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You Can Lead an Atheist to Evidence, But You Can't Make Him Think: Answers to Questions from Angry Skeptics

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Unfortunately, Ray Comfort has a large following of fans, and most who are critical of his work decide that the best course of action is to be dismissive. His style of writing can barely be called argumentative. He posits no compelling evidence for his beliefs, makes blind assertions, and clearly does not understand natural forces such as evolution by natural selection and by writing a book which mischaracterizes science, is undermining observation, experimentation, rational thought and critical thinking.

Comfort consistently confuses biology with other scientific disciplines such as cosmology and astronomy, and generally builds up a strawman science, only to knock it down by simply asserting, literally, that his god is real and that atheists are stupid and immoral.

Comfort has a former blog from which he drew the questions for his book, and though the commenters on his blog (including myself) explained repeatedly and thoroughly that evolution does not operate in the fairy-tale evolution he has constructed, that atheists do not believe that "nothing created everything", he continues to write as if he has not read their explanation or is intentionally ignoring them. He writes, for example, about what an amazing coincidence that when "the first man evolved", a woman just happened to amazingly evolve right beside him. This characterization of evolution betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of it. He creates a "fairytale" version of evolution and then goes on to explain what a silly fairytale it is.

Ray actually states in his book that Christians do not need to prove god exists to atheists, because atheists obviously know already that god exists, and are merely denying god so that they can be moral free agents.

I find this constant insistence that atheists and non-believers "pretend there is no god" just so they can "get away with whatever they want" to be tiresome and false. Insisting that atheists are immoral people and that all "true" Christians are good people only serves to divide believers and nonbelievers and perpetuate society's hatred for people who don't believe in their god.

There are many other apologists out there who are much better at apologetics than this author.

The rest of his book is filled with outdated arguments (such as the lord, liar or lunatic argument about Jesus' credibility) and petty jabs at people who don't believe in god which only serve to cut off coherent dialogue between believers and non-believers. To those people who are claiming any atheist who reads this book must admit it is full of good science - If you Google my nickname and Ray Comfort, or my blog name "Atheism is Freedom" you can find what amounts to a very thorough critique of this book - which would never fit in the space of a review here. This book is not good science, it is misunderstood, strawman science.

Ray Comfort has no idea how evolution works, or what Atheists actually think or believe. His premise that Atheists "Pretend" there is no God is no less offensive than if an Atheist were to write a book with the premise that Christians "pretend" there is a God.

His arguments are shallow, and his lack of understanding of his subject matter is telling. He is simply an apologist without a real argument, and a lot of questions he doesn't really answer in his book. Readers: research his answers, and you will find he is very wrong pretty much on every point.

Presuppositionalist arguments really aren't effective at convincing skeptics, so I have to assume he's just preaching to the evangelicals who already believe.

If you replace the word Atheist with Christian or Theist, then you may have an interesting book on your hands. Otherwise steer clear.

Ray's best argument involves comparing the shape of a banana to the way human's hold it and claiming that such amazing design is evidence of a God. Beyond the poverty of his imagination and his ignorance of evidence and science; it's an interesting claim given that most bananas grown for the western market are cultivated to be that way. They don't grow that way naturally.

If you are religious you will like this book as it allows you to continue bathing in a sea of ignorance.

Ray Comfort is a deluded child with absolutely zero understanding of evolution. Or theology for that matter. His writing is abysmal, it seems aimed at mentally handicapped children instead of well-thinking adults. His 'logic' is horrendously flawed and he makes assumptions without any basis whatsoever. Dreadful piece of drivel that does the creationist-lobby more harm than good.

While I am sure that many of Comfort's fans will enjoy this book, I would not recommend that anybody with any critical thinking skills waste their time with such utter rubbish. Every "point" he tries to make has been previously refuted countless times, and frankly it's a bore to see them rehashed once again with nothing new except the cover.

Regarding Comfort's book: Wow, the author is living proof of P.T.Barnum's dictum that there's a sucker born every minute. How does a genetically modified banana lead anyone but a sucker/moron to a belief in a non-existent god? Save your money.....wait for the movie.

I recall being dismayed that writers Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris didn't take jabs at Christians where I felt it would have been appropriate to challenge their intelligence. Ray Comfort repeatedly taunts atheists in the oh-so-mature schoolyard manner of a child. If he is so sure his god exists, why does he have to resort to derogatory name-calling as his primary method of defense? Now I realize Dawkins and Harris had the right idea; how can anyone take Comfort seriously?

Ok, the big argument in this book is the "Atheists think something came from nothing. A logical impossibility" Actually Current Big Bang theory (not evolution theory) is that all mater existed and expanded out in a singularity. Not that everything came from nothing.
Another point that has been touted from this book is that evolution doesn't explain where females came from how did a female of the species evolve independently next to the male.
Firstly I have to point out that there is no evidence that the male evolved first anywhere and the assumption that they did is specious and sexist. Secondly evolution is something that takes place in a group of animals the changes are small and slow and do not preclude or restrict the breeding choices of the individual animal. Only after many small changes in a breeding population over many years do the cumulated changes branch to a new species that can not bread back to the original species successfully. But these changes have taken place within a breading population of many males and females.
A few examples of this; Horses and Donkeys are separate species. But they are not different enough to preclude a cross breed a mule. Mules are usually sterile unable no bread themselves. Lions and Tigers are also two separate species yet they have successfully been hybridized as well. It the Human genome project, a project to map the complete genetic makeup of the human genome, has found evidence of a single progenitor female. This individual had several breeding partners but her mitochondrial differences gave her offspring enough of an advantage that all humans were descended from her.
So over all this book is mostly without merit. The understanding of science by the author is week at best and the logic used is flawed. I can recommend the book as a stepping stone to real understanding if when an argument is made the reader quickly investigates the actual facts regarding the statement and learns why it is a bad argument, or how the facts were misrepresented or misunderstood. Perhaps as an outline to how our science education is failing us providing avenues for instruction and ways to correct it.

Somehow all of the 70+ reviews of this book got deleted, including mine. Comfort said this on his site: "Amazon, which had featured dozens of single-star ratings and comments before this article was published, later apparently edited its content to provide only two reviews, one positive and one negative." How dishonest can you be? I wrote this honest review in good faith after reading his book, and it should not be deleted simply because it is negative. Here it is again:

Unfortunately, Ray Comfort has a large following of fans, and most who are critical of his work decide that the best course of action is to be dismissive. His style of writing can barely be called argumentative. He posits no compelling evidence for his beliefs, makes blind assertions, and clearly does not understand natural forces such as evolution by natural selection and by writing a book which mischaracterizes science, is undermining observation, experimentation, rational thought and critical thinking.

Comfort consistently confuses biology with other scientific disciplines such as cosmology and astronomy, and generally builds up a strawman science, only to knock it down by simply asserting, literally, that his god is real and that atheists are stupid and immoral.

Comfort has a former blog from which he drew the questions for his book, and though the commenters on his blog (including myself) explained repeatedly and thoroughly that evolution does not operate in the fairy-tale evolution he has constructed, that atheists do not believe that "nothing created everything", he continues to write as if he has not read their explanation or is intentionally ignoring them. He writes, for example, about what an amazing coincidence that when "the first man evolved", a woman just happened to amazingly evolve right beside him. This characterization of evolution betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of it. He creates a "fairytale" version of evolution and then goes on to explain what a silly fairytale it is.

Ray actually states in his book that Christians do not need to prove god exists to atheists, because atheists obviously know already that god exists, and are merely denying god so that they can be moral free agents.

I find this constant insistence that atheists and non-believers "pretend there is no god" just so they can "get away with whatever they want" to be tiresome and false. Insisting that atheists are immoral people and that all "true" Christians are good people only serves to divide believers and nonbelievers and perpetuate society's hatred for people who don't believe in their god.

There are many other apologists out there who are much better at apologetics than this author.

The rest of his book is filled with outdated arguments (such as the lord, liar or lunatic argument about Jesus' credibility) and petty jabs at people who don't believe in god which only serve to cut off coherent dialogue between believers and non-believers. To those people who are claiming any atheist who reads this book must admit it is full of good science - If you Google my nickname and Ray Comfort, or my blog name "Atheism is Freedom" you can find what amounts to a very thorough critique of this book - which would never fit in the space of a review here. This book is not good science, it is misunderstood, strawman science.

Here is just one example of the "logic" in Ray's book:

A questioner asks Ray how we know we've got the right god.

Ray says that this is a good question, and goes on to explain a few of the other gods (the Mormon, Aztec, new age) and even throws in "evolution as a god - "You could make evolution your god, and give it praise for creating everything through (super)natural selection". I shouldn't have to point out that evolution is a process, and so saying that you could make evolution your god is about as bizarre as saying you could make economics your god.

Here is how, Ray says, you can know you've got the right god.

-you have guilt.
-the ten commandments says stuff.
-the conscience produces guilt about not following the ten commandments.
-this guilt is a product of our impending judgment.
-It's true whether your believe it or not.
-the Bible says Jesus suffered to take away your sins and guilt.
-The Bible promises you won't feel guilty anymore if you repent and trust Jesus.
-Then, we won't feel guilty for anything - lust, adultery, etc.
-No other religion can wipe away the guilt you feel for doing bad stuff.
-all those false religions still have sacrifices through prayer, doing good works, etc.
-Not Christianity! Once we trust Jesus and repent, we're literally not guilty anymore of doing bad things.
-This is so simple a child could understand it. "Obey the gospel, and guilt is replaced by absolute assurance of everlasting life"

Without writing out the whole paragraph, this is literally what Ray is saying. I hope that any Christians reading this realize that Comfort it making a mockery of your religion. People should feel guilty for not doing good works, because doing good works is the ethical thing to do. I cannot believe that Comfort continually mocks and berates atheists for being the scum of the earth while simultaneously claiming that his savior will wash away all of his crimes and he will no longer have to feel guilty for committing any of them.

On top of this - did Comfort really even answer the question? The right god is apparently the one that makes all of your guilt for doing bad things wash away. Honestly, I don't understand this. Comfort claims that atheists reject god so that they can do whatever they want without feeling guilty, but his version of Christianity seems to imbue the exact same sentiments that he rails against. What is to stop someone from committing adultery and then saying, "It's okay! It's no big deal! I accept Jesus, so I don't feel guilty for betraying my wife. God will forgive me!" The only "argument" he has to fall back on, then, is the argument that if you're a "True Christian", then you'll never, EVER do bad things. I am going to go out on a limb and assume that Ray considers himself a "True Christian" yet he admits that he has broken every one of the ten commandments - he says this is okay, because Jesus will forgive poor little sinful Ray Comfort (p55). Apparently atheists are terrible scum because they are "moral free agents", but with all guilt for immorality washed away, Comfortian Christians are more morally free than atheists - believe in Jesus and if you hurt society, you don't have to feel guilty because you are forgiven. Be an atheist, and if you hurt society you feel guilty because you've gone against social morals. This form of moral extremism is dangerous to society and I can't understand why Comfort is advocating it.

If you're forgiven for doing bad things, and your god allows you to feel no guilt at all for doing bad things, what is the impetus to stop doing those bad things? I'd personally rather people follow a god that makes people feel appropriately guilty for harming others. Lack of feelings of guilt for doing bad is a classic sign of sociopathy.

Ray Comfort's morality scares me. It offends my ethics. If a subjective feeling of guiltlessness at one's moral crimes is how one finds the right god, I hope that no one finds the right god.

Ray Comfort has in the past shown his willingness to speak as an expert about bananas and about evolution, while clearly being poorly informed about both. In this volume, he offers more of the same - as is readily seen for instance when he says he will critique evolution and then starts talking about the Big Bang.

I can only hope that few atheists will actually read this book, since Comfort seems to be trying to promote and encourage atheism by making Christians look like a bunch of arrogant imbeciles. I sometimes wonder whether Comfort is not in fact an atheist doing this intentionally to make Christianity look bad...

I hope that Christians looking to understand evolution or atheism will read a serious book by someone who has relevant expertise or has at least taken the time to inform himself or herself about the subject. And I hope that atheists will not generalize about Christians on the basis of one individual whose arrogant confidence in his own rightness is altogether lacking in Christian humility, and whose "understanding" of the Bible and of the relationship between science and the Christian faith are not typical of thinking Christians, whether historically or today.