A fake million dollar bill!
Here is the blurb for this piece of crap:
HERE IS THE MILLION-DOLLAR QUESTION: Will you go to Heaven when you die? Here’s a quick test: Have you ever lied, stolen, or used God’s name in vain? Jesus said, “Whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” If you have done these things, God sees you as a lying, thieving, blasphemous, adulterer at heart, and the Bible warns that one day God will punish you in a terrible place called Hell. But God is not willing that any should perish. Sinners broke God’s Law and Jesus paid their fine. This means that God can legally dismiss their case: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” Then Jesus rose from the dead, defeating death. Today, repent and trust Jesus, and God will give you eternal life as a free gift. Then read the Bible daily and obey it. God will never fail you.
Again, this is a stock Comfortism. Every little thing that you feel guilty about is treated as a sign that you deserve to go to Hell. Did you take two mints after dinner at the restaurant, instead of just one? Did you accidentally break the handle off one of the teacups in Aunt Tillie’s favorite set? Did you get a glimpse of a naked breast as you were flipping through the cable channels? Then your loving god thinks you should be flayed while swimming in a lake of fire for eternity! Because he’s promising to torture you forever, you better get on your knees and love him right now. And also send Ray $7 for a piece of worthless paper, thank you very much.
It’s hard to believe that anyone falls for this illogical nonsense, but he includes a testimonial.
“I’d like to thank you for producing the million dollar tracts. Because of it, I got saved and I gave my life to Jesus Christ 8 years ago. I used to be an atheist and God brought me to my knees through your million dollar tract. I went from being an atheist to being on staff at a church, and now I evangelize regularly.” Peter G.
If you were persuaded by that bullshit, Peter G., you’ve got other issues.
For the banana man:
https://media.giphy.com/media/9O80iT2BucaVG/giphy.gif
Is this… new? Is this something he pushed out recently? It’s just, I’m pretty sure I remember him saying the same thing a couple of years ago, and a year or so before that, and before that, and before that, and before that, in the exact same words. Does that not get dull? I’m so glad I’ll never have to be in Comfort’s mind, because I think I’d lose all hope.
So I read the Bible and obey the parts about owning slaves and stoning adulterers and my noisy children. Sounds good to me.
Do they come banana scented?
Yes. This is old. Really old.
Ray Comfort’s brain froze into its current state decades ago, and he never learns anything new, never says anything different.
I never understood why an all-powerful god would have to jump through all these hoops to atone for our sins. Why couldn’t he just say, “Gates: Open” ?
.
Besides, if I don’t sin, then didn’t he die for nothing?
This is a new spin on an old Jesus-ite trick. The original one was a thing that looked like a folded $20.00 bill, but was in fact a Chick tract when you unfolded it. Waste of paper. You’d think Bananaman would try to be original.
By the way, how did this blog get here ? It just can’t have evolved on it’s own, from an email or a bunch of listserv postings.
I follow Steve Shives’s “An Atheist Reads”-series and I have to say: It’s not just Ray Comfort who constantly recycles the same old arguments. The various books he covers may differ in style, vocabulary and reading level (Ray Comfort being on probably the lowest rung there), but regardless of that all those books usually cover the exact same ground, sometimes putting more emphasis on one thing or the other, but eerily similar each time. I guess it’s not surprising, considering they’re trying to defend ancient outlandish claims without any new evidence at hand. But it’s still odd that there’s so much of the same there. It fits with one of Steve’s hypotheses, that most of these books, flyers and other propaganda material are primarily there to preach to the choir of the already-convinced, rather than achieve what they are purportedly meant to, i. e. make new converts.
@#1 newfie
That looks like something from Robot Chicken. Did they do a Bible episode at some point or is this just one of their random skits?
Peter G’s main problem is that he’s entirely fictional, and utterly unrealistic.
It’s not just old, I’m pretty sure it’s not even his, I believe it’s standard fundamentalist soul-saving patter. When Matt Taibbi was undercover at John Hagee’s megachurch his small group missionary training involved drilling on all kinds of innocuous activities that were actually a violation of the Ten Commandments. They use them like icebreakers or pickup lines, they would learn all the little gambits and then break off into pairs and practice them on each other in roleplay.
At one point Taibbi got the idea that he would “pretend to be an atheist” during his practice and so when he was asked “Do you think you’re a good person?” he replied “I do my best.” And that seemed to stump everybody.
(this is from “The Great Derangement”)
A man gave me one of those at Reason Rally. I said, “Thanks, even though none of it is real.”
Guys, you know these only exist so asshole Christians can use them as a tip after their post-service Sunday brunch, right?
@Saganite#9 I have no idea.
Okay, I’m a lying, thieving, blasphemous adulterer at heart. *shrug* It’s interesting to note the standard dismissal of women, in the bible, and in Ray’s little screed. “Whoever looks at a woman to lust” – in the bible, that’s directed only to men, of course, because only men count. Seems it’s that way in Ray’s world too. I’ve certainly looked at woman to lust, and I’m not a guy, but I guess that just puts me much deeper in the sin territory.
Last Wednesday, one of the wait staff at Boy’s restaurant (not HIS restaurant, he is the trourenant chef) got one of those as a tip. For a four-top. With a total bill of about $260.00. Not including the bar tab.
Did you take two mints after dinner at the restaurant, instead of just one?
No. I left them alone. I don’t like (most) mints. So it’s quite Ok for someone else to have “mine”.
Did you accidentally break the handle off one of the teacups in Aunt Tillie’s favorite set?
What do you mean “accidentally”?
Did you get a glimpse of a naked breast as you were flipping through the cable channels?
I much preferred the scene with the didgeridoo and the two cups of yak’s milk chai.
Then your loving god thinks you should be flayed while swimming in a lake of fire for eternity!
Groovy! Will there be sorbets?
Presuming bananananaman doesn’t always lie, No: The copyright in the upper right corner is dated 2005. Which is somewhat amusing given the design has presumably been updated since as it says “Series 2015” in the upper left corner.
(I was actually trying to work out who the two dead white men are — my dead person identifier is notoriously wonky…)
Ray … Comfort. I’ve got a the DVD of his Evolution vs. God: Shaking the Foundations of Faith right here, right now, right next to my computer. Yes, this is the movie with PZ Myers and the infamous nose-cam, used to interview “evolutionists” as they say stuff which creationists interpret as stupid or evil. It’s hard to pick out a part to criticize in particular.
Which I may have to do. I have the DVD because I hired a handyman to do some chores and he saw the Darwin and Evolve fishies on my minivan. He came back later to return some chairs he fixed and winsomely asked me to be “open-minded” and watch the video, return it to him, and tell him what I thought. O rly? Since I actually love to engage in such dialogues and miss doing them, I happily agreed. Watched it (on YouTube,) made mental note of some of the most egregious arguments, and called him up and left a message with his wife about how happy I’d be to return and discuss it.
Uh oh. Too much happy. That was over a month ago. I must have scared him off and now I apparently have a free copy of Evolution Vs. God to keep. On the cover, MovieGuide (“The Family & Christian Guide to Movie Reviews” if you google) is quoted as saying “Profound … its research is impeccable.” So the entertainment starts before you even open it!
I’ve seen him concede a few times; it’s rare, and it’s usually when he’s really been pushed against the wall- rhetorically speaking- but he immediately reverts back to to his one true god, Status Quo*, once the pressure is off him.
* Yeah, TV Tropes.
If a woman looks at you in lust at the same time, do they cancel out each other’s sin, or is it sin squared?
It’s annoying because Jefferson is already on the $2.
I think I’ve been reading Pharyngula for too long and have become jaded; what most annoyed me about that tract was the word ‘aluminum’. Pah, America. You don’t even have the right names on the periodic table. Oh, and you’re overrun by evangelicals which might be problematic, too.
Re: Greg Hilliard (#21):
Oooh, good quesiton. My guess would be that it depends on the phaseshift of the sin. We could actually use this to our advantage. Get a priest to tell us when our two ‘sources’ are being sinful and when they’re not – this will be our detector. Then we have the two moving towards each other while measuring the distance. If sin does interfere destructively we can work out its wavelength from the distance at which this happens. Once we have measured the wavelengths of different types of sin it should be trivial to create an interference generator that can absolve you of your sins as you go.
I predict a lucrative smartphone app. At the very least generators mounted over church portals should render the confessional obsolete. The catholics would love it! Or perhaps they could emulate Google: cars with omnidirectional Absolvers driving around the country. Finally a practical way for Christians to make the world a better place in a God-approved way.
Greg Hilliard, @ 21
No, it 69s.
blf @ 18
The images are of Thomas Jefferson, the Founder the theists always love to appropriate when they’re not busy excoriating him for his letter to the Danbury Baptist Association. The irony of that is, of course, that Jefferson was a Deist and probably would have thought of Comfort and his ilk as fine examples of what was wrong with Christianity as a religion.
There’s only one BananaMan. And Ray Comfort ain’t him.
I wonder, does Comfort know that Jefferson’s portrait appears on the two dollar bill?
This “everything you’ve ever even thought about doing wrong means you deserve to go to hell” bullshit is there so that Ray can gain a false sense of superiority over people who don’t accept his other bullshit. It’s also there to keep his flock under his control by keeping them perpetually guilty and thinking that they’re terrible people.
Notice how this sort of attitude not only acts as a way of guilt-tripping people, but that the “all is forgiven if you repent” thing is used to cover up extremely shitty behavior on part of him and others like him. Josh Duggar exposed himself as ring far worse of a person than the vast majority of the people he claims are going to hell, and Ray just came up with excuses to maintain the facade of moral superiority. Fundamentalist Christians have this attitude that their piety and obedience to their imaginary friend make them morally superior to everyone else. In reality, I’d say that fundamentalist Christianinity is actually conducive to immoral, sleazy behavior.
Sorry, that should be “being”, not “ring”.
@PZ Comfort makes more money than you and I together. I don’t think he’s stupid at all.
OK, but God will still see me as a lying thieving blasphemous adulterer at heart, right? I mean, by Comfort’s standards, every saved Christian still does all those things. So it’s not like God will actually like me or approve of me; we’ll just sit there in Heaven while I sing his praises and he muses over how incredibly awful I am and how lucky I was to get to exploit the legal loophole he left for me. That’s a pretty darn unappealing eternity.
“I’d like to thank you for producing the million dollar tracts. Because of it, I got saved and I gave my life to Jesus Christ 8 years ago. I used to be an atheist and God brought me to my knees through your million dollar tract. I went from being an atheist to being on staff at a church, and now I evangelize regularly.”
I’d like to, but I won’t because — “because of it, I got saved and I gave my life to Jesus Christ 8 years ago. I used to be an atheist and God brought me to my knees through your million dollar tract. I went from being an atheist to being on staff at a church, and now I evangelize regularly.” And ya know? This really sucks.
Re: Greg Hilliard (#21)
No, it’s sin factorial !
Ray was supposed to donate $25,000 of gift cards since his idiocy at Reason Rally failed. It’s been almost a month. Anyone see if he actually did what he claimed he was going to do?
Jesus said, “Whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”
Erm, lust. Isn’t that just biology? Not a conscious decision.
So was Jesus denying the existence of libido?
Curious.