A Comfort-less Introduction

I was informed a few days ago that Ray Comfort's new "introduction" to Darwin's On the Origin of Species was available online, so I went and looked at it.

http://assets.livingwaters.com/pdf/OriginofSpecies.pdf

Well, I wasted 20 minutes of my morning reading it (GAHHHH!!!!!! THE STUPID!!!!! IT BURNS!!!!!!eleventyone!!!!!!)

Actually, the first 8 pages aren't too bad as a historical summary of Darwin's life and publication record. It wasn't great (I've seen far better books and articles that recapitulate his life in far more detail and accuracy), but at least it wasn't completely off-kilter and full of lies. Unfortunately, I can't say that for the remaining 86% of the "introduction".

Seriously, Ray Comfort is an idiot. Not just a little bit, but a full-blown, off-the-charts, willfully stupid and arrogantly unintelligent idiot. He's been shown dozens of times the basics of evolution, and where his "ideas" about it are wrong, and yet he continues to bleat out this mangled, inept, not-even-wrong version of crap. And the whole Pascal's Wager bullshit over the last dozen or so pages (convienently rewritten as being pushed out of an airplane at 10,000 feet) is so overblown and underthought, that one would think Comfort's head would be enough to keep one afloat at that altitude (he's definitely got enough hot air, and he's sucked way too much helium for even a dozen people to survive).

I'll admit, when I got to the section labelled "His Famous Student", I was actually expecting something about Huxley or Dawkins or Gould. Then I realized it was just a series of out-of-context quotes. Then I had my own "Uhh....wait.....what?...." moment (quite literally, actually) when I realized after the second quote from Darwin that he switched to quoting Hitler. Ummm... Poe's Law, anyone? And of course, there's no mention anywhere of the quotes from Hitler praising God, proclaiming his devotion to Christianity, and his emphasis on doing "God's work" throughout his life. Gee -- selection bias, maybe?

At that point, I almost gave up. Actually, I almost threw up (uggh... don't you hate that burning, awful taste of puke rising in the back of your throat, especially when you manage to swallow it back down? YUCK!!), but I managed to keep from yacking on my keyboard, and kept reading. Lucky for me, I didn't drink myself stupid last night, Ray's next few pages felt like it crashed my IQ at least 20 points. I don't think I could have survived the loss of that many brain cells twice in 24 hours.

AAAACCCKKKK!!!!! PPPPBBTHHH!!!! (Damn! Now I'm quoting Bill the Cat. A sure sign I'm a few braincells short this morning. Thanks, Ray!)

The bludgeoning of the transition from bashing Darwin to shoving Pascal's Wager down the pipe is simply breathtaking in it's absence of logic and rationality. Absolutely guaranteed to cause your synapses to misfire (not just a few -- all of them). In fact, I'm not sure I can even manage to stand up now -- I'm that overwhelmed by the stupidity. I think I need a drink (maybe a dozen or two) to restore my sanity.

What a maroon! What a fool! What a waste of time. I tearfully regret that I won't be able to regain the time lost while reading this crap, and I hope my wife likes wiping up drool, because I'm not sure how functional my brain is going to be from now on. It really is that bad.