Ray a Day: 13

“You can Lead an Atheist to Evidence, But You Can’t Make Him Think: Answers to Questions From Angry Skeptics”

A quick couple questions from Ray Comfort’s new book.  These are two of the most bizarre assertions I’ve ever heard in all of apologetics.

First up; we have a very, very strange statement.  We have discovered that several ‘questions’ in the book are not questions at all; they are simple statements preceding Comfort’s commentary.  This statement is from a Christian who admits to being frustrated that they are expected to prove the existence of God.  Comfort, amazingly, states outright, “We don’t have to prove that God exists to the professing atheist.  This is because he intuitively knows that He exists.”  Apparently, every sane person knows that God should be first in his life.  Comfort goes on to say, “This is why I don’t spend too much time trying to convince anyone that there is a God.”  Yes, he devotes three paragraphs, an entire entry in his book, to stating that atheists really do believe in a God.  Now, I know many apologists have claimed this, but they will usually go on to try to prove God’s existence anyway, perhaps in an attempt to make the atheist ashamed of claiming an incorrect opinion, even if they don’t actually believe it.  In any event, this is obviously indescribably insulting, every bit as insulting as if I were to make the supremely idiotic claim that no one actually believes in God.

Another question (not the next one; Ziztur has already begun a post about the next question, so here I’ll take the one after that) is from a person who says that everyone, religious and non-religious alike, should be able to look at the wonders of nature and the universe in awe.  Comfort says that he does exactly that; that he looks upon the wonders of God’s creation with absolute amazement.  However, he only answers the question after a very strange assertion, mind-bogglingly common among fundamentalist Christians.

Put simply, Comfort insists that he is not religious, and even takes offense at the suggestion that he is.  Here I will pause for a moment while we all collectively scratch our heads; perhaps some will wish to reread that previous sentence.  He even states that “most” Christians don’t like being called “religious.”  He insists that (and this is, in fact, a direct quote) “it’s like the difference between ‘African American’ and the ‘n’ word.”  Supposedly, one has negative connotations while the other is culturally acceptable.

I want to distance myself from the hypocrisy, the greed, the pedophilia, and the dead tradition of religion.  Marx rightly called it the “opiate of the masses.”  I don’t want a religion.  I want a relationship with my Creator.

Um . . .

Religion, from Merriam-Webster