The surprise was not the giveaway, but the date. Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron's Living Waters ministry had been planning to give away 120,000 copies of a special edition of Charles Darwin's Origin of Species on November 19th, but conducted the hand out a day early. The giveaway was creating quite a stir in the atheist community, with protests planned. Why? This special edition contains a 50 page introduction by Comfort, providing the gospel message and evidence for intelligent design. Comfort is the author of the newly released book, Nothing Created Everything.
In recognition and celebration of the publication of Charles Darwin's Origin of Species 150 years ago, many events have been planned at campuses everywhere. And, many in the intelligent design community had developed campaigns to reach out and inform students of their work and views during this time as well. Living Waters did not disclose which campuses would be chosen for the giveaways, but it did say that they would be at the country's top 100 universities. A Youtube video has been posted with the visit of Comfort and Cameron at UCLA today. Steve Sanchez's blog, Stone the Preacher, briefly tells of his group's participation in the giveaway at USC today, with more of the story forthcoming.
Popular atheist Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion and other books, called on atheist students to rip out the introductory pages of the special edition. Dawkins is a professor of biology at Oxford in England. A group representing Living Waters planned on giving away 1,000 copies of their special edition there as well, with a copy reserved for Dawkins. Bloggers have called on people to burn the books.
The amount of anger and planned resistance to the books' introduction is perhaps surprising. In an article at WND, Comfort says the information he presents scares them: "I say in the introduction that evolution is not scientific. It's just a theory, it hasn't been proven," he said. "The missing link is still missing. To call it science is bogus. There's no species-to-species transitional forms in the fossil record. Darwin was a racist, he disdained women. And I'm not making this up. This is all from his own words." Comfort also provides names of prominent scientists, including contemporary ones, who believe God created the universe.
Comments
Kirk tells falshoods in the first part of his video. Children can pray in school, in fact how could anyone stop them? The issue is teacher led prayer and that protects everyone, including Christians. Do a search for "ray comfort eugenie scott". Scott does a wonderful rebuttal to Ray's comments.
They didn't want to deal with protests. Isn't Comfort the one that says that "all sides need to be heard"? Hypocrite. I think that deceiving everyone with the date may somehow fall under "bearing false witness". Hypocrite.
Comfort may be a genuine Christian but he is also a deceiver and a charlatan. For him Evolution = Atheism and 'telling untruths and half-truths about science in the name of helping unbelievers to convert' = 'truth'. He and his sidekick show this by their actions. I don't want my intellect "bypassed" any more.
Not all Christians are like them.
Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron are clowns, undeserving of the attention they receive.
Why the passionate hate for Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron? Is it because they dare to question your science.
Perhaps the real anger has nothing to do with Comfort and Cameron, but it is directed towards God. All he asks is for us to admit our sins, repent from those sins, and put our trust in Jesus. For some reason, that is offensive. It was offensive thousands of yours ago and it is still offensive today.
Repent and believe before it is too late.
Deception is a good Christian trait. Kirk’s acting skills are only eclipsed by his research skills. Maybe Hitler was connected to the Origin of the Species through his church.
Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf: "I am convinced that I am acting as the agent of our Creator. By fighting off the Jews. I am doing the Lord's work." In 1938, he quoted those same words in a Reichstag speech.
@R.Bradford,
We aren't offended by god because most of us are pretty sure there isn't one. Ray Comfort is an uneducated, manipulative liar who doesn't care what means he uses to reach his ends. Everything he has written in that lame intro has been refuted, to his face, over and over again on his "blog" and in various debates (see Thunderfoot), yet he continues to propagate these lies.
Please don't speculate on the intentions of atheists. It's obvious by your ideas that you have never really spoken to one, or if you did, you sure weren't listening. There are answers to your question. Atheists everywhere have commented on why they don't like the book, yet you ignore those reasons and insert your own "afraid of god" BS.
I guess the reason people are unhappy about Ray Comfort's Darwin giveaway is that by including his own introduction he is passing off falsehoods, misrepresentations and lies to young students who may be gullible enough to believe him.
Deliberately misleading people is totally unethical.
I was a born-again Christian at one time in my life. I thank God I didn't grow up another C4: conservative christian conspiracy crank like R. Bradford, who thinks disagreement with him, or Cameron/Comfort, is an affront to, and rebellion against, God Himself. And you wonder why people call you self-righteous. Poor Christians that help so many people in need - to have to suffer from such mindless orthodoxy and turn all that compassion into another primitive superstition. Evangelicals need more people like Denis O. Lamoureux so they can stop waiting their time, and God's, while madly demonizing Darwin and making Christianity seem a backwards witch-burning conclave.
BTW Bradford, you were at least honest saying its "our" science. Thank God for "our" science. But you will have to live in the darkness of "bypassing" whatever intellect you may have.
This site is disgusting.
Lying does not make your god real.
Peace.
Ray was just trying to avoid the SSA and the NCSE organizing counter displays and having fun. Like giving away the NCSEs Banana Bookmarks.
Banana Boy is the laughing stock of New Zealand and of the scientific world. He is no more qualified to write an introduction to the Origin of Species than Sarah Palin is to be US president. Plus he is distributing a bastardized version of the book which omits Darwin's introduction and several chapters which contain the strongest evidence for evolution, e.g. Chapters 11 and 12 on geographical distribution of species, and chapter 13 on how evolution makes sense of classification, morphology, and embryology. It is this dishonesty that makes scientists and educators mad - not the so-called "evidence for intelligent design", because none is presented, or exists.
LOL, you are all so amusing!!! Not only can you not make a good rebuttle to this, but you can't even let Christians be. I find it amusing that you are so afraid of Chistians that you have to go on the defensive when we preach and teach. I wasted years of my life on science, only to find out that scientists lie, make up "facts" and don't tell the whole story. I looked into the "facts" and found that evolution has more holes in it that swiss cheese. Look at it all unbiasedly, if you dare. I looked at the Bible that way too, and history has proven it true time and again. Exodus has a lot of evedence for it. Vicki a good idea if you don't mind (and I will give you a link for all this) is to do an artcile for the eveidence for exodus. All you people here need to go to www.godandscience.org read the main site (and don't just go to the disscussion form >_> like everyone else. Actually read the articles. Thanks for the article Vicki!!! I love you work and you do a great job!!!!!
One point you should all consider. How is it that you, a bunch of protons neutrons and electrons, are alive? Can you put a bunch of atoms together in the exact perfect way (i.e. the human body for expample) and bring them to life? No, you can't. I could give you all you needed to make a human, and you still couldn't make them live and be self aware. No matter how you try you cannot escape this fact. Don't say abiogenisis either, there is no scientific backing for it, it is totaly faith based and cannot be reproduced in a lab. Don't you find it funny how a bunch of atoms come together as protiens DNA and cells, ect., and then come to life. How did the atoms know to come together? Why did they do it? What makes it all happen? You don't know, and you never will. Why are the sub atomic particles the way they are? Why do they come together to make matter? How did it all get that way?
Statement signed by 12,000 Christian CLERGY who aren't afraid of the truths of science, who don't feel the need to reject human learning, and who don't LIE to defend their faith:
"We the undersigned, Christian clergy from many different traditions, believe that the timeless truths of the Bible and the discoveries of modern science may comfortably coexist. We believe that the theory of evolution is a foundational scientific truth, one that has stood up to rigorous scrutiny and upon which much of human knowledge and achievement rests. To reject this truth or to treat it as "one theory among others" is to deliberately embrace scientific ignorance and transmit such ignorance to our children."
Full text of statement, names of signers, and their affiliations are found if you google "Butler College Clergy Letter".
Like these wise and truthful people, I think it is bad to lie to our children. But "transmitting ignorance to children" appears to be Ray Comfort's calling in life.
Nathaniel said: "One point you should all consider. How is it that you, a bunch of protons neutrons and electrons, are alive?"
Nathaniel - science is trying to do just that. If you don't mind, I'd rather they keep working on the problem and not just say "God did it" and go home.
It turned out the Sun wasn't a god, nor the moon. It turned out a god didn't throw lightning. It turns out tides, floods, earthquakes and eclipses aren't caused by gods. It turns out prayer doesn't improve the hunt. It turns out epilepsy isn't divine possession. It turns out schizophrenia isn't demonic possession. It turns out the Earth wasn't made in 6 days and is older than the prophets say, and species evolved naturally.
It turns out science has a much better record of explaining how things work than gods do.
So I prefer to let the scientists get on with answering the questions. I feel lucky to be alive when we understand so much more than we did 2000 years ago.
I'm sorry you don't.
To clarify Ray's comments.
Comfort printed 2 different versions of the book.
His first one with 30,000 copies is missing 4 chapters and Darwin's own intro.
The second one of 175,000 copies is the complete version of the book.
HOWEVER Ray picked the 1st edition, so it specifically doesn't have all the corrections and the extra chapter on answering criticisms that Darwin wrote that made it into the 6th edition of the book.
Nathaniel, you claim there is a lot of evidence for Exodus. Please share it with the scientists and biblical scholars who have spent decades searching for it in vain. There is no archeological, documentary, linguistic or DNA evidence that there was ever a large influx of Jews to Egypt during the time of the pharaohs. There is no evidence of the plagues of Egypt, the wiping out of the Egyptian army at the Red Sea, or hundreds of thousands of people wandering in the Sinai desert for 40 years. Egyptian civilization kept meticulous records yet overlooked all these miraculous events. Or, far more likely, the whole thing is a fairy tale with no basis in fact.
Ray, ever heard of the Naked Archaeologist? He did a special on the history international channel about proof of exodus found in eygpt, written by eygiptions. Look it up.
"Earth wasn't made in 6 days and is older than the prophets say, and species evolved naturally."
RickK I am an OEC, not all Christians believe the same. I bleieve in God and Science. You all need to realize that the two don't have to be seperate, that is why I left that link I did. I know the earth and the universe is billions of years old. I never doubted that. Science cannot explain everything, and it takes more faith to believe science only. Go to that site, read, and see that there are different types of Christians. I don't have all day to site here and disscuss this. That's why I reffered you all to that site.
The Naked Archeologist? Oh please.
In the first paragraph the writer used the word "evidence" while referring to intelligent design (creationism). There is absolutely no "evidence" for ID, and none was shown in the forward to the book. This is a very inaccurate use of the word. If creationists could come up with even one experiment to disprove evolution they would win the Nobel Prize.
@ Bill W. I was reporting what is claimed and provided, I wasn't making a judgment. Many creationists (there are quite a few different types of Creationists) actually believe that much of evolutionary theory is correct. They do not need to disprove that one species, or "kind," of creature has evolved from another since this has never been proven in the first place. This is what I gather, personally, so far.
OMG I just watched the Cameron video. I think I am going to be sick to my stomach. I don't know how he can say what he said if he really believes "Thou shall not lie." I guess he believes the ends justify the means.
OMG I just watched the Cameron video. I think I am going to be sick to my stomach. I don't know how he can say what he said if he really believes "Thou shall not lie." I guess he believes the ends justify the means.
@ Bill W. I had already removed one double post of yours. How does spamming a board support your point of view, that you are better (smarter, have higher morals, etc.) than the people you're criticizing?
@Vicki
A few posts down you said:
"Many creationists (there are quite a few different types of Creationists) actually believe that much of evolutionary theory is correct."
So creationists just pick-n-choose the evidence that fits their perception? In one way, I can see how that type of rationalization
would be comfortable for creationists, but, on the other hand, it just seems sad.
There is nothing to "believe" as you put it, when it comes to evidence. Evidence is boolean, it is either true or false. To "believe" some of the evidence, yet reject some based on religious beliefs just seems intellectually dishonest.
Does this add credibility to a creationist's proselytizing?
I think not.
We can only hope that one or more of the writers Comfort plagiarized for his "introduction" sues him into bankruptcy.
@ASC. Evolutionists do not even agree with each other on many things, so why are you picking on creationists??? Science is always changing. To question things and see which things work and seem factual is what science is supposed to do. You missed my point, anyway. There is no proof, and no one has seen, one species or "kind" change into another. It could take long article and book length posts to cover the topic, so it won't be resolved here.
The proof of evolution is overwhelming, vicki - except to those who begin by refusing to believe it is possible.
The proof for a very high degree of flexibility and change within species is proven. Otherwise, no, the rest is not proven. Science is based on verifiable results. Evolutionary theory, in it's broadest sense, is not verifiable that way. There's is a very great amount that we cannot know from the past, and there is still, otherwise, much we don't know. In any case, creationists are varied lot. There are even theistic evolutionists, and you seem to lump everyone together and call them blind and ignorant. I think Francis Collins would disagree (I do not fully agree with him, so far, but he is an evolutionist who believes God created it all).
Vicki, sorry about the double posts. It was unintentional. I don't know why they posted twice. Even though I feel strongly about my points, posting them twice doesn't make them any more valid. If this posts twice I'm getting rid of my PC and getting a Mac!
Thanks Bill. It actually posted three times for some reason . . . weird.
The standard argument of the scientifically illiterate, vicki.
Validated prediction is just as valid in the scientific method as reproducing results - and DNA studies have proven predictions time after time.
The simple fact is, nothing in biology makes sense without evolution.
And I challenge you to show anywhere that I claimed evolution and faith could not be reconciled.
Pasta, you really come off in a high and mighty manner. I know others who are more educated in this than I am, and they disagree with you. So, as far as I know, it's your word against theirs (and I'm not talking about young earth creationists). I have had read a recent article by a research professor (associate, I think) who counters what you say. Regarding the challenge - how am I supposed to know?? You may post what you want about faith and evolution.
"There are even theistic evolutionists, and you seem to lump everyone together and call them blind and ignorant."
You made the accusation lady - prove it or admit you were wrong.
I've read Comfort's introduction. It's a compendium of fallacies, outdated information, and standard creationist canards. He's an embarrassment. He'd flunk Composition 101 with the types of arguments he makes.
I had moved away from Anaheim and so have not published more with the Anaheim Examiner topic. Pasta, you are very biased; there are many "working scientists" who disagree with you. You could find out more about the criticisms and concerns of neo-Darwinism if you chose to do so. Real science is not for those who put blinders on. There are reasons why modern evolutionary theory is not a Law. But besides this, when I read comments (and I'm not referring to you alone here) that are disrespectful of others' points of view, and perhaps clearly angry, I cannot put much credence in them. So often the persons that cry out for respect and tolerance the most are those who give it the least. I don't know what Cameron et al. are professing these days, because I don't follow them, but from what I do know they are not persons trying to deceive anyone for money or for any self-serving motive (therefore, they are not charlatans, but persons who hold a certain interpretation or point of view).
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