I’m back from the Reason Rally.
I can’t resist an opportunity to engage in apologetics, so on the evening before the Rally I attended the Reason Rally Outreach, a strategy meeting of roughly 100 Christians who planned to engage with the atheists. I only have one Jesus-y shirt, earned at the completion of the Alpha course, so I wore that one to blend in.
Andrew Rappaport (Striving for Eternity) seemed to be the organizer of the event. Apologist Matt Slick (CARM) presented a couple of arguments (including TAG) that probably weren’t useful to anyone who hadn’t heard them before.
Ray Comfort was the primary speaker, and he was interviewed on stage for a Christian podcast. I got a signed copy of his new book, Fat Chance: Why pigs will fly before America has an atheist president, and I missed out on getting a selfie with the Wolfman himself (see a recent photo of Ray if that reference is confusing).
I may critique the book if there’s anything interesting in it.
Ray Comfort’s upcoming “The Atheist Delusion” movie
We saw a 10-minute excerpt of Ray’s devastating new conversion tool, which will be released July 29. It was done in his usual interview style. We are introduced to maybe ten atheists, and Ray asks them if they think that a book could’ve just come together by random forces, without intelligence. They agree that it couldn’t. Then he drops the bombshell: with human DNA having more information than a shelf of books, how could that have come about without intelligence? In other words, it’s an argument from incredulity. The crowd loved it.
That’s the argument, and now you don’t have to see the movie. You’re welcome.
If the crowd thought that that was a good response to evolution, you can see how well prepared they were to engage people who have actually thought about the relevant issues.
Not having seen the entire movie, I don’t know if Ray responded to the concerns that a thoughtful person would have. Or whether he defined “information.” Is he measuring Shannon information? Kolmogorov information? Knowing Ray’s uncompromising and relentless journalistic nature, I’m sure he will explore the issue thoroughly. Or not.
Ray noted that in atheist critiques of his previous movies, atheists hadn’t bothered removing the gospel because they don’t realize its power. He imagines that the gospel is magic, and this carried over into the gospel pitch they encouraged the attendees to use: you’re created sinful and broken, and you need to accept the sacrifice of Jesus to get salvation.
You can imagine the response of the typical atheist. First, they’ve already heard this. Second, no one cares about the theology until you show me that this god exists. He looks as made up as all the rest.
Another argument: atheists don’t exist. Ray knows because the Bible tells him so (Romans 1:18–21). He said, not joking, “You can’t tell me the organizers of this event aren’t praying for no rain.”
With that kind of preparation, these Christian soldiers went out to battle armed with blanks. It reminded me of the 13th-century Children’s Crusade, the traditional account of which tells of 30,000 children walking to the Holy Land with the idea of peacefully converting the Muslims. Instead, many died on the trip, with the survivors sold into slavery.
At the Rally, Ray’s robots were walking around, wearing atheistmovie.com shirts or carrying atheistmovie.com signs. (They were permitted to be near the Rally by the police only if they kept moving and weren’t noisy or disruptive.) That URL was a good choice because it was deceptive. At first glance and given the context, it looks like a pro-atheism movie.
I heard that Ray was interviewing atheists during the Rally for the movie. Though I like engaging with Christians, I saw no upside. At best I would flummox him with thoughtful responses and get edited out.
“How imbecilic can one get with just one head?”
Let me summarize my interaction with one guy stationed in a group on the north of the Lincoln Memorial. His argument was basically, “But as an atheist, you have no meaning in your life.” I corrected him, saying that I see no absolute (or objective) meaning in my life, but of course I have plenty of the ordinary kind. Just look up the word in the dictionary. I have plenty of that, just like he might. And for the same reasons.
And he continued, “But as an atheist, you have no meaning in your life.”
A little frustrated this time, I made the point using more words. Over here (waving left hand) are absolute or objective things—meaning, morality, purpose, good and bad, and so on. And over here (waving right hand) are the regular kind, as these ideas are defined in the dictionary. If you’re going to talk about the atheist position, only talk about meaning, morality, and purpose over here (waving right hand).
And then we’re back at square one, no wiser than before. I’m not exaggerating—I think I went through some variation of this cycle this eight times. I don’t think he was doing it just to be annoying. He was indeed very annoying, but I think he just didn’t get it somehow. He didn’t see the distinction.
We get this error from well-known Christian apologists as well, from today’s big names back to C. S. Lewis.
It’s times like this when I despair of bridging the gap with Christians.
(h/t to Ignorant Amos for the “just one head” line)

I admit that reason is a small and feeble flame,
a flickering torch by stumblers carried in the starless night,
blown and flared by passion’s storm,
and yet, it is the only light.
Extinguish that, and nought remains.
— Robert Green Ingersoll

Image credit: Bob Seidensticker