Ray Comfort may attend OC Atheists meeting

Bob the Gunslinger · Post by **Bob the Gunslinger** » 2008-01-08 12:34am

It has come to my attention that Internet Celebrity and inveterate creationist wanker Ray Comfort has shown an interest in attending the next meeting of the Orange County Atheist Association (I'm not sure of the actual name of this group... I just show up sometimes). You might remember mister comfort from such videos as Atheist Nightmare or the one about the banana. Now you can discuss evolution with him in real life.

Anyway, the meeting is tomorrow, Tuesday 1/8/08 at 7:30 pm at the IHOP off of MacArthur, just across the street from John Wayne Airport.

Heck, come by and say hi even if banana boy doesn't show up.

Guardsman Bass · Post by **Guardsman Bass** » 2008-01-08 12:47am

He's actually done this type of thing before. He's clearly a creationist wanker, but he's not a total coward like many creationists in terms of going on to "enemy territory".

Metatwaddle · Post by **Metatwaddle** » 2008-01-08 02:58am

This sounds entertaining. Let us know how it goes. Hell, bring a video camera and film it if he starts something, maybe put it on Youtube if he makes an ass of himself.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2008-01-08 03:00am

Discombobulated wrote:This sounds entertaining. Let us know how it goes. Hell, bring a video camera and film it if he starts something, maybe put it on Youtube if he makes an ass of himself.

These guys always come in heavily scripted, like politicians. If you can get them off-script, they'll make asses of themselves. But more often than not, this is almost impossible to accomplish. So they will simply repeat their "talking points" (again, like politicians) and use everything you say as a segue to another talking point. It's horrible debate practice but the general public doesn't seem to recognize that. The general public seems to think that the way politicians debate is actually the correct way to do it.

Metatwaddle · Post by **Metatwaddle** » 2008-01-08 03:38am

Yeah, RL debate skills (for real debates, not these staged political things) are pretty hard to come by - I personally suck at it, because I'm just not aggressive enough - but hopefully someone in a room of atheists will know how to ask enough tough questions, how to interrupt and say, "You're not answering my question." Then maybe he'd get off-script.

Political debates annoy me, because the moderators are never aggressive enough. I think moderators should be allowed to interrupt and say, "Mr. Senator, you're not answering the question," but if they did that, the politicians would never show enough. A meeting of all the guys who normally moderate these debates, where they agree that all debates are going to be like that, would do the trick. But I don't think most of those guys are that interested in raising the level of public discourse for its own sake.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2008-01-08 03:42am

The best way to deal with a creationist of this type is to study his past appearances in detail. Learn all of his favourite "talking points", and work on coming up with witty one-line responses to them. Rattle off those one-liners and then spout some "talking points" of your own.

I know, it would offend the sensibilities of any person who wants to raise the level of discourse to something resembling academic discussion. But that's how you win public debates in the eyes of an idiot audience (which is to say, any audience that is representative of the general population).