(Over the next few posts I will put up the videos)
Discussion between Thunderf00t (Physical Evidence and Reasoned Logic supporter (Pearlist)) and Ray Comfort (Creationist Christian).
Journal entry 22nd July 2009. (relevant bit, whole entry is too long for rest see beautyintheuniverse)
Up with dawnpeckish so found mcdonalds for breakfast. Back to Rays place where I had about 4 hrs to kill before our meeting at 11ish. Started adding placemarkers to the bible at the interesting bits I had found. By the time I had finished there was a lot of blue post it notes sticking out the bible. It has now also become clear to me that while my preferred modus opperandi has been in the defense of science, I have now read enough of the bible that I could utterly shred this shepherds myth. Its an interesting question should I set all the time I have spent going through the bible in detail to naught and just let Christianity have its peace, or should I actively engage in its demise. When the ministry opened at 9ish I went and introduced myself, and they gave me a rather officious line about not doing anything till the appointed time. No big deal for me, I put some effort into ordering the car and mending some bust electronics (resoldering wires etc). Stuff that had been put on the back burner for expediency on the road, but a more ordered man would have taken care of he went along. Saw Ray arrive by car, which raised an eyebrow as the 60 minutes thing said he cycled to work. Probably just he didnt want to cycle if he was going to be on camera. As a cyclist myself something I could empathize with. Ray is a small man, but chirpy and polite. Surprisingly Ray now informed me that there was no problem in me filming. Hmmm wtf?, but my only care at the time was the original deal was being honored. Shortly after he invited me in it was a little intro and pretty much straight down to business. The consequence of which was I only had a few minutes to brief him on points I wanted to raise. A point which I was keen on doing as I wanted the point I was making to survive robust scrutiny, and not to survive simply as they were bought up in real time (catching someone on the hop). The moments that raised an eyebrow for me was how quickly ray picked up on me lying to him, as an example of how religions are created an propagated. (by mechanism of the almighty Tod!) I am a poor liar. Its amazing though, how well even folk like ray can pick up on the bodylanguage. On watching the video you can see it all. How he gets uncomfortable and starts shuffling. I cant remember too much of the details (it was too much of a manic day) but I do remember seeing Ray being troubled by some of the points I was making. I could see the doubt of a man challenged with a concept altogether new to him. I could see it in his bodylanguage of his eyes. After that we went to lunch ray was buying. We took the camera man too who is obviously a hovind fan. Systematically I went through his points one by one and in the most mild of demeanors academically shredded them. The shame being that noone else at the table, other than myself would have been able to assess the academic veracity of my arguments. Ray offered to help me out by putting me up in a motel for a night (after a fashion). The offer was sincere and I think somewhat precipitated by rays sympathy for what he perceived as my hardship. I graciously thanked him for the offer but turned it down in that I like rough life in the wide open space. After lunch ray gave me a tour of the ministry. The place clearly oozes with money. Rays artifacts are very coy (a skeleton for the cupboard etc) He also has a collection of fake hominids not something to inspire someone with confidence about ones academic footing.
Then had a long chat with the camera man about the history of the earth (using the correlated history of earth poster). One by one I cut down the hovind arguments, and eventually all he had left was to simply say there are both sides of the argument.
Its amazing testament to the feedback mechanisms of the mind, that even after the foundations of his belief had been systematically and academically removed till none remained that he was still sure that there was two sides to the argument. Then had another chat with ray, which I wish I had recorded.. mostly about the bible. The things I really remember was that Ray believes in witches, wizards, demons and sorcerers. Hmmm thats usually a end of conversation type moment. He also thinks that the holocaust was gods way of punishing the jews. I told him very clearly that that was not going to make him very popular if he voiced such opinions in public.
Ray left and I spent an hour talking with his graphic design man. He clearly wasnt greatly interested in talking about points of contest, and we got on very well. He was a model maker and pilot. We talked teccie for an hour or so. A good guy!
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