Ray Comfort

[CyborgKin]

http://send.livingwaters.com/display.php?L=6&N=407

Quote

Money Back Guarantee

If “The Atheist Delusion” doesn’t delight you, and bring you to a point of tears, we will joyfully refund your $19.99 and you can keep the extra materials.

I wonder how much evidence he requires...

[alexandracabot]

I've been curious about it. Sort of want to order it and get my $19.99 back by saying I'm still an atheist (though I guess I'm more of an agnostic).

The last "feature film" they did, on homosexuality, was so truly awful and simpleminded it made me laugh. I can totally see how an evangelical watching it would think the movie would be incredibly convincing to gays, though. This gay person just found it embarrassingly misguided.

Enjoy the link:

 

[Lurky]

wow, I'm 2 mins into that video, and so far it's all horrible racist stereotypes...  I'm waiting with bated breath to see how it can get worse! 

[CelticGoddess]

16 hours ago, Lurky said:

wow, I'm 2 mins into that video, and so far it's all horrible racist stereotypes...  I'm waiting with bated breath to see how it can get worse! 

I got 2 mins in and decided that my life is too short.  Sheesh.  

And why didn't she start the bloody car?  

[CyborgKin]

1 hour ago, CelticGoddess said:

I got 2 mins in and decided that my life is too short.  Sheesh.  

And why didn't she start the bloody car?  

Spoiler:

Spoiler

That guy turns out to actually be heroically saving her life from an oncoming train.  Surprise plot twist!

 

Also, the offensive commedian:

*sigh*

[Lurky]

I skipped forward to the end after 5 mins because I couldn't cope - I got to some hideously offensive spot and felt life was too short, so could some kind FJer point me to a précis please?

@CyborgKin 

Spoiler

ONCOMING TRAIN???  Why was she parked on a railway line??????

 

[imokit]

7 hours ago, Lurky said:

I skipped forward to the end after 5 mins because I couldn't cope - I got to some hideously offensive spot and felt life was too short, so could some kind FJer point me to a précis please?

@CyborgKin 

  Hide contents

ONCOMING TRAIN???  Why was she parked on a railway line??????

 

Because it reflects the belief that atheists and gays are stupid enough to do so and it gives them an opportunity to save them.

[CyborgKin]

IIRC (been a long time) it starts out with a dream sequence in which a creepy old homophobic guy causes the elevator-related death of a nice lesbian couple, which causes the main character to realise God is telling him he needs to actually talk to gay people or else it'll be partly his fault they go to hell.  But he's afraid to do this cos he thinks as soon as he tells them he's a Chrisitian they'll get angry at him and think he's being intolerant or something.

It's weird hiw many cars stop on the tracks in Christian films.  Fireproof did it to.  I forget how she got there.  I think that's never explained, it just messes with the sudience making it look like this scary guy is trying to break into her car and then surprise!, he saves her life and isn't our metaphor for how people don't get how Christians are trying to help them clever, audience?

There was also a scene where the main character talks to a gay couple in a restsurant and one guy just doesn't want to hear him and the other guy is kinda interested.

And at the end the movie returns to the comedy club and whoever was meant to be performing isn't there so the main character manages to summon his courage to step up and tell not particularly funny jokes and I think that's how it ends.

I forget how most of the scenes actually connect.  Quite a bit has nothing directly to do with them premise of the film, it's just building the characters.

Oh and there was a scene where someone watches Ray Comfort videos on the internet.  Good person test stuff I think.

[FloraKitty35]

6 hours ago, imokit said:

Because it reflects the belief that atheists and gays are stupid enough to do so and it gives them an opportunity to save them.

Funny, I went to Reason Rally and Ray Comfort's supporters were incredibly stupid (and obnoxious). 

[Lurky]

Thank you @CyborgKin, I'm choking with laughter right now...  If only someone was here to break my windows and save me!

Quote

But he's afraid to do this cos he thinks as soon as he tells them he's a Chrisitian they'll get angry at him and think he's being intolerant or something.

Oh, and it's weird how, as a gay woman, I have this opinion!  I must be sooooooooo intolerant ;-D  (I always laugh at the stereotypes that LGBTQ people try to convert straight people, and imagine the equivalent of street preaching, etc etc)

[Hane]

One could drive a Mack truck through the holes in Ray Comfort's "logic" here. I wonder why none of his interviewees said, "Sorry--I'm an atheist" or "Yes, I believe in God, but do not believe that the Bible is God's literal word" or "Why are you drawing a parallel between sins that harm people and actions that don't?"

Our Hero successfully un-gayed at least two people in this video. And he was so gosh-darn sweet about it, y'all!

[Elegant Mess]

On August 4, 2016 at 3:10 AM, CyborgKin said:

http://send.livingwaters.com/display.php?L=6&N=407

I wonder how much evidence he requires...

What if the movie does bring me to tears, but not for the reasons he suspects?  Will I still get my money back? 

[CyborgKin]

From a recent email newsletter from Ray Comfort:

( https://send.livingwaters.com/display.php?C=1b17305c7271df5da2921ec28c9e2063&S=1045&L=6&N=527 )

Both those titles seem like incredibly poor choices to me, and putting them together like that makes it worse, and then for the cherry on top they followed it up by by forcing Ray's face upon us.  That title followed by that face makes me want to hurry to do anything else but watch the video.

Also Ray needs to stop calling his endless series of collections of snippets of interviews, street preaching, and rehashes of the good person test 'movies'.

[dairyfreelife]

One, his statistics are off. Yes, for young people, the second leading cause of deaths is suicide and next to that is homicide. I watched the trailer and wonder if he got permission to use those clips at the end. They are from a documentary called The Bridge. It's a good documentary, but also controversial and hard to watch. It's about the high rate of suicides from the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. All Comfort chose to show was two people jumping from that documentary. The original doc caught those suicides and interviewed family and friends of those who took their own life from the bridge. That is what made the doc so powerful because you don't just see it happening, but you hear from witnesses, from friends, from family members about the people behind those shots. I can't see Comfort doing that ever. He deals in one dimension, one way, black or white. He cannot do empathy or emotional appeal about anything. I saw The Atheist Delusion, I saw 180, I've seen his stupid good person segments, it's all one straight line. He's awful at making documentaries and it's so obvious what he's trying to do and where he's trying to go and what insane editing he did to get there it's just pathetic. Sure, most docs have plans or agendas even, but a good doc works hard and tries to get you to understand and see their side. Even if you don't agree, you can at least get where the filmmaker was coming from and why. Comfort can't do that. I don't think he's capable. He thinks one thing, has one goal in mind and only one reason for why that is. As a result he works with numerous fallacies and crazy editing to get to his point. Books can't come from nowhere, they have a creator, therefore humans also have a creator, the end. Anyone who tries to question is shut down as stupid and poorly, if I might add. This argument fails because everything doesn't have a creator necessarily and the biggest of all, if something can't come from nothing, then where did their god come from? And circular logic again. 

So, if it shows up soon as free on YT or something, I've take a gander and see how worthless this one is also. 

In 2014, the latest statistics from the CDC, nearly 43K people committed suicide that year. You know Comfort won't go into the racial disparities in suicide or the gender ones either. FYI, his increase is also incorrect there. It's a 24% increase from 1999-2014, before that it was actually in a small decline in the 1980s to mid 1990s. Females have jumped much higher than males and those middle aged have increased the most, not the age group he mentions. Also, his celebrity supposed appeal with depression and suicide isn't really correct. Various stars saying they are depressed means nothing on suicide if they didn't attempt or commit it. Only one on the list mentioned that did was Robin Williams. He mentions Carrie Fischer and George Michael also, both recently deceased so he's going for recent news appeal with them saying they had depression. Neither committed suicide however, so unsure where he's going with that exactly. He can talk about the increases in young people, but the highest rates of suicide are still actually among middle-age for men and women. I guarantee Comfort will ignore the fact that suicide rates are highest among Native Americans and Alaska Natives also. None of that appeals to his point and he knows why even when all experts don't and he will ignore any factors that contribute to suicide biologically, or from society or externally or internally, and doubt he'll even mention helplines. Emotionally appealing topics containing no emotional appeal, that's Comfort's game. 

[Howl]

I'm sure he'd never mention the rate of suicide in situations/homes where guns and ammo are readily available or instances of murder-suicide during divorce/breakup. 

[CyborgKin]

@dairyfreelife I have to say I appreciate the time and effort you put into your post, beyond what my mere upvote can convey.  You've done a good job of highlighting Ray Comfort's specific problems/shortcomings, which is far more useful than mere snarking (not that snarking isn't fun).  That's the sort of discussion I'm very pleased to have prompted, not that I can really take any credit.  So, thanks!

[SadieJane]

I work with suicidal people between the ages of 14-24. I love what I do and I love my patients, but I will tell you for every ten patients I see within the age range I mentioned, I see roughly 50 middle aged suicidal patients ( they aren't my specialty, but yeah). The suicide rates are high for teenagers, but compare them to adults and it's nothing.

[chaotic life]

Carrie Fisher died of sleep apnea which caused s heart attack. But she had Bipolar NOT depression.

Robin Williams died of Lewy Body dementia. The depression Williams was thought to have was actually a symptom of his disease that was misdiagnosed until autopsy.

George Michael. Maybe he had depression. I do not know. I do know he too died of a heart condition, one most commonly inherited or caused by a viral infection.

Not sure what Comfort hopes to prove by citing three cases who died of known medical conditions and not mental health issues and only Williams even could be argued was suicide. But if you know anything about Lewy Body dementia you would know why his widow does not consider it suicide but rather a symptom of his devastating and rapidly professing disease process.

[dramallama]

On 7/11/2017 at 2:05 PM, Howl said:

I'm sure he'd never mention the rate of suicide in situations/homes where guns and ammo are readily available or instances of murder-suicide during divorce/breakup. 

Or the epidemic of suicides of young LGBT people in Utah where the anti-LGBT messaging of the Mormon church still has a lot of power.

[Flossie]

17 hours ago, dramallama said:

Or the epidemic of suicides of young LGBT people in Utah where the anti-LGBT messaging of the Mormon church still has a lot of power.

Remember Todd Herzog, who won "Survivor: China" in 2007?  He's an openly gay Mormon from Pleasant Grove, Utah.  It was one of the last seasons I watched, although I admit that I was at the point where I had the show on in the background while I did other things, but I remember Todd. 

I was surprised that he admitted to being gay, being a Mormon, and somehow I came away from the show thinking that the Mormon church had become more accepting of gays and other nontraditional people.  Todd has since battled alcoholism, and has appeared on Dr. Phil several times.  I guess I should have watched the Dr. Phil shows, but I really dislike Phil, so I passed.  Does anyone know if Todd has mentioned how the Mormons have helped or hurt his fight against alcoholism?

[Howl]

If he's the guy on Dr. Phil, I'm amazed that he's still alive.  He had a relapse in Nov. 2016  after four months of sobriety and Dr. Phil intervened.  Really, the guy was on death's door, and he was taken directly to an ER, with a BAC of .5.  The times I saw him on  Dr. Phil, he was too drunk to be able to discuss anything in a rational way.  Can't find any other updates.