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Richard Dawkins' counter-offer to Ray Comfort

"I'm not aware of having had any communication from Mr Comfort, whom I know only as the Banana Man (you won't believe what you see if you take a look at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2z-OLG0KyR4 -- no it's not a Monty Python sketch, he really means it).

"$10,000 is less than the typical fee that I am ordinarily offered for lecturing to a serious audience (I often don't accept it, especially in the case of a student audience, because I am a dedicated teacher). It is not, therefore, a worthwhile inducement for me to travel all the way across the Atlantic to debate with an ignorant fool. You can tell him that if he donates $100,000 to the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science (it's a charitable donation, tax deductible) I'll do it. A further condition is that it will be filmed by Josh Timonen for my website, RichardDawkins.net, and distributed by Josh as a DVD, if he thinks it is funny enough. To this end, it would be nice if Mr Comfort would reprise the ever popular Banana Sketch.

"Richard Dawkins"

 

"Thank you, yes, I appreciate that you are only a reporter in the middle.

"$20,000 is closer to the fees that I am customarily offered. However, I am not in this for the money. My interest is in getting the Banana Man to PART with $100,000 of his money so that that money will NOT be available for buying animatronic dinosaurs with saddles, or other similar nonsense. The fact that he would be making a substantial donation to a charity dedicated to Reason and Science adds to the humour of the situation. Talking of humour, by the way, did you look at the great Banana video? It beats the Peanut Butter video for laughs, but only by a short head: http://www.unscrewingtheinscrutable.com/node/1258

"Richard Dawkins"

 

Of course, we all know what Ray did. He wrote an article in which he called Richard "an embarrassment to the atheist community."