RA VS RAY

"If ignorance of nature gave birth to gods, knowledge of nature is made for their destruction."
—PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY






Tonight I listened to a debate between Evangelist Ray Comfort and Atheist YouTuber Aron Ra. Before I get to the debate, let's review a few clips to get some background on these oratorical combatants.

Ray is most famous for his faux pas of describing in gloriously ignorant detail how the banana is the "atheist's nightmare" in one of his rather hokey inspirational videos, which seeks to prove the existence of god through empirical evidence. Or something close to empirical evidence...

It turns out that Ray was unaware that the banana has been modified by humans for thousands of years, and thus was not designed by god (similarly, god did not create the chihuahua). Once the mistake was made public, and Ray received ample ridicule for it, he admitted his ignorance and then proceeded to "clearify" (read: "spin") his position by claiming god created man with the ability to modify the banana. This is the type of thing one should expect from a person desperately trying to square their beliefs (read: "bias") with science. But in an effort to give Ray the benefit of the doubt, here is a clip of Mr. Comfort debating an atheist, and clearly he thinks he is winning.

Ok, that's enough of Ray for the time being.

Aron Ra is one of the most well known YouTube atheists (that's a thing, right?), and has a series of videos which point out "foundational falsehoods" of creationism. The videos are informative and well made. Here is the 14th video in the series which critiques one of Ray Comfort's debates.

Without giving too much away, the debate between Ray and Aron was a clash between reason and rationalization. Ray relied almost entirely on word games and trying to back Aron into a corner of hypotheticals and variable word meanings. Aron countered with reason, clear definitions, and actual evidence every time Ray opened his mouth. I have never before seen a theologian squirm and back pedal in a debate so much. Enjoy!