Book Review: “You Can Lead An Atheist To Evidence, But You Can’t make Him Think” by Ray Comfort
As previously mentioned, I recently received and read Ray Comfort’s book “You Can Lead An Atheist To Evidence, But You Can’t make Him Think“. Now, this is not so much an actual book as it is a printed FAQ, separated into loosely assembled chapters. What Comfort does is simply take comments from his blog (called “Atheist Central“) and then attempts to answers these questions or claims made by these (supposed) atheists. Pretty much every single reply ends with Ray asking the atheist to accept Jesus and have faith in God.
The first thing that struck me was the type of comments he had selected for this book. Emotional, angry responses from people who felt personally offended by his message, and repeats of old and worn “God-killer” type arguments. There are currently several people with actual scientific knowledge who regularly comment on all Comfort’s posts, whose questions would be utterly fascinating to hear him answer seriously, but those are not the questions you will see answered here. The point of this book is to evangelize, nothing more and nothing less. For someone who implies in the very title of his book that he provides atheists with “evidence” for God’s existence, this proposed evidence is suspiciously absent throughout every last chapter.
A lot of the time, I found that Comfort didn’t even actually address the question or complaint put forth by the “atheist” at all. He completely ignores it, and goes on ranting about how we already know God exists, which makes it pointless to question his existence. It’s full of creationist arguments along the lines of “since the world is a creation, that necessitates a creator” without ever even touching on the subject of how to determine that the world is a creation to begin with.
Another thing that I noticed is Comfort’s evident obsession with rapists, murderers and the mutilated corpses of little girls. Seriously, it’s quite disturbing to see the “atheist” ask a question about something, and comfort ending his reply by likening the atheist to someone who rapes, murders and mutilates little girls. It’s not just here and there either, I think he does this probably a dozen times. It really makes you wonder what this believer would be doing if he wasn’t constrained by the moral law of his God.
As an atheist myself, I like to believe that I am, in fact, quite capable of thinking. I would also welcome the opportunity to be “led to evidence”, if only that was what Comfort was trying to do with his book (Spoiler alert: it’s not). The world as a creation is, for him, all the evidence he needs to prove his creator, although he never even once attempts to prove the creation. Any question of whether God exists or not is answered with the stated claim that he does exist, without ever going into detail on how this can be known. To top it off, evolution is a big conspiracy, there are no transitional fossils and paleontologists and biologists do what they do only to become rich and famous. I wonder if Ray could even mention a single paleontologist by name.
If you’re an atheist, don’t bother reading this book. It’s rubbish. If you’re a Christian, it’s still rubbish. Ray Comfort’s arguments are as intelligent as the ocean is dry and it doesn’t matter who you are, his willful ignorance should be quite evident and obvious to anyone regardless of beliefs.
I expected as much that this book was rubbish, knowing who the author is. I have read so many apologetics books, and I just can’t bring myself to read another. They all have the same arguments that are refuted time and time again. If someone wants to write a book with new evidence, then I’ll read, but for the time being, these books will stay off my library list. Thank you for the review; I won’t even bother with this one.
Theists make me laugh so hard. Mr. Comfort has the word “evidence” on the title of his book, but claims to rely on faith. This is an abuse of the very logic of the law of non-contradiction, because faith means belief WITHOUT evidence, so he undermines his own position. Mr. Comfort also ASSUMES a God exists without evidence. By doing this, he also commits another logical fallacy of “begging the question,” in which the premise of the author’s arguments are ASSUMED to be true without adequate proof of the author’s statements.
So, what have I proven here? Ray Comfort, and every other theist out there,
IS IRRATIONAL.
Looks like the banana man failed once more…..
Wack….- “Honey, where is the hammer to open this fucking Coconut???”
Comfort’s logic is so elementary he doesn’t feel the need to explain every rabbit hole question. What evidence are you looking for exactly? His argument is simple:
1. Anything complex must have a creator or it would function like crap. Since creation functions in all its complexity like a well maintained machine it must have had a creator. No more evidence needed.
2. Since time has a beginning then something out side of time must have created it. Just the fact we have time shows that there was a beginning. God is outside of time. We know a God therefore exists.
3. We have a moral law within us because of this law that is not dependent on human factors like society, local authority, community and/or nurture from parents. Then we know there was a law creator and since it is part of our being then we know someone, one with a perfect moral being who has the skill to create humans exists. Only the Judeo Christian God claims to have these qualities therefore he must exist.
4. If you come to the conclusion that Jesus Christ is God and he created us then you will take his word for what evidence will be convincing to humans because that is how he designed us. He says that we cannot convince people on an intellectual basis we can only convince on a conscience level. So he tells us to focus on appealing to people’s moral guilt for how they run their lives and that will be convincing enough.
Conclusion: That is what Comfort attempts to do over and over again, the end. He is not a being an ass or ridiculous, he is just following instructions. He is either wrong or he is right we will ultimately find out in the end but he is trying to make the case not to wait till then.
Daniel:
Comfort doesn’t use logic. He thinks he does, but it’s so superficial that there are several equally logical counter-arguments to every one of his arguments.
1. No, it mustn’t. No, it doesn’t. Are you completely blind? We have nerves that go from our brains, down around our genitals and up towards our chests again. That isn’t “by design”. If it is, then the designer was either stupid or drunk. We see the world upside down. Instead of making an eye that sees the world correctly, our brains have to trick us into thinking down is down, when really it’s up. “No more evidence needed” my ass. This is such a weak argument it’s pitiable.
2. So who created God? “He always existed”? Then why can’t time? Who are you to know these things for certain? How do you, a mere mortal, make absolute statements about God and the beginning of time? Again, if you think this makes a convincing argument, I pity you. I really do.
3. “Only the Judeo-Christian God”? What? But I can also claim to be those things. That means I’m God! I’m just following your own logic here. You just proved that I’m God. Do you still not see the flaws in these arguments?
4. “He” doesn’t tell us squat. Man wrote the Bible. Man made up the myths that later became religion. You’re saying that because a book claims that God exists, he does?
Conclusion: I didn’t think I could find a person with more shallow and less thought-through arguments than Ray Comfort, yet here you are. I’m speechless. Just stumped, that any person capable of taking care of him or herself could be so daft as to think these are convincing, persuasive arguments.
It’s quite obvious to me that you haven’t spent any time whatsoever actually critically thinking about your beliefs. You’ve swallowed everything whole, and you didn’t even bother to chew. The fact that you haven’t choked yet is what I find most spectacular.