The video is a discussion between two American kids and their friend “Saraa” who is Indian. In it, they discuss Indian culture and the Hindu religion, before attempting to “convert” poor Saraa to Christianity. If you don’t have time to watch the video, here are a selection of face-palm quotes you might want to peruse:

This is just an epic fail in geography.

Molly: [Saraa's] Indian. It’s like…an African country in Asia.

This is plain ignorance, not to mention quite racist.

Molly: Do you consider yourself Asian or African?

Saraa: Asian.

Molly: Because you look African…but you’re Asian.

Rachel: Why are you so dark then?

Saraa: Because I’m from Asia!

Molly: Why aren’t your eyes pointy…or slanted?

*pause*

Molly: It’s ok, I know you can be what you want, but it’s not what you look like.

Rachel: Yeah, I think she’s lying to us.

Yet more ignorance regarding race.

Rachel: It’s like, if an African and an Asian had a baby.

Then they move onto religion.

(After Saraa explains she is Hindu and doesn’t believe in Jesus)

Molly: But why don’t you change if you’re wrong? You know that believing in multiple gods is a sin?

No amateur discussion of religion is right without one mention of Pascal’s wager.

Molly: Ok, how about this. There’s a chance…well, a very good chance that Christianity is the right religion, and that’s the religion that has a hell, so if I’m wrong in your religion I don’t go to hell, but if you’re wrong in my religion then you go to hell.

So why do I think the video might be fake? It’s just an inkling I get when watching it, perhaps because I’ve seen so many Poe’s in videos, but it doesn’t come across as how actual conversation goes. Especially at the end when Molly tells Saraa that she can’t be her friend because she’s not Christian, and Saraa sort of just accepts it and says “I need to go home to eat rice”.

I’ll leave it up to you to decide.

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Thunderf00t has uploaded the entire discussion, uncut from start to finish, and if you have a spare 90 or so minutes, I advise you watch it all! Ray Comfort’s points are torn apart in front of him one by one, as Thunderf00t explores the deeper meaning of Ray’s arguments (evidently not done by Ray himself) such as the “how do you know it is creation?” rebuttal to any claim of the kind “creation needs a creator” in reference to the universe itself.

Here is the entire debate as a YouTube playlist, so sit back and watch the Bananaman get defeated by common sense and logic, as played by Thunderf00t.

Enjoy!

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My favourite bit? When Abraham says…

If I thought it was wrong?!? Like I’d know! Like I have any chance of forming an independent basis of right and wrong outside the instructions of some supervisory being! No Lord, I am your bitch!

A very good summation of the position the God of the Old Testament plays in the Bible I thought. I mean here is a God who supposedly gives us our moral values, and yet sets us up in the Garden of Eden so that our God-given curiosity gives him a good excuse to chuck us out. He then proceeds in a way that would be even the most thieving, scheming, adulterous murderer blush, before coming down to Earth in human form to tell us to stop acting so horribly to one another…

I mean, talk about hypocritical; the God of the Bible could be beaten in a morality contest by every single human being on the planet. Even Hitler would have a hard time losing to such acts of genocide; in fact I’d go as far to say that even if you combined all the immoral actions of humans into one universal immorality score, it would be a fraction of the value the Abrahamic god would get.

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As most people know, Thunderf00t is a very popular atheist YouTuber, and also a commentator on science, mainly evolutionary biology. He has been featured on many blogs, including Pharyngula, on certain issues such as the VenomFangX DMCA debacle and his popular “Why do people laugh at creationists?” series. Thunderf00t is, by all accounts, a mainstream and prominent atheist. He might not have books, but he has over 50,000 subscribers and the entire atheist blogosphere behind him.

So Thunderf00t decided to ask Ray Comfort to a discussion, since he was going travelling and would be close to where the Living Waters ministry is based. He dutifully contacted Living Waters, but they told him to contact Ray directly on his blog. This is the comment (now removed from Ray’s blog as requested) that Thunderf00t left:

For the attention of Ray Comfort,
Your staff (T Ramos) suggested I post this here.

I run the popular pro-science youtube channel under the screen name of Thunderf00t.

For context.
Thunderf00t 54 000 subscribers
Thewayofthemaster 9 000 subscribers

This summer I will be touring the US and should passing near to LA (the Mnt Wilson Observatory).

You have previously stated that you wish to have a public discussion with “prominent atheists.”;

My proposal would be simple and honest.
You and me, one room, one camera. Through civil discourse we examine our points of contest and points of agreement. We both then take a copy of the video. I will put it up uncut on my channel.
You are free to do with your copy as you wish.

If you have an interest in such a project, let me know some windows of opportunity and we will see if we can converge on a date.

If you accept or decline the offer, please delete this post. To otherwise will lead to pointless speculation about motives.
I would rather not have made such an invitation in public but it was suggested by your staff

Best wishes,
Thunderf00t

Polite, honest, and with all good intentions. Thunderf00t established himself as a popular science-minded atheist, and proposed a simple format for discussion. He didn’t even want a debate! He just wanted the two of them to sit down and discuss their views as any two men would do in a polite conversation. He requested it be recorded, so that others may watch, and Ray can do whatever he likes with his copy. The key thing to note at this point is that Thunderf00t demanded no money.

Ray Comfort accepted the proposal, but with his sick and twisted sense of morality:

Regarding your request for a debate. I would be more than happy to do this. The only condition would be an honorarium of $US100,000, payable to “Professor Richard Dawkins,” on my behalf.

In other words, Ray wants to use Thunderf00t to get to Richard Dawkins. He gets a decent and well-thought out proposal to a discussion, and Ray turns it around and throws back an insult. This is a despicable act of cowardice, and is deeply unfair to Thunderf00t, who was willing to give Ray the discussion he wanted, for free, and by means of a civil conversation. What kind of morality is that? Punish a person who comes to you with an honest request in order to get back at someone who you failed to meet the requirements of before? It’s beyond Ray’s usual ridiculous nature; this was pure greed, coupled with the kind of scheming you get from stereotypical “evil geniuses” in films.

Ray once agreed with Ben Stein’s criticism of Richard Dawkins, that he was fine with Intelligent Design, just not certain designers, like God. Well now Ray has shown his true colours, we can say a similar thing about him. Ray is not interested in debate or discussion with “prominent atheists”, only discussions with certain prominent atheists…namely Richard Dawkins.

Of course, who better to explain this than Thunderf00t himself:

Do Thunderf00t a favour and favourite his videos, rate them with 5 stars (it counters the votebotes that attack his account regularly), and leave a comment on his channel. He certainly deserves it.

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The other thing I noticed about this video is that one of the motivational posters used is one I created for a Friendly Atheist competition last year!

The second video is by a New York comedy team known as P0YKPAC who also made the Ultimate Praying Championship video I featured on the blog. This video describes the Holy Gospel of the Easter Bunny, the true story of Jeshua Cottontail, the animal messiah!

The final two videos were released by the Human Rights Campaign as part of their “End the Lies” movement for the equality of LGBT issues. In response to an advert by an anti-gay organization known as “National Organization for Marriage”, which portrayed individuals as being directly affected by the gay marriage issue. The advert can be viewed here, and the people in it were not directly affected by the issue, they were all actors. The advert mentioned this, but the text is so small and so grayed out you can hardly notice it.

To reveal the absurdity of this video, the HRC released the audition tapes for the advert, clearly showing the people were actors, not people directly affected.

Update: The below videos were flagged by the National Organization for Marriage and have been taken down. Evidently they didn’t like the fact that the truth behind their advert was being revealed. I’m trying to find other instances of the videos.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRjVDZxho54, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwqNFBt33o4

Update #2: The Rachel Maddow show has some clips of the audition tapes:

So that’s it for this week’s YouTube Thursday. Comment, and suggest videos for next week!

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The video presents some very bad logic in the first 30 seconds, when it tries to explain the “bananaman” reference:

“Bananaman” is a reference to an illustration presented by Comfort, in which he compared the complex design elements of a coke can to the complex design elements of a banana, in order to demonstrate that thoughtful design by an a designer is required for both examples. (0:20 -- 0:35)

Ray wants us to believe that God made the banana, but even knowing this is untrue (at least in regards to the modern banana) all it does is prove what we know already; that certain things in the world are the result of human intervention. Whilst it is true that the banana is a product of design, the same cannot be said if you replaced the banana with a wild blackberry, which is perfectly edible, very sweet, and not the product of human intervention. Replace the blackberry with something like the pineapple or the coconut, and you immediately have to start questioning the sanity of the “designer” Ray implies on such things. Pineapples and coconuts have to be some of the hardest fruits to get into, not to mention the amount of preparation needed before eating.

When you do not know the process in which certain things are created, you cannot compare them to things of which the creation process is known. It is a logical fallacy. In fact, the creation process of the wild banana is partially known, and we refer to it as the theory of Evolution. This doesn’t explain the entire process of the banana creation, but it certainly gives a mechanism for understanding how it could have possibly come about. This is a far greater explanation than the idea that “God did it” which has no evidence and holds no grounds in proper scientific debate.

Ray presents to us his often-repeated lie that atheists somehow misrepresented his point in the banana video:

However, atheists removed the coke can from the video version, and sent it across the internet, saying that Comfort believed the banana was conclusive proof of God’s existence, missing the point of the illustration completely. (0:42 -- 0:55)

You see this simply contradicts the last point, as Ray admits that the comparison was to show that a designer is needed for both coke can and banana. In the original video (even in the edited version which only shows the banana) Ray mentions God as the creator of the banana, and he also mentions the coke can in comparison. His exact words were:

Now if you go to the top of the banana, you’ll find as with the soda can makers, they placed a tab at the top, so God has placed a tab at the top.

Implying that there must be a designer, and then stating that the designer is God, therefore proving God’s existence seems to be exactly what Comfort had in mind. If Ray had not mentioned God as the designer, then he may actually have a point about not trying to prove God’s existence, but as soon as he said “so God has placed a tab at the top” he left the realm of speculation and entered the realm of certainty.

They also said that the banana had been modified over time by man to fit in the palm of the hand, and not by God (0:55 -- 1:02)

Well yeah, that’s because it has been. This intervention is very well documented.

But in their effort to make him look foolish, atheists gave Ray Comfort and international platform for his message. (1:03 -- 1:09)

Effort? I think you’ll find Ray does enough to make himself look foolish without us there to help. Anyone with a (to quote Ray) “brain that works” can tell his arguments are weak, and his views on science are stuck in the middle ages. The number of times simple scientific concepts have to be explained to him reveals his as the willingly ignorant fool that he is. Now for his “apology”:

Comfort apologized for his mistake about the banana saying “My apologies for not explaining myself more clearly. I was not aware that the common banana had been so modified by hybridization, however, the truth remains that God gave man the knowledge and ability to modify it, so that it perfectly fit into his hand.” (1:31 -- 1:50)

So once your original premise is destroyed, you simply move the goalposts back a bit? Nice work Ray, but while this “truth” might be logical to your warped mind, you don’t give any evidence that God exists to give us this knowledge. In fact, since your original reason for using the banana argument was to show that certain things must have a designer, and that the designer of the banana is God, I fail to see how you can simply assert God exists when your argument for him via the banana was so utterly destroyed. I can do the same thing see: My car was designed, and the designer was God, therefore God exists. What’s that? My car was designed by Ford? Well…God gave Ford the knowledge and the materials to design the car in the first place! It isn’t a proof if you have to assume God exists for the proof to work.

Ray also leaps on the chance to misquote Richard Dawkins in the film “Expelled”, claiming he thinks aliens seeded life on this planet.

In “Expelled No Intelligence Allowed”, when Ben Stein asked Richard Dawkins, ‘What do think is the possibility that intelligent design might turn out to be the answer to some issues in genetics or in evolution?’ he answered,

‘at some earlier time somewhere in the universe a civilization evolved by probably by some kind of Darwinian means to a very very high level of technology and designed a form of life that they seeded onto perhaps this planet … and that designer could well be a higher intelligence from elsewhere in the universe.’ (2:17 -- 3:22)

The beginning of this quote is left out, and the full thing reveals some vital clues to Dawkins’ explanation, specifically the words “It could come about in the following way: it could be that at some earlier time somewhere…”. This clearly shows that Dawkins is speaking hypothetically, in response to the question by Stein. Dawkins is a scientist, and as such he isn’t going to close his mind to the possibility of intelligent design. However, if he is going to explain it, he is going to do it rationally and scientifically, not by mentioning some sort of supernatural deity.

Dawkins again says in the middle that such ideas are a “possibility”, that they are “intriguing”, and that you might find evidence if you looked at the details of biochemistry and molecular biology. However he never stated that he believes such things, nor that any evidence has been found to suggest it. He goes on to say that such intelligence would have had to come about by some kind of natural (and possibly Darwinian) means. Things don’t just magically appear out of nowhere, at least not in the realms of science.

So Professor Dawkins believes that highly intelligent aliens from somewhere else in the universe may have created us. (3:46 -- 3:54)

No Ray! No. Commenting on an idea, or even trying to explain some form of natural intelligent design does not automatically mean you believe it. As I said before, Dawkins is well aware that there is no evidence for such views, and he didn’t attempt to present evidence in the film. He was commenting on a hypothetical basis for intelligent design in the universe. Stein may have had ulterior motives for asking the question, but Dawkins answer was accurate. Aliens seeding life on Earth is at least one possibility of intelligent design that doesn’t invoke the supernatural.

Will there be a debate between Comfort and Dawkins? I doubt it, but one can dream. I’d personally love to see both Dawkins and Hitchens take on Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron for a double smackdown of logic.

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It is unbelievably unfair to punish an entire channel for the contents of one video (or two videos, or three, or…you get the picture). It makes it even more unfair when the other videos on that channel are educational, and taking down such videos for a week means that people cannot use them for educational purposes. Videos should be suspended, so should the channel’s rights to upload a video, but suspending an entire channel is going completely over the top. P.Z. Myers summed it up nicely:

Responding to a violation by automatically yanking the whole account is not appropriate and civilized behavior, especially when it can be resolved by an amicable communication. How about communicating first, and then yanking if someone is intransigent? The problem is that not everyone has the resources or the clout of the JREF, and there have been far too many cases of individuals getting shut down on entirely bogus complaints.

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H/T to Pharyngula

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Of course, praying you will win is strictly forbidden (not in the finals anyway). Watch out for sneak attacks!

H/T to POYKPAC! for making a great video.

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