The Bible Skeptic: Everyone's Creation Problem

Everyone's Creation Problem

Ray Comfort is a conservative Christian minister and evangelist. He is one of the founders of an evangelism ministry known as The Way of the Master, along with actor Kirk Cameron (child star of the 1980s sitcom "Growing Pains"), and radio host Todd Friel. The ministry includes a TV show, radio broadcast, books, online school, small-group training courses, and various websites. One of Ray's websites as part of his Living Waters brand from The Way of the Master is "Pull the Plug on Atheism." This site hosts "free articles and resources" by Mr. Comfort which are supposed to help "to pull the plug on the rising tide of atheism." Most of the articles hosted are very poorly researched and presented, and none more so than the one titled, "The Atheist’s Creation Problem." In this article, hosted on a webpage also sporting a companion video, Ray tries to argue that atheism is "foolish" because it asserts that something can come from nothing. He begins his brief argument,

When an atheist speaks of man creating something, he is using the word "create" incorrectly. Man cannot create a grain of sand from nothing, let alone a living breathing entity.

Why is this "the atheist's creation problem"? It seems rather obvious to me this is a problem for everyone, atheist or theist. Are we to believe that while an atheist cannot produce a grain of sand from nothing at the mere request for it, that a theist can, by virtue of reaching out and making a request to his or her god? Can Ray Comfort, certainly not a creation-stunted atheist by any definition, call upon his god to deliver into his hands, fully formed and perfect in every way, a grain of sand upon request? Is this what Ray is trying to lead us to believe?

What we know from science is that grains of sand don't come from nothing, even in a theist's hand. Grains of sand are composed of finely divided rock and mineral particles and are "created" from the weathering of larger rocks. Wind, rain, snow, ice, etc. all break apart larger rock into finer and finer particles. It is these particles which we call sand. Living, breathing entities come from other living, breathing entities. So, Mr. Comfort's complaint that human beings cannot create things like sand and living beings "from nothing" is a problem facing Nature as well. These things come from previous things.

Ray goes on to press,

Try and think of any human being creating something material from nothing, and I don't mean creating a new breed of bacteria, by manipulating already-existing bacteria.

What Ray wants to do then, is something Nature doesn't even do; because new breeds of bacteria come from older breeds of bacteria. Again, since he is trying to set up a dichotomy between atheists and theists, we should turn the question around and ask Ray if he can, while being interviewed on the street, create something material (like bacteria) from nothing. We'll even let him call upon his deity to do the trick for him. How many will lay serious bets that Ray will be able to perform such a stunt?

Comfort presses further,

Man may manufacture, manipulate or maneuver, but he cannot create anything material—such as a rock, a leaf, a chicken, a tree, or even a flea, from nothing.

And, outside the book of Genesis, rocks, leaves, chickens, trees, and fleas all come from something prior. In the case of rocks, rocks come from geological forces imposed upon magma, lava or other rocks. Leaves come from trees, which in turn, come from seeds which came from other trees. Chickens come from eggs laid by other chickens and fleas come from other fleas. Only in the Bible do these things "pop" into existence from nothing.

He goes on,

If we know that with all of his genius, man cannot create anything from nothing, how intellectually preposterous is it to actually believe that in the beginning nothing created everything?

I'd say that's a pretty silly idea! Good thing physicists with more education and relevant training than Ray Comfort has as a street evangelist, along with his side-kick actor Kirk Cameron, don't assert such silliness!

Ray then flatly asserts,

Atheism is off the charts of human foolishness.

Why is atheism foolishness? Because an atheist is equally as incapable of creating a rock, a leaf, a chicken, a tree, or even a flea, from nothing as is the theist? Or, is it more foolish to call in a magical sky-being to poof all these things into existence, fully formed, from nothing?

He then stumbles,

By contrast, the flat-earther is a real genius.

And, since the Bible describes a flat-earth, I can see why theists like Ray Comfort would rather throw in with this sort of "genius."

Ray Comfort concludes his train-wreck of an article by claiming,

That’s why an atheist has no scientific creditably, because his “nothing created everything” violates the basic laws of science.

Ray Comfort wouldn't know the basic laws of science if they came in a coloring book with crayons. Ray Comfort believes God created the Chiquita Banana.