Ecce Homo (Ray Comfort)

Posted on December 29, 2013

Categories: Episode Archive

For the last episode of 2013, Ask an Atheist takes a break to introduce our newest project: Professional Refutationalist Quarterly. In our inaugural episode, Sam and Becky team up with Kent (our guest from the Orange, CA episode of our tour) to talk to the man, the phenomenon, Ray Comfort of Living Waters ministries.

In the second part of the show Mike meets up with Sam to talk about his responses.

Professional Refutationalist Quarterly will be a podcast-only project of the radio show Ask an Atheist. Unlike AaA, PRQ will regularly feature religious people as we attempt to discuss and debate… just about anything.

The music used for this episode is from Pet Ghost Project, called “cloud seeds.” We found it at Podsafe Music Network. Sam bought the album, go check it out.

About the Author: Sam Mulvey

Sam Mulvey is a producer and the technical brain behind Ask an Atheist. He is a collector of vinegar varieties, vintage computers, antique radios, and propaganda.

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Celsus

10 years ago

You guys were way too nice to Comfort. You called him on none of his bullshit. What was the point?

Cheryl in Tacoma

I’m no fan of Ray Comfort, but I think you guys are twisting things around a bit. He doesn’t “support pedophilia,” he was using that to show that your standard of “doesn’t harm anybody” wouldn’t cover a situation where a child victim was filmed without her knowledge. (Which is a debatable point — even if the victim never knew about it, it is still harmful, to be sure, so this isn’t the best example he could have chosen. I might have chosen something like insider stock trading — you could say it harms people, but only those who have already… Read more »

Mike Gillis

Admin

Reply to Cheryl in Tacoma

Cheryl,

I’m done going in circles with you. You’ve asked that very question of me at least twice now and have gotten extensive answers. From me, and from other people. I’m not repeating myself again and burning the calories to type it. You would only ignore it and plead ignorance again in the future. No thanks.

Quin

Hi Cheryl, I agree with you on Ray, but I have to ask, should morals be based on whatever a god says or should it be on a case by case basis according to the situation? Why else would killing someone be acceptable in self defense? I agree that atheists and theists can be friends, no argument here. On your next point Ray says god views us as criminals but I wonder if you believe in original sin. The way I see it he sees sinning as criminal so by his logic his god sees us a criminal. I would… Read more »

Reply to Quin

Hi Quin, thanks for the reply! I, like you, don’t think there is any set-in-stone right answer for every possible situation. There are times when lying is very wrong, and times when it is the only right thing to do (think of people hiding Jews during the Holocaust). But unlike what I understand of the atheist position, I don’t believe we develop our own moral sense as much as discover it. None of us stays completely on the path at all times our whole lives, but it matters whether we are seeking that path, which isn’t always easy to find.… Read more »

Hey, it’s me again. I believe morality is both an emergent property of evolution as well as things we discover as we learn more. Now, I have to restate something. The problem I have with Jesus’ sacrifice is god’s supposed omniscience. Also, atheists don’t really have a view on god seeing as we don’t believe “he” exist, but many of us don’t have a favorable view on the god depicted in the bible. Your next point didn’t address the contradiction of “perfect” Jesus saying we should love one another in one passage and in another to hate those who don’t… Read more »

Soren

Cheryl
I understand that Christians like to interpret the Jesus story as a story
Of Jesus doing good by taking on our sins and allowing us free entry into heaven.
I don’t see it that way. To begin with, the story only makes sense if you believe in a hell to begin with.
And who decided on a hell? God, who is Jesus.
So you have to believe an omnibenevolent decided to create a place of eternal torture, and then died for a weekend to save us from himself.
It’s only a story of good if you just accept hell.

Reply to Soren

As a story of good, sorry using my mobile to post this

I’m impressed, Soren, that you were able to post all that on a mobile phone! I have an Android, and for anything longer than a couple sentences, I wait till I’m at my desktop. 🙂 I don’t know how many Christians still believe in heaven or hell as a distinct place where we are “sent” based on what we believed during our earthly lives. I’m sure there are some, but the greatest saints and mystics knew that the afterlife will only be an intensified continuation of our spiritual journey. For example, I share a similar existence with someone else I… Read more »

Maynard

Well, I enjoyed the show. As I usually enjoy most of the productions from the Ask crew.

Pat

I never thought I would be agreeing with deists on the subject of Ray Comfort, but I would agree that any platform given to him does very little to support the promotion of positive atheism. As a Skeptic and hard-line Atheist, allowing someone as agenda-based as Comfort on your show gives him an avenue for proselytization. I have seen/heard far too many debates involving his Ad Nauseam repetition of the same old dribble that he offers each and every time his is given a venue. I have always enjoyed your show in past format of Atheist News and discussion, but… Read more »

Sam Mulvey

Author

Reply to Pat

I have always enjoyed your show in past format of Atheist News and discussion, but if this is a new test format, I won’t be listening in the future. I don’t mean to take a berating tone, but IMHO Comfort used the platform without any true discourse or rational discussion taking place. If you weren’t prepared for the interview, it shouldn’t have taken place. Not to make you listen to Comfort again, but listen to the first seven minutes of the show, where we describe how PRQ will work. The Q stands for “Quarterly” which means it’ll happen four times… Read more »

Reply to Sam Mulvey

Well, I guess I will have to make sure and watch out for the Quarterly interview(s). On a more serious note, I have seen a shift in the atheist media, be it your show, The Atheist Experience or even The Young Turks to really take on the outspoken wackos of organized religion. While it can be comical, in my ever humble opinion it is the least effective demographic of Christianity to portray/interview. I would considered a series of more moderate and mainstreamed Theists as much better candidates to actually talk to and/or debate on key issues such as separation of… Read more »

Ross

Just finished listening to it on podcast. Good show, especially considering you were given short notice on the interview. I do wish you had pushed back on a few more things. RC managed to weasel out of the slavery thing by switching the subject to stoning gays and then saying something to the effect that that is 3000 year old Hebrew law and I guess that doesn’t count any more? If only RC could give a full list of things from the Old Testament that modern Christians are allowed to ignore!

Reply to Ross

I do wish you had pushed back on a few more things. RC managed to weasel out of the slavery thing by switching the subject to stoning gays and then saying something to the effect that that is 3000 year old Hebrew law and I guess that doesn’t count any more?

On that score, I think I got exactly what I wanted out of that. It’s a statement about how I judge morality versus how he does, and how even Ray Comfort comes out on top compared to the most moral people in the bible.

On a related note, I really liked the idea of (I’m paraphrasing what was said on the show) that morality can’t be measured but harm can so the latter is a better thing to concentrate on. It sounded like an off the cuff remark but I think it’s a great way of looking at the subject.

Kyle

I gotta say I was pretty disappointed with the Ray Comfort talk. As much as I dislike the guy, I think he outclassed you. In your responses to the prerecorded discussion, you immediately devolved into trash talk that reveals all your politeness during the discussion to be fakery. I doubt Ray Comfort was saying things like that about you guys. I think he had a pretty good point about victimless pedophilia that all of you together failed to adequately respond to. You kept vaguely talking about how it just causes “harm” without going into any specifics, and finally the only… Read more »

Becky G

Hi guys, I just listened to the RC interview last night. I listen to a lot of atheist podcasts and I really do like every single one of them, even though they are radically different from one another. I have heard of RC for a very long time, but I had never heard him speak. He thought he was being very charming – he wasn’t. He also thought he really had gotten over on you all – he didn’t. I am always fascinated at the reactions people have about whether or not hypothetical situations were addressed or hypothetical questions were… Read more »

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