Customer Reviews

How to Know God Exists

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

A great book. If you are needing some insight on apologetics and general common sense information, this is the book for you. As the book states,"if you are looking for God in a petry dish, you will not find that here." This book does give you some great, straight forward information. I taught a six week Bible study based on the info in this book. It's solid. Those that read this book and still do not ask themselves the hard questions are usually the ones who would not believe in creation if they witnessed it themselves. Disregard the obvious activist reviews and read this book with a truly neutral, desire to simply seek the truth. If you read it and find it inadequate in information, then so be it. At least you will have given the subject some legitimate consideration. I do not believe that is going to be the case. Accidental perfection to sustain life and a self manifested inner conscience are impossible. MUCH more impossible than the existence of a designer/creator.

Ray was nice enough to send this to me autographed. That's about the best thing I can say about it. This book is filled with false information, logical fallacies, and outright lies.

I highlighted and noted false information. There is not a single paragraph that doesn't have highlight marks. Basically this book is one giant argument from ignorance. It's really a shame. Ray seems to a semi-intelligent person, yet he absolutely refuses to represent evolution and cosmology in a truthful way.

A more detailed review can be seen at [...] by another reader of Ray's blog.

This is an excellent book with fine arguments against atheism and brilliant thoughts. A book to give to people who want tp know the truth

Atheists hate this book and most of the others that Ray Comfort has written. What better endorsement can there be than that?

As an atheist i thought this book would be a dissapointment and i was right and its not because im just closing my mind to new ideas if you didnt know much about science you probably would be awestruck by this book but thats not the case here. He makes claims with what he called scientific backing but its mainly just his opinion, ive heard him on street corners preaching and hes one of the biggest idiots on the subject of religion i know and now after reading his book you can add science to that list as well. Like i said this book is just full of opinions i didnt hear hardly any science. The science that he does use is misleading so dont be mislead by this book, there are tons of transitional fossils, and if you cant get to the american museum of natural science than just wikipedia-transitional fossils and you will recieve an entire list of them. What Comfort fails to see is that evolution is just a theory but in science a theory is all anything can (thats why gravity is only a theory) because in science nothing can be known for sure. So once again dont be mislead by this book,read it, and then do your own research and youll find its not hard to debunk this one!!

This book has evolved from a long line of apologetics books. When reading this book, I was struck by the similarity with "The Bible The Word of God" by Frank Bettex written in 1904. Then again why should I be surprised, doesn't a 1904 car bear some similarity to a 2010 car? One of the contentions of this book is that a designer would create things from extant designs rather that reinventing things constantly. A monkey was not our ancestor, but a parallel analog made from the same materials and design.

We are treated to many design/designer arguments in this easy to read book... Aquinas' ontological proofs for the existence of God. Comfort is St Thomas Aquinas reborn in the twenty first century. Like the Bettex book, Comfort goes into scriptural proof of prophecy fulfilled and addresses the social and historical attacks on the faith. One insight unique to this book is the observation about all the sub systems that go into enabling eyesight. These sight sub systems had to evolve with knowledge of the future function of the other systems- the eye, the cortex, and the optic nerve together with forty other components that supplied no advantage to the whole until networked.

The book is deceptively simple because it constantly hints at greater complexity which can be easily read into by the reader. The somewhat corny story about the critics of the light bulb and Edison on page 103 "Three Wise Fools" has profound insights on epistemology contained in it.

The book like everything else in this universe of entropy is flawed...

Like evolution, this book does not ecape the second law of thermodynamics. Comfort's discussion of slavery is curiously idiotic.How can anybody call the slavery of the ancient world better than America's sad experience with the "peculiar institution?" Has Comfort ever heard of the revolt of Spartacus in Rome? A revolt solved with thousands of roadside crucifixions. The Assyrian treatment of prisoners of war or Biblical enslavement scenes are curiously absent here. Zedekiah's story in Jer 52:9-11 is a disturbing biblical enslavement tale. Were ancient slaves really treated "more like modern servants?" page 143

The book is filled with some phony populism. The variety of which makes Comfort look patronizing to the reader "because you couldn't believe that a klutz like me could write a book"...two paragraphs later a contradiction-"so why did I (an intelligent clear thinking human being)"...etc. pp 175-176. These self deprecating remarks, liberally sprinkled throughout the book, are trite and tiring.

The book itself should be viewed as a catalyst for witness and deeper inquiry for both sides in the culture wars...food for thought.
Pathway to the stars
The Bible The Word of God
Jesus: Our Destiny
Questions: I Have Always Wanted to Ask
Darwin on Trial

This book was given to me as a gift from a Creationist who was attempting to convert me. Out of respect and curiosity, I read it cover to cover.

It has countless misleading "facts", untruths or lies - take your pick. One of the points it discusses is that the eyes, the nose, the ears and the human body is so complex that the only "logical" conclusion is that God must have created it. He discusses how the human body is a PERFECT machine, but fails to mention things like cancer or other mutations -- I would not call these perfect. Or how about nipples and mammary glands on men? Men don't even need these. Or how about organs like the appendix or the spleen (which are not necessary for human beings to survive). He writes specifically how perfect the eyes are, then why is it that much of the world wears glasses? This is why evolution makes more sense.

He says that everything MUST have a creator/designer. Behind a soda can is a designer, behind a painting is a painter, so obviously someone MUST have created the universe. This is his evidence. Well, if everything has a designer, who designed God? Some other God? Then who designed that God, and so on... Again, his "evidence" is fundamentally flawed.

Of course, based on these arguments, he also discredits the "Big Bang" theory. He claims it is ridiculous to think that there was nothing before the Big Bang. Of course, this is a theory (and a WIDELY accepted one, at that), but it makes more sense to many people when you study it. Think about this: What is the universe? In a nutshell, space and time. To ask what was there before the universe or what happened before the universe, are both meaningless questions, there was nothing before that because the Big Bang created both space AND time.

Life on earth is the product of billions of years of evolution. Creationists believe the world is only 6,000 years old. He discredits evolution entirely when 98.5% of scientists adhere to evolution as how we came to be. He goes on to describing how in order for evolution to work, there must be evidence of transitional forms and fossils. For example, a half duck, half crocodile -- a "croco-duck". And goes further to state, that there are NO transitional fossils in existence!! This is a complete lie to mislead his readers. Well, Ray, you and many creationists are wrong about this statement. All you have to do is go to the American Museum of Natural History and you can find hundreds of transitional fossils. In case you can't go to that museum, just type in WikiPedia "List of Transitional fossils". Apparently, Ray forgot about the Platypus, an obvious contemporary example of a transitional form. There are other living transitional forms today, such as the walking catfish and the mudskipper, which is an amphibious fish that can also walk on land. Furthermore, every single human being on this planet is evidence of transitional forms (since we are continually evolving).

None of what Ray provides is "evidence". In the book, he only states misleading, false, unfounded, irrational arguments. Ray can't come to another conclusion but to Just believe...because if some of us can't understand "the why", then "God must have done it". If you can't provide evidence, at least be HUMBLE (which is a supposed Christian virtue) and say "We cannot say for sure if God exists". The beauty of science is that it is humble because it is revisable, it might get things wrong sometimes, but at least scientists are not absolutists and they do not claim 100% certainty on anything. Unlike dogmatic creationism, which is supposed to be humble but instead is absolutist, hypocritical and believes in a God that is a megalo-maniacal tyrant that instills fear on you to believe in him, so you can live an eternal life to then continue worshipping him. This book made me believe less in God, and more in science.

I gave this book 1 star, but I still think you should buy it, at least you can get a few laughs out of it. Sorry, Ray, it's nothing personal with you, just your statements. Did you forget one of the commandments your religion teaches: "Thou shalt not lie"?

Of course those of us who walk in the Spirit KNOW GOD EXISTS. This is a great tool to help witness to the unbeliever. It really makes perfect sense, but gives insight to those who don't know what to say when witnessing to others.

Firstly, I am going to be honest and admit to being an atheist. But I am interested in theology and the arguments believers might have for God. William Lane Craig and Alvin Plantinga are intelligent theologians who carve out thoughtful arguments, but so far they have failed to convince me, and most other atheists, of their deity's existence.
I don't know why I had high hopes for Ray Comfort's book; but I'd never heard of him before, so I thought I'd read it.
Any high hopes I had were soon laid low.
How to Know How God Exists is not `thought-provoking' as the blurb on the back claims; it is `mind-numbing'. It does not convince, as the blurb declares, that `belief in God is reasonable and rational', it merely wheels out illogical, infantile arguments that most Christians surely have abandoned.
Comfort claims it is `very simple' to prove God's existence. And here's the `evidence': You cannot have a building without a builder; you cannot have a painting without a painter; therefore, says Comfort, you cannot have a creation without a creator.
That's the old argument from design, debunked in the 18th century by David Hume, regurgitated in the 21st by Ray Comfort.
If `creation needs a creator,' Comfort must firstly define `creation'; what does he mean by it? He must demonstrate, also, that the universe is actually a creation. He would say that it is because it has been created, but then he is begging the question.
Even if he shows that the universe was a `creation', he must then demonstrate that it was his deity that created it. Unfortunately, he cannot do any of these things, so all that remains is to make assertions: `... creation is absolute, 100 percent scientific proof that there was a Creator.'
Comfort does demand of his reader that they be `logically consistent'; however, he does not apply the same rules to himself.
For example, if he claims that everything that exists needs a creator, he must be logically consistent: if Comfort believes his God exists, being logically consistent would mean that God would also have a creator, as would his creator. But not to Comfort; you cannot ask that question because his God is eternal, and that's that. He demands that `logic, reason, and scientific laws' force you to accept a First Cause. Even if that were the case, the question is: Why should the First Cause be his God?
Comfort, in defending his `First Cause' argument, says, `In all of history, there has never been an instance of anything spontaneously appearing out of nowhere.'
Bizarrely, though, this is precisely what Comfort is claiming: God made everything spontaneously appear out of nowhere.
He cannot see that if he is making an argument he has to apply the same rules to himself as he does to his opponent.
To be logical, Comfort would have to agree with this statement: if we accept that a building requires a builder, then if something goes wrong with the building, surely the builder is to blame; therefore, if we accept that creation requires a creator, then if something goes wrong with creation, surely the creator is to blame.
Comfort would not agree to this. He would claim that humans are to blame for a fallen creation, that our sin has `broken' God's masterpiece. Therefore, his argument fails because he refuses to be logically consistent.
This inconsistency continues when he talks about `wonders' such as the `ability to see, the ability to hear, touch, smell... ' Comfort claims `we can't even plan to make anything that's anywhere close to' an eye, for example. However, if he is being logically consistent, we should neither be able to build a building nor paint a painting. We can show how fallacious his argument is by doing both of those things.
Comfort hates science; it's quite clear. He hates it so much he either misinforms about it (`The foundation of atheism is a belief in the theory of evolution'); or he can't be bothered to understand it properly.
For example, he tells us that to `prove the fundamental claims of evolution, we should be able to see evidence of the following: how the universe began; how life came from nonlife; and how we got such diversity of life'.
If Comfort writes about science, he should at least try to grasp its fundamentals: evolution says nothing, absolutely nothing, about `how the universe began' or `how life came from nonlife'; those are the sciences of cosmology and biochemistry; the theories of the `big bang' and abiogenesis. Why should evolution say anything about the beginning of the universe? It shouldn't, no more than the theory of relativity says something about change in genes; no more than germ theory explains the causes of economic collapse.
One argument he makes for perfect design, and against evolution, is that vestigial organs `have a purpose'. Vestigial organs are structures that had a purpose in our evolutionary past. One example he cites is the appendix, which he claims is part of the human immune system. Oddly, though, and unaddressed by Comfort, is the fact that when humans have the appendix removed, it does not seem to affect their immunity at all. The appendix also makes your death seven per cent more likely, according to research: what a genius designer to stick something in your body that is more likely to kill you if you have it rather than if you didn't.
Of course, what Comfort doesn't understand is that evolution can explain the appendix; creationism cannot. Simply put, that is what evolution is: an explanation; the best one we have at the moment for the diversity of life.
If Comfort can find proper evidence to support `the fact of creationism' as the best explanation, then the science community would happily peer-review it, I am sure.
Comfort does like to quote and name-drop, but this is merely appealing to authority; it is a fallacy like all his arguments.
He also misinforms his readers about who he is quoting: he cites `molecular biologist, Michael Denton, an evolutionist'. Denton was a creationist of the intelligent design variety. He quotes `evolutionist' Robert Jastrow. The use of `evolutionist' (so is someone who studies germ theory a `germist'?) suggests Jastrow is a biologist. But he is not: his is an astronomer and a cosmologist. Again, misleading.
The devilish Comfort cites Jerry Bergman's list of 3,000 `scientists and professors' who reject evolution (argument from authority, again) and continues by stating that Francis Collins, head of the Human Genome Project, claims that 40 per cent of working scientists say they are believers. Reading this suggest Collins rejects evolution. But this is terribly misleading: Francis Collins is a Christian, but he is also fully accepting of evolution and is an arch-critic of creationism.
This is very disingenuous of Comfort. In fact, he is bearing false witness against Collins. Again, if he measured himself by the standard he demands of others, he would be going to hell for breaking one of the Ten Commandments.
In his relentless campaign to destroy evolution, Comfort even churns up frauds as if these disprove science. He mentions archaeoraptor, a mish-mash of bird and bone joined together by a Chinese farmer in 1999. Comfort claims this so-called discovery `fooled the worldwide scientific community'. This just isn't true: the fake dinosaur fooled journalists at the National Geographic magazine. And what he doesn't say is that it was the scientific community that quickly identified it as a fraud. But what does this prove? Does the fraudulent Shroud of Turin disprove Christianity? Nonsense.
Comfort also claims that the lack of transitional fossils (of which there are thousands; Google `transitional fossils', you'll find a list) shows evolution cannot be true. Does this mean that if he cannot present every human fossil linking him to Adam, we can say the bible is not true? If we operate by Comfort's logic, then we can.
Every case Comfort desperately makes falls flat: either because his logic is flawed, because he doesn't understand, or because he basically misinforms his reader.
Ultimately, Comfort knows that he has no evidence for God because at the last, he resorts to threats: `What I'm trying to convince you of is your terrible danger,' he says, warning his reader that unless he or she repents, they will burn in hell for eternity. That's the best he can do. His intellectual efforts fail, so he attempts to spook us into believing in God - worship him or burn.
There is so much wrong with this book. Every page contains stupidity; I've tried to address a few of them. His arguments are tired: appeals to ignorance (I don't understand evolution, so it can't be true); to authority (well, Isaac Newton believed in creation); to design (painters; buildings; creators); to `God in The Gaps' (if we don't know the answer, then it must be God). He has clearly no understanding of science and is quite happy to mislead his reader when it suits him, either through ignorance or duplicitousness.
The one good thing I can say is that Comfort writes well: he is clear and concise. But problematically for him, his decent prose makes his imbecilic arguments plainer for all to see.

Ray Comfort made himself famous for his banana argument, which essentially goes as follows: The banana is perfectly designed to fit in a person's hand, therefore god exists. I would like everyone who reads this review to think of other places a banana fits and ask yourself what that proves. The best part is that the conventional banana, that we know and love today, was genetically engineered by man using evolutionary principles. It does not grow naturally in the wild.
If this book, or any of his books, make sense to you, don't reproduce.