IF YOU READ THE FOLLOWING, I CAN ALMOST GUARANTEE THAT YOU’LL HAVE NO REASON TO VISIT THIS SITE. There are more interesting sites from Ray and mini-Ray (Kirk). I warn you right away, this is not a post about the actual claims made by Ray Comfort. This will be treated in my next post.
Today I decided to pay a visit to the website, wayofthemaster.com. I have often heard of- and stumbled upon it’s creators, Ray Comfort (AKA the banana man) and Kirk Cameron (AKA that kid actor from Growing Pains that is not a fanatic Christian) when browsing through material related to the divine discussion, and now I wanted to go directly to the lion’s den and have a look for myself.
It quickly became apparent that this is a website that is primarily made to promote the TV show of the same name, and most of what wasn’t directly related to the show was then merely links to Ray’s main site, LivingWaters.com. The title shows animated pictures or gifs portraying Ray and Kirk in all sorts of settings and outfits, which can only be assumed to be situations from the show. Below the large title bar one finds the menu bar. I’ll briefly go over some of the more boring menu fields before I get to the core of the site:
Store:
Of course there is an array of things for the devout to buy to strengthen his or her own faith as well as to push on innocent atheists or agnostics.
Support Us:
Why sell products if you can have people pay you for nothing? It’s not that I think it’s wrong to hope for donations, but the site seems so commercial all together that I have a hard time understanding how this plea for donations is not just plain greed.
Newsletter:
Sign up to receive newsletters from your favorite idols, Ray and Kirk!
Calender:
At first glance the calender seemed rather empty, but then I started clicking some of the options, and realized that it not only seemed rather empty – it was rather empty.
The Show:
This is where it starts getting somewhat interesting. Here you can read about the show, which I did, as I had never actually watched an episode of the show. It is stated that the shows are meant to teach you how to push your beliefs on everyone around you. I must say I love(!) the statement made halfway through the description of the show: “Learn how to do what Jesus did and circumnavigate the intellect (the area of argument) and speak to the sinner’s conscience.” I tip my hat to Ray and Kirk for realizing that the easiest way to convince someone of God’s existence is to step very clear of their intellect and to avoid using any actual arguments, for there are not many good ones. Furthermore, you can watch some promo, find the schedule, read commendations, buy DVDs and even watch four episodes, for FREE! And as if this wasn’t enough, you can even see a Spanish dubbed version of the promo for the show; Los Pasos del Maestro!
Free Tools:
Most of what is hidden under this label is truly half-assed, fractional randomness. Allow me to explain. First there is “Letter from an Atheist”, which is claimed to be an excerpt of an email to Ray Comfort. It states simply that if Ray really believes what he preaches then he should at all times be out preaching and converting people or he’s a bad person. First of all, there is no ‘…’ to mark where it has been edited, which it must have been if it’s an excerpt, and secondly there are no comments of any kind. It is left to the reader to guess what Ray thought of this email, what his response was and even why he has chosen to make this email, of all those he must have received, public. Fortunately, it is not very hard to guess the latter once you have read just the two first lines of the “About Us” section, which state: “150,000 people die every 24 hours—most without the Savior. We are deeply concerned that so few Christians reach out to the lost.” The entire goal of the TV show and of the website is to push Christianity on the unwilling masses, which, according to this alleged atheist letter, is the “good/moral thing to do” if you really do believe in God and, more to the point, in Hell.
The next option under Free Tools is the “The Love Test”, which I simply had to try. I wanted to know if Ray would think I was a loving person. Unfortunately, I was rendered unable to answer truthfully as most of the questions only had answers that applies to Christians and not atheists, or followers of other religions than Christianity. What’s even more disappointing was the lack of a result after answering all the questions. I don’t know if it’s malfunctioning or if it is only intended as a market survey for Ray and Kirk, disguised as a fun test.
Then there is “An Interview with God”. This is a video, which might as well have been an audio track for all the good the images did, about a dream that Ray claims to have had. In this dream he meets God and asks him why there is evil in the world. The video starts out quite harmoniously and unthreatening, but after this innocent and quite reasonable question, it takes a rather dark direction. God says that the existence of evil is due to the sin of man. Ray asks what sin is, and God answers him quite frankly: it is transgression of the Law. And then this obnoxious rendering of God goes on to reciting not only the Ten Commandments, but also Jesus’ words that even thinking about wanting a woman that you see is adultery, and that adulterers, homosexuals and liars, along with murderers and thieves and the lot, will go to Hell. But fortunately all is well as God freed us of our guilt for our crimes against him, by punishing himself (in the form of Jesus) with torture and death. But this repentance only counts if we love him.
“How to Botch an Altar Call” is Ray’s unfunny inverted advice on how to preach the Christian faith. In essence: Don’t pretend that the decision to love Jesus can wait until tomorrow, don’t underplay the horrors of Hell and don’t depict The Lord as being loving and kind – he is in fact capable and willing to inflict great horrors upon us mere humans if we are naughty. This last statement is actually something I applaud Ray Comfort for. I like that he actually embraces what I would call the less charming parts of scripture and presents God as a nasty and mean bully who demands quite a lot of you for not sending you to Hell to serve a sentence of eternal pain and suffering. This is a brave stand that is not easy – especially if you claim to approach unbelievers in a non threatening and non offensively way. That I find Ray to be quite obnoxious in his witnessing and preaching is besides the point.
“Songs of the Lukewark Church” is another failed attempt at humor. This section just lists a series of psalm titles, modified to be “lukewarm”.
“Rwandan Man’s Confession” is rather like the “Letter from an Atheist” in that it lacks any comments or explained reason to be on the site. The story, which tells of a man who had just decided to follow Christ with his life, and then got killed for his beliefs, is just sad in so many ways. Obviously it’s terrible that anyone should have to die for their beliefs, however unpopular or crazy. But the fact that this man had become so obsessed with a character that most people find to belong in fiction, that he would die defending the reality of this character is just heartbreaking.
“10 Principles for New Christians”
I’ll quickly go through them:
1: You should read in the Bible daily and preferably deny yourself food before you have met todays bible quota.
2: Saying you do not believe in the Bible is tantamount to calling God a liar, and thus it is one of the greatest sins.
3: You should see all nonbelievers as people who are just about to burn, and you need to save them!
4: As 1000 years for us is like 1 day for God, 10 years for us can quite precisely be calculated as 14 minutes and 24 seconds for God, and so sometimes he will say that he will answer a prayer a little later, and this can be quite a long time. Also, he sometimes says no.
5: Being a Christian is being a soldier in a holy war
6: Find a good church, with a good preacher and don’t spread rumors about him!
7: You should give thanks to God every day. Here Ray give one of his strange awkward anecdotes, which have become somewhat of a signature in his writings. An atheist visits a farm and refuses to thank God for the food. The farmer says that another one on his farm doesn’t thank God: His pig! Great and very educational anecdote, Ray..
8: Baptisms should be done by way of full immersion
9: You should pay as much money as you can afford to God (and the church and holy endeavors)
10: When you have “experienced” God, no argument should be able to change your conviction. When faced with cults and their claims, just consult the Bible (because the Bible is never ambiguous and can never be interpreted in a was as to be used to manipulate). Read “God Doesn’t Believe in Atheists” and you will see they are the opposite of intellectual and quite frankly they don’t exist.
Lastly, there is the menu field “Get Equipped”. Here we find videoclips of Ray’s imposing ‘witnessing’ as well as 16 audio lessons, 4 “video lessons” which are just the four episodes of the TV show mentioned earlier, a free chapter (the first) of another of Ray’s many books and a link to buy the book, a DVD set for group training, and a link to another rather commercial site on the School of Biblical Evangelism. There is also a “Way of the Master Minute” which is a daily ‘sermon’ of sorts.
However, under “Get Equipped” we also find a link to “Answers to the 100 Most Common Questions” which is definitely worth looking at. Most of it is from another of Ray’s books, The Evidence Bible, which you can also buy there. I hope it is obvious by now why I think a donation section on this site is rather bad taste with all this commercialism. Anyway, I hope to go deeper into some of these ‘answers’ in a later post. I’m quite sure it will be a lot of fun!
I apologize for the long post, but I wanted everyone who read this to avoid wasting time as I did. There are very few interesting things on this site, and the most interesting things here are actually links to other sites.
Please ‘stay tuned’ until my next (non-Beeble) post where I will talk more about the actual claims and arguments put forth by our dear Ray Comfort.
I know this was mostly a boring post, so please don’t make comments just stating this fact.
No More Bullfeces 