Ray Comfort on Atheists and Suffering

Over the next couple of (non-Beeble) posts I will look into some of the statements and claims made by Ray Comfort. As I mentioned in my last post, giving a tour of the website of his TV show, I applaud Ray for not trying to ignore scripture and make good old Yahweh seem like a softhearted pushover. Rather, Ray preaches about him as being the maniacal genocidal sky-bully that he is, according to scripture.

I visited LivingWaters.com, which I undoubtedly will many more times in the near future, and stumbled upon this little gem: “The Atheist’s Explanation for Earthquakes and Tsunamis”. This article very clearly shows some of the problems Ray has with grasping the concept of evolution by natural selection. Let’s get to it, and you’ll see what I mean in just a few moments:

“It’s a frustrating time for atheists—they can’t blame God for tragedies, because they think there’s no evidence for God. Blaming Him would make as much sense as blaming Snow White for a snow storm. But atheism would suggest that there is a good reason for Japan’s massive killer quake and the horrific tsunami that followed: it was nature making improvements. Everything is gradually getting better. People being crushed to death or drowned in a tsunami is just part of the work of nature.”

Ray starts out strong by making one sweeping statement about how atheists see natural disasters – and quite a wrong one at that. To say that earthquakes (and the tsunamis that may follow) are seen as improvements to nature, and that everything gradually gets better, is tantamount to saying that if I balance a piece of rock on a cliffside and the wind blows it over so it falls down, that is an improvement of nature. It’s not – it’s just change brought about by natural forces. If that same rock falls on the head of an innocent bystander and kills him, I wouldn’t say that it was just nature getting better and he was in the way. I would say: “Shit happens”. Or rather I would hate myself forever and beg his family for forgiveness for doing such an irresponsible thing in the first place. But so far Ray has only hinted at evolution. Now read what he writes next:

“Also, cancer, suffering, pain, and death are part of nature improving things through evolutionary change. It was evolution that improved nature when it gave the leap to the frog and the bark to the dog. It gave oxygen-enriched air to the lungs, wings to the bird, and brains to the nerd. It also gifted us with the four seasons, myriad colorful flowers, snow-capped mountains, cool running streams, music, love, and laughter. It all started with nothing, and over millions of years, here we are in this wonder called “life.” That’s evolution for you…making things better.”

As much as I prefer to approach the claims and arguments of others in a neutral manner, and not directly say bad things about them, I must be frank about this; this is, by far, the most ignorant statement about evolution that I have come across in a very long time. First of all, the entire idea of evolution improving nature or making things ‘better’ is a misunderstanding. When a virus evolves to become more infectious it is not making ‘things’ or nature better. It is simply adapting to be more fit for it’s environment and more apt to multiply and propagate it’s genes. Nothing more, nothing less. Yes, cancer is a bunch of cells that ‘evolved’ (this is a misuse of the word as evolution is the name of the long and gradual change, and not the individual mutations) to start dividing way too fast at the cost of the surrounding cells, and ultimately at the cost of the entire organism. But as stated in the parenthesis, cancer is not truly an example of evolution, but rather a single glitch or (unfortunate) mutation. No one, in their right mind, would suggest that the presence of cancer is ‘improving nature’.
Ray goes on to giving some examples of results of evolution, which again shows the lack of grasp he has on the concept of evolution. Evolution (at least in the biological sense) did not give us oxygen-enriched air to fill our lungs, our lungs were created and slowly adapted to improve the uptake of oxygen from the air. When Ray says the four seasons, he is right if he means the behavior of plants and animals in response to the climatic changes over a year, but not if he means the climatic seasons themselves, and the fact that he mentions snowcapped mountains and cool running streams is just ridiculous. It all started with nothing, yes, but evolution by natural selection did not come into play before the earth along with the first simple forms of life had appeared. Everything before must be explained by other mechanisms. Let’s move on:

“So if you have tragically lost loved ones through cancer, atheism says that you will just have to deal with it because it’s all working for the good of…well…nature. It’s like a beehive, or communism. If you have to be stung to death for the good of the hive, or shot to death for the good of the State, it doesn’t really matter because you are nothing more than a tiny, insignificant cog in a huge wheel. Richard Dawkins was right when he said, ‘Blindness to suffering is an inherent consequence of natural selection. Nature is neither kind nor cruel but indifferent.’ ”

So we’re back to the “cancer improves nature” arguments that he puts in the mouth of his straw man atheist. He then compares the view to communism (just to really get his true American readers outraged) and says that atheists believe that you die for the good of the “hive” or the “State”. This is not true. When people die from tragic events it is just the unfortunate consequence of more or less “random” events that neither improves nor diminishes nature. No one ever said that you die for the good of some grand plan.. Well except most Christians who say it’s all part of God’s plan.

“If that view sounds hopeless and depressing, it is. Evolution has left you as a nobody among billions, on a dot of a planet among trillions, waiting around for the pains of life and ultimately death. You don’t know where you came from, you don’t know what you are doing here, and you don’t know what happens after death. But that doesn’t matter to an atheist. All that really matters is that you are free to enjoy yourself here and now by throwing yourself into fornication, adultery, pornography, or homosexuality. Anything goes, because there is no God and no Hell. Probably. ”

Yes, because that is all that atheists ever want to do: throw ourselves into fornication, adultery, pornography and homosexuality.. Either Ray really has no friends that are atheists, or at least he doesn’t after they read his distorted view of them.. And no, the view that Dawkins mentions is not hopeless or depressing – it tells you to make the best of this life, as it is all you have. It tells you to do what you can to make this little dot of a planet into something more – into a safe and beautiful home. Not only for yourself, but for all others, as the only eternal part of you is your legacy and the consequences of your actions. I cannot see how this is depressing in any way. At least we don’t live in fear of the crazy outbursts and the eternal hate expressed by some big bully in the sky.

“The Christian worldview is a little different. It says that when there are killer earthquakes, or tornados, or hurricanes that ravage humanity, it’s a confirmation that we live under the Genesis curse (see Genesis 1–3). When cancer kills hundreds of thousands each year, or when a loved one dies, it just confirms the truth that we live in a fallen creation. It also confirms that God is not the smiling divine butler He’s made out to be. He is angry at humanity for all of its evil. Disease, pain, suffering, and death endorse the biblical account of both man’s sin and God’s holiness. Despite our sinful rebellion, God is rich in mercy and will grant everlasting life to all who will repent and trust in the Savior. The cross of Jesus Christ is proof that the most vile of us has great worth in the sight of Almighty God. Jesus took the punishment for our sins, and rose from death to save us from Hell. He paid our fine so that we could leave the courtroom—such is the love of God. ”

I’m not even going to start with the whole “an innocent can pay for the crimes of the guilty” and that “God punished himself, in order to persuade himself to forgive us” or that “if a man commits a crime, we are in our good right to punish his children, because sin is hereditary”… And how can you not think that the view expressed by Ray here is at least as depressing as the view of Dawkins (if you indeed found that depressing).

“So there you have it. You can choose to believe that nothing created everything, that you are a nobody waiting to die, and enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season and end up in Hell. Or you can obey the gospel and get right with God, find everlasting life, have a reason to live, and then enjoy ‘pleasures forevermore.’ ”

At the end he just assumes that God is real and that you choose to ignore that fact and enjoy life, fully knowing that you will go to hell. NO! You can choose to believe there is no hell, on the basis of all the real evidence ever found by anyone, and enjoy the one life you will ever have, or you can choose to believe in a single book of collected works of primitive Bronze Age men and squander you life on praising this imagined dictator.

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