'Cracker abuse' prof disses Christian author

A University of Minnesota-Morris professor who last year threatened "cracker abuse" on a Catholic Church communion wafer now is criticizing a Christian author whose book "You Can Lead an Atheist to Evidence but You Can't Make Him Think" bumped atheist Richard Dawkins' "The God Delusion" on Amazon.com the day it was released.

The new criticism of Ray Comfort's work comes from blogger PZ Myers, or Paul Zachary Myers, a professor whose writings previously were accessible through the university website.

Comfort reported earlier this week he had found a website where atheists were conspiring to give poor reviews and low rankings to his book on Amazon.com to discourage potential purchasers. Many of the reviews later were taken off the Amazon.com website.

Comfort, who works with Living Waters ministry, has argued against atheism at Yale University, debated the issue on ABC's Nightline and has authored some 60 other books including "God Doesn’t Believe in Atheists," "How to Know God Exists," and "Evolution: the Fairy Tale for Grownups."

Now Myers is attacking Comfort.

"Rather than a conspiracy of atheists falsely
downrating his book, there is a simpler explanation for his lousy sales:
it's a piece of c--- written by an incompetent idiot, and his complaint
just confirms that he doesn't know what he's talking about," Myers wrote on his blog.

Myers took issue with Comfort's argument about the "evolution" of male and female in species.

"I know Ray is rather stupid, but
who knew he could be that stupid. This has been explained to him
multiple times: evolution does explain this stuff trivially. Populations
evolve, not individuals, and male and female elephants evolved from
populations of pre-elephants that contained males and females. Species
do not arise from single new mutant males that then have to find a
corresponding mutant female – they arise by the diffusion of variation
through a whole population, male and female."

Comfort replied,
"I
don't have the evident faith the professor has to believe in the theory
of evolution, and so I am glad that he took the time to explain his
beliefs as to why females had evolved along with males in every species
in creation.

"Okay, I've got it," Comfort continued. "Your belief is that
species do not arise from single new mutant males that then have to find
a corresponding mutant female. So, let's take it slowly for those of us
stupid folk who like empirical evidence. We are looking at a
contemporary male and a female elephant. They are part of a population
of elephants. Let's go back to their elephant ancestors 10,000 years
ago. They are still male and female elephants (they had to be because
that's how elephants reproduce). Let's now go back one million years to
what you called 'the populations of pre-elephants that contained males
and females.' Obviously, they are still male and female way back then
because that's how pre-elephants reproduced," Comfort said.

"Let's go back even further (100 million
years ago) to pre-pre-elephants that also contained males and females.
At what point of time in evolutionary history did the female evolve
alongside the male? And why did she evolve? Then explain, if you would
professor, why horses, giraffes, cattle, zebras, leopards, primates,
antelopes, pigs, dogs, sheep, fish, goats, mice, squirrels, whales,
chickens, dinosaurs, beavers, cats, human beings and rats also evolved
with a female, at some point of time in evolutionary history. Professor,
I know you believe, but please, give us who are healthy skeptics some
empirical evidence. Remember, stupid people like me want good hard
evidence before we, like you, become believers in Darwin's theory," Comfort said.

"One of the latest beliefs
that is being pushed on the National Geographic channel, is the wild
speculation that the dinosaur may have evolved into the modern-day
turkey. There are no bounds to beliefs. Evolutionists have done to
science what hypocrites have done to religion. They leap through the
so-called paleontological record like a Disney cartoon kangaroo, making
statements that have more to do with an overripe imagination rather than
with true science. They are unregulated speculators with ridiculous
theories that are leaving the minds of today's youth bankrupt, and they
need to be held to some sort of intellectual accountability. I'm just
one incompetent idiot that's trying to do that," Comfort said.

It was Myers who in 2008 angered Catholics after arguments erupted following a Florida student's alleged theft of a consecrated communion wafer from a Catholic service.

Myers responded with a promise that if anyone would provide him with a wafer, which Catholics believe becomes the body of Christ, he would treat it "with profound disrespect and heinous cracker abuse."

Catholic League president Bill Donohue said at the time, ""For a student to disrupt Mass by taking the Body of Christ hostage – regardless of the alleged nature of his grievance – is beyond hate speech."

"Can anyone out there score me some consecrated communion wafers?" Myers responded. "If any of you would be willing to do what it takes to get me some, or even one, and mail it to me, I'll show you sacrilege, gladly, and with much fanfare. I won't be tempted to hold it hostage … but will instead treat it with profound disrespect and heinous cracker abuse, all photographed and presented here on the http://www.morris.umn.edu/index.php."

'Let's all vote one star'

Evidence of a conspiracy to lower the reviewer rating for Comfort's new book on Amazon.com included this posting on the Reddit site from "The Milkman": "Let's all vote one star on this piece of s---."

"Mithridates" also commented: "Pro-tip for people reviewing the book: giving it one or five stars makes it painfully obvious that you're just giving it that number because you feel the author to be on or against your side. To actually make it look like a real review you're going to want to go with two or four stars."

Comfort, who noted atheists have spammed his blog and sent abusive e-mails, said the strong opposition is explained easily.

"I
simply expose atheistic
evolution for the unscientific fairy tale that it is, and I do it with
common logic. I ask questions about where the female came from for each
species. Every male dog, cat, horse, elephant, giraffe, fish and bird had to
have coincidentally evolved with a female alongside it (over billions of
years) with fully evolved compatible reproductive parts and a desire to
mate, otherwise the species couldn't keep going. Evolution has no
explanation for the female for every species in creation," he said.

"I also show that
the 'God' issue is moral rather than intellectual. No one needs to prove
that God exists. Creation is clear evidence for any sane person that there's
a Creator. But if I can convince myself that there is no God, it means I am
not morally accountable, and evolution opens the door to a whole lot of
sinful delicacies such as pornography, fornication, lying, theft, and of
course writing bad reviews for a book I haven't read," he continued.

He said the logical problem that follows atheists is that once they convince themselves God doesn't exist, they are left with the "insane" philosophy that nothing created everything.

"They
will deny that through gritted teeth because it is intellectually
embarrassing, but if I say that I have no belief that my Ford Truck had a
maker, it means I think that nothing made it, and that's a scientific
impossibility," Comfort said.

"When we said this on a billboard on a major Los Angeles
freeway, Dan Barker, the President of Freedom From Religion, Inc., happened
to be in California and happened to be on that freeway. He saw the billboard
and wrote a scathing e-mail to me, calling me a liar. They hate their beliefs
being exposed, and this book does just that."