The foreword to Ray Comfort’s latest book You Can Lead an Atheist to Evidence but You Can’t Make Him Think was written by a then-atheist named Darrin Rasberry. Darrin is a student at Iowa State University and also a member of the Debunking Christianity blog team. When the book got published, Ray claimed in a WND article that Darrin had “backslid”, although what to he never mentioned. I contacted Darrin to see if there was any truth in this, and it was confirmed that he had indeed backslid to agnostic. I then asked Darrin whether he would do a short interview for the blog, and he agreed.
As I have previously mentioned, I was sent a signed copy of Ray’s latest book, and over the next few weeks I will be going over it chapter by chapter; reading and debunking its content so you don’t have to. For now though, I thank Darrin for agreeing to this interview, and for his thorough answers to my questions. The interview is pretty long, so it’s below the fold of this post.
- Since reading Ray’s book, you say you have backslid to agnostic. Could you expand on your beliefs a bit further? Are you using the more modern definition of agnosticism as being “unsure”, or are you more of an “agnostic” atheist as defined by Thomas Huxley?
I have indeed “backslid” to agnostic, as Ray wrote on his WorldNetDaily article, although Ray did not indicate in the article the exact position where I ended up, nor did Ray directly link my reading of his book with the cause of this backsliding. So, in a sense, Ray is absolutely correct, but in a way that’s completely misleading. I wrote him to thank him for the copy, as he and Kirk took their time to sign it for me, but I had just received the book in the mail and had not had time to read it yet. My “deconversion” from atheism came before that time. I mentioned my newfound agnosticism and asked if we could speak on the phone again, but he said he was busy with sixty-odd interviews or something. That response was quite terse and unconcerned compared to the previous times we’d spoken, and that was the end of our contact.
There are certainly many different definitions and breeds of agnostic. Many agnostics (and a few Deists, for that matter) come across as poorly as many of the atheists that I address in the foreword for Ray’s book, and express a wish to do no more than troll Christians, ignore their responses, and fail to check any arguments, so they can simply get a rise from believers.
I am not one of this breed; if I were to specify with an exact label, I’d call myself a “searching Agnostic” – although my personal research is currently centered around the validity and consistency of the Christian faith in particular (I plan to begin studying Islam and Judaism soon, as well), my main focus is discovering for sure the basis of it all: whether or not a creator God exists. All further questions regarding whether such a being designed this hypothetical “spark” of creation and cared about us humans that followed are also routinely considered, but my main focus is currently on all arguments for God’s existence (excepting the Ontological Argument, which has been, even in Plantinga’s stronger formulation, decidedly refuted, and also excepting the Teleological Argument, which begs the question).
I turned agnostic because I recognized three points following a personal meeting in November with Dr. William Lane Craig, a prominent Christian apologist and debater:
(1) As mentioned, I have not reflected adequately upon the arguments for God, with the greatest strength weighing on Bill’s (Dr. Craig’s) “Kalam Cosmological Argument.” I had heard this as an atheist, and simply recycled such soundly refuted counters like “who made God?” and positing such things as cyclic models of the universe and inflationary models and all that. After discovering that such responses are long in their graves, I’ve moved onto Dr. Morriston and Dr. Quentin Smith’s counters to Kalam, and even after reading those, I still find myself questioning and inventing counterarguments against both sides. This fence-sitting contributed to my agnosticism.
(2) My worldview neither entails nor denies that God exists. I found this out on personal reflection, and since this would take us too far off-topic, I will withhold further comment on this matter.
(3) Most importantly, I discovered that my reason for maintaining my atheism – namely, that “no proof for God is proof against God” – is a logical fallacy. One cannot reach “no proof for X, therefore not-X”; that’s a fallacy called (formally, not pejoratively) the argument from ignorance. I’ve been offered by Dr. Richard Carrier that such a position was, in fact, valid and *not* the argument from ignorance, and I will follow up on the evidence for his saying that (we did not have time before his debate with Craig in Missouri to address it in full personally), but until then, I can neither say God does or does not exist, specifically because I am exploring whether the Universe was or was not created – or, more broadly in the since of Aquinas, at least necessary proceeding from such a being.
- I think most atheists probably know Ray Comfort for his “banana argument”, his new argument that claims “An atheist is someone who believes that nothing made everything.”, and his ignorance on the theory of evolution. Why should atheists listen to Ray when he misrepresents both us and science so much?
Curiously enough, I did not know Ray Comfort that well when I did the intro, and had discovered his link somewhere in the maze of the blogosphere. Noticing the large amount of comments under his top few articles, I figured he was some type of apologist. I’d seen references and Googled links to this “banana argument,” but did not find them worthy of my time, being that his association with my old childhood hero Kirk Cameron piqued my attention more. I did not properly research the man beyond some street-preaching videos on YouTube.
I wrote the introduction shortly thereafter, within a commentary thread linked to a blog post requesting atheists to write potential introductions. I was fresh off of a fight with a YouTube atheist whose name ought to go unmentioned, and still had a bitter taste in my mouth from some comparatively poor “new” atheist arguments I’d read in the popular literature and seen on the Internet (with the bottom of the barrel being the faulty Horus-connection Christ Myth theory as presented by the worst film ever made, “Zeitgeist”). Perusing the other “introductions” in the thread yielded one or two decent ones out of dozens of outright insulting polemics, and I blew my top and wrote what I did. I figured by the spirit of the book that Ray would have chosen one of the many angry polemics to back up the title he had planned, so I was shocked when I received the message that mine was chosen over the others in the thread for printing.
That intro was sparked by anger, but the words weren’t caused by it – I felt the same way while I still held to atheism even after my anger subsided, and I still feel the same way today, so it’s not simply some fire-starting David Berlinski-esque trolling. Like Tony Flew, I’m pretty mad at the state of skepticism today. Thus, in the intro, I invited atheists to read and refute Ray’s arguments, and even though I later discovered that they were not particularly strong, I doubt many skeptics read anything beyond the first chapter available on Amazon.
It may not be worthy of the work to refute even a sentence, some may say, but Ray is a popular voice, and that alone validates some kind of action from the atheist and nonbeliever (I will put in a few of my own counters here, myself). The Rational Response Squad, with whom I’ve disagreed on many occasions, offered a relatively patient response to Ray on national television, and none of them exploded in rage like many of Ray’s readers do.
Rationally tempered frustration for Ray, especially when he does not listen to matters about evolution, is valid, however; but, if Ray does not change and show a willingness to learn, one must (to paraphrase the “Good Book”) simply dust one’s feet and walk to someone more willing to stick to the arguments, as cursing obviously does no good. If Ray is not worthy to argue against, then in your view, wasting too much time on Ray and not approaching the caliber of the works from an Alvin Plantinga, say, will do nothing but further distort your view on the stronger arguments for Christianity that will at least give you a greater respect for those who hold the religion and practice it in a consistent and open manner.
As for the Banana Argument – well, people have to understand something about Ray. Many do not know this, but Ray is being groomed by Calvinists, including the popular speaker Paul Washer and the knowledgeable debater and podcast host Dr. James White. Ken Ham from Answers in Genesis, and the hyper-Calvinist Dr. R.C. Sproul Jr. are quoted on his back cover, and Ray’s book teems with typical Calvinist approaches (for instance, Ray refers to John 6, a popular Calvinist passage, in his answer to the question at the bottom of page 45 in his book).
Ray himself told me he was “on the fence” about Calvinism – which, for those who are unfamiliar, is a minority, albeit vocal, Christian worldview that holds that man doesn’t have the free will to choose God and that the “truly saved” are chosen by God – and shows nearly schizophrenic signs both for and against the position on his blog and in his book. I don’t know how much he actually knows about this subject (he calls Arminianism, or the general name for the majority of Christians who do hold to free will as commonly defined, “Armenianism” somewhere in the book), but the coaching from his Calvinist friends is clear throughout. Odd, really, given Kirk’s participation in “Left Behind” – a movie series based on books to which Calvinist eschatology (loosely meaning “end times” Biblical interpretation) stands vehemently opposed.
Presuppositional apologetics, a methodology of some subdivisions of Calvinism, is a way of delivering the Christian message without calling you to convert to God, since due to their belief in God’s sole choice in saving one cannot come to believe on evidence or old time “Pentecostal Sunday conversion.” Thus, the presuppositionalist presents Christianity in a way that demonstrates how, if taken as a presumption, “life, the Universe, and everything” is explained. In the (paraphrased) words of my Calvinist friend Ben Maas, presuppositionalism simply says “this is what your worldview says about this matter, and here is the way Christianity explains it. Now isn’t that simpler and more consistent?” Dr. Greg Bahnsen, the late apologist who clashed with Gordon Stein in the 80’s, is perhaps the best known practicer of this method, and used the foundations of logic as his centerpiece for his presuppositionalist take on Christianity.
With that background in place, let’s take a look at Ray’s infamous crown jewel. Unfortunately, the Banana Argument is not as well thought-out as Bahnsen’s position, but when I saw the video I knew exactly what Ray was doing, especially considering his presuppositional Calvinist background that his friends no doubt have given him.
Ray is explaining from the Christian position how the banana was designed to be eaten, so as to better allow for the survival of all the species that God supposedly created with a diet that included that fruit (namely, to Ray, humans who have the means to utilize the “tab”). Now, if I recall correctly, the banana in that format was actually developed by men to be that way, and I still think the example itself is VERY weak despite this fact, but I might be one of few skeptics who know what Ray was attempting to demonstrate. It wasn’t a “proof for God,” and cannot be; as above, it was supposed to be an example on Ray’s part of showing how the presupposition of God’s design better explains the existence of such a fruit rather than supposed “random, blind evolution.” It fell flat, and I’m disappointed to see him call his own argument a joke in his book after he got called out on it – that does nothing more than openly demonstrate that the man’s embarrassed.
Does the Banana Argument stink? Yes. But if you see it from the above approach, it at least demonstrates that the man is not totally insane. Ray has a talent for speaking, as his introductory speech in the RRS debate shows, but (as that speech’s content and his book in general likewise shows) his arguments need strengthening. Listening to his opponents who behave rationally would be a good start for him, but in many cases he ignores these opponents, and many opportunities I witnessed in later viewings of his site, which tackled tougher questions than those which do appear in his book, have been ignored.
- What arguments do you think Ray uses that would most likely convince a non-believer, i.e. what are his most powerful arguments in the book?
None. Ray bases the bulk of his arguments in his book on the Bible, reflecting his aforementioned presuppositionalist grooming. I am not particularly a fan of this method; even from a believer’s standpoint, it drives the nonbeliever absolutely nowhere unless it’s presented in such a way to spark his or her interest in the Bible (negatively or positively). After all, if it is God that does the work, presenting the Gospel the way Ray does is all that’s left for the apologist to do.
I suppose if I were forced at gunpoint to answer, I would say Ray’s “nothing created everything?” argument against atheism, but it is flat-out invalid the way he presents it, since he keeps insisting that, according to atheism, there must have been some big black extant “nothing” (like in the Neverending Story or Heidegger’s depressed writings or something) that pooped out a Universe. But there is no “before the Universe,” since time began with the Universe, and there is no existent state of “nothing” – even an unstable vacuum, which is not the case sans the Universe, is *something*.
- You mentioned in the foreword that most new atheist books demonstrate a “lack of both logic and knowledge” when talking about Christianity. Which atheist books do you think do this the most, and which books would you recommend as good critical reading?
I would like to preface this by stating that I deconverted in the Sagan/Randi/Penn and Teller era, before the “new” atheists were anything more than Richard Dawkins’ (wonderful) book “Blind Watchmaker.” There was still a shred of respect in that era, as Penn’s recent “Gift of a Bible” video demonstrates – a video all skeptics should watch and consider, by the way, before yelling at the next person offering them a New Testament with kind words.
I will not go deeply into this, but like my fledgling days as an atheist, these books typically demonstrate an inadequate consideration of Christian arguments before launching into diatribes. I have not yet read Dan Dennett’s book, but as for the other three “four horseman,” they are not of much comparative worth despite their popularity. Harris has much to say (including a very good establishment of morality very close to my own convictions on the subject), but I believe his attacks on modernism in religion and its enabling of extremism are unfounded, and the book ends on a very sour note with some sort of mystical consciousness-denying exercise.
I suppose Dawkins’ book is the strongest of the three I’ve read out of the “Four Horsemen,” although many books on the back shelf of philosophy and religion are much better and do not reuse many of the old canards that Dawkins states (example: “the even more complex designer” argument). Compare that last parenthetical argument of Dawkins’, for instance, with its fellow arguments in “The Improbability of God,” and you can see how weak the New Atheists’ spokespersons actually grasp the philosophical considerations needed to properly address the reasonable and well-learned believer’s arguments.
Vic Stenger is commonly regarded as another horse, and although “God: The Failed Hypothesis” soundly refutes the Argument from Design, it fails on many other counts, including a well-refuted pile of counterarguments for the nonexistence of God. If you want a New Atheist book to get, though, I guess I would say this would be the one to pick up to begin wading out of the shallow end of the pool.
I’ve saved Hitchens for last for a reason – he’s a hilarious polemicist and probably a joy to meet in person, but after watching his debate with Turek and seeing that he was unprepared for many of Frank’s arguments, I would like some kind of stage here to warn him that his debate in a week and a half with the aforementioned Bill Craig will be much more challenging (even many atheists I know concede this). Craig is no Banana Man and does not launch into the polemics of a Dinesh D’Souza (who Chris did effectively debate). The Hitch needs to do what he can in the time he has remaining to prepare – read some debates Craig had with Quentin Smith or Ray Bradley, for instance, as they are the only two people I’ve seen in many debates who actually beat Craig. I don’t like some of Hitch’s tactics, but I like the guy in general and do not wish to see him embarrassed. I am not joking at all when I say that he will belly-flop resoundingly if he comes ill-prepared.
And as for good material on the atheistic side, pick up “Improbability of God” or “The Empty Tomb” (both various authors) from Amazon. Richard Carrier’s “Sense and Goodness Without God” is a philosophical guidebook that can establish a reasonable philosophy behind the rampant so-called “scientism” today. For the theistic side (and yes, all skeptics ought to at least familiarize themselves!), get “Reasonable Faith” by Craig for the best overview of the arguments, and “Debating Calvinism” by Dave Hunt/James White for an introduction-by-proxy to the depth of the two prominent opposing Christian worldviews today. For good overviews from authors with whom you can easily interact, try “Why I Became an Atheist” by John Loftus, opposed by “The Impossible Faith” by his (equally famous) opponent J.P. Holding, both of whom I’m proud to call feisty (but helpful!) friends. Oh, and YouTube the Greg Bahnsen/Gordon Stein debate I mentioned above before you run headlong into the “Transcendental Argument for God’s Existence” – if you’re an internet atheist, and you don’t know what this means, believe me … you will eventually!
Every nonbeliever, by the way, should read the Bible and understand exegesis and Christian interpretation. Reusing old canards will get you nothing but disrespect, and coming unprepared and angry will get you nowhere. If this is your approach, take up gardening and stay far away from the subject. Nobody should engage in controversial study if he is not willing to at least learn what the “other side” thinks.
Finally, keep away from the Christ Myth and all of its various forms. They are weak, loosely linked, and very obviously designed to do nothing but provide the frothing atheist with nothing but a “Ha! Ha! Your beloved Jesus didn’t even exist!” nose-thumbing type of argument. It’s horrible, it’s invalid, Jesus existed in history (read Bart Ehrman’s chapter on this subject in “Jesus: Interrupted”), so get over it.
- You are a member of the Debunking Christianity blog team. Have you thought more critically about your rejection of Christianity since reading Ray’s book? Would you say you are more open to religion now?
I am not “open to religion” specifically – rather, to be intellectually honest, I am open to facts, and if that necessitates the existence of God, or even of the YHWH of Christianity, so be it. I’ll act accordingly; what is true comes first, and how I act proceeds.
My friend John (DC’s site owner) knows I differ from him on the “Debunking” standpoint, and yet has kindly provided me a platform to critically explore – I come from more of a “discussion” approach, and the only Christianity I wish to debunk out of existence is the Fred Phelps type and those advocating the top-down approach to theonomy and dominionism. My main beefs with Christianity aren’t even religious – they’re political (see: evolution and creationism in schools), and one thing I’ve learned in my studies of the religion is that a good Christian does not have to be a good Republican, as well; in fact, many Christians – including fundamentalists! – vehemently are *not.*
That’s about all I have in response to your thought-provoking questions. Thanks for the opportunity to clarify my position on Ray and with this whole ordeal, and to let me stand on my own streetcorner for awhile and preach a little at your blog. All comments and criticisms are welcome, but as my parting message to all the New Atheists, don’t engage in polemics when talking to a Christian who is attempting to be rational and is doing the favor of leaving politics out of the discussion. Return the favor and listen to the response, or just take up a new hobby or something. To echo the misquote attributed to Joe Friday, “just the facts, ma’am.”
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