Wilf Wilson

People say things that my brain does not like to compute:

So you would choose your religion based on what it offers you? I would choose a religion based on the truth. Surely that’s the right way to do it?

And Happy New Decade.

I’m in the middle of a break of a few weeks. Read Wil’s blog if you’re bored.

The Banana Man. Stupidity Incarnate. Ray Comfort ((But definitely not Raymond, oh no. That’s what his mother calls him.)). Idiot. (I’ve written about him previously).

Why do I keep reading his blog ((And writing.))? My justification is a little contrived, but that’s unimportant. I don’t read it because I think that there may be a God, and I don’t read it because I think that I might learn something ((I don’t think such things.)). Rather, I read it for the same reason that I rubberneck – disasters and abominations are fun to watch. I like to cringe, though only in small doses and without prolonged exposure. There’s maybe only one post per day, which I can read in a minute, and I’m happy to spend that time for the chuckles and facepalms that ensue.

I’ll take you through a few of my ‘favourite’ bits from the last couple of months.

The pathetic cartoon on the right, by the blog’s illustrator Richard Gunther, provokes a facepalm and proves that these people are beyond hope.
He links to Richard Dawkins talking about “The Atheist’s Worst Nightmare [original, ‘debunking‘]”. Apparently this made Ray laugh, though I’m not sure why he considers having his own idea mocked as being funny. “The Atheist’s Worst Nightmare” was a complete failure. It attempts to disprove evolution by demonstrating intelligent ‘design’, yet the modern banana was designed! ((By man, through artificial selection.))
The title of the next post is “For Those Who Keep Saying I don’t Know What I am Talking About…” How does Ray prove that he knows what he’s talking about? By quickly searching Google and then performing a quick copy-and-paste job with the results. You know Ray’s an idiot because he says of evolution “you have no evidence” and describes it as a “faith”. Ray honestly expects that if evolution were true, we would have found a crocoduck. Clearly someone with no understanding of evolution.
The next post isn’t written by Ray, but instead by a “Guest Blogger” ((Ooooooooooh!)). It’s short, so check it out. Plain awful. Take this, for example:

So why didn’t the things in the room you are in (chairs, desks, pens, TV and even planes and cars) evolve too?

Wow. The rest of the post is “Life is good; therefore God”. It’s really that bad.
Comfort loves to quote famous thinkers to support his points ((Whether or not those quotations even support his point.)), and Charles Darwin is always a favourite: “Often a cold shudder has run through me, and I have asked myself whether I may have not devoted myself to a fantasy.” What if Darwin ended up disagreeing with evolution? It in no way invalidates the truth of evolution. He also wrote this gem:

Explain to me how 1.4 million species managed to evolve into maturity together, in our lifetime. Nothing we have in creation is half-evolved. The cow has a working udder to make drinkable milk. The bee has working apparatus to make edible honey. We don’t find a half evolved cow or bee.

He really expects to see a crocoduck. Really.
Read some of the Amazon reviews of Ray’s version of “The Origin of Species” ((He thinks you should.)). I would have liked a free copy of this book, though only to keep as a collector’s item ((I already have a proper copy.)). Here is a end of one of my favourite reviews: “This is Christian propaganda. More lies for Jesus!”
Ray says this with a seemingly straight face:

“Goddidit.” That solves the issue.
This one made me laugh. It’s the old “male and female evolution” bullshit that I’ve written about before. I should have used that same title as Ray did in his post: “Here we go Again…”. Because that’s exactly what I was thinking. The second paragraph of his answer is ((At least I think it is.)) written in a slightly sarcastic, exaggerated tone, yet his exaggerations are spot on. If Ray was presented with irrefutable evidence of evolution (which he probably has been), he would ‘refute’ it with “Goddidit”, per #7.
Bizarre.
Ray perfects the art of the “genuine” non-apology:

I sincerely apologize for misrepresenting what Darwinian evolution says about the origin of males and females. I have checked out the references you have given me as to what the theory has to say about their genesis, read them again and again, and I still don’t understand what you believe.

That confirms my suspicions about Ray’s intellect.
Facepalm:
A woman had her hands and face chewed off by a chimpanzee. And how does Ray view this event? Of course, as an opportunity to ‘disprove’ evolution. Humans can’t create a new face and new hands from scratch; therefore evolution is not true. I fail to see how the conclusion is linked to the premise.
Ray’s attempt at humour:

I had a banana put into the [gift] basket [for Richard Dawkins], but I didn’t say who the gift basket was from. I will leave him to formulate a theory on its origin.
He refers his readers to a video of Richard Dawkins, particularly the part where he is asked a question about Ray Comfort. Dawkins is not happy with either the question or the questionner, and this is clear on his face and in his voice – entirely justifiably ((It’s just stupid.)). This obviously pleases Ray ((The title of the post is “Richard Dawkins… a Little Upset”).)), and exposes him as someone merely in search of a reaction.
Ray Comfort was interviewed by The Friendly Atheist. My favourite bit is where Ray defends his banana video with this:

I deeply regret doing the banana routine on television without a live audience. I have been doing it for live audiences for more than 20 years, and it’s never failed to get a lot of laughs.

What? Why would an audience even laugh at that, other than because it looks like Ray is holding a penis. The content of his argument certainly does not deserve any laughs as it fails to prove or disprove anything about evolution. It would be like me trying to disprove God by saying “God doesn’t exist because there are still chimpanzees” – laughs would only be deserved if I said this whilst holding a penis in my hand.

PZ Myers offered a few thoughts too, and I’m sure the comments are good.
For reference – Ray believes that every word of the Bible is literally true.
“I was asked recently during an interview if I thought that the Theory of Evolution was a religion. I said that I think it is.” The following post is of absolutely no value. What a load of bollocks. See for yourself.
This final post is too long for me to re-read, but it is Ray’s response to the question “Ray, are you afraid of dying?”. It’s worth checking out just to see a picture of Ray Comfort when he was 20 in context. In short; yes, he’s afraid of the process of dying (it could be painful), but he is not afraid of being dead. That’s the answer that I’d expect, but it saddens me. I’m sure he is sadden by the rejection of salvation by atheists, and the ‘knowledge’ that they will burn in hell for eternity rather than enjoy heaven once they die. I have no reason to believe that that is true, but I can empathise. It makes me sad to know that Ray is spending his whole life – his only life – trying to convince people of an afterlife… only to discover that it isn’t real ((Expect of course it would be impossible to discover that.)). What a waste.

OK, you know what, after going through that list I’ve realised. Ray is a complete ignoramous ((Either that, or the world best trickster.)): one who can never learn, and quite obviously one who never even wants to learn. He’s just an attention seeker, and he’ll be getting no more of mine ((Unless he makes another banana video with Kirk.)).

I’m sorry for wasting your time, and mine.

Unsubscribed.

For some reason I hadn’t heard of The History Boys until just before I watched it. George recommended it to me. He’s keen on recommendations, but… somewhat lacking in persuasion. My focus has many worthy demands, and telling me to “watch this” doesn’t always attract me. Telling me twice, however, and including the word “indeed”, seemingly does.

It was the film that I watched – the play is not currently being performed ((Although after seeing the film I’d love to see the stage version.)). Strangely, the film was on iPlayer – I didn’t know that the BBC put films online, but it was welcome surprise ((I shall shortly be writing about copyright, piracy etc. (though only if I can collect my thoughts sufficiently coherently).)).

In short, I’ll describe it as a delight ((Rotten Tomatoes rates it decently, which I’d agree with.)). Yes, it’s a story of some boys trying to get into Oxford University, but it’s so much more. Although I have a vague relation in that respect, it’s about knowledge and learning and thought – exactly what endears The Secret History to me so much. And it’s so charmingly done and well acted that it could have been about anything and I’d still have loved it ((It was strange as well, knowing that all of the actors were about 30, playing characters of about 18. It was also funny. I liked the French bits too.)).

I shall endeavour to find out more about Alan Bennet and his work.

Thanks George.

Whenever I log in to Yahoo! Mail, there is a selection of the day’s “Top Stories” in headline form. They’re clearly designed to be intriguing ((Ultimately so that they can increase their ad revenue.)) and they sometimes make me laugh:

Balls in paedophile checks U-turn

I don’t know why I found that funny. Maybe it was the presence of “balls” and “paedophile” in the same sentence.

This one, however, just struck me as being stupid:

Op Lets People Upgrade Their Eyes To HD

It says that people can now have an operation which will give them better than 20/20 vision, which they call “HD vision”. Leaving aside the inapplicability of the term “HD” to eyes, it follows that if people can fully appreciate HD videos (which I think we can), then we already have better than HD vision!

It’s just silly.