Ray on Occasional Days: 8:5

Onto the rest of the Atheist Starter Kit, reprinted in the back of Ray Comfort’s You Can Lead an Atheist to Evidence:

4. You can also deal with the “whoever looks on a woman to lust for her, has committed adultery with her already in his heart,” by saying that there is no evidence that Jesus existed. None.

Well, one could potentially refute Comfort’s assertion that any degree of lust is a terrible sin by pointing out that there is little evidence for a historical Jesus, and even less evidence for his divine, spiritual authority as the earthly incarnation of God.  The assertion itself is an Argument from Authority fallacy; Comfort (as well as just about everyone else who would claim that looking at someone with lust is exactly equivalent to adultery) makes no attempt to justify this statement, except to say that God says so.

However, this just doesn’t get to the heart of the matter.  Even if it is a logical fallacy, simply pointing this out doesn’t necessarily prove the assertion false.  Much simpler to just point out how stupid it is to insist that there’s no difference between feeling lust for someone and, say, cheating on a committed partner behind their back.

Comfort is extremely fond of this line.  The appeal is obvious, I suppose; lust is one of the most nearly universal aspects of human existence.  What better way to make your religion’s guilt system truly inescapable than to make simple, unenacted lust a capital offense?  I could also point out that it’s sexist; from this line, one would assume that Jesus was completely ignorant of similar female biological urges.  Could it be that Jesus’s opinion was formed in the culture of that place and time, where women weren’t expected to have sexual urges?  The simplest way to point out the idiocy of this statement:  It ignores a relatively common situation:  What if the persons in a relationship are actually *gasp* half-way mature, rational people, who aren’t offended by their partner(s) being attracted to other people?  Ziztur and I point out hot chicks and dudes to each other all the time, even if we would never in a million years deceive each other to fool around on the sides, behind each other’s backs.

5. Believe that the Bible is full of mistakes, and actually says things like the world is flat. Do not read it for yourself. That is a big mistake. Instead, read, believe, and imitate Richard Dawkins. Learn and practice the use of big words. “Megalo-maniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully” is a good phrase to learn.

Daniel 4:10-11 describes how the king saw a vision of a great and mighty tree standing in the middle of the earth; it was “visible to the ends of the earth.”  Obviously this is only possible if the earth were flat, but it would clearly be dishonest to insist that “the Bible says that the earth is flat” on the basis of this verse alone, even if it is slightly suspicious that Daniel, full of the wisdom and knowledge of God, failed to correct the king of this obvious scientific ignorance.  Revelations 1:7 claims that when Christ returns, “every eye will see him.”  Still, some liberal or open-minded Christians would counter that the whole of Revelations is so outlandish and bizarre that the whole book is likely metaphor.

On the other hand, Matthew 4:8 says that Satan showed Jesus all the kingdoms of earth at once, from a tall mountain.  Is this story of Jesus’s temptation a mere metaphor?  I think a vast majority of Christians would claim that this story must be literal truth, yet it could not have occured on a spherical earth (unless one claims that the writer of this story was ignorant of all the human civilizations in the Americas, further out into Europe and Africa, and the Far East, which is hardly a better position if one wishes to defend the Bible’s scientific knowledge).  Isaiah 40:22 states very matter-of-factly that God “sits enthroned above the circle of the earth;” a circle, of course, being a two-dimensional (read:  flat) object, exactly as one would describe the earth if they believed that it was flat.  I’m very entertained that so many Christians actually insist that the Bible claims a round earth based on this verse.  All of this nonsense about the Bible not describing a flat earth also completely ignores the obvious fact that the Christian faith considered the earth to be flat for thousands of years (and this conclusion was based exactly on the Bible), until science conclusively proved that the earth was spherical.  There is no record of anyone, ever, claiming that the Bible said that the earth was a sphere or ball until after science had proven that it was.  It is either utter stupidity, gross ignorance, or complete intellectual dishonesty to claim that the Bible describes a round earth.

In any event, I sincerely hope that I’ve made it painfully obvious that atheists do, in fact, read the Bible.  In fact, I have found that on average, self-described atheists know more about the Bible than most self-described Christians.  Even Dr. Brad Harrub, a young-earth creationist and fundamentalist Christian, admitted this to Ziztur and I as we chatted after one of his seminars.  As I’ve said in the past, in response to Comfort’s assertion that atheists avoid reading the Bible like the plague (an analogy that is not entirely inappropriate, even if it’s factually incorrect), I didn’t know anything about science, philosophy, or other world religions when I gave up my belief in Christianity.  I simply read the Bible.  I would never ban or restrict the Bible from being sold, distributed, or read in any way – not only would such censorship be unethical even if it did create more Christians, but it would remove the Bible itself as a resource for atheism.

Conversely, I didn’t read any Dawkins at all, until a few months ago.  I was an atheist for years before I read The God Delusion.  I’ve never read any Hitchens, very little Harris, and hadn’t heard of Dennett until a couple months ago, but I have read the entire Bible several times.  Many Christians do this with the few famous atheists out there; they seem to project their own following of an authority onto non-believers.  Do they simply assume that because they, as fundamentalist Christians, must have an authority to blindly follow in life, that outspoken atheists do too?

6. Say that you were once a genuine Christian, and that you found it to be false. (The cool thing about being an atheist is that you can lie through your teeth, because you believe that are no moral absolutes.) Additionally, if a Christian points out that this is impossible (simply due to the very definition of Christianity as one who knows the Lord), just reply “That’s the ‘no true Scotsman fallacy.’” PLEASE NOTE: It cannot be overly emphasized how learning and using these little phrases can help you feel secure in dismissing common sense.

I know that when I say that I was a Christian, that I believed in God, and that Jesus was his son who saved me from my sins, you have to believe that I’m lying.  As has been pointed out before, yes, this is the No True Scotsman fallacy.  Ray, you don’t even try to show how a No True Scotsman fallacy can, in fact, be a rational argument.  Additionally, your fallacy is especially stupid.

I take it that Comfort believes that he is a *True Christian* (TM).  Even if we do accept his NTS definition of a “Christian,” it’s still quite possible to change your mind about something that you thought you “knew” for certain.  A child can easily say that they “knew” that Santa Claus existed, before they grew up and realized that he doesn’t.  Does this mean that they were never really believers in Santa?  I used to sa
y that I “knew” that evolution hasn’t occurred, yet now I realize how ignorant I was of the scientific method.  Comfort insists (though only on this particular issue, of course, when it suits his purpose) that if you ever change your mind, you didn’t actually have that opinion in the first place.  The really bizarre part of this ridiculous definition is that if you can’t be a True Christian unless you never change your mind about it, then we can never know if you’re a True Christian!  Because we human beings have finite intellect, we can never be 100% certain that we won’t change our mind on a particular subject.

7. Believe that nothing is 100% certain, except the theory of Darwinian evolution. Do not question it. Believe with all of your heart that there is credible scientific evidence for species-to-species transitional forms. When you make any argument, pat yourself on the back by concluding with “Man, are you busted!” That will make you feel good about yourself.

A great deal of Comfort’s material is good for a laugh; you’ve gotta give him that much.  This is hilarious.  Now, again, I didn’t know anything about evolution or science itself until years after I gave up belief in God, and a huge portion of Christians (many of the more intelligent and ethical ones I’ve known) accept the fact that evolution is exceptionally well-supported science.  I also don’t know how so many Christian fundamentalists can insist that atheists, who so often subject every single sacred cow they find to the most violent questioning and rigorous skepticism, accept evolution theory on blind faith.  It’s particularly entertaining to me that the only anti-evolution argument that he attempts in this small sound bite is the certifiable “there are no transitional forms!”, even going so far as to insist that accepting the existence of transitional forms (which is a misconception in and of itself) requires you to “believe with all of your heart.”

I quite like The Atheist Starter Kit, actually, it’s a very conveniently-compressed dose of Ray Comfort’s unique brand of insanity.  Stay tuned, folks.