This should be funny and not just because Kirk Cameron used to co-star in a sitcom. He and creationist Ray Comfort have challenged the guys who set up The Blasphemy Challenge to a debate and ABC has agreed to host it. You may remember Kirk and Ray from the wildly funny video in which they claim that the banana is an “atheist’s nightmare” because God made it so it would fit in our hands perfectly thus proving God exists or something.
Here’s the real kicker of this bit of news: Comfort is claiming he will scientifically prove the existence of God:
“Most people equate atheism with intellectualism,” Comfort added, “but it’s actually an intellectual embarrassment. I am amazed at how many people think that God’s existence is a matter of faith. It’s not, and I will prove it at the debate – once and for all. This is not a joke. I will present undeniable scientific proof that God exists.
I wonder what odds the bookmakers are giving for Comfort trying to whip out his banana argument. If he does it’ll just be that much funnier. As for Cameron, well, here’s what he’s going to add to this circus…
Cameron (“Growing Pains” sitcom and Left Behind movies) will speak on what he believes is a major catalyst for atheism: Darwinian evolution. The popular actor stated, “Evolution is unscientific. In reality, it is a blind faith that’s preached with religious zeal as the gospel truth. I’m embarrassed to admit that I was once a naïve believer in the theory. The issue of intelligent design is extremely relevant at the moment. Atheism has become very popular in universities—where it’s taught that we evolved from animals and that there are no moral absolutes. So we shouldn’t be surprised when there are school shootings. Cameron will also reveal what it was that convinced him that God did exist.
Oooo! I can hardly wait to hear what stunning revelation convinced Kirk to become a True Believer™!
Mark your calendars for May 5th as that’s when the hilarity will begin.
These guys are a true believer’s nightmare!
It always amazes me how these True Believers™ are so arrogant.
Maybe the ignominy of actually starring in “Growing Pains” drove him to religion.
In my experiences and observations I’ve noticed that arrogance frequently walks hand-in-hand with insecurity.
In the interests of fair play, I think that it would be unsporting for Cameron and Comfort to have to debate the Blasphemy Challenge people. I suggest that they debate the banana. My money’s on the banana.
It’s funny watching arrogant peopel who love self-martyrdom(oh, im a sinner, i deserve hell, i deserve to suffer, i am meaningless!) try and do the world a favor, its so…..unnatural.
But, it should be worth a few laughs. What I beliebe already has this sort of thing taken care of, not with bananas, but with thermal imaging cameras. itll be a lovely day when they have evp detectors and thermal cameras during a church service.
the worst part is, the vatican or the christian coalition might actually sponsor that sort of thing.
That video is wrong! Everyone knows you don’t open the banana from the stem, you pinch the “bottom” and then peel it open. Even monkeys know that. (or is it apes? Creationists have me confused)
Even if that argument made sense, how is that an argument for Christianity and not Islam? Or Zoroastrianism? There are plenty of religions out there claiming their gods created the world.
Proof would have to tie in with science, and so would come from data from analytical machines.
If god did exist, he would have to be in a dimension that we don’t currently observe. All analytical machines operate entirely within the dimensions that we do observe, so will never be able to directly probe that other dimension. A kind of double-coupling to produce something physical might be possible, but you couldn’t keep track of this if wou can’t measure what your physical object (that has unobserved components) is coupling with
The existence of god can never be proven or disproven so long as we are unable to observe that other dimension, and you never know if there’s more to trick you after that.
I never really thought of it this way before…but misery does love company!
Yeah, and all other fruit doesn’t support god’s existence.
Have a banana.
I’ve got a melon with a carrying handle, and a apple thats Firewire compliant.
Ok, I had never seen the banana video before. Holy cow! I think my brain had a joke overload! I need some aspirin.
Same video, with facts added.
My penis fits perfectly in my hand. Is God suggesting I should masterbate?
You must have some seriously big hands, LH
Just don’t let any of the issue fall into the dust. That’s a -BIG- fuckin’ no no.
seems a little strange to come to the conclusion that the banana was made to fit the hand, not that the hand was made to fit the banana
Bananas. How appropriate.
P.S. All four of your current Google ads are offering proof of the existence of god.
I’ll take this as a compliment (but strust me- the old one about it’s not the size o the liner, but the motion of the ocean is perfectly true.)
Course I’m not the only one dragging this into the gutter
Justice, that doesn’t surprise me. It’s contextually driven, but that doesn’t mean it’s intelligent in its decision making.
Right now the four ads consist of “Is there a God?”, “Intelligent Design and God”, “Are you an atheist?”, and “Freethinking and FFRF.” The latter two being for the Council of Secular Humanism and the Freedom From Religion Foundation so my Google ad has a 50/50 split of religion/atheism in it.
Kinda funny but the banana they are debating isn’t really a natural creation. The yellow banana was selectively breed to have those specific characteristics like the oh so nice hand grip and the convenient size. Nature has also other species of bananas however they aren’t nearly as refined as the one presented within the film. Sorry to say this but that banana is as much a human creation as a natural creation. It’s like claiming God created the light bulb. Sure he created tungsten however it was Edison that put it properly together. One could claim that God gave the light bulb idea to Edison however that opens a whole new can of worms; such as the claim hence that free will does not exist. Based on my understanding that claim didn’t go very far. It is laughable how their proofs shoot themselves in the foot; there are many “better” examples out there. Reminds me of the peanut jar argument. Life cannot happen spontaneously, especially if it is in a sterilized environment. If you seal and sterilize a environment, no life would seek to inhabit it. You wouldn’t expect mould in your peanut butter as all microbes have been removed from it. If the jar was allowed to sit for a couple of months, then maybe he would have noticed something. An utter shame more so that people believe such faulty arguments.
I just went over there and took their what do you know about the bible quiz.
I’m pretty stoked cos I got 28 outa 50 correct.
If I didn’t really know the answer I selected the most ridiculous or most obscene.
Obviously I didn’t choose those ones often enough.
Well, it must have happened at least once, or we wouldn’t be here…
If you liked that you might want to try some of the biblical quizes over at the Landover baptist website(landoverbaptist dot org).
My calendar is definitely marked!!!
For some reason, the phrase “giving Comfort to the enemy” knocks around in my mind…
I’ve taken a copy of that quiz. Some useful little bible passages in there for use in the story.
Even if those worthy gentlemen “prove” “God’s” existence, some other sect will claim they are false prophets and such, if they disagree with the pronouncements, if any, of the proven deity.
I took the quiz: 39 correct, woo hoo! All those lessons I took from the Seventh Day Adventists finally paid off!
The Human Penis….the True Believer’s™ nightmare!
I guess I should clarify this point more. In a sterilized closedsystem life cannot happen. It could have happened spontaneously however I really can’t substantiate it. Other factors have to be considered, such as the environment at that time.
Whilst earth isn’t a closed system, if you make the assumption that the universe (or multiverse) is closed then you have the same problem. Whatever system contains everything in existence (the top of the heirarchy) is automatically closed.
What if the universe is expanding? Can it still be considered closed? Will the 2nd Law still apply?
Yes and yes.
JulianP- Think of it like a bubble that encapsulates everything. The bubble can expand in volume but nothing will come in from outside and the total quantity of mass and energy will be constant(It’s theorised that the total quantity of energy in the universe is 0 because matter and energy are interconvertable and cancel out exactly). Volume and time do change with time and as parameters you have a point that they change, but in terms of energy (and hence matter) the system is closed. Life is made of matter and energy so was within the closed system.
Life (or other existence) would have had to start from within a theoretical bubble that encapsulated everything in existence, and wherever it did start the only explanation I can find is that there was a spontaneous step. On other issues the big bang itself might just be a spontaneous thing, and the laws of physics might have been what they are due to the strong anthropic principle when bearing in mind the oppertunities for combinations of values given by multiverse theory
The 2nd law of thermodynamics, entropy, favours the expansion of the volume of the universe/bubble because it creates more oppertunities for randomness.
Especially for Leviticus
Wouldn’t the banana fit an ape’s hand too?
And it probably fits better as well…
Fits in your hand…curved to pop right into your mouth…just the right size for a human mouth…
You know, I think I’ve heard something like that banana argument before…when I was in high school…on a date with this guy…and he was trying to talk me into something…
There are further similarities – sliced banana goes well with salad
Your not slicing mine!
So, did anybody watch this? I didn’t see it. What was it like?
-from Friendly Atheist
I can’t wait either. I hope someone utubes it.
Ya know, it amazes me how like Christians you guys are. You sit around and make fun of the other’s beliefs, tearing apart their really weak arguments, as if you were the most brilliant people ever, while keeping yourself safe from their good arguments by ignoring them. It’s funny, because Christians do the same thing. They laugh at the Big Bang Theory, but then ignore the actual good evidence there is for evolution. As a Christian, it surprises me, because I thought athiests were more objective than Christians, but it turns out everyone’s the same.
What’s amazing? We’re all human. If people say silly things, for instance that the banana was designed by God to fit the human hand, then we make fun of their beliefs. But if you have any good arguments for the existence of God, they will not be ignored. Mind you, we’ve heard lots of them. Check out the archives here. You can start with this thread. Here’s another discussion. Of course, there’s lots of funpoking, but also serious consideration of the Argument from Design, the Argument from First Cause, etc.
Aaron, if you have a new argument for the existence of God, I’d love to hear it.
Ya know, it amazes me how like Christians you guys are.
What would be one of those ‘good’ arguments that we ignore, Aaron? As of yet, I haven’t heard anything even close…
Um, y’all – you’d better watch out for Aaron; except for his spelling ‘atheists’ incorrectly, which even I’ve done on occasion, he got every other word right and his use of the apostrophe, thrice, was something to behold.
Aaron, many of us here like having a bit of fun and as yet there’s no law against it.
Many of us here also like freedom but there are plenty of laws against what many of us would consider basic freedoms, the main one being Freedom FROM Religion.
It’s not as bad here in Oz as it is where you are but the cretins are rattling their cages. Just because they’re enslaved by quaint superstitions they believe everyone else should be too and, personally, I will use any means possible to Shout Freedom and show them the error of their delusions and if you or any other slave of Jesus can’t handle it please feel free to go play in another playground.
Please show me a strong one; is there more than one?
Why the big surprise? The only basic difference between you and me is that I believe in the existence of one less god than you do.
It seems believing in deities is rather time consuming and that means that I have much more free time than you.
If you think of all the time you spend (waste) adhering to mental and physical rituals or thinking about how lucky you are cos you’re going to the heaven in the clouds as well as getting 72 virgins if you can find the Muslim area in heaven … that’s a fair bit of time, isn’t it?
I enjoy my time mainly cos I don’t do guilt – you know that guilt you experience when you see a gorgeous young thing strut by and you have one of those mental fucks? There’s something to be said for freedom.
Zilch said what I was going to say so I won’t repeat it.
I’m human and I make no apologies for that.
As always—what zilch said. Unless it involves a female T-Rex
Last time I checked, Christians were human, too.
Compared to those who buy into these weak arguments, perhaps we are brilliant.
What good arguments would that be?
Of course, it would help if you’d start with a definition of a deity that leads to actual existential tests and allows for falsification.
If you spend any time on this site, you’ll learn that we make a distinction between Christians and True Believers™. Here’s a quote attributed to a well-known Christian apologist:
We don’t have to compartmentalize like the TBs, do we?
Aaron, I’m probably wasting my time saying this to you but the big bang and evolution have nothing to do with each other.
And please help me understand, from your theist perspective, what’s wrong with the big bang? It’s the one big scientific theory that sorta sounds like goddidit. All the matter in the universe create in the time it takes me to make a chicken sandwich? Not too shabby.
Aaron opines:
Why, yes we do.
Brilliance isn’t necessary in recognizing the absurdity of Comfort and Cameron’s claims.
I’m late to this go-round, but it bears repeating: what good arguments?
I think part of the reason for unresolved conflict is the emotionally charged stereotypes held by people like aaron towards members of atheism being egotistical, etc, which is why he’s trying to make it a personal attack which goes nowhere. Let’s not give feul to an emotionally charged conflict, and to do this and to have reasoned Q&A let neither side show anything that might provoke the other regardless of how unjust it might seem.
Aaron – if you have any questions about the scientific explanation or for some reason have difficulty accepting it, then address the issue directly, think about it and tell us what you don’t accept, but be willing to hear things you might not like. If this happens, think about it some more, try to be OK with it, or try to find a way to incorporate it into your beliefs so as to resolve the conflict. Think about my signature and the kind of benefits that thinking about things can bring in understanding and dealing with the world.
Well, how do you like that? Distant Claws and I both altered our handles on the same day.
Um, if you feel that atheists are more objective than Christians, and you’re a Christian, then shouldn’t you be questioning your perception of SEB because of your own admitted perception of your own personal biases? It seems like you’re trying to say something along the lines of, “I think that all atheists suck at math. I’m an atheist, and the numbers don’t add up.”
You mentioned poking holes in Christians’ really weak arguments? Well congratulations, you’ve just made a really weak argument. Ha-ha.