Scottsman Posted April 23, 2014 Share Posted April 23, 2014 This ray comfort guy is a nut. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aggie Posted April 23, 2014 Share Posted April 23, 2014 Interesting vid. I think it's the old game of requiring absolute, 100% certainty for science-- and if that can't be provided, then claiming that the default is one particular metaphysical viewpoint with no real evidence. Fallible, finite people cannot operate on this paradigm-- and no one suggests that we should except in religion. For evolution, you have fossil record, geology, microevolution observed in viruses/bacteria/insects, DNA evidence, embryology, etc. For creationism, you have an anonymously written, ancient book with fantastic stories that aren't supported by any corroborating evidence. So, if you can't be totally 100% sure with a time machine, go with what is most likely wrong?? Diderot sums it up: Lost in an immense forest during the night I only have a small light to guide me. An unknown man appears and says to me: “My friend, blow out your candle so you can better find your way.” This unknown man is a theologian. Oh Christians, you have two different ideas of good and evil, of truth and falsehood. You are thus either the most absurd of dogmatists or the most extreme of skeptics. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
midniterider Posted April 23, 2014 Share Posted April 23, 2014 This ray comfort guy is a nut. Give that to the Huffpost, or the local NZ police as an incident report. :-) 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thurisaz Posted April 23, 2014 Share Posted April 23, 2014 Yeah if that's not proof that banana man is a dangerous and very possibly homicidal nutjob then what can ever be?! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderator Joshpantera Posted April 24, 2014 Moderator Share Posted April 24, 2014 This ray comfort guy is a nut. WTF? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlindersRemoved Posted April 24, 2014 Share Posted April 24, 2014 ^^^^^. That is disturbing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DoubtingNate Posted April 24, 2014 Share Posted April 24, 2014 If that's real, holy shit! I think there is a good chance this is a fraud. Ray is clearly a nutjob, but not like that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FreeThinkerNZ Posted April 24, 2014 Author Share Posted April 24, 2014 I think the first one could be real but the second one, not so sure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DoubtingNate Posted April 24, 2014 Share Posted April 24, 2014 I listened to a 'debate' between Ray and the guy from Atheist Experience and he was trying, very patiently, to explain evolution, using language as an example. He was explaining that we can't identify any Latin speaking woman giving birth to an Italian speaking baby, because the transition is gradual. But before explaining this he had to first explain, Matt: Spanish and Italian are derivatives of Latin, correct? Ray: I suppose so??!!!? I trust you. So Ray doesn't even know what Romance languages are!!! I guess that really isn't so surprising, but still, wtf? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FreeThinkerNZ Posted April 24, 2014 Author Share Posted April 24, 2014 WTF indeed. Every time Comfort's name is mentioned I feel the need to apologise on behalf of NZ for him being inflicted on everyone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DoubtingNate Posted April 24, 2014 Share Posted April 24, 2014 He doesn't deserve to live in Middle Earth! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scottsman Posted April 24, 2014 Share Posted April 24, 2014 If that's real, holy shit! I think there is a good chance this is a fraud. Ray is clearly a nutjob, but not like that. Ray denies it. The guy who posed the question, martin roberts, claims ray posted it and quickly yanked it. Not before martin got a screengrab though. Hence the 1 minute time stamp. Really, either you are willing to do aweful things for god or you arent a true a believer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thurisaz Posted April 24, 2014 Share Posted April 24, 2014 WTF indeed. Every time Comfort's name is mentioned I feel the need to apologise on behalf of NZ for him being inflicted on everyone. Nah eternal burning shame for the idiocy of a single total nutjob/asshole is something we Germans have the global monopoly on. You know who I mean... just try to be more extreme than us, considering that the bastard wasn't even born German! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ravenstar Posted April 25, 2014 Share Posted April 25, 2014 I'm one minute in and so far they are answering lots of questions. I'd also like to see the deleted footage. The editing is too fast and seems disingenuous. I'll just save you the time so you don't have to waste it watching the rest. Later on the interviewer asserts that we can't observe anything that happened in the past. 65 million years ago? You were not there so we can't observe it. Two millennia ago on Calvary? You were not there so we can't know what happened. Oh wait, somehow the Bible stories don't count. It's only science that doesn't work if we were not physically present in the past. Actually, yes we can observe what happened in the past. When we measured the background 'radiation' (light) of the universe we were seeing what happened then… because the light has travelled that long to our eyes (or other viewing technologies). When you look at a star you are effectively LOOKING BACK IN TIME at what that star was like however many light years ago it is away from us. Actually when you look at anything you are viewing the past… even if it's in nanoseconds. We never experience the present… there's always a lag between any event and our senses. So I call logical bullshit on that argument. nya nya nya nya... nya nya 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deidre Posted April 25, 2014 Share Posted April 25, 2014 Well, I'm not an atheist because of Charles Darwin. lol Charles Darwin wasn't an atheist, by the way. Religion breeds ignorance. I was once blind and now I see. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super Moderator TheRedneckProfessor Posted April 25, 2014 Super Moderator Share Posted April 25, 2014 Actually when you look at anything you are viewing the past… even if it's in nanoseconds. We never experience the present… there's always a lag between any event and our senses. You've just blown my mind, yet again, Ravenstar! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thurisaz Posted April 25, 2014 Share Posted April 25, 2014 Well Deirdre... the conclusion "an atheist is the way she is because Darwin" is very logical, by their "logic". To them, only the source of a statement matters and fuck truth or fallacy. They believe in jebus because wholly babble (or, which in the end is pretty much the same, their earthly cult führer). "Logically" then an atheist must be one because Darwin. Which is why it's no use arguing with a hardcore morontheist. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
par4dcourse Posted April 25, 2014 Share Posted April 25, 2014 Here's a question I can't answer: why did I fall for the crap for so long? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FreeThinkerNZ Posted April 25, 2014 Author Share Posted April 25, 2014 Here's a question I can't answer: why did I fall for the crap for so long? Your evidence, logic, and critical thinking skills were still developing? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thurisaz Posted April 26, 2014 Share Posted April 26, 2014 Either that, or bad programming. Hardcore morontheists are usually trained into authoritarian thinking, for all I can tell. That's pretty much the essence of reality-denial. It's like trying to run software written for an operating system (1) on a M$ machine. (1) Linux/Unix/et cetera... okay basically anything but M$ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pantheory Posted April 27, 2014 Share Posted April 27, 2014 As to the question at hand Show evidence for one "kind" of animal being turned into another "kind" of animal by evolution? First of all "kind" is not a scientific word. I expect that their meaning is an example of one type of animal being turned into another type of animal. For this one gives the many examples of species of one kind turning into another species that cannot breed with each other. After giving examples of many plants and animals that we have evidence for such changes, they say a different kind of animal, giving the reply: isn't the result still a fish? or still a plant? for example. Then you explain to them how science classifies plants and animals by: Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species. So then you ask what do they mean by the word "kind." You say that the word "kind" has no meaning in science. What do they mean if not from one species to another? You ask, is their meaning changes from one Genus to another, from one Family to another, from one Order to another, from one Class to another, from one phylum to another, from one kingdom to another, or what? If they have some understanding of biology they will be able to give you an answer to this question in terms of biology. If they cannot give an answer to your question they probably could not understand a correct answer if they heard one. If not any serious conversation with them on your part should end. But if they can give an answer to their meaning of the word "kind" or "type" in terms of biology based upon your explanation, then good answers can be given to their question. You could say that the theory of Evolution proposes that nearly all new speciation comes from another similar species, but that very long periods of time (most often millions of years) are needed to enable most changes in Genus, Family, Order, Class, Phylum, or Kingdom. But this being said, one could say, there are examples of changes at these higher levels without classification changes in between. Of course examples from one Kingdom to another in one step would have the fewest examples, and from one Species to another would have the most examples. After explaining all of this you could say that maybe the most interesting examples and the fewest changes from one kingdom to another may be the most interesting. Today's classification of Kingdoms are: Bacteria, Protozoa, Chromista, Plantae, Fungi, Animalia. After naming these Kingdoms most are easily identifiable to the common person. Most people and your listener would probably understand what bacteria are, understand the Plantae means plants, understand the Animalia means animals, and that Fungi is the plural of fungus. You would need to say that Protozoa means one celled animals. You would not have to explain that Chromista include all algae with chlorophyll as well as various colorless forms without chlorophyll that are closely related to them. Then you could say: Maybe the best example of changes from one Kingdom to another would be a protist plant-animal example called a Euglina. A Euglina is a protist, a one celled organism. It has chlorophyll like plants, a flagellate to move around in water like an animal. There are about160 different species of Euglina. Although most Euglina have chlorophyll and can live on minerals and sunlight alone, some do not have chlorophyll and must eat other organisms to survive like an animal, and still others do both. This is a Kingdom transitional animal with close relatives that can be classified as plants, animals, and which are also protists. Many examples of seemingly transitional forms still exist today. While trying to explain all of this, most will have long before walked away. If not the argument will be over since any fundies still present will not understand what you have been trying to explain to them anyway, and will either have no remaining comments or only bable thereafter 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ravenstar Posted April 27, 2014 Share Posted April 27, 2014 There are also the interesting bacterial forms archaea, which have a distinct evolutionary path from bacteria. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pantheory Posted April 27, 2014 Share Posted April 27, 2014 There are also the interesting bacterial forms archaea, which have a distinct evolutionary path from bacteria. Yes, that would be a good example of an inter-kingdom transition Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RogueScholar Posted April 27, 2014 Share Posted April 27, 2014 Viruses and prions tend to be preverbal turds in the punchbowl when it comes to traditional classification. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pantheory Posted April 27, 2014 Share Posted April 27, 2014 Viruses and prions tend to be preverbal turds in the punchbowl when it comes to traditional classification. Yes, pretty funny The possible sources of prions from life or non-life, are pretty speculative. The two primary hypothesis for the source of viruses are 1) That they were first parasites of bacteria that evolved from bacteria, or 2) that viruses (RNA based or other) of some kind were able to survive in a primordial environment devoid of other life, and were the precursors of DNA life. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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