Thunderf00t/Comfort disscussion is up

[Crocoduck]

part1
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2FskTKrx40[/youtube]

i cant watch atm so ill have to wait till i get back to see this

[Omen]

Comfort is such a weasel.

[Emily]

I've gotten through the first three videos so far. Ray Comfort is basically throwing out a bunch of strawmen arguments.

[Codswallop]

Comfort says, this is a "rational discussion between two opposing world views." He fails to see that one of those world views is by definition irrational.

With his first point (so-called) about what was in the beginning, Comfort demonstrates his tenuous grasp of reality. He "knows" what was in the beginning, and he knows this how? It says so in his magic book.

Then he asks T-f00t the old strawman question, "Do you believe nothing created everything?"

It's hard to decide whether Comfort is really as stupid as this, or if he's merely pretending. He finds it difficult to pin down the meaning of a word like "knowledge" in such a way as to make useful discussion possible. He makes the same mistake with the word "evidence." He has no idea what it is. (To be fair, if he did so, he would quickly have his arguments demolished, so I can't blame him too much.)

He finds the changing nature of scientific knowledge to be a weakness! He really doesn't get it.

I find watching this disingenuous git very trying

[Ambassador Pony]

Kind of anoying how Thunderf00t stststststutters.

I would probably fare worse, my rage being uncontainable around Ray "the holocaust was god's punishment" Comfort.

[Omen]

Kind of anoying how Thunderf00t stststststutters.

I would probably fare worse, my rage being uncontainable around Ray "the holocaust was god's punishment" Comfort.

I'm the complete opposite, my rage is like a laser beam and people often take insult that I do not allow them to just 'pass up' points that have been thoroughly trashed.  If you don't acknowledge ( even if its to say you simply 'disagree' ) at each point before moving on, then frankly I refuse to have a discussion at all.  I think that is one of the larger issues of these kinds of debates, where the other party is so reliant on a mountain of puppeted propaganda that amounts to one strawman after another.. that they just repeat it like clockwork without addressing the issue of whats wrong with the claim itself.  Its more about repeating their indoctrination rather then learning or taking anything away from the discussion.

Even after its pointed out that unknown exists to questions that attempt to box Tfoot into,"You believe in nothing" he still makes questions later as if it was accepted taht Tfoot ever said he did!  f**king ludicrous.

[Ambassador Pony]

I am on #5.

They are terrible. Comfort is doing as predicted, parroting ridiculous apologetics, and Tfoot seems to have prepared no plan to deal with it. He's reacting, and doing so out of his element and comfort zone (no pun intended).

At this point, I am starting to think that Tfoot can only redeem himself by getting up and pounding Ray face in. 

[Irish]

Great.  I'll watch the series when I have more time on my hands.

[Dissenter]

I am on #5.

They are terrible. Comfort is doing as predicted, parroting ridiculous apologetics, and Tfoot seems to have prepared no plan to deal with it. He's reacting, and doing so out of his element and comfort zone (no pun intended).

I've only watched this one so far but I agree.  It feels as though the tables have been turned and TFoot is continually attempting to justify his position of non-belief rather than Comfort substantiating his position of belief.  Comfort needs to understand what it is to know something.

At this point, I am starting to think that Tfoot can only redeem himself by getting up and pounding Ray face in. 

Personally I would have liked to have seen this in the first minute or so, but I'm happy to wait.

[Ambassador Pony]

Tfoot does best is in 6 and 7, unfortunately the vids stop there.

He gets Ray to verbalize his ignorance of evolution, and then he gets to go through stupid bible verses a bit, which is entertaining at least.

If an 8 gets posted, I'll watch to see if the evil bible verses keep rolling.

[Hermes]

Playlist with all (?) 9 segments;

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=762A731FA12BCB57

[Ambassador Pony]

Ya, watched the rest. Overall disappointed.

[voodoo child]

I did not even watch, I know comfort is a boob, not much to say about him, I have listen to everthing that thunderfoot has put out. But hey, kudos for the two of them to sit face to face.

[Red McWilliams]

It creeps me out how Thunderf00t keeps staring at his shoes.

Maybe people are intimidated by talking with Comfort in person, but I think Thunderf00t dropped the ball worse than the RRS did.  Thunderf00t played way too much defense and I'm pretty sure he knows better.

He should have shut him down in the first minute with all the "you don't know, but I know crap".  The discussion should be about how Comfort 'knows' what he knows and why that is illogical. 

[none]

"why the name tunderfoot is it african american?"
no its native american...

[Codswallop]

"why the name tunderfoot is it african american?"
no its native american...

But I thought Thunderf00t was a New Zealander.

[Crocoduck]

im kinda disappointed, i think he really let Ray off the hook by letting him get away with saying he (Ray) knows how the universe began, and that saying "i dont know" is a cop out".

plus mr 'f00t shouldve stuck with science if his bible knowledge isnt up to par.

[Hermes]

An observation;

Comfort: Very limited scope and routines.  Knows them cold.  Never talks about anything else.

Thunderf00t: Thinking on the fly, and is attempting to be complete and accurate.

It's a mistake to talk on the fly, especially for a long period of time.  The human brain does not work like that.  We digest and then express our opinions.  For that, time is required.

[Ananukia]

But Hermes that's far less fun!

[Red McWilliams]

Comfort: Very limited scope and routines.  Knows them cold.  Never talks about anything else.

Exactly right.

[PeterRabbit]

Thunderf00t for the win!

[none]

"why the name tunderfoot is it african american?"
no its native american...

But I thought Thunderf00t was a New Zealander.

I didn't know why it was assumed to be african american either.

[Red McWilliams]

Um, because Ray Comfort is a racist?

[thegodiknew]

I think what Thunderf00t failed to realize is that Ray is a street brawler. I've known Ray for years, sat under this training for street evangelism back in my missionary days. Ray was totally in his element here. This is what Ray does. He sets up an argument and uses unrelenting confidence of his rightness to box his opponent into a "logical" corner.

His famous evangelism tool (his unique selling point) was to use The Law (10 Commandments) to show non-Christians they were sinners and worthy of Hell, because it didn't matter if you had never murdered someone, if you broke one divine Law, you broke them all.

It makes not one bit of difference to Ray whether his argument makes any sense or not. There is a hypnotic effect to outrageous confidence, and that is one thing that Ray Comfort has - supreme confidence. One could say Divine Confidence. God is on his side. He believes that to his core, and I am sure the man had not one butterfly about sitting down with TF.

The T-F00t on the other hand was completely out of his element and uncomfortable. A gentleman pugilist who just stepped into the ring with a Drunken Master. I'm sorry, I only watched the first video. It was all I could take. Just too painful. Ray 's arguments and offensive questions were garbage, but he controlled interaction from the first moment. Again this is what Ray does. He uses leading questions and "soul power" to control the interaction.

Bet there is some high-fiving in the Comfort camp tonight.

[Max Kodan]

Yeah, but he was still just spouting nonsensical gibberish.  If this had been a debate with a prompter and someone keeping score, Rey would have done terribly.  He couldn't stick to a single topic, and he constantly used the same 'the bible says so', but provided no backup besides that.  All in all, it's not surprising in the least.  I mean really, Ray didn't really answer a single question properly, he always retreated to an old standby "the bible is true, so everything in it is true."  Essentially, he said nothing this entire time, and the only people he's going to sway are the people who are stupid enough to believe him, and 99% of THOSE people already agree with him so adamantly that they're not going to be swayed anyway.

See, you guys are our for blood, and that's really not a good thing.  It'd be great to see Ray get viciously attacked........In debate.  Yeah.  In...uh...debate....

[Hermes]

Thegodiknew, thanks for the first-hand insight.  That makes total sense of the situation.

[Seppuku]

The difference between humans and animals is morality.

Yeah...right. You can even observe your pets to tell that there's a moral decision being made by them. For example: we had a cat the used to like playing with mice, he didn't like killing them, nor did he want to eat them, whilst a mouse is a tasty treat for a cat, he wasn't interested. But if the mouse died when playing with it, he's be depressed for the day. So there's the decision to not kill when it's natural to kill and the guilt for the act of killing, is that not a demonstration of the conscience.

[Seank]

These debates are of questionable value, and I can see why Dawkins refuses to debate with creationists. Dinesh D'Souza is a classic example of someone who can be routinely wrong yet win debates through showmanship. I think the trick is in matching suitable debaters. Hitchens is a good one to use against someone like D'Souza, since he's willing to throw a rhetorical punch or two. Shermer knows his stuff, but he was just outperformed by D'Souza. D'Souza would make crazy unfounded assertions, and Shermer just failed to call him on his bullshit. Hitchens is a brawler, and has a gift for noticing and addressing such things.

I recently had a face to face discussion with a conspiracy theorist, and it was actually quite difficult. The problem is that he's spent far more time reading these theories than I have, and I simply don't have enough knowledge to rebuke most of the claims. This is why I like debates that have clearly defined talking points and a moderator who'll keep things on track. I can debate scripture online, particularly if I have my KJV sitting next to me, but it's difficult to memorise the important verses - particularly if you don't know what's going to come up.

[Hermes]

I'm getting to the point where I don't have much interest in debating the finer points of theology or dogma at all.  Those things are what the other person believes, not me.  That they are demonstratively absurd or immoral is their problem even if they don't realize it, or if someone observing the conversation/debate considers their presentation materials mainly a marketing problem.

To even begin a useful conversation, they have to show me that what they believe is credible, and not in the abstract or dogmatically.  If they can't, then there's really no reason for me to continue the conversation or to give due deference to their specific axioms.  Why should I?  They throw out normal considerations, ignoring reality, and spend no effort to show what they believe to be true is probable.  It's all by either assertion, emotion, or by abstraction.