Ray Comfort Just Doesn’t Get It…
I listen to Air America Radio sometimes when I’m at work. It’s a Progressive talk radio station. I mostly listen just for background noise, but sometimes I perk up and really concentrate.
Last Thursday was one of those days. Thom Hartman, who does afternoons, had Ray Comfort on his show. If you don’t know who Ray Comfort is, he’s an Christian who is intent on converting everyone or telling them how stupid they are for not converting. (Sorry, no link love for Ray.)
So, anyway, Thom (a Christian, by his own words) has Ray on and immediately, it gets confrontational. Ray insists from the start that God was forced out of the public schools. Thom counters that religion has no place in public schools. They argue back and forth and Ray makes his standard, oft-repeated arguments about evolution and the segment ends within minutes.
Look, you can debate evolution and creationism all you want (and I don’t want). But what Ray (and many Christians) don’t understand is that you can’t bring religion into public schools.
Because if you teach one, you have to TEACH THEM ALL.
Including the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Ramen.
Now me personally, I’m a ‘live and let live’ agnostic. By that, I mean, I’m not going to beat you over the head with my beliefs. Whatever gets you through this world is fine with me. But I can’t take these people who insist that their religion (whichever they happen to be) be forced into every avenue of our lives.
Back off, man. It’s not my thing.
February 16th, 2009 at 1:47 pm
Although I understand your frustration, there is an unbalance about this topic in our public schools. Evolution itself is just 1 of many theories and yet it is the only one allowed to be taught. So the ‘if you teach one you should teach them all’ doesn’t quite work when there is only the 1 theory being allowed. Intelligent design is just 1 among many (like creation but not to be assumed to be the same as ID) that is shut out. I agree with you, if you teach one perhaps we should teach more than one?
For those people who aren’t ‘religious’, it seems that those who are are cramming it down their throats. And for those who are ‘religious’, it seems that those who aren’t are cramming it down their throats. Catch 22 of sorts I guess.
We all get bent out of shape, one way or the other, when it comes to spirituality and politics and religion and church and state and all that. For now, it helps to remember that the constitution says: Freedom of religion, not freedom from religion. Perhaps they shouldn’t teach any of the theories in school and then people can teach what they want their children to believe at home. Just a thought.
February 16th, 2009 at 5:08 pm
I agree. If you’re going to teach evolution, you have to teach them all. Now, we all know that isnt going to happen. (who could remember them all, anyway) Growing up a believer, I always knew how the world was created. Somehow in school, I was able to separate what they were teaching me, to what was real and right. It was not because I was taught at home, because I took myself to church. My parents had nothing to do with it. It was because I was a true believer. Evolution never threatened my beliefs or confused me, at all. Do I believe we evolve? Sure. We change with the changing enviroment, through the generations. But, that is not how the world began. So, I guess I took a little of both and made it work. I learned it, I passed it. Done.
As far as the ‘jamming down someones throat’ approach…I hate it! I truly want everyone to know Jesus. I want all of my peeps to go to heaven. Am I going to be able to change someones mind by telling them they are stupid or wrong? Duh! No! It makes the hairs on my neck bristle at the thought of a screaming or holier than thou Christian. It turns me away, and we believe the same thing! Those kinds of approaches are what give Christians a bad name. Frankly, its what gives every group a bad name. We all have them. Religious, ethnic, social class, all of us.
When will people learn that if they are really worried about someone else, the way to win them is to support and love them and show them that there is a reason to consider your opinion. Show them with your actions, not so much your words. Certainly, not by screaming at them. How often does that work with your kids, parents, neighbors, bosses, etc.? UGH! People frustrate me!
Sorry this was so long. (steps down off soap box)
February 16th, 2009 at 9:47 pm
I am not for teaching any particular religion in the schools. The only thing I will say in regards to this particular debate is to recommend the movie Expelled by and starring Ben Stein (not a Christian) as he looks at the lack of freedom of speech in academia and research as it pertains to evolution/intelligent design.
February 16th, 2009 at 11:43 pm
Wow. You people write long comments. Come on. I got a short little span of attention over here. Okay. Here goes.
In defense of the teaching of evolution, it’s a theory. No religion’s origin would call itself a theory and allow that origin to change as more knowledge is gleaned. Science is about examining everything. That’s called heresy or sacrilege when done in religion. Take for example, the fact that Galileo was persecuted by the Catholic Church for saying the sun was the center of our system when they deemed that it contradicted scripture.
Intelligent design isn’t science. It’s just creationism in a shiny wrapper. It’s attempting to create a theory by not having any facts and making that absence your facts. It’s kind of like me saying that since Jack is a boy and Jack likes cars, therefore, all boys like cars.
And for the record, the Constitution says ‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,’ thereby assuring the government shall not create a national religion or place any religion or non-religion over another.
February 17th, 2009 at 6:38 am
Patrick, you are on the right track, but let me help you out here.
Evolution is a theory, it is constantly being tested and proven, and tested again and again and again. It is updated every single time we learn something new.
Religion, creationism, or ID, is NOT a theory, it can never be a theory.
Why?
Because all of them say exactly the same thing about life beginning, about the earth and it’s inhabitants.
ID tries to say it’s a theory because they have taken bits and pieces of evolution and used it to try and prove their point, but they always start with the bible as the beginning of everything, and the bible can’t be a scientific theory, because it is very clear in how everything began and why.
According to religion and ID, God created everything, the planets, the sun and moon and stars, and all life.
God made everything exactly as it says in the bible, with man being man, all animals being how he created them, and THEN ID says that God created those things one way, and then also created them to evolve.
But the bible, the very basis for ID, says that no, nothing evolves, God created everything exactly as it is.
Both ID and Ray Comfort, say that there are absolutely no transitional fossil forms, that there is no proof of something starting off as 1 thing and evolving into another, yet they want to use evolution so they can teach religion, ID, in classrooms.
They say that things evolved, but they completely deny the existence of transitional fossil forms.
There are transitional fossil forms, we do know that almost all life forms started off as 1 thing and evolved into another to adapt to the earth’s changes in temperature, in food that was available for them to eat, and how far they had to travel to find both food and mates, and also to defend themselves against predators.
For instance, we know that today’s turkey (gobble gobble yummy!) started off as an animal called Eoraptor, 228 million years ago, then it evolved into a Microraptor 130million years ago, and then into a Velociraptor 80 million years ago, and then kept evolving over millions of years into what is now the animal we call a turkey.
How do we know this?
Because we have found ALL of the transitional fossil forms for this particular animal.
And the turkey isn’t the only 1, scientists have found thousands of transitional fossil forms, even those of human beings.
The bible and ID say that god created man in his image, and if that’s the case, god was more ape-like than the ID’ers would like us to believe.
Man and apes both evolved from the same primate family.
Some primates continued to evolve into the apes and monkeys we know today, and others evolved into humans and an animal called the Bonobo.
The Bonobo is the closest living animal that behaves exactly as humans do, yet it looks like a primate.
The Bonobo is capable of logical thought patterns, it can sympathize and empathize with other animals.
A Bonobo at zoo had a small bird fly into her enclosure and hit the wall and get hurt.
The Bonobo climbed down from it’s tree, ran to the bird, touched it, rubbed it, checked to see if it was still alive.
It then picked up the bird, hugged it, kissed it, and felt it’s body for broken bones.
Then it carried the bird backup into the tree, it knew the bird flew, so it tried to help it take off.
The bird was still in shock so it fell back down to the ground.
The bonobo ran to it again, picked it up, hugged it close, kissed it again, climbed the tree again, and instead of immediately trying to help it fly again, it simply hugged it for a few more minutes, kissed it, stroked it’s wings, and waited for the bird to perk up.
Then it launched the bird again, this time, the bird flew off and found it’s way out of the enclosure.
The bonobo watched it all, and then it cried, it shed tears, it felt sadness, joy, and had empathy for the injured bird.
No other animal on the entire planet aside from human beings, is capable of empathy.
The bonobo and humans are the only ones who can feel compassion for a fellow creature.
And yes, our constitution says that we shall make no laws respecting any establishment of religion, it is very clear on religions place in government, and since schools are funded with tax payer dollars, religion in any form cannot be taught in schools no matter what they try to call it, no matter how they try to teach it.
ID is religion, it is NOT, nor will it ever be a scientific theory that can be tested and proven, and updated as something new is learned.
Sorry about the long comment Patrick, but this is a subject I could discuss for hours, and Ray Comfort is an absolute idiot.
He tries to sound all educated, he tries to talk about evolution, but it is obvious that he has never studied it beyond knowing what to say to make it sound like religion says that evolution is all a part of gods plan.
I’ve debated him on it several times on his blog, and he clearly has no concept of how anything works at all, and is adamant that transitional fossil forms do not exist because god said so.
You should look up on Youtube, the banana, the atheists nightmare.
He tries to prove that god exists using a banana, but the banana that we eat, was man made, cultivated and farmed to be the fruit it is today. The original banana was a hard fruit with seeds inside.
We farmed it to be easier to eat, softer, seedless, but Ray believes that god did it.
hahaha
February 17th, 2009 at 6:42 am
Oh, Ben Stein is not a Christian, that’s correct.
He’s Jewish.