Ray Comfort
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[edit] Definition
Ray Comfort is an American evangelist and Creationist.
[edit] Apologetics
Like many creationists, Ray Comfort suffers from the disability of not knowing what the theory of evolution actually is (see the section below on Ray Comfort's bogus "challenge"). His association with Kirk Cameron, of "Bananas: The Atheist's Worst Nightmare" fame, and the fact that he himself uses the Argument from Bananas, gives you some idea of the man's intellectual caliber.
Ray Comfort and Cameron have publicly debated the existence of God against atheist opponents, giving a performance so poor that other Christians found it regrettable[1]. Again, his big problem seems to be total ignorance of his opponents' views.
[edit] Ray Comfort's Bogus Challenge
Ray Comfort claims to offer a prize of $10,000 for anyone who can produce a transitional form. As the fossil record is knee deep in such forms (see, for example, the article Intermediate Forms Between Classes) it is necessary for Comfort to completely redefine the phrase "transitional form". In his own words:
- I will give $10,000 to the first person who can prove to me that they have found a genuine living transitional form (a lizard that produced a bird, or a dog that produced kittens, or a sheep that produced a chicken, or even an Archaeopteryx—a dinosaur that produced a bird).
So what he is actually asking for is an example of a sudden saltation without any transitional forms in between, something which the theory of evolution says is impossible (for more information, see the article on mutations).
He therefore finds himself in the absurd position of offering $10,000 for evidence which would falsify the theory of evolution at a single stroke. This is a technique he appears to have learnt from his fellow-creationist and convincted fraudster Kent Hovind, who also has a bogus "challenge" to produce evidence for events which scientists agree never ever happened.
