It's remarkable. Comfort gets something right.
The contention between Darwin's theory of evolution and the Bible's account of creation is extremely significant. This is because if evolution is true, the Bible is a fallacy.
I know, it's unbelievable. Comfort's remarks usually set the bar for stupidity, so it's astounding to find two sentences in his usual babble that actually make sense — yes, it is a significant conflict, and yes, the Bible is fallacious.
It would be nice if we could just stop there, allow the poor man a moment of glory, and leave him to bask self-contentendly in the belief that he is educable, but we can't. That's because his next paragraph departs from that brief high-water mark to plunge into the abyss of obtuse inanity.
If you have webcams, turn them on now. I'd like to record the multitudes sitting before my blog, jaws gaping like fish, followed by peals of laughter. This one is for the creationist record books.
Darwin theorized that mankind (both male and female) evolved alongside each other over millions of years, both reproducing after their own kind before the ability to physically have sex evolved. They did this through "asexuality" ("without sexual desire or activity or lacking any apparent sex or sex organs"). Each of them split in half ("Asexual organisms reproduce by fission (splitting in half)." Ask A Scientist, Biology Archive, http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/bio99/bio99927.htm.)
Wait, what? Darwin "theorized" no such thing. Humans reproduce sexually, as do all primates, as do all mammals, as do most vertebrates, as do a great many animals. There was no period where males and females evolved separately. The nice quote from Ask a Scientist refers to single-celled organisms — no human being has ever reproduced by splitting in half. We evolved from precursor populations containing both males and females.
This is often the most difficult thing about trying to argue with creationists. You get discombobulated by their most profound misconceptions, and you really do have to be prepared to start the discussion with the simplest, dumbest basics — it's like trying to have a serious conversation about biology with a preschooler, although usually the preschoolers are far more open-minded and willing to learn. And these are the people who feel qualified to set the high school science curriculum.
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Are you sure that this is not on purpose? It may well be that he is writing this for people who will believe everything he reads, so he is not being stupid (no more than usual), but dishonest.
My brain just leaked out my ears.
Gah.
As a former daily reader of Ray's blog I can tell you that Ray is primarily composed of two characteristics.
Dishonesty and mindnumbly proud ignorance.
It varies day to day which is the more prominent.
What Ray doesn't know he attributes to his vast knowledge. Yes. I know that sounds strange but Ray assumes all of the things he doesn't know about science is actually all the things he does know about it.
He's not worth debating because his dishonesty will always creep into any discussion when you correct him on his glaring ignorant and stupid mistakes.
Wow. . that's just F#cking WOW.
If you have webcams, turn them on now. I'd like to record the multitudes sitting before my blog, jaws gaping like fish, followed by peals of laughter. This one is for the creationist record books.
You warned us and everything, yet I did exactly what you predicted. But, I don't have a webcam :(
Youtube vids anyone?
Maybe he read something about sexual dimorphism and... just is really, really quite exceptionally stupid.
Comfort is both intellectually dishonest and lazy... his ramblings are an embarrassment to both believer and non-believer. I have a lot of friends and acquaintances whom are believers and most of them think that evolution denial and the ramblings of people like Comfort are both ridiculous and unrealistic. But yes, it is unfortunate that so many folks seem to get behind 'blatherings' of such monumentally imbecilic proportions...
ummmmmmmmmmm
well, I...
You see...
Maybe...
ummmmmmmmmmmmmmm
I got nothing
PLAF!!!! My brain just exploded. Thank you very much.
I won't post a vid, but I'll describe my look. Think Morpheus when he whispers 'It cannot be!' followed by Brian Blessed during any of his laughing fits.
Comfort is a plank.
I ain't kin to no rotifer!
I'm sorry I didn't cam myself laughing.
I disagree. What's at stake is not whether the bible is a fallacy but rather how this book has been interpreted. In other words it is crass literalism which is in danger.
Wow.
It sure was tough in the days before sexual reproduction, just waiting for the genitalia to develop sufficiently to allow males and females to get it on. Our ancient ancestors must have been astonishingly patient.
Flashback
F: Oh, don't worry about it, dear. It just doesn't work yet.
M: But this has never happened before.
F: Well, that's certainly true. Maybe in a few more generations of asexual reproduction we humans beings can try again.
Sure, you read the surface of Darwin and you don't find it.
But the same people who recognize that Hitler's beliefs as well as communism came straight out of the Origin know full well that all of that was also implied by Darwin in his writings.
It's your unwillingness to admit that all evil and bad science stem from Darwin and Cain that keeps you from admitting the truthiness of Comfort's statements.
After all, the man who single-handedly disproved Darwin and proved that God exists would hardly get the trivial details of Darwin's statements wrong.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
(smile turns to chuckle, then to raucous laughter)
Sounds like ol' Ray just saw "Army of Darkness" and thought it was a documentary.
Well, actually, he didn't say the Bible was fallacious. He said, if evolution is true, then the Bible is a fallacy. This is poorly stated (the Bible isn't a logical argument, so while it can be factually erroneous and can [and does] contain fallacies such as self-contradiction, it can't be a fallacy itself), and also too inclusive (evolution contradicts the creation account in Genesis, but has few if any implications for the rest of the Bible).
Boy did he screw that up; it shows that he knows nothing about Darwin!
Darwin theorized that mankind evolved as a strictly male species over millions of years, reproducing after their own kind before the need to physically have sex evolved. Man did this through "asexuality". He would split in half to reproduce, until one day, a random, accidental, highly unlikely, freak incident caused man to split off just a rib. That rib grew into a woman and sex spontaneously happened.
Comfort needs to reread The Origin of Species!
Actually, Ray is exactly right if you remove the single extraneous word in his statement:
"This is because evolution is true, the Bible is a fallacy."
Removing that "if" makes all the difference in the world.
Any bets when Ray shows up at the emergency room with a ________ needing to be removed from his bottom?
Yup, jaw drop followed by guffaw. I called Ubidubikid#1 and Ubidubikid#2 over to the computer to read it, and there was another huge round of laughter. PZ, you're doing a wonderful job of helping me vaccinate my kids against catching this kind of stupid in the future.
I may need something more emphatic than the Picard facepalm. I mean, Comfort is basically taking random things he reads, feeding them through a Markov process and spewing them out again. . .
Glen,
A) Hitler had Darwin's books BURNT because he didn't want to attribute a lowly origin to the Aryan race. He also was an avowed Roman Catholic.
B) Stalin's scientists followed Lysenko, not Darwinian principles. That's why they wasted so much time trying to crossbreed apes & human: bad understanding of biology.
I'd love to see him read the last 50 or so Nobel Prizes is medicine and physiology, 47 of which directly reference evvolution, and PROVE them wrong in a lab.
This is not abstract. This is a practical knowledge applied in epidemiology and genetics that saves lives. You can't unreason a scientific idea. It's not a philosophy. You have to put your data where your mouth is.
I know that's why I'm proud to teach it in the public school. I may be inspiring the scientist who cures cancer.
....mankind (both male and female) evolved alongside each other over millions of years, both reproducing after their own kind before the ability to physically have sex evolved. They did this through "asexuality" ("without sexual desire or activity or lacking any apparent sex or sex organs").
Yeah, & then Eve grabbed that apple, & Adam ate it, & then they got f*cked, just like it says in the bible. See, it makes sense. Duhhhhhhh!
evolution contradicts the creation account in Genesis, but has few if any implications for the rest of the Bible - Tualha
The contradictions between evolutionary science and the Bible go well beyond the creation story; but even if this were not so, the creation story is a vital component of Christianity: if no "Fall", then no need for a "Saviour". Non-fundamentalist Christianity has looked for ways round this, but none that I'm aware of are even remotely plausible.
His head's already stuffed so far up it I doubt there's room for anything else. Though I suppose since there's nothing inside his skull, the ________ might wind up there?
Forget evolution, what about a few other theories that if they are true (which they are to the best of our knowledge) the bible is a fallacy. I'll start out with
- General Relativity
DT @ #24, #15 was meant to be a completely transparent Poe.
Which may not be the case for a newbie--always the risk one takes when one tries to parody IDiots/cretins.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
You can't fault them for succeeding...succeeding at becoming dumber every time they open their faces. W...T...F. When has science ever said what Comfort just said it said? This is some crazy extension of perhaps the Noah's Ark fairy tale. That, or some scheming new way of casting the chance aspect they always carp about as being evermore difficult to achieve so their apologists eat it up and tell themselves "yeah! see??!! God had to have done it because how can two human creatures chance to evolve separately and then later merge? Idiot scientists who don't say the things we say they do!!"
Ray Comfort gets the Creobot award for inventive reinventing of facts for the day.
Give a whole new meaning to the statement, "Go F yourself" - who knew!
Wow, just wow. People listen to idiots like this?
No webcam, sorry, but my lop ears are even more limp than usual after reading that.
In the Catholic Church I was taught that the creation stories were not to be taken literally, but rather they were stories told that tried to explain that God created ever thing. Catholics are not fundies in their interpetation of the Bible.
That is, and I say this witout hyperbole, the stupidest thing I've ever heard in my entire life.
Hear that? that's the sound of my brain running out my ears. Too bad I don't have a webcam; I, too, reacted exactly as predicted.
I suppose the mystery is not that this guy is a moron, but that such a moron has an audience.
*chuckle*
You say that almost like you think that the current story is plausible.
Lucky we know you better.
If you can even ask this question, there might be hope for you yet. Run, flee, away to your bubble of rational sanity! It's too late for the rest of us, but you've apparently still got a shred of hope for humanity.
Sometimes I think those of us who've been on Pharyngula too long are like the fifth business in a Romero movie: it's ten minutes to the end and we've been mortally tainted by the zombies so all we can do is try to valiantly hold 'em off with our last breaths while the survivors run for safety.
Comfort is both intellectually dishonest and lazy... his ramblings are an embarrassment to both believer and non-believer. I have a lot of friends and acquaintances whom are believers and most of them think that evolution denial and the ramblings of people like Comfort are both ridiculous and unrealistic. But yes, it is unfortunate that so many folks seem to get behind 'blatherings' of such monumentally imbecilic proportions...
Is this one of those weaknesses they keep talking about?
One good thing about discussing biology with preschoolers -- they don't have an entire adult lifetime's worth of disinformation, propaganda, and bullshit to unlearn, at least. The bad news is, you're still discussing biology with a preschooler.
When I read "This one is for the creationist record books", I was thinking "yeah right, how bad can it be, I've read all the dumbest things these people say before, I won't be shocked..."
Boy was I ever wrong!
I have no idea what that means (maybe because I usually don't watch zombie movies), but I've noticed that I've changed a bit since lurking here at pharyngula.
It's made me much quicker to just say "that's bullshit" to 'spiritual' things (like alternative medicine that has no basis in real science, ghost stories, etc.), instead thinking that 'well, since so many people say it's real maybe it has some basis in reality?' (It might have - but I won't believe it with just anecdotal evidence and no real science to back it up. Now I just think 'well, lots of people are just real stupid')
I've also become far more skeptical about well, all authorities, religious as wel as governmental. (The latter more thanks to finding out that the EU had directives for the shape of cucumbers of banana's than reading pharyngula, but still)
Also I hate telemarketers even more than I did before, and no longer see any reason to even attempt stay polite towards them.
Okay, you got me. I laughed out loud, even though I had been warned. Sometimes if you tell people in advance "Now, this is really funny..." you kill what's coming. Sometimes, you don't.
I'm trying to figure out how Comfort thinks his explanation makes any sense at all -- I mean, he must be picturing something in his head when he writes these words, something he thinks the "Darwinists" believe. If you substitute the words "living things" for the word "mankind" in the above sentence, and eliminate his attributing sex to asexual organisms, then there's a grain of rationality there. There was asexual reproduction before sexual reproduction, which evolved later. As Ask-a-Scientist explains.
How he managed to take this general idea and apply it specifically to human beings, I don't know. Suddenly, human men and human women reproduce asexually like bacteria, then evolved the sexuality that made them male and female. We evidently go through ALL the stages of evolution on the history of the planet, because we're so important. It's as if he assumes human beings are the only species that counts, and anything anyone says about anything has to do with human beings. Talk about being self-absorbed.
Maybe this makes sense to someone who believes that God, an eternally existing Being which has no body, no sex organs, and no female counterpart, is still somehow a male.
Comfort constantly confuses evolution of species with the development of a single individual, and so ends up with a view of evolution which seems like it came from a comic book talking about aliens. It's not like explaining evolution to a preschooler. It's like explaining evolution to someone who's really, really into science fiction, and that's where he gets his free association of ideas and analogies.
Damn it!! PZ called it to the letter!
I started laughing for the first several words...but then, after that first comma, my jaw just dropped and I read in amazement at the stupidity.
I wish I DID have a webcam, I could have recorded my reactions and sent them to PZ with a "thanks for the laugh" note :-)
That should be the shape of cucumbers and bananas in my previous post, obviously.
I'm still not convinced that Ray Comfort isn't actually pulling one of the most elaborate and long-lasting examples of Poe's Law of all time.
Seriously. It's hard to believe that someone could be so horribly and so dysfunctionally dense as Ray and still manage to negotiate his daily life without killing himself.
I sometimes think it's an act.
Comfort is so wrong that he and wrong are going in opposite directions. He's past negative wrong and into complex, even transcendental wrong.
I've heard a less stupid version of this once before. A girl asked where she could see a chart of the evolution of woman, because she could only find the evolution of man.
It was stunning then, and this takes it to a whole new level.
That was fucking painful
Wow, thats so stupid. Thats quintessentially stupid. If I were asked by someone to define stupid, I would just tell them that.
He's either:
A: Real, real stupid
B: A deceitful liar.
C: All of the above.
Ah, #19 -- let's take that notion just a tiny bit further and you'll quickly see why Ray can't go there.
The clear implication is that the snake is actually a talking penis. Satan lives in men's pants!
And generally tempts women to do things that just would never, ever, ever, no matter what, cross their minds...
While I'm sure Ray wants to picture women as the secondary source of all evil, I doubt he'd be happy with the notion that Satan lives in his very own personal pants.
no hugs for thugs,
Shirley Knott
Maybe Ray Comfort after reading E.E. 'Doc. Smith Lensmen series got humans mixed up with Eddorians. Nah.
You know, it could be worse. We could have been living on a world where the most august international organization endorses proposals demanding respect for fairy tales. We could have been living for 8 years under a president who hallucinates voices from god and starts wars. We could be living in a country where Joe Plumber/ Six-pack decides scientific issues in school board meetings, or where public educational cum zoological exhibits partner with scam carny museums. It's a good thing we live in America. /containment bubble bursts and slavering lunatic lurches away from keyboard.
I had to read that a few times before realizing that Ray really was saying that human beings used to reproduce asexually. I've clicked through to his blog a few times, but this time certainly not. There will be a bunch of people trying futilely to try to impart on Ray the very basics of biology and evolution (and not using the tone of voice one would use with a preschooler, because who has the damned patience to anymore?) and a whole bunch of his supporters just lapping it right up. It really is completely worthless to argue with someone so doggedly determined to get it all wrong.
The bit about the bible was like the stopped clock showing the correct...no wait, more like the unused daily calender actually showing the correct date and day for that one time in seven years or so.
ok.... i had not got my webcam on... but lets just day i nearly choked on my dinner despite being for warned.... scary scary ignorance
It seems he has understood we have asexual organisms somewhere back in our evolutionary ancestry, but is having a hard time with the idea that those ancestors were a) not members of the human species, b) not divided into males and females (on account of them being asexual).
Didn't Dawkins write something in that Ancestor's Tale book of his about the difficulty with the discontinuity of words and the continuity of reality. That seems to be one of the creationist's major stumbling points.
I saw his blog this morning and stopped after I read the paragraph about males and females evolving separately.
It's so ridiculous the way these people give completely false statements about science. You have to wonder if Ray ever worries that some of his smarter Christians will do as I did (when I was a Christian) and start exploring the science in more detail, only to find that what people like Ray says is wrong and eventually do as I did and abandon their faith altogether.
One can hope!
And the asexually reproducing veterbrate is? Anyone? Anyone?
Someone needs to take Ray aside, maybe an educated Catholic, and carefully explain to him what parts of the bible are retroactively meant to be understood as poetic metaphor in the light of modern science, and which are meant to be the Literal Word of God And He Really Means It This TIme (Until We Can Show that He Was Wrong In Which Case That Too Will Be Poetic Metaphor And You'd Be a Fundamentalist Fool To Not Realize It).
Hi, Lynn.
Some people just have to hold onto archaic/irrational concepts no matter what.
"A dog is a dog, a duck is a duck and a cat... is a PERSON." Wow... just wow.
I think Ray's banana obsession is what started his preoccupation with asexual reproduction.
The EU has directives creating standard classifications for different classes of almost every product, including cucumbers and bananas, to facilitate trade. The idea is that an Italian wholesaler can buy 42 tonnes of "Class I bananas" from a Belgian banana importer and know (more or less) what they're getting: bananas suitable for retail sale, rather than inferior bananas for canning or other purposes. These EU regulations have been introduced as part of harmonisation measures to eliminate differences between member states, so that a "Class II banana" in Ireland is the same as a "Class II banana" in Sweden. The errant notion, promulgated by British tabloid newspapers, that overpaid EU bureaucrats with nothing better to do invented silly regulations on the curvature of bananas for no reason is, and always has been, entirely false. Standards harmonisation measures, even for bananas, are perfectly reasonable once you understand their purpose, which the tabloids omit in order to ensure that they elicit the "right" anti-EU sentiment from their underinformed readership.
I wonder if there is anyone out there who truly has a grasp on what evolution is (and isn't) and doesn't accept it?
I guess acceptance of it is the best litmus test for comprehension.
Ray Comfort's thick skull holds a whole lotta shit;
I'd like to write more, but right now--gotta split!
http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/darwinletters/calendar/entry-1924.html
"Darwin, an absolute & eternal hermaphrodite"... "The indecency of the process is to a certain extent in favour of its probability, nature becoming very low in all senses amongst these creatures". What a book a Devil's chaplain might write on the clumsy, wasteful, blundering low & horridly cruel works of nature!
Ray Comfort is a troll...
Ok, I have to say I did have this very idea that I came up with on my own. . . when I was 5!!! I stated at the dinner table that girls came from girls and boys came from boys. What my parents had to have done to keep from laughing their asses off I don't know, but I was disabused of that notion fairly quickly.
Comfort wins at fail.
"And the asexually reproducing veterbrate is? Anyone? Anyone?"
Numerous lizards like the ones in Madagascar who reproduce by pathogenesis?
I don't have a webcam so I was going to post a youtube vid that most resembled my reaction.
The problem is that every match i found had the title "2 girls 1 cup reaction".
A lot of laughter and shock, followed by a little vomit.
I mean parthenogenesis.
Not the first time I have done that...
Darth Wader @ #63
That's an excellent point, any time I have talked to someone who doesn't accept it, I have eventually found that the root of their disbelief is rooted in a fundamental misconception about the basic mechanism of the theory.
I was really wondering if there were any vertebrate species that reproduced primarily through asexual means. Parthenogenesis seems to be largely for the rare spinster who can't find a male to mate with.
And wasn't Jesus Christ himself the result of parthenogenesis? Hm.
"And the asexually reproducing veterbrate is? Anyone? Anyone?"
"Numerous lizards like the ones in Madagascar who reproduce by pathogenesis?"
There are also a few cases of "virgin birth" in sharks.
Nah...
I did not burst into laughter.
Are you familiar with this feeling of complete, utter disbelief that sets your normal bodily functions (e.g. breathing, thinking, moving) out of order for quite some time?
Luckily I did not pee myself because at least my sphincters resisted this hypernova of... well... THIS!!
I don't think mankind has yet invented a word for this state of malignant brain-death-in-the-living Comfort is showing.
Cheezuz.
I took me halfway through the comments section until I finally returned back to normal human behavior and giggled all my way down here.
@59 There are species of fish, amphibians and lizards that reproduce asexually. There are two or three such species of lizards in the southwestern U.S. The term here is parthenogenesis. It can be found among many orders and families of the Hexapoda .
Next, Ray Comfort will be telling us bananas split! *ba dump bump!*
"And wasn't Jesus Christ himself the result of parthenogenesis?
Actually, I think impregnating a married woman without her consent goes by a different term.
"These people's God has shown them by a million acts that he respects none of the Bible's statutes. He breaks every one of them himself, adultery and all." ["Mark Twain and the Three R's, by Maxwell Geismar, p.124]
Well Ray certainly mispoke that time!
He needs to get his speeches on evolutionism proof-read by any YEC that passed high school science.
Ken Ham, please have a word with our friend Ray!
I guess at least now I know why he's so against evolution. I mean, yeah, he has that whole crocoduck thing going too, but a lot of people have that "y r thar monkeyz still!?" thing with evolution. That's a... *somewhat* understandable mistake.
But this... man. That's just completely over the top wacked out loonery. Seriously, the man could pick up a highschool bio book, read 3 pages, and be proven wrong.
This is a recurring pattern with Comfort, though, unfortunately. He repeatedly misinterprets/lies about things and presents it as if he's fully researched it and knows what he's talking about. Either that, or he smugly asks "questions" such as this:
http://raycomfortfood.blogspot.com/2008/11/evolution-and-beginning.html
in a way that implies the topic is stupid and obviously wrong. But, as people in the comments point out, if he really wanted an answer he could spend literally 5 minutes on google and get one.
He doesn't want an answer. He doesn't care about actually researching things or telling the truth. What he cares about is hammering home how great god and jesus are, and you'd better believe in them too, or else you go to hell.
He misinterprets, misrepresents, quote mines and outright lies his way through his blog to meet this goal. He is an annoying combination of stupidity, ignorance, smugness and boldness and unfortunately, a lot of people listen to him.
the Bible is fallacious.
Me, i'd say "phantasmagorical." It's "Fantastic," that is the product of fantasy. There is no relevant truth condition that can to pertain to any 'text,' the fundamental attribute of which is to be the immutable word of a trans-temporal, trans-spectral, omnipotent and omniscient "God."
Truth and falsity are not relevant considerations. This document is to be read as "universal" psycho-drama.
Beyond that, we may say that, on evidence the literal interpretation of the biblical account of creation is "false to fact." And we may say that to argue from the biblical account of creation to discredit an evolutionary understanding of the (roughly) same events is (at minimum) specious, because there is no evidence of the literal biblical account other than the bible itself.
what they call begging the question, petitio principii, circular reasoning, etc. That's what's "fallacious," nest paw?
Lessee... XX chromosomes, Uh, without a Y chromosome, wouldn't Jeebus have been a she?
My roommate reminds me of that constantly. Meow... just meow.
Posted by: inkadu #59
Being a total ignoramus, I won't be embarrassing myself much if I'm wrong, but I understand some birds lay parthenogenetic eggs that hatch.
That should have been "misspoke", not "mispoke". (Apologies to Mrs Clinton.)
Hm.
Whiptail lizards do not live in Madagascar. If there is another parthenogenetic species that lives on that island, well, I had not heard of it.
Wikipedia reminds me of the virgin Komodo dragon that laid and hatched eggs, as well as the virgin sharks that reproduced.
( Are sharks chordates but not vertebrates? )
"He doesn't want an answer. He doesn't care about actually researching things or telling the truth."
This I think is a fundamental truth for those protecting their comfortable myths. Regarding Evolution, they argue against it not because they have legitimate concerns, but because they simply don't want it to be true.
The man obviously has an asexual dog turd reproducing in his skull right now.
It makes Karl Pilkington sound like a fekking brainiac.
I think it useful this time of year to be reminded that "jesus of nazareth" probably looked a LOT like Yasser Arafat...
HAHAHAHA this is funnier than the banana!!!!!!!!!!!!! HAHAHAHAHA
Maybe he found this site and assumed that's what the scientists were talking about.
Or maybe we should stop truncating our Biology classes so that no more people grow up to be that pig ignorant about basic biology.
1 Corinthians 13:11
When I was an amoeba, I split as an ameoba, I understood as a ameoba, I thought like Roy Comfort: but when I became a man, I put away amoebish things.
A lot of us have been saying the bible is a fallacy long before moron Comfort. Perhaps he thinks we are on to something that he cannot yet grasp? Wake up.
Because it's right.
http://www.viceland.com/int/v13n3/htdocs/dd.php
In future would you please mark posts like this with the warning "NSFB" - Not Safe For Brain. Thankyou.
I didn't peal with laughter :( I just got crankier.
At least this guy is original. I never heard this claim before..
"Are sharks chordates but not vertebrates?"
Sharks are vertebrates..
Hagfish are considered chordates by many but not vertebrates, even though the loss of vertebrae may be due to degeneration after the fact..
anyway, hags and the verts are then placed under craniates...
It boggles me that a computer (a human brain) powerful enough to operate a complex machine nearly flawlessly for over 70 years is host to such wildly imperfect thoughts and emotions. Reason enough to think that the universe never "intended" for minds to exist. I know - not a testable hypothesis.
"Whiptail lizards do not live in Madagascar. If there is another parthenogenetic species that lives on that island, well, I had not heard of it."
And yes, it is due to your later conclusion...
#70:
I mean parthenogenesis.
Not the first time I have done that...
Not the first time you've done parthenogenesis? Wow! Humans are capable of parthenogenesis! Comfort was right!!!111!1!
(Sorry, couldn't resist :-))
"Not the first time you've done parthenogenesis? Wow! Humans are capable of parthenogenesis! Comfort was right!!!111!1!
(Sorry, couldn't resist :-))"
To be technical, every time Ray Comfort takes a dump it is considered parthenogenesis...
Re: Comment #90; Telford, that was funny.
Is there any chance that Ray Comfort actually believes this is what Darwin theorized?
Cmon, this guy is a complete idiot, but he's been in enough sham debates with real scientists that he has to know that this is complete bullshit.
I'd bet big money that he's lying when he says that... which is funny, because his evangelizing begins with "have you ever told a lie? Right, then you're a liar."
What an asshole. There's plenty of excuses for being ignorant, but none when you're purposely confusing people.
Was similar for me. I'm tired, was forewarned, and just sort of collapsed instead of laughing.
You need a headdesk picture. I have a tiny animated gif that I could send you...
Thred can has winz0r!!1
PZ noted:
Speaking of being discombobulated by their most profound misconceptions, who here hasn't yet seen Kirk Cameron explain evolution using pictures of the "Crocoduck," the "bullfrog" and "sheepdog"?
Try this link for video:
http://normdoering.blogspot.com/2008/08/dealing-with-abysmal-ignorance…
Go on, then...
Reading Comfort's decription of asexual human reproduction brought images to mind right out of John Carpenter's 'The Thing'.
Damn, didn't turn my webcam on.
I read the other day that this guy is was originally from NZ. how ****ing embarrassing.
The contention between Darwin's theory of evolution and the Bible's account of creation is extremely significant. This is because if evolution is true, the Bible is a fallacy.
The world's most stupid person, Ray Comfort, at least got this right.
I would add that Darwin and the thousands of scientists who came after Darwin have shown beyond any doubt the magic god fairy didn't have anything to do with the diversity of life. Also, it's very obvious, if god wasn't necessary to create life, it wasn't necessary to create anything else. Darwin definitely killed the god idea, and for that alone he should be considered the most important person in history.
To any pro-science Christian "moderates" reading this (as if believing in Jebus is moderate), there is something seriously wrong with you. You accept science so you're not totally brain-dead, but if you still believe in a god fairy who is obviously not, and never was, necessary for anything, you need to work on your thinking. Being pro-science isn't enough, and if you still believe in magical invisible creatures like your Jebus God, you're insane. You're also part of the problem. The Christian theocrats who believe in magical creation, and the Muslim terrorists who think suicide bombing is the best way to get to heaven, need you "moderate" Christians. After 9/11/2001 it has become extremely immoral to have any supernatural beliefs. So you pro-science Christians still have some growing up to do. There is no Santa Claus, no Easter Bunny, and no God.
Can a human capable of writing be that stupid?
"Go on, then..."
One of the very first papers I ever read about parthenogenesis was a case of geckos from Madagascar. I may still have the paper, but it was from around 97?
I will have a quick look for it...
Come on people, Ray's doing his very best.
Besides, can you think of a better example of a brain on religion than the Raytard? Both Kirko and Raytard are the archetypal creationists that prove the law of POE. Could we do any better?
Yes, that is true. Turkeys are known to do this. There was a program to develop a line of parthenogenically reproducing turkeys but it didn't work for some reason.
I think it just gets to a point where they are trying to throw everything they can at evolution regardless of how absurd it is. I was reading Harun Yahya's objections to evolution and while he put 17 down, all he needed was two: casting doubt on mutation and natural selection. Take away those and evolution has nothing. The fact that he tried throwing every lame creationist argument (barring SLoT) at evolution just shows that he has no position. No heritable mutation and no means of selection? No evolution as Darwin put it. That's all he should have needed to say if his speculations were true, everything else is just elaborating on irrelevances.
Paper Hand wrote:
Actually, humans are capable of parthenogenesis.
Artificial human parthenogenesis could probably be used to reproduce humans at your local fertility clinic today. Finding a doctor willing to do it might be a problem though.
There are also dermoid cysts, malformed embryonic growths or tumour-like formations occasionally found in various parts of the body, including womb, ovaries, and scrotum. They often contain bones, hair, teeth, flesh, tissue, glands, portions of the scalp, face, eyes, ribs, vertebral column, and umbilical cord.
"Illiterate" means unable to read or write; "innumerate" means unable to "do" mathematics. We need a new word for somebody who is so fucking dumb they look up at the raindrops coming down, and drown when the water runs into their nostrils and their lungs fill with water. "Comfortable?"
(We really do need a word...other than "creationist," what's a word for scientifically illiterate?)
Paul Burnett asked:
inscientific?
Sastra @ # 44: Maybe this makes sense to someone who believes that God, an eternally existing Being which has no body, no sex organs, and no female counterpart, is still somehow a male.
But how then does such a person explicate Job 38:29 -
?
Not sure if this counts as asexual, but the Silvery salamander (and the related Tremblay's salamander) is a polyploid amphibian that does mate with males of a different species whose sperm stimulate egg production but don't contribute any genetic material.
#3:
I agree Reverent. Either he is incredibly stupid (in which case he should be borderline retard) or incredibly dishonest, yet-another-preacher who is milking the gullible fools for money.
The latter is far more likely than the former though.
Raven said: "There was a program to develop a line of parthenogenically reproducing turkeys but it didn't work for some reason."
Yeah, I heard about this. I think it is called the Republican Party.
Holy crap! Apparently Ray Comfort must be hoping that no one is able to read and actually UNDERSTAND that source he quoted. It's not about humans but bacteria for humanities sake!
He did at one stage compare himself to Einstein, so I say option 3: completely delusional.
Posted by: ed | December 1, 2008
Can a human capable of writing be that stupid?
That is not writing. That is typing.
That Silvery Salamander is soooooo cool! Thank you for pointing it out.
It not just that he is stupid it's that he is ignorant and proud of his ignorance. He has no desire to discover what he is wrong about and further more has zero desire to correct it.
Being called ignorant is not an insult per se. Being called ignorant and then choosing to remain so is another story.
He knows what he knows and no one can tell him any different.
Teh stupid-wrong is intense!
If Comfort made nothing but correct statements for the next fifty years or so, upon his death he would still be found to be mostly wrong.
All Ray is doing is what creationists always do to pander to the masses. It is ignorance by the way of Reductio ad absurdum.
PZ, I think you ought to establish a new prize: The Order of Comfort, and give the first one to Comfort's intellectual equal, Michael Egnor.
Sorry no webcam handy, here is a transcript:
OMFSMWTFROFL!!!one!!1eleven1!!
WTF???
Hey Ray woop woop!!!
No really hey Ray look at me. Woo Woo I'm a Choo Choo.
LMFAO. I might have somethong to say when I stop laughing.
E.V.:
Well, if science says that virgin births only lead to female offspring, then it must be that Jesus is a female, and the bible refers to him as male only in the poetical-metaphorical sense.
And come to think of it, he IS almost always wearing a loin cloth, even when he's being crucified. What is he hiding?
Science Pundit - Thanks for the link. Silvery salamanders are a strong cup of weirdness.
Sastra@44
Genesis 1:1-3 KVJ
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
Concordant Hebrew English Sublinear
"in beginning he-created Elohim the heavens and the earth and the earth she-became chaos and vacancy and darkness over surfaces-of abyss and spirit-of Elohim vibrating over surfaces-of the waters and he-is-saying Elohim he-shall-become light and he-is-becoming light"
©2007 Scripture4all Foundation
I'm not sure, but I think that says, God was boning the planet.
Hey, y'all.
Watch this!
I'm going to quote mine!
"THE BIBLE IS A FALLACY."
- RAY COMFORT
... on a more serious note, I'm surprised less by his lack of scientific understanding and more with his understanding of the bone of contention between evolution and religion.
That is, people who believe in evolution are passionate about it because we're afraid we'll be held accountable for having sex prohibited by the Bible.
Or, from a slightly different perspective, we believe in evolution so we can have wild and crazy sex.
It didn't sound to me like Comfort was proposing Parthenogenesis at all, which would be the females giving birth to more female clones, with occasional genetic or behavioral input from males. He claimed that there was no sexual reproduction at all in humans, and that they would be sexless individuals of two different species. Then he says they fission. Which brings up the question, "what do your bones do during whole-body mitosis?"
This supposedly continued for "millions of years".
Finally he claims that later on they both (two different species) developed sexual reproduction in tandem (for some reason) and bred with each other. I am absolutely baffled by Comfort's stupidity.I didn't think someone could be this wrong.
That poor, poor man. Fundamental Christianity, it would seem, is like a mental disease - allowing powerful paranoid delusions, and rewarding "followers" for being ignorant and believing their own rambling statements and interpretations of reality.
People literally lose family members to this horrible affliction, and can only look on in horror as people they love change. If anyone expresses concern, the Fundamentalist will calmly assure any party voicing their worries that they are in fact being used as tools of Satan in order to "test" their faith.
It's like watching a grandparent go senile. It's heartbreaking.
I am even more tempted to start actually persecuting fundies. Not violently, of course, but generally making their lives torture.
Because they fucking deserve it.
well, it's hard to believe that this guy thinks this really seriously. It can not be. He is rather a dishonest liar and manupulator than such a batshit crazy moron. Otherwise he could not find the way out of his own house.
I believe this is what the internet calls fractally wrong.
http://i247.photobucket.com/albums/gg130/Tatarize/fractalwrongness.jpg
I really thought that you were exaggerating but...when I came back to me senses I found that my jaw was actually gaping open. Holy shit! Scary.
I don't have a cam, but I wish I did for that one. I prepared myself, and scoffed at trying to slip "kind" by a reader, but then I read on, and really laughed quite hard. Anybody wants to know why some atheists are arrogant? Right here. I'm seventeen, I'll admit I can be arrogant, and here's why.
An addendum:
Anybody know where PZ will be in Florida? It's around SAT time sadly, so I might not get a chance, but if he's close it'd be cool to keep in mind if I get the chance. Thanks in advance in hopes that somebody has an answer.
Oh, I get it! This is a Poe, right? Good one, guys, but I think you overdid it this time.
That was indeed jaw-dropping. I think thats the best fundie-ism I've ever heard.
Katherine @ 137 I am even more tempted to start actually persecuting fundies. Not violently, of course, but generally making their lives torture.
The problem is coming up with some kind of punishment that is worse than what they do to themselves.
Phoenixphire24, Thank you for that! I have a new motivational poster!
I am not going to read through this long thread.
But PZ, you shouldn't be insulting pre-schoolers.
If only it were true, I'd probably get into a lot less trouble with the opposite sex.
Maybe he's on to something. Looking back on my brief marriage, I sometimes think Man and Woman are different species.
Re: Science Pundit @118
It's not considered "asexual reproduction," as the engagement of sex is required, even if it's with another species, and the male in question does not get to make an actual genetic donation.
This is a form of sexual reproduction called "sexual parasitism," where the female of a species, or a particular lineage needs sperm to stimulate the development of her eggs, which are capable of being stimulated by the sperm of a related species, but are incapable of actually accepting the sperm, itself.
It's most commonly observed in the hybrid "edible frog" of Europe, as well as in goldfish. The ability of female goldfish to engage in sexual parasitism is one of the reasons why goldfish are considered an invasive species, in that the females waste the reproductive efforts of the males of related minnow species.
I'm sorry, did you say edible frog of Europe?
Are they crunchy?
****Jaw drops *****
I knew Ray Comfort was an idiot, but this is a new low. I guess the only way to frame how dumb this is for Ray Comfort would be to use the bible.
Ray, this is the equivalent of you saying that the bible says that when you die you turn into a pig with wings and spend the eternity flying about earth searching for gold.
LMAO, here's his next post after that,
You heard him people, go tell him how dumb he is.
I also like how his blog is called "Atheist Central". I wonder if he realizes that we all see him as the town idiot of the internet.
There's a midrash that interprets Gen 1:27, "male and female He created them", as meaning that Adam and Eve were created as a single hermaphroditic entity, back-to-back, which was then split at the back.
So once again a damnfool thinks that science says something that is in fact what religion says.
Man, I wish I had the webcam on when my gf read the story link I sent her. She doesn't go near the evolution-ID "debate" since she's a foreigner and doesn't get the whole churchy thing anyway. He jaw just about hit the floor. Nice. I might have just ruined her brain for homework tonight. Oops.
Yes, "(European) Edible Frog," Pelophylax klepton esculentus, hybrid of the Pool Frog P. lessonae and the Marsh Frog, P. ridibundus.
And yes, they are crunchy, unless you remember to spit out the bones.
mankind (both male and female)
So does this mean that Ray Cumquat's audience is so dumb that he has to explain what mankind means?
Yes.
Wow. That was absolutely unbelievable. Wow.
PZ, your description of our jaws gaping open, followed by laughter, was perfect... because that's exactly what I found myself doing. I can't believe this guy is actually real. Incroyable.
I think the gecko someone mentioned earlier is:
Lepidodactylus lugubris (Mourning Gecko or Parthenogenic Gecko)
I don't know if they're from Madagascar or not. You can order them inexpensively from a lot of reptile dealers.
Good lord. This man suffers serious mental retardation in what appears to be a healthy brain. If left in charge of the science curriculum, he would plunge the entire word into the stone age in about five years as his ineptitude spreads like plague to every one of man's endeavours. He's a black hole of intelligence, radiating anti-science particles. I'm sure it won't be long now until some enterprising young physicist solves the world's energy crisis by harnessing the energy released when science meets his idiocy and annihilate one another in a burst of radiation. One could simply read scientific facts to him from a safe distance and convert the resultant high-energy emissions into electricity using some sort of Comfort-scoop generator. I'm sure there's enough there to jump us straight up to at least a type-2 civilisation on the Kardashev scale.
Those who believe in the theory of evolution are passionate, and for a good reason. If Darwin was right, man is simply an animal with no moral accountability, and his desires therefore to procreate are merely natural survival instincts.
I am sooo sick of that "people want to believe evolution so they can be immoral" argument that is tossed about, as if it had any credibility. So when you tell someone you accept the theory of evolution, they claim it is because you just "wish to do what you want, without consequences", as if the rest of us really live like that. Happens to me all the time.
Contrary to popular belief, Ray Comfort is not an idiot. He is in the process of writing three books, which he is supposed to have finished by the end of the year. He has been posting nonsense and insulting atheists on his blog in an effort to get negative responses from the atheists who frequent his blog. He's just gathering material for his books, which he will then sell to all the idiots who buy into all the bullshit that spews forth from his mouth.
I understand that he makes quite the comfortable living from his book sales.
This is why I stopped reading Ray, because the clown just was too embarrassing to read. Every time I read him I get a tightness in my belly like I'm bungie-jumping with my intestines. So painful.
HJ
He back-edited his blog entry a few hours ago so it reads "pre-human(s)" in places so he comes across as slightly less of a buffoon.
Nice try Ray, still uber-fail.
Exactly. They make it sound like we're the ones running around with potatoes crammed in our bungholes.
I really couldn't resist that one.
Do the Standards harmonisation measures apply to the banana-benders as well?
Or haven't Anna Bligh got that far yet?
I'm sorry, but I have to come to Comfort's defense. You see A. Eustices and our kitty-cat companions, M. Memeses, have been evolving along side for literally ones of years. But soon enough, although we've been reproducing asexually, we will evolve the ability to have sex and create a race of super-humanoid-cat-children, which will be known to science as "F. Pitheci." I joke of course. Comfort is an idiot of Jovian proportions.
When it comes to stupidity, what's your Comfort level?
it took me an entire night to recover from the stoopid.
I honestly had to read it three times cause it was so idiotic it just wouldn't sink in.
What neurosis is it when a person purposely becomes a parody of themselves?
Ray Comfort is a lying sack of Christian shit. He edited his original post and added "pre-human". He's been caught, the evidence is on his blog, but he'll never admit it. Lie for Jesus and go straight to Heaven.
Dissacosiative Identity Disorder Perhaps? He's so stupid, there had to be two divergent personalities to deal with the inanity of his commentary. Any sane person would have an annurism if they tried to be that stupid. Thus the split personality, you see.
"disassociative"- i was trying hard to be the first comment after #172. Speed commenting Fail.
Oh man! Don't do that, PZ! I have a horrific cold, and breathing is killing me, never mind laughing! That had me nearly hacking up a lung from not being able to hold back the laughter.
Thanks a lot.
Sorry, no webcam, though.
Dang it.
I'm still trying not to laugh here. Aw, fuck it. Why not?
OW! There went my bronchial tubes!
I'd like to try this asexual reproduction stuff. See, I'm a skateboarder and I hurt myself rather horribly on a railing.
Inkadu at 72
Technically, Jesus wasn't a result of parthenogenesis, but a process more similar to bestiality. Cross-species mating, one might say.
"Please Note: Calling me an idiot, a rat, a dummy, stupid, a hypocrite, an imbecile, dense, brainless, a dimwit, an uneducated fool, a liar, or a combination of these is okay. However, names with sexual connotations will be deleted."
Poor guy was scandalized by "fucktard", apparently.
Does anyone know if Ray Comfort has ever reproduced? He seems desperately, desperately sexophobic.
in light of the general ridicule directed at him, ray keeps changing his post. but he can't get the stoopid our. nor the spelling mistakes.
*out :P
That would be some weapons-grade stupidity right there . . . assuming he's sincere, which I don't think for a minute. Nobody could have so few firing neurons and still breathe. But this is a guy who's making a killing pandering to the ignorance of the masses. He's not (so blindingly) stupid, just venal and amoral. I guess Lying for Jesus beats working for a living if you have no scruples at all.
I trotted over to his blog to suggest that very thing, but I doubt he'll publish my comment.
Phoenixphire24, thanks a lot fot the "Fractal Wrongness" motivational poster.
Humans asexually splitting in half, and even like the Bible says, "after their kind"? Oh yeah, happens all the time! A scientist proved it! Ever see The Manster? Captured on film it was. (5:30 into the clip)
With evolution to boot, I forgot to add.
Gee, Aristophanes told basically the same story, so it must be true!
The first thing that really made me stumble as I tried to read the text was those words in parantheses... "both male and female" as if somehow men and women... are, like... different species? Am I misunderstanding things? I had real trouble going past that part.
men and women might just as well be from separate planets, eh? Nope. No misunderstanding. Just a fucking retard.
@62 Emmett
Thanks for setting that straight. I have to inform people about this now and then as well, and I wish I never had to. But, since we have people who hate the EU for no good reason, they simply have to fabricate false reasons to dislike the EU. That should tell us all something, but apparently not...
Dear Mr Comfort actually gets it half right a lot of the time. He realizes the implications of certain dichotomies (be they false or real) frequently, but always always always draws the wrong conclusion.
Good thing I was wasting time on the Notalwaysright blog the other day. That left mne gaping, speechless, gesturing at the screen for the first time ever. The stupidity was unsurpassed even by Comfort.
Ray has truly impressed me - I think that's genuinely the stupidest thing I've ever heard a Creationist say, and as we all know he's up against some incredibly stiff competition.
"I think that's genuinely the stupidest thing I've ever heard a Creationist say, and as we all know he's up against some incredibly [/edit *stiff*] competition."- is that to say creotards are a bunch of peckerheads?
So I thought "no, it's not worth turning on my webcam. What could possibly be so stupid that it would be worth capturing my reaction?" I thought I'd heard it all before. Turns out I hadn't. I *really* wish I'd been able to watch that reaction back again.
Sorry PZ, I'll listen to your advice next time.
You kinda have to wonder whether Ray gets some sort of sick, masochistic pleasure by getting mocked by atheist. He makes silly arguments like this or that the banana is proof of God. He then outright lies about things like saying PZ chickened out of their radio debate (I still wish that had happened).
Then he names his blog "Atheist Central" and has a whole bunch of quotes underneath the headline by atheists saying how he gets a lot of atheist visitors he gets to his blog. There's also an "Atheist Starter Kit". Finally he has these quotes on the sideline of his main page,
Maybe this is just Ray's version of falling on a potato.
Yes, ray is a dildonic potato-head. very astute, Feynmaniac
We don't have enough Ray Comforts !
Let's help him reproduce.
The way he thinks, it's done, buy separating into halves.
One horse pulling at the arms and one pulling at the legs should be enough.
I'll pull! What do i win if i get the big half lol?
So has this been submitted to FSTDT yet? It's sure to make the top 100.
"So has this been submitted to FSTDT yet? It's sure to make the top 100."
I dunno. There's some pretty stiff competition. While very dumb, can what Ray said really compete with:
Never has the quote "That's not right. It's not even wrong" (Wolfgang Pauli) been more appropriate....
..okay, I was about to sit down on my chair as I read his quote, stopped midway and just fell over. The stupidity is astounding.
Ray Comfort is a troll. There is no doubt about it. From this moment on, there is no reason to ever take him serious. He just dropped on my moral scale to the position just above "paedophile priest".
Adam and Lilith, IIRC... Then Adam got in a snit with Lilith because she was his equal (and liked going on top), so he kicked her out of the garden (she goes on to consort with demons). Then God had another shot, creating a nameless woman from flesh and bones, but that creeped Adam out and he wouldn't have anything to do with her (there is no record of what became of her). Then we get the whole business with the rib, and Eve. Basically, the whole story is about Adam being an insecure dick.
My reaction went:
Guh.
Uh... whuh?
Uh?
What?
But.
Nnnnng?
Aaaaaaaaaaaaahahahahahaha!
Comfort's mind soars free, unconstrained by our hidebound notions of scholarship, honesty or having the faintest fucking idea what he's banging on about.
Here's one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AW0wvv6orEI
"jaws gaping like fish"
My expression was more like a pomfret's, myself. Huge eyes and tiny mouth.
http://www.myanmarkingfish.com/images/white_pomfret.jpg
Do be aware, as someone said above, Ray is writing a couple of books on those nasty Atheists and he'll publish your comments on his blog in the most twisted out of context way if he thinks he can use it.
OK - I made a vid of my reaction to reading Ray's blog
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8PBYlNvUmw
No, it's not a Rick Roll
You know, I have come to form the theory that it must be a fundamental requirement of Christian Fundamentalism that you must be willfully, blissfully ignorant. Not just that you can't know anything about science, culture or the arts, but that you must constantly be seen to eschew such knowledge, and be childishly ignorant. That no knowledge outside of the very narrow confines of religion must touch your mind, or if it does, it must be denied and shunned until you regain the state of ignorance.
Yes, I know this sounds like an attempt at comedy (it partly is) but I really do wonder if it isn't a requirement to throw off all knowledge not of god or of what the witch-doctor you follow claims is "of god".
I read the bit about the webcam, and though 'I know it's Ray Comfort, but it can't be that stupid surely?'. Well, I was very very wrong. It's hard to understand how someone can be so totally, stupidly, misinformed on a subject that he preaches about. It's also hard to understand how anyone would willingly a person like him be their spokesman.
I am embarrassed that I am the same species as these people.
R.W. Thomas (#133) wins the intarwebs!
In regards to posters #198 and 199, Ray's comment has indeed been posted at Fundies Say the Darndest Things.
From post #21.
Oh! I love madlibs. Its banana, right?
Shouldn't have read that. Now I can't even write stragiht.
Forgive the blatant quote mining but I can't resist. Adrian Cronauer: "You (Ray Comfort) are in more dire need of a blowjob than any white man in history."
Matt nailed it back at #135. Ray didn't just screw up when and how sex evolved (I honestly think he thought evolution claimed it happened independently, thousands of times, for most modern species). He also clearly thought it proposed male and female humans (and other species, presumably) were actually distinctly separate species for all that time, until the evolution of sex brought them together.
I can predict his response to all this criticism. As others have already noted, he starts by whining about how mean we are, trying to deflect attention. But then he will claim, as his edits already imply, that he always knew the true theory and was just a little sloppy in his language. After all, one could TECHNICALLY call our last common single-celled ancestor a "pre-human.". But I don't see how he can really escape the separate-gender-species thing. There's no way to interpret his statements, even with single-cell pre-humans, as not claiming sexual apparatus evolved separately, in parallel, in two separate species until they were compatible. Indeed, that's part of his attempted "gotcha" on evolution, that such forward-thinking parallel evolution is impossible, much like the hummingbird-and-orchid argument.
From the comments: "To think i came into existence by some accident is just crazy."
I don't know about him but my first-born son came into existence by some accident. (rimshot)
Well, I gotta split. (rimshot)
I just laughed so hard I think I inked myself.
Heading off to see your better half? (rimshot)
Liberal Atheist @188
No problem. There's plenty about the EU to be legitimately criticised without parroting tabloid canards.
Dunc wrote:
Wow! So Adam really was created in God's own image!
Wow. His latest post takes the hilarity even further. Now he's posing (without actually addressing his previous errors) the classic canard of "who would the new species member mate with?" In his case, specifically he's asking "where would the female come from?" He's still stuck on the "dogs give birth to cats" version of evolution.
His comment habits are interesting too. He ignores the countless direct and material criticisms, yet he responded immediately to a theological question buried at the end of the comments. And his latest post is holding all comments for moderation this far.
I was also amused to note that Jinx is apparently one of his readers. :)
Hm. Perhaps.
However: I see that the Kabbalistic stories actually include more than one primordial hermaphrodite; there's one that has an Adam-and-Eve and Samael-and-Lilith. I note that the Lilith-as-Adam's-first-wife (and later Eve) story was not at first about an Adam-and-Lilith hermaphrodite, only a simultaneous creation from the same clay (see "Folk Tradition" on the Wiki page above), but the hermaphroditic depiction arose later (see the Kabbalah section).
I see that the Wiki page confirms my memory that the midrash was (probably) thought up so as to help reconcile the very different creation stories in Gen. 1 and Gen. 2 (one has the "male and female" simultaneous creation; the other has the rib tale).
Following the link to the page of Bereshit (Genesis) Rabbah, I note that the Adam-and-Eve hermaphrodite concept is apparently earlier, although the dating of the texts is a bit uncertain.
"Adam was created with two bodies, one of which was cut away from him and formed Eve."
I can't find any reference to that one, although I remember reading it, presumably from the same Sandman story that you are thinking of. I wonder if Neil Gaiman just made that one up? The only hint in that direction is another line from the Midrash, which describes what God did not do: "It was surely better," replied R. José, "to present Eve to Adam when she was quite presentable, and when no traces of the effects of the operation were visible".
Or about male theists in general being insecure dicks (and addressing theodicy at that same time). Note that the Genesis Rabbah has some pretty misogynist stuff about Eve.
This isn't a video of my reaction to reading Ray's ... thoughts ... but it's even better: it's my puppet's reaction!
http://rantpuppets.com/2008/12/ray-comfort-is-a-dolt/
That sounds dirty
Ray is continuing his tard's revolution, with the latest blog posting on his site titled "Why do Females Exist?".
Go get him, here: http://raycomfortfood.blogspot.com/2008/12/why-do-females-exist.html
Here is the entry in it's entirety, just in case Comfort revises it.
Because we all know that the female of the species is the deviant part.
Here is the entry in it's entirety, just in case Comfort revises it.
That's a damned good idea, Janine
I may need something more emphatic than the Picard facepalm. I mean, Comfort is basically taking random things he reads, feeding them through a Markov process and spewing them out again
#include <*facepalm*.h>
Clearly, evolution is a failure. It has produced Ray Comfort, a grown man who is unclear on the concept of where babies come from.
The man should just give up now, if only idiots would stop paying him.
Maybe he was confused from so many people telling him to go f**k himself.
Fascinating that he thinks the species is represented by one male and that the female is a sort of necessary adjunct. Very revealing.
That Ray Comfort article makes me wonder if he's ever gotten laid
I can't figure out which is worse: Ray Comforts babbling, or the noddy dog followers that swallow this bunk hook, line and sinker.
Anysia #235 "I can't figure out which is worse: Ray Comforts babbling, or the noddy dog followers that swallow this bunk hook, line and sinker."
Or the image of Ray getting laid.
(thanks Erico; I'm going to have nightmares tonight).
The first thing that really made me stumble as I tried to read the text was those words in parantheses... "both male and female" as if somehow men and women... are, like... different species? Am I misunderstanding things? I had real trouble going past that part.
Ray's latest posts are just as stupid.
His gaps post is just precious.
Following up on my own post @#223:
As it turns out, the translation above is exceedingly bowdlerized. This page (The Origins of Lilith) has a footnote saying: "See Bereshit Rabbah 17:7: "In the beginning He created her, but saw her full of secretions and blood flowing out of her. So he returned and created her a second time.""
And actually checking an online edition of that chapter and verse in the original Hebrew of Bereshit Rabbah appears to match up. Alas, I cannot find the actual English translation that the quote is from.
Note that while the phrase that Gaiman cites is in there, the wording of the full quote implies that it is Eve herself that is being spoken of! And it also implies that it is God who is repulsed and decides to create her over; Adam does not appear to be involved.
And finally, note that this is a rather casual sentence or two in response to a woman who questions R. José, asking why the creation of Eve was done in secret. It's quite possibly something either spoken in the subjunctive mode, or just something that was made up on the spot.
PZ wrote:
"......We evolved from precursor populations containing both males and females........"
These *precursors* did they look like monkeys or were they humans that looked like monkeys, what would be the pragmatics, intent or concept be that PZ visualizes when he talks about precursors.. What does a *precursor* look like? The males and females what would they have looked like to an observer back then and what sort of vernacular generic description would he have given. Because the vernacular for ape,Bonobo, Gorilla, chimp is monkey as Dr.Wilkins pointed out. He also thinks Dawkins is wrong on multiple issues.
Lets presume this "precursor" gave birth to another "precursor" at what point would this being say: Momma!
And what would this "precursor" look like to the infant that just called it Momma from the infants perspective?
Stephanus:
Depends of the precursor level - clearly they were by definition precursors of humans. PZ talks about sexed precursors; i.e. after the the evolution of sex; what they looked like depends on when they lived.
BTW I like the change from precursor to *precursor* to "precursor" in your comment.
Examples, please?
A frog gets kissed by a princess equals a prince.
A frog waits 400 million years equals a man
Both are interesting fairytales
Show me the millions or should I say billions of missing links that should be appearing even in our backyard gardens instead of the 18 or so, most which have been debunked and I too might look at chimps as my ancient relatives.
I believe it is the Darwinist that have bought the scam.
MB
Rev. If you think that every creature that ever lived or died fossilizes then you'd be right. But you aren't
There is no "missing link". That is a strawman.
The fossil record is strong evidence of the Theory of Evolution.
What would you present as the alternative?
That should be "lived and died"
Rev. BigDumbChimp,
I suspect Bresciani is another cowgull.
Michael, what is a "Darwinist"? I am a scientist and I am unfamiliar with the term.
From usage, I have gleaned that it is an attempt (futile) by creationists to show evolution to be a cult established by Darwin. This is far from the case. Darwin laid out the broad strokes of the Theory of Evolution, but got many things wrong. He was a fallible man, and science recognizes that. Since then, the ToE has evolved with 150 years of discoveries to improve it and back it up. Things like genes, DNA, regulatory genes and other things not discovered until last century. The the ToE is called "Modern Synthesis" to take all that into account.
Oh and Rev. Bresciani,
For the sake of anyone who happens to read your website (and I use that word loosely) hire some kid to tighten it up.
That thing is horrible.
Goddidit.
Uninteresting fairytale
Which would be a novel use for a cleric to put a child to.
probably
These blogs are always so predictable. Can't come with a real answer so just get personal, nasty or something worse.
These minds were not hard to fool
MB
That's rich coming from someone who believes in an invisible sky daddy.
Rev. MB, do you have anything to present, like some citations to the primary scientific literature, to back your case? Science is only refuted by more science. Science does not refute god/religion, and god/religion cannot refute science. Science and religion divorced a couple of centuries ago. But religion looks silly if science directly contradicts its teachings. Does your religion look silly?
Michael @251,
And you faithfully fulfill every stereotype of an ignorant deluded cretin, preferring style over substance, and spouting the same fact-free bullshit we've seen a hundred times before, as if the Trinity was ignorance, laziness, and dishonesty.
I answered and then asked you a question which you chose to ignore.
I'll ask again.
What would you present as the alternative?
This is a strawman; a fallacious description of the theory of evolution.
Another strawman attack.
First, there is nothing that says that any "missing links" should be appearing even in backyard gardens: Fossils only form under certain conditions, which most certainly do not occur everywhere.
Secondly, no fossil has been been "debunked" except for a couple by actual palaeontologists calling attention to error or fraud.
Here is an explanation from an actual palaeontologist on what a transitional fossil is and why we know it is transitional.
http://www.csicop.org/intelligentdesignwatch/fishibian.html
Chimpanzees would be your relatives even if we had no hominid transitional fossils at all (of which there are far more than 18, of course).
That's demonstrated by the evidence in our DNA.
You anti-evolutionists are always so predictable. You can't come up with real questions, so you just make fallacious arguments, and get personal, nasty or something worse.
See? Exactly like that.
Did anyone (Besides Chimpy) visit the weird rev's link? That site gives an unique meaning to incoherent.
And yes, near the bottom of that page of random images there is a link to Expired: No Brains Allowed.
So to answer Nerd's question, the weird rev could not even cobble up anything. But that comes as no surprise seeing what he opened up with. But if pushed, perhaps he could sputter that evolution does not explain gravity.
Based upon the reports of his web site (I have a low tolerance for stupidity when I'm low on sleep), his religion does look silly. No surprise there.
Straw-man attack on evolution #37 - ask why humans don't evolve from a creature that is alive today instead of grasping the concept of a common ancestor.Straw-man attack on evolution #38 - call evolution a fairy tale.Straw-man attack on evoltion #39 - demand the fossil record show every progression at every stage or declare evolution is false.The evidence for common ancestry is in our genes, we can see it preserved exquisitely through our genetic code. How about you actually learn the evidence for evolution instead of presenting a fallacious straw-man attack on the subject?
Yes. Accounts of auditory hallucinations, delusions, and psychotic episodes; in short, the ravings of a lunatic, a complete fruitbat. I could fire up Windows to see if it looks any better in IE, but that won't make him take his meds and change the content.
I went halfway down the page. There were a bunch of miscellaneous, small pictures and occasional quotes or semi-coherent comments, none of which were links. I didn't go further because there didn't seem to be any point to the website.
It's difficult to come up with a real answer when there isn't a real question to answer. Someone who seems to think that fossils grow in backyards, presumably between the tomatoes and the marigolds, isn't showing anything other than the fact he's dumber than dirt.
Then you missed the belfry packed to the rafters with bats.