Destinations: Ray Vs. Atheists @ Huntington Beach

Oct 20, 2010Steve Sanchez15 CommentsAA- EVANGELISM SCHEDULE, Famous Lost Words

Lately, a contingent of atheists has been visiting/heckling Ray Comfort regularly in Huntington Beach. Everyone loves them because they draw larger crowds which allows for more people to hear the preaching of the Gospel. You might say that a vociferous unbeliever is an evangelist’s best friend. In the video, witness an atheist fail miserably when confronted with the logic that Ray Comfort exclaims from the box.

If you’d like to join the excitement, we’re going this Saturday. Meet at Hope Chapel at noon to carpool.

Also below, read about how my then 8-year-old daughter dealt with these atheists on that very same day.

My Daughter Confronts the Atheist

My daughter D.D. and I visited Ray Comfort and his team on Saturday down at the Huntington Beach Pier where we encountered a bunch of evangelistic atheists. One rather caustic man, Frank, challenged my daughter after I asked her this question in front of him: “D.D., is there a God?”

D.D. replied matter-of-factly, “Yes!”

With a smile, I pointed out to Frank that even an 8-year-old child knows that God exists. Click here to read the rest.

Comments (15)

BathTub
October 20, 2010
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Can you think of anything more ridiculous than grown men making videos, publishing books, handing out tracts, trying to change laws, about science they don’t believe exists?
Your link is broken.
Glenn Parker
October 20, 2010
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Sure! How about people who claim to believe in science buying into a “scientific” hypothesis that can neither be tested (a particular requirement for application of the scientific method), nor observed. (for the astute among us, that’s not science at all)
Let’s see…if a frog instantly becomes a prince, that’s a fairy tale. If we insert X years (X is equal to the required number of years, although no one can know what that is), then it’s science. How’s THAT?
I think I’ll try that in my next engineering project. If it doesn’t work as I designed it to, I’ll just throw in an unknown time variable and see if that solves the problem.
Garrett
October 21, 2010
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A prince is a title, not a species. I’m not sure if that error can be corrected by science or english class, Gleen. Maybe you should head back to both!
BathTub
October 21, 2010
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Except Glenn you did the standard by the book Creationist lying about science. You deliberately misrepresented the scientific position to make an invalid point.
And the funniest thing is I didn’t say a word about evolution. My statement was equally valid for Physics, Geology, Cosmology, Chemistry, etc, etc, etc…. That’s why I used “Science”
Of course it’s entirely possible that you didn’t understand what I said because it was a basically a cut and paste of what Steve had just said. And he’s deleted it. Guess he felt convicted. The fact that the link that was broken, is now fixed should have clued you in to that.
Nohm
October 23, 2010
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Glenn,
The important part is the proposed mechanism, which you did not mention. It’s not simply an issue of “X amount of years”; it’s an issue of “this mechanism happened for X amount of years”.
See the difference?
It’s not “primate poofs into man over X amount of years”, it’s “primate, through this mechanism, evolves into man over a period of X amount of years”.
See the difference?
Nohm
October 23, 2010
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“If it doesn’t work as I designed it to, I’ll just throw in an unknown time variable and see if that solves the problem.”
Or maybe you’ll create a different algorithm, through many earlier attempts, over a period of time, and see if that solves the problem.
That’s a far more accurate analogy.
Glenn Parker
October 23, 2010
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Garrett:
I apologize for not being more formal in my writing! I keep forgetting that not everyone is a native English speaker. ‘Prince’ is a title given to certain humans, so of course using this term implies the species to which the title is typically applied. If there is ambiguity here, please point out other species on which we could properly bestow this title.
BathTub:
A little tongue-in-cheek humor never hurt anyone. However, you guys like to commit the “No True Scotsman” fallacy quite often. Any time you don’t like someone’s attack on the religion you call evolution, it is explained away as a ‘strawman’ or ‘misunderstanding’ of the true theory. The true theory, of course, can only be properly understood by those who agree with it.
I’ll admit I didn’t find any correlation between the words in Steve’s story and the ‘science they don’t believe in’ quip in your post. However, a quick search of my memory banks only pulled up one thing some would call ‘science’ that Christians might disagree with. It rhymes with ‘mevolution.’
Glenn Parker
October 23, 2010
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Nohm: That’s a nice try, but that introduces intelligence into the adaptive algorithm. We all know from information theory that unguided algorithms can’t do that.
Garrett
October 23, 2010
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Glenn, No True Scotsman is when you claim a person can’t be of a group because of their action. It’s where the name comes from: you tell me “No Scotsman would murder a man!” and I point out several Scottish murderers. You reply “Well no TRUE Scotsman would murder!”
This does not apply to a scientific theory. You should grab a biology textbook and learn the theory first.
BathTub
October 23, 2010
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No Glenn it’s usually the case that Creationists lump everything they disagree with under the heading of ‘Evolution’. The Hovinds are the classic example of this. The Big Bang? Evolution. Galaxy Formation? Evolution. Planet Formation? Evolution. Etc, Etc. This is a cornerstone of their ministry and many other equally ignorant people pick up on these useless definitions.
Again you are retreating in nonsense. You’ve picked up some creationist catch phrases and whip them out like they have any real meaning. Evolution (actual biological evolution) is being tested and observed every day by millions of scientists who make their work available for us to read. Go to pubmed and search for evolution and see how many research papers they have on hand. Ok I’ll save you the time, it’s currently 276,000.
But hey, I’m sure you and your pastor know better than the people out there doing the work right?
vintango2k
October 24, 2010
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Hmmm wish I had caught the comment earlier.
@ Glenn
You’ve fallen into a common misconception that ALL science has to be PHYSICALLY observed. To this day, we’ve never actually physically SEEN atoms, electrons, quarks, and the vast array of subatomic particles that make up virtually all normal matter in our vast universe. Their science, behavior, and the way they react, is determined by mathematics, I encourage you to research Heisenberg for more information, but don’t get sidetracked. But nonetheless we know that atoms exist, since they were first ‘discovered’ or rather proved by Einstein we’ve learned enough to harness the fission of their nuclei in such unstable elements such as uranium in order to do things like provide cheap power for people all over the world.
It was the discovery of atoms and the elements (ie. hydrogen, helium, carbon, zinc, etc. etc.) that lead to what is commonly called the Big Bang Theory, and it wasn’t simply ‘decided’ by scientists who were trying to disprove Genesis or God for that matter, but rather by physists
vintango2k
October 24, 2010
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physicists (Darn Enter key, I wish I could edit the posts) who were trying to explain the existence of the super dense, rather unstable, and radioactive elements, such as radium and uranimum. Our sun is constantly converting hydrogen into helium through a process of nuclear fusion, but even it is incapable of creating incredibly dense elements (dense meaning they have a high number of electrons, protons, and neutrons) and it wasn’t till the discovery of super novas that the theory really developed, but the nova didn’t explain the presence of hydrogen and excess helium elements contained within the sun and stars in general. Taking into account that the universe is expanding in size, galaxies flying apart from each other (That part IS physically obserable), etc. etc. you get the ‘Big Bang Theory’ an explanation of stellar drift and the source of the excess helium in the universe.
Garrett
October 24, 2010
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Getting back to your original post, Glenn, a frog doesn’t become a prince. Let’s be more accurate and say “human” since “prince” is our own made-up word for people who’s lineage is arbitrarily important to us. Regarding evolution: it’s irrelevant.
Your frog will never become a human. It doesn’t matter how much time passes. He’ll be a frog until he dies. Now, his offspring and the rest of the frog population’s offspring will deviate a bit from their parents. Same with the next generation. And the one after that. This will continue on for many, many years as the environment changes and frogs either die or are fortunate enough to be capable of adapting. At some point, these frogs may be so different from other populations of frogs that they cannot even breed with those other frogs. We cannot call them frogs anymore. No, they’re not going to be humans, but something still closely related to frogs. But if we repeat this process over and over, you could end up with a species such as humans.
Note that this is NOT necessarily what happened in reality. I’m just illustrating how you get one species and end up with another. And, of course, why time is so important. Cake batter doesn’t become cake instantly: it takes time. A river doesn’t erode rock away over night: it takes time.
This isn’t some cop-out, Glenn: animals have to breed over and over to get the build-up of mutations necessary to change to a new species.
Quasar
October 24, 2010
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However, you guys like to commit the “No True Scotsman” fallacy quite often. Any time you don’t like someone’s attack on the religion you call evolution, it is explained away as a ‘strawman’ or ‘misunderstanding’ of the true theory.
Her: Okay, let’s see where Glenns wonderfully self-serving logic… sorry, “logic” (forgot the sarcastiquotes)… leads us, shall we?
Evolutionist: “Creationism says that a magic flying beard made the world out of liquorice six thousand years ago.”
Creationist: “What? That’s not what…”
Evolutionist: “You’re commiting No True Scotsman!”
Hey Glenn, here’s a tip. If you don’t want your attacks to be derided as strawmen or misunderstandings, then a) STOP USING STRAWMEN and b) TAKE THE TIME TO UNDERSTAND THE THEORY BEFORE YOU ATTACK IT. You might also want to do the same for logical fallacies, because No True Scotsman doesn’t mean what you seem to think it means. At least, here in reality.
Me: “And when an imaginary female personification of sarcasm on the internet can claim to be more based in reality than you, you know there’s a problem.”
Her: “Shut up you.”
Nohm
October 26, 2010
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Glenn, you wrote: “The true theory, of course, can only be properly understood by those who agree with it.”
I don’t claim that, and I don’t know anyone who does.
Therefore, it’s a straw-man.
I have met creationists who actually do understand the theory’s claims.
You are not one of those people.
Therefore, our former statements are correct; you are attacking something that you don’t understand. Your lack of understanding is not because you disagree with it, just as my understanding is not because I “agree” (not at all the word I’d use, but it works okay here) with it.
So instead of trying to read our minds or put words in our mouths, why don’t you deal with what I pointed out before: the proposed mechanism.
What are your issues with the proposed mechanism?
If you don’t know what the mechanism is, LOOK IT UP.
As for your comment that “but that introduces intelligence into the adaptive algorithm. We all know from information theory that unguided algorithms can’t do that.”
1. Okay, let’s say that it introduces intelligence. No one is claiming that evolution couldn’t have been started by an intelligence (just that none is needed). That’s why there are “theistic evolutionists”. You’re still avoiding the mechanism.
2. It introduces intelligence ONLY because I was working off of your (incorrect) analogy. Of course the analogy breaks down, because it’s talking about a different thing.
3. Please show where “information theory” states that “unguided algorithms can’t do that.” And while you’re at that, please define what you mean by “unguided”. Because that’s like important and stuff.