It's honestly hard to know what to make of Ray Comfort. First he says bananas are proof of intelligent design because of how well they fit in your hand. Then he retracts the claim, accepting that the domestic banana is, in fact, a product of extensive artificial selection. Then he backs off and insists "There isn’t any evidence that the banana has changed its shape in the last 2,000 years."
Better than that is his reply to a question about Biblical references to the Earth being fixed and immobile:
So let’s look closely at what the above verses actually say:
"He has fixed the earth firm, immovable."
"Thou hast fixed the earth immovable ..."
"He has fixed the earth firm, immovable ..."
The Bible says that the earth is immovable. It cannot be moved. So now is your chance to prove your point. Run outside and move the earth. Perhaps you and your friends could jump on it, or find a rocky outcrop and push it together.
Maybe after that little experiment you will concede that the earth is immovable. So is Scripture. You can push, twist, pull, and jump on different verses, but the Word of God isn’t going to move. It is a rock. It cannot be broken (see John 10:35). It will judge you on the last Day (see John 12:48). You only twist it to your own destruction (see 2 Peter 3:16).
Eppur si muove.
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I cannot read, write, or speak Cantonese. By Ray's logic, this means that Cantonese cannot be read, written, or spoken.
It was heartening, though, to read the comments on Ray's blog. 90% basically called Ray a stupid, fucking liar. The other 10% were mostly just bible babble.
But when I jump up, the Earth HAS MOVED thanks to the force of my jump! It's movement just happens to move 1E-23 less than I do.
And speaking of rocks, maybe I just need to find a big enough rock (like Mars) and smash it into the Earth. That'll move it for sure!
Also, because it's far too much fun to take this well past where it should be, "Compton Generator".
I think you are misinterpreting Ray's remarks.
He is not arguing for a pre-Copernican view of the cosmos. What he is doing is simply demonstrating that the bible is infallible (his view, not mine!) To do this he needs to interpret it in ways that are arbitrary and inconsistent but, lets face it, that's hardly a problem for a man of Rays experience.
Sigmund, I would not be too sure of your view. I have been encountering more and more creationists to take the unmovable earth literally.
Their excuse is Einstein said all motion is relative, so you cannot prove the earth is moving by comparing it to other objects. So since the bible MUST be correct, then the Earth must be the stationary object and everything else is moving instead. Any argument or experiment demonstrating the movement of the earth is dismissed by saying you've only proved relative motion, not absolute motion.
I know its a nonsense argument, but when has that ever stopped a creationist?
Doesn't Comfort live in California? I thought the Earth moves all the time there. I guess religion doesn't apply to earthquakes.
Another problem Mr. Comfort seems unwilling to confront is his embrace of Intelligent Design. Which is odd for a YEC. ID proponents have publicly stated many times that the intelligent designer might be any one of a number of gods and that evolution in some form does take place and that the earth is billions of years old! That is as far from YEC as you can get. So not only is Mr. Comfort a poor scholar, a terrible historian and just blinkered in his thinking, he dosen't even understand the theology he so passionately defends!
I think, like evolution, he's heard of the basic concept of relativity. Just like evolution, he's got it so wrong he's trying to mix relativity concepts (I can't move the Earth from the Earth) with religion to, as Sigmund says, try to prove a Bible quote. Not I said "prove" because that's what he's doing.
Fact is, if the Bible were right and God's existance were proveable, then Ray should ask science to march along and understand everything it can. At the end that which is unknown and must be his God. Instead of distorting or fighting science he should be a big proponent of it.
Mick
Evolving Ray Comfort
http://www.dabreo.net/comfort/index.html
Rocks can't be broken? Can nuts be cracked?
I was amused, while watching some football game, when the anouncer announced that the earth had moved as a result of a particularly hard tackle. Some one ought to calculate how much the earth moves if you jump on it. It's not much, but F = MA.