Tuesday, July 29, 2008

I make nice with Ray Comfort

No surprise, Ray Comfort offered a jeering post about Patrick's threat of a lawsuit on his blog. That's the biggest problem with taking this kind of ill-conceived action, and it's completely predictable. It gives the opponent completely justified moral high ground from which to criticize you, when before he was just slinging a fairly juvenile insult.

So I wrote my own comment there, pointing out that Patrick does not represent all atheists, and that in fact we dedicated a fair bit of show time to criticizing him over the weekend. Ray didn't let the comment go unedited: I tried to supply a link to the video and audio broadcasts, and he says he doesn't allow any links from commenters. Meh? I think that's a silly policy, but I read the rules now and it wasn't just me. In any case, Ray was kind enough to personally post the comment himself, sans the links. So if nothing else, I know he's read it.

If you want a score count, I estimated that the total number of emails sent concurrently to Patrick and us, as of this morning, is pretty close to 50. I've stopped reading them all carefully, so it's possible that I've missed something. However, my back-of-the-envelope calculations show that somewhere around, um, oh, call it 100% of the emailers agree with us. Patrick's response seems to be that they are all now self-admitted fools, and that since all the atheists in the world have not emailed him, everyone who didn't explicitly say he's wrong must secretly be on his side.

Face, meet desk. Ow!


Hmmm... it looks like Ray just made a special post to highlight my comment, and also claims that Patrick wishes to withdraw his suit based on these emails. I notice that Ray is aggressively avoiding a link back, even cutting out the name of the show. Typical. Now I feel better, because I can't handle having sympathetic feelings toward Ray for too long. ;)

5 comments:

  1. Ray "can't alloow links"? I know it's petty to point out typos, but it was only one sentence.

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  2. Judging by Ray's past modus operandi, he'll save his post and repeatedly publish it every few weeks for the next year or so, selectively edited to purport a semblance of originality. And every time he does, his sycophants will congratulate him on his victory anew, tell each other to watch Hell's Best Kept Secret, and bury any point there once might have been in McArthur quotes. *sigh*

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  3. I'm glad Matt went over to Comfort's blog and asked him why he deleted the name The Atheist Experience and the ACA. That really is pitiable, to refuse to "risk" your followers having their minds tainted by actually visiting the ACA site. Way to go, asshat.

    BTW. . .I was one who sent a letter to Patrick Greene, and I'm kinda disappointed I didn't get a flippant response - or any response at all. If I do, I'll be sure to share!

    Cheers,

    ReplyDelete
  4. When Ray says he doesn't allow anyone to post links, he's lying. He doesn't allow atheists to post links. He lets one of the Christian trolls that frequent his site to post links all the time, because that individual (Terry Burton) pimps Ray's merchandise. Ray has been called on it many times, and just ignores the complaints and lets the practice continue. It's one of the reasons many of the atheists who are regular posters to his site have stopped posting in protest.


    When Ray first mentioned the "National Atheist Day--April 1st" bumper stickers on his blog, a clever atheist commenter replied that a good counter to it would be for atheists to put out a similar sticker that said something like:

    "National God Day--February 30th"



    I think it's the perfect reply. I wonder how much it would cost to whip up a batch?

    ReplyDelete
  5. I'd just like to thank the Atheist Experience blog for introducing me to Ray Comfort's Atheist Central blog. I have a confession to make. I love your blog and television show mainly because I love to see the willfully ignorant get pwned. It's really become my favorite spectator sport.

    So it was with no small amount of glee that, upon following the link in the article, I found myself confronted with article after article after article of Ray's half truths, willful omissions, and outright lies...complete with rebuttals from some seemingly competent atheists.

    And Matt, I wish Ray would take you up on your offer to debate. I've watched the excerpts of his debate with the Rational Response Squad that are posted on the Way of the Master YouTube account. While I appreciate that they did a MUCH better job than I could have, I thought they let a few things Ray and Kirk said slide and could've been a little more prepared. If Ray's ever watched the Atheist Experience, though, I doubt he'll consider it.

    Anyway, I have added Mr. Comfort's blog to my favorites list for future enjoyment. So once again, thanks. However, I must inform you that I hold this blog (The Atheist Experience) directly responsible for my not getting ANY work done, today. You will be hearing from my lawyer. ;D

    ReplyDelete

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