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Ray Comfort on the stupidity of atheism/atheists

According to the numbers, the odds are impossible, even if the earth were old. I disagree with Stephen Meyer on the age of the earth, as I believe he supports an old earth, whereas I believe in a biblical young earth (which science also supports - https://youtu.be/XAqzTuye4-g). Nevertheless, this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aA-FcnLsF1g) shows that even the supposed billions of years cannot produce functional, self-replicating genetic information--the odds are against it by many, many orders of magnitude.
Ever play cards? a standard deck has 52 cards in it. If you shuffle that deck, you will have produced a specific order of those cards. However, it is IMPOSSIBLE to have produced that order of cards. The odds of a deck of cards ending up in that exact order is 52 factorial (52 * 51 * 50.... etc..). Do the math. The result is approximately:

80,658,170,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

Odds are 1 in 80 trillion trillion trillion trillion.

a few billion years is NOTHING in comparison to that. And nature gets quite a bit more than 1 chance per year to "do something".

But yet, there you are.. sitting there with a particular order of cards in your hand that is so unlikely as to be REALLY impossible, complaining about how impossible something with tremendously higher odds of success is. funny, that.
 
It's like how evolutionists can't answer, "How did pregnancy evolve?" Pregnancy is either all or nothing. You can't have a 3 month pregnancy, then the next stage a 4 month pregnancy. It's all or nothing. Seems very unlikely pregnancy evolved gradually step by step.

Is this supposed to be a satire, with you mocking the creationists? Most creationists I know are smart enough and educated enough not to make up arguments that are this stupid and ignorant. This is a spoof, right?
 
Well, I’m a Christian. I’ve watched quite a few of his videos. Recently, I watched one where he explained this whole “banana” thing, and it seems like he is being unjustly ridiculed. There’s a video of his called The Atheist Delusion, in which he confront numerous atheists and asks them whether a book could write itself. That’s basically what we’re dealing with here: can random processes give rise to information? The answer is no. If a book cannot write itself, then neither could a genome, which is far more complex. No amount of evolutionist sophistry can change this basic fact.

A sequence of self-replicating chemicals cannot possibly form through natural means in the presence of energy gradients.
But, an intelligent, all-powerful creator entity, infinitely more complex than its creations just happens to exist.

Did you say "evolutionist sophistry"? :lol:
 
According to the numbers, the odds are impossible, even if the earth were old. I disagree with Stephen Meyer on the age of the earth, as I believe he supports an old earth, whereas I believe in a biblical young earth (which science also supports - https://youtu.be/XAqzTuye4-g). Nevertheless, this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aA-FcnLsF1g) shows that even the supposed billions of years cannot produce functional, self-replicating genetic information--the odds are against it by many, many orders of magnitude.
Ever play cards? a standard deck has 52 cards in it. If you shuffle that deck, you will have produced a specific order of those cards. However, it is IMPOSSIBLE to have produced that order of cards. The odds of a deck of cards ending up in that exact order is 52 factorial (52 * 51 * 50.... etc..). Do the math. The result is approximately:

80,658,170,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

Odds are 1 in 80 trillion trillion trillion trillion.

a few billion years is NOTHING in comparison to that. And nature gets quite a bit more than 1 chance per year to "do something".

But yet, there you are.. sitting there with a particular order of cards in your hand that is so unlikely as to be REALLY impossible, complaining about how impossible something with tremendously higher odds of success is. funny, that.

Now do the same thing with the human genome, which contains a total of about 3.1 billion nucleotides, each of which can be one of four distinct bases. What are the odds that asthete ends up with the exact sequence of 3.1 billion nucleotides that he was born with? How many zeros in the number of possible combinations? Does that mean asthete doesn't exist?
 
According to the numbers, the odds are impossible, even if the earth were old. I disagree with Stephen Meyer on the age of the earth, as I believe he supports an old earth, whereas I believe in a biblical young earth (which science also supports - https://youtu.be/XAqzTuye4-g). Nevertheless, this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aA-FcnLsF1g) shows that even the supposed billions of years cannot produce functional, self-replicating genetic information--the odds are against it by many, many orders of magnitude.
Ever play cards? a standard deck has 52 cards in it. If you shuffle that deck, you will have produced a specific order of those cards. However, it is IMPOSSIBLE to have produced that order of cards. The odds of a deck of cards ending up in that exact order is 52 factorial (52 * 51 * 50.... etc..). Do the math. The result is approximately:

80,658,170,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

Odds are 1 in 80 trillion trillion trillion trillion.

a few billion years is NOTHING in comparison to that. And nature gets quite a bit more than 1 chance per year to "do something".

But yet, there you are.. sitting there with a particular order of cards in your hand that is so unlikely as to be REALLY impossible, complaining about how impossible something with tremendously higher odds of success is. funny, that.

Now do the same thing with the human genome, which contains a total of about 3.1 billion nucleotides, each of which can be one of four distinct bases. What are the odds that asthete ends up with the exact sequence of 3.1 billion nucleotides that he was born with? How many zeros in the number of possible combinations? Does that mean asthete doesn't exist?

It means abiogenesis is an unlikely as his own existence.
I have a little trouble speaking with Christians that have no faith... math is math. Faith is faith. If you need math, it is because you lack faith.
 
It's like how evolutionists can't answer, "How did pregnancy evolve?" Pregnancy is either all or nothing. You can't have a 3 month pregnancy, then the next stage a 4 month pregnancy. It's all or nothing. Seems very unlikely pregnancy evolved gradually step by step.

Is this supposed to be a satire, with you mocking the creationists? Most creationists I know are smart enough and educated enough not to make up arguments that are this stupid and ignorant. This is a spoof, right?

No, it is not a spoof. I have asked this question many times and I am always met with radio silence. Pregnancy can not evolve step by step. Think of all the stuff you need for pregnancy inside the woman's body over 9 months. How did they evolve step by step?

It could be that I am ignorant of the subject and the answer is obvious. But, I have yet to see any evolutionist, even Dick Dawkins, explain how pregnancy evolved or came to be in the first place.
 
It's like how evolutionists can't answer, "How did pregnancy evolve?" Pregnancy is either all or nothing. You can't have a 3 month pregnancy, then the next stage a 4 month pregnancy. It's all or nothing. Seems very unlikely pregnancy evolved gradually step by step.

Is this supposed to be a satire, with you mocking the creationists? Most creationists I know are smart enough and educated enough not to make up arguments that are this stupid and ignorant. This is a spoof, right?

No, it is not a spoof. I have asked this question many times and I am always met with radio silence. Pregnancy can not evolve step by step. Think of all the stuff you need for pregnancy inside the woman's body over 9 months. How did they evolve step by step?

It could be that I am ignorant of the subject and the answer is obvious. But, I have yet to see any evolutionist, even Dick Dawkins, explain how pregnancy evolved or came to be in the first place.

It has to be either a spoof or real ignorance. For your question to have any meaning, you would have to assume you are addressing a young Earth creationist who also accepts evolution as a valid theory.
 
It's like how evolutionists can't answer, "How did pregnancy evolve?" Pregnancy is either all or nothing. You can't have a 3 month pregnancy, then the next stage a 4 month pregnancy. It's all or nothing. Seems very unlikely pregnancy evolved gradually step by step.

Is this supposed to be a satire, with you mocking the creationists? Most creationists I know are smart enough and educated enough not to make up arguments that are this stupid and ignorant. This is a spoof, right?

No, it is not a spoof. I have asked this question many times and I am always met with radio silence. Pregnancy can not evolve step by step. Think of all the stuff you need for pregnancy inside the woman's body over 9 months. How did they evolve step by step?

It could be that I am ignorant of the subject and the answer is obvious. But, I have yet to see any evolutionist, even Dick Dawkins, explain how pregnancy evolved or came to be in the first place.

Where have you looked? What books and papers have you read? This is such a vast, open-ended question, that it is difficult to describe in an internet post, especially to someone who apparently lacks a high-school education in biology, and doesn't have a rudimentary grasp of how evolution works. But I will give you a hint; the answer to your question lies in what you wrote, namely the words "step-by-step".

The complex life-forms you see on the planet did not just appear one day, for that would truly be a miracle (which is what you believe happened). They are the descendants of a very long line of ancestors that can trace their origin to the very first self-replicating chemicals that first appeared on Earth over 3.5 billion years ago. For most of life's history, organisms were simple, single celled, with cells occasionally coming together to form larger structures like sponges, bound together by collagen (the sticky tape of the animal kingdom). Some of the earliest fossils we have for true multi-cellular life forms that could build large bodies are about 600 million years old. Charnia, for example, the fossils of which have been found at several sites around the globe, used simple, fractal patterns to build their bodies, and it took about 6 instructions to accomplish this. Very simple, very primitive, and old enough that it was neither a plant nor an animal, but something older still. Then about 550 to 500 million years ago, there was an explosion of life on this planet, driven by multiple factors. And the primary families of living things we find on the planet today all began their journey during this period. One of the factors was sexual reproduction, where new organisms were formed through the fusion of male and female gametes, each carrying part of the organism's genome. Sexual reproduction allowed genes to be shuffled much more efficiently, which in turn allowed nature to experiment with different forms, and optimize the results to suit the environments in which the organisms lived. An example of this diversity would be the group known as the trilobites. Scientists have discovered literally thousands of different species of trilobites, all over the globe.

About 400 million years ago, certain types of fish that lived and hunted food in shallow, marshy waters evolved fins with stiffer bones that allowed the fish to walk. Imagine that, a fish that could do push-ups! And we have found fossils that show us how this evolution happened, from Tiktaalik to acanthostega. To this day, mammals use the same arrangements of bones in their fore and hind limbs that we first see in these fish. Including the whales, which were mammals that moved back to the water, that display this same arrangement in their limbs (did you know that whales still retain rudimentary pelvic joints, just like their land-dwelling relatives?).

Animals had begun to colonize dry land, which required new challenges to be overcome. Namely, moving from eggs that were laid in water, and required water to survive, to mammals where the egg develops within the body of the mother. Along the way we find amphibians, which live on land, but still need water to lay their eggs. To reptiles and birds, which began to enclose their eggs in hard shells, an embryo along with the food the embryo needs to grow, to keep the egg from drying out. To mammals which give birth to live young. We can still see all these different solutions that nature came up with to solve the problem of keeping eggs alive, the solutions that allowed our ancestors to conquer the land, and the air.

Modern human dna is made up of over 3 billion nucleotides, which include hundreds of thousands of nucleotide sequences, which we call genes, that build proteins and regulate how these proteins are used to build structures within our bodies. This did not happen overnight - it is, in fact, the product of billions of years of trial and error, completely undirected, with no goal or purpose. Starting from the earliest life, using just 2 or 3 instructions, this is where we end up.

This stuff is fascinating. You should pick up a textbook on evolution to learn the basics, and then start focusing more closely on the question you asked - how did mammals develop the ability to carry their embryos inside their bodies, and why different animals have slightly different ways to get to the same goal. I promise you that the journey will reward you much more than you can imagine right now.
 
^ ^ ^
Well said but I think it will zoom right over the head of the questioner.

Questions are generally always based on some pre-existing assumptions. For a YEC, those assumptions include that everything was created as it currently is only a few thousand years ago. The question of evolution of the nine month pregnancy of a modern human assumes that humans have always been exactly as they are today since their first creation only a few thousand years ago and that the evolution process would have to be explained on that basis. It is a very ham fisted attempt to disprove evolution without their having any idea what the evolutionary theory is... and indeed, no intention or even wish to understand it.
 
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It's like how evolutionists can't answer, "How did pregnancy evolve?" Pregnancy is either all or nothing. You can't have a 3 month pregnancy, then the next stage a 4 month pregnancy. It's all or nothing. Seems very unlikely pregnancy evolved gradually step by step.

Is this supposed to be a satire, with you mocking the creationists? Most creationists I know are smart enough and educated enough not to make up arguments that are this stupid and ignorant. This is a spoof, right?

No, it is not a spoof. I have asked this question many times and I am always met with radio silence. Pregnancy can not evolve step by step. Think of all the stuff you need for pregnancy inside the woman's body over 9 months. How did they evolve step by step?

Have you ever tried to use Google to find out if there might be some answers available that you did not have to get from an Internet discussion group? As atrib said, there is a very long history of evolution that led to pregnancy, but egg-laying preceded it in animals. Here is an interesting modern example of a transition between egg-laying and live birth pregnancy:

The first known case of eggs plus live birth from one pregnancy in a tiny lizard

It could be that I am ignorant of the subject and the answer is obvious. But, I have yet to see any evolutionist, even Dick Dawkins, explain how pregnancy evolved or came to be in the first place.

I don't think he uses the nickname "Dick", does he? In any case, you have also never seen Richard Dawkins stuck on answering a question like that. You ought to read some of his books that explain evolution in very clear terms. If you could ask him, he would likely give you a much better answer than you'll ever get from anyone here.
 
It's like how evolutionists can't answer, "How did pregnancy evolve?" Pregnancy is either all or nothing. You can't have a 3 month pregnancy, then the next stage a 4 month pregnancy. It's all or nothing. Seems very unlikely pregnancy evolved gradually step by step.

Is this supposed to be a satire, with you mocking the creationists? Most creationists I know are smart enough and educated enough not to make up arguments that are this stupid and ignorant. This is a spoof, right?

No, it is not a spoof. I have asked this question many times and I am always met with radio silence. Pregnancy can not evolve step by step. Think of all the stuff you need for pregnancy inside the woman's body over 9 months. How did they evolve step by step?

It could be that I am ignorant of the subject and the answer is obvious. But, I have yet to see any evolutionist, even Dick Dawkins, explain how pregnancy evolved or came to be in the first place.

How hard have you looked? Where did you look? Or are you an invincible ignorant type?
 
Pregnancy is either all or nothing. You can't have a 3 month pregnancy, then the next stage a 4 month pregnancy. It's all or nothing. Seems very unlikely pregnancy evolved gradually step by step.
You don't know much about Kangaroos, do you?

So, anyway, I suppose you forgot the citation for your claim that 'pregnancy is all or nothing?' Who says this? How do you know? What expert can you appeal to in support of this claim?

I mean, it would be pretty fucking stupid of you to make a blatant claim in connection to a statement like 'Atheists cannot answer' when it's just you 'making shit up,' right? So, of course, YOU must be able to answer WHY you know Pregnancy is 'all or nothing.' You repeated this claim, but not how we know this to be true.

Must be an oversight, huh? Go ahead, take your time. Pony up all you know about pregnancy, and all the forms it takes in all the creatures on Earth.
 
Pregnancy is either all or nothing. You can't have a 3 month pregnancy, then the next stage a 4 month pregnancy. It's all or nothing. Seems very unlikely pregnancy evolved gradually step by step.
You don't know much about Kangaroos, do you?

So, anyway, I suppose you forgot the citation for your claim that 'pregnancy is all or nothing?' Who says this? How do you know? What expert can you appeal to in support of this claim?

I mean, it would be pretty fucking stupid of you to make a blatant claim in connection to a statement like 'Atheists cannot answer' when it's just you 'making shit up,' right? So, of course, YOU must be able to answer WHY you know Pregnancy is 'all or nothing.' You repeated this claim, but not how we know this to be true.

Must be an oversight, huh? Go ahead, take your time. Pony up all you know about pregnancy, and all the forms it takes in all the creatures on Earth.

"All or nothing" means the 9 month pregnancy in humans can not evolve gradually step by step, as evolution teaches things evolve in steps. It's either 9 months pregnancy or nothing. You can't have a 1 month pregnancy in humans to evolve step by step.
 
Pregnancy is either all or nothing. You can't have a 3 month pregnancy, then the next stage a 4 month pregnancy. It's all or nothing. Seems very unlikely pregnancy evolved gradually step by step.
You don't know much about Kangaroos, do you?

So, anyway, I suppose you forgot the citation for your claim that 'pregnancy is all or nothing?' Who says this? How do you know? What expert can you appeal to in support of this claim?

I mean, it would be pretty fucking stupid of you to make a blatant claim in connection to a statement like 'Atheists cannot answer' when it's just you 'making shit up,' right? So, of course, YOU must be able to answer WHY you know Pregnancy is 'all or nothing.' You repeated this claim, but not how we know this to be true.

Must be an oversight, huh? Go ahead, take your time. Pony up all you know about pregnancy, and all the forms it takes in all the creatures on Earth.

"All or nothing" means the 9 month pregnancy in humans can not evolve gradually step by step, as evolution teaches things evolve in steps. It's either 9 months pregnancy or nothing. You can't have a 1 month pregnancy in humans to evolve step by step.

No one ever claimed that a nine month pregnancy evolved within the human species. That idea is yours from your blind belief that humans were created a few thousand years ago with no ancestral predecessors. Methods of reproduction have evolved over a few billion years as new species evolved from older species eventually resulting in humans (only a few hundred thousand years ago) that happen to have a nine month gestation period. Our earlier predecessors (simple multicell animals) could have had a 'gestation' period of only a couple hours - later species in the chain of evolution to humans would have longer gestation periods.

This is why I earlier posted that your question makes no sense unless you assume that you are asking the question to someone who is a young Earth creationist that also believes evolution is a valid theory (and there is no such animal).

ETA:
You really need to familiarize yourself with what the theory of evolution actually says. It really isn't that difficult to understand the basics. If you learn something about the subject you argue against then you could maybe make some halfway intelligent criticisms of it. Only a few hours study would do you a world of good.
 
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Pregnancy is either all or nothing. You can't have a 3 month pregnancy, then the next stage a 4 month pregnancy. It's all or nothing. Seems very unlikely pregnancy evolved gradually step by step.
You don't know much about Kangaroos, do you?

So, anyway, I suppose you forgot the citation for your claim that 'pregnancy is all or nothing?' Who says this? How do you know? What expert can you appeal to in support of this claim?

I mean, it would be pretty fucking stupid of you to make a blatant claim in connection to a statement like 'Atheists cannot answer' when it's just you 'making shit up,' right? So, of course, YOU must be able to answer WHY you know Pregnancy is 'all or nothing.' You repeated this claim, but not how we know this to be true.

Must be an oversight, huh? Go ahead, take your time. Pony up all you know about pregnancy, and all the forms it takes in all the creatures on Earth.

"All or nothing" means the 9 month pregnancy in humans can not evolve gradually step by step, as evolution teaches things evolve in steps. It's either 9 months pregnancy or nothing. You can't have a 1 month pregnancy in humans to evolve step by step.

Are you seriously asserting that every human pregnancy that results in a baby has exactly the same duration?

Because that's what you just said, whether you realise it or not.

If (and we can easily observe that it is true) pregnancies can vary in duration, then it's a very easy step to understanding that the duration can be arbitrarily short, given gradual change over long periods of time.

And we observe species that have pregnancy durations from zero (fertilisation occurs outside the female); durations of seconds or minutes (an egg or eggs is/are 'laid' almost immediately after fertilisation; durations of a few hundred; a few days; weeks; months; and even (in elephants) almost two years.

Gestation periods are an unbroken continuum from zero to several months, across the animal kingdom. Your objection makes literally no sense. At all. Your "unanswerable question" has the answer right in front of everyone's faces. You need almost no knowledge of biology in order to observe that pregnancies have variable duration, both across species, and within species.

You might as well say that "Short people can't be explained by evolution, because height is all or nothing - humans are six feet tall, or nothing". Can you see the flaw in that claim?
 
Pregnancy is either all or nothing. You can't have a 3 month pregnancy, then the next stage a 4 month pregnancy. It's all or nothing. Seems very unlikely pregnancy evolved gradually step by step.
You don't know much about Kangaroos, do you?

So, anyway, I suppose you forgot the citation for your claim that 'pregnancy is all or nothing?' Who says this? How do you know? What expert can you appeal to in support of this claim?

I mean, it would be pretty fucking stupid of you to make a blatant claim in connection to a statement like 'Atheists cannot answer' when it's just you 'making shit up,' right? So, of course, YOU must be able to answer WHY you know Pregnancy is 'all or nothing.' You repeated this claim, but not how we know this to be true.

Must be an oversight, huh? Go ahead, take your time. Pony up all you know about pregnancy, and all the forms it takes in all the creatures on Earth.

"All or nothing" means the 9 month pregnancy in humans can not evolve gradually step by step, as evolution teaches things evolve in steps. It's either 9 months pregnancy or nothing. You can't have a 1 month pregnancy in humans to evolve step by step.

Yeah, this is a spoof.

The period of gestation in mammals varies widely, from about 10 days in the Australian marsupial mouse, to almost 600 days for sperm whales. Humans are somewhere in the middle. Even among humans, the period of pregnancy can vary widely, by weeks or even months, and as our medical technology gets better, this range keeps getting bigger.

You need to try harder.
 
Pregnancy is either all or nothing. You can't have a 3 month pregnancy, then the next stage a 4 month pregnancy. It's all or nothing. Seems very unlikely pregnancy evolved gradually step by step.
You don't know much about Kangaroos, do you?

So, anyway, I suppose you forgot the citation for your claim that 'pregnancy is all or nothing?' Who says this? How do you know? What expert can you appeal to in support of this claim?

I mean, it would be pretty fucking stupid of you to make a blatant claim in connection to a statement like 'Atheists cannot answer' when it's just you 'making shit up,' right? So, of course, YOU must be able to answer WHY you know Pregnancy is 'all or nothing.' You repeated this claim, but not how we know this to be true.

Must be an oversight, huh? Go ahead, take your time. Pony up all you know about pregnancy, and all the forms it takes in all the creatures on Earth.

"All or nothing" means the 9 month pregnancy in humans can not evolve gradually step by step, as evolution teaches things evolve in steps. It's either 9 months pregnancy or nothing. You can't have a 1 month pregnancy in humans to evolve step by step.

I know what 'all or nothing' means, thanks.
I am asking if you can support this claim? Because it soumds like you do not know what you are talking about.
Just asserting shit.
ETA: by the way, all three of my kids were born three months premature. If it's 9 months, all or nothing, i guess i do not have children. Guess tgat makes grandkid gifts easy to sort out....
 
"All or nothing" means the 9 month pregnancy in humans can not evolve gradually step by step, as evolution teaches things evolve in steps. It's either 9 months pregnancy or nothing. You can't have a 1 month pregnancy in humans to evolve step by step.

Are you seriously asserting that every human pregnancy that results in a baby has exactly the same duration?

That answer struck me the same way, what is he talking about? Halfie has a brain that is all about impulse, I'm guessing his neocortex is six sigma thinner than the human average. That's not necessarily a bad thing but it would explain his behavior.
 
I'm no scientist, but the most basic glance at the world around me tells me that biology doesn't do "all or nothing"... everything I see, touch, smell, hear has beautiful variance... It's so awesome! I never understood why the anti-science crowd seems to want everything to be so simple and boring that they literally deny the awesomeness of god's creations.

Think of it this way.....

What would any little boy rather get on their birthday... A framed picture of the Golden Gate Bridge they can hang up in their room, or an Erector Set that they can use to build a model of any bridge they can imagine?

Which kind of parent is God? The one that says, "this is what a bridge is. just look at it and appreciate who made it" Or is he one that says, "I think you're great and I empower you to do great things".
 
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