and see their comments! Most of them are evangelicals, so they still believe in the underlying message of Comforts video: believe in Jesus, and you won’t go to hell. But they don’t like Comforts methods and try to distance themselves from Comfort, while grudgingly accept that the message is OK.
I left my little de-conversion story there as a comment, to show that the video’s message was the primary reason for my de-conversion: what kind of father would send his children to eternal torment for what they believed or didn’t believe?
(The message came back “Awaiting Moderation”. I wonder if they’ll let it post. Rhetorical question: How come most christian websites moderate all incoming comments, but humanist/agnostic/atheist sites seldom do?)
Yeah, funny that way, isn’t it? Makes you think.
He’s talking to the vast number of people who believe the Christian basics in some vague way OR they just think it makes sense that good people go to heaven and bad people go to hell. And none of these people spend much time thinking or worrying about any of this.
He wants to turn them into very dedicated Christians who even start witnessing to others. But first he has to convince them of all the theology-their depravity, etc. He’s telling them they have a huge problem that they aren’t aware of. Which I think is a pretty difficult thing for people to be convinced of IF they did not grow up with all that intense Bible stuff.
I think this point applies to almost any and all evangelizing. It preaches to the choir; attempts to smite unbelievers with a sudden epiphany of belief in this particular mythology’s god; and offends people of other religions.
It also applies to the cluster-fundies who post their heaving-breast running-to-god’s-defense emotional storms on this blog.
It’s a perfect illustration of what I call the ‘celestial panopticon’. On Earth, when the individual is watched and every attempt is made to hold him accountable for thoughts as well as actions — we call that totalitarianism.
I occassionally listen to born-agains on the radio and they are literally constantly repeating their own propaganda to themselves, if there were no other audience they’d continue to do so.
Its part of some deep psychological sickness that believing in an obviously contrdictory supreme being causes. It reinforces their cognitive dissonance which reality constantly assaults by simple being reality.