AronRa vs. Ray Comfort on Radio Paul's Ring of Sting

[DDdreamer]

Hello there everyone! You've probably never seen me here before, because I'm, well...a lurker. Anyway, didn't see a thread for this, so I thought it appropriate to make one.

Basically, known youtuber and atheist AronRa went toe to toe with creationist apologist Ray Comfort yesterday on radio show "Radio Paul's Ring of Sting".
Here's a youtube clip covering the entire 50 minutes long exchange:


Personally, I think Ray got utterly trounced in this one. Usually he manages to end up seemingly on top, due to being a very skilled speaker and wordsmith but this time I actually thought the exchange ended in clear favour of AronRa. I think most of this was due to Aron not latching onto Rays constant appeals to emotion and clever strawmanning, like so many people before him. It was actually quite a pleasure to watch someone finally catching Ray on all of the bollocks he's been spewing. Thank you Aron, for the enjoyable exchange. I do wish it had been longer though. =)

So, what did everyone else think?

D3

PS. If there's already a thread for this that I've missed or if the tread's in the wrong section, feel free to move and/or delete it.

EDIT: Fixed the embedding. -D3

 

[Master_Ghost_Knight]

For that you get virtual coockies.

 

[DDdreamer]

*Eats cookie*
No problem, mate! Kinda surprised no one's made a thread about this earlier. I mean, I bet most people on here would greatly enjoy the exchange.

I think one of the things that really got on my nerves this time was Ray's blatant attempts at scoring "nice points" by starting off with and inserting, niceties here and there.

"Oh I love dogs", "I hate religion", "Thank your organization for their invite on my behalf". They all just seem empty to me, like they're just things he says so that he can point to the debate later and go "Look at how rude this atheist was, despite me being as polite and kind as can be.". It's an underhanded tactic to make yourself look better. Then again, Ray's never been unfamiliar with that stuff.

Bet he'll tell his followers that "Aron was really rude, interrupting me whenever he got the chance." and "Aron told me that there was a common ancestor between cats and dogs, but he couldn't even name it!".
I guess we just have to wait and see...

D3

 

[rareblackatheist]

Ray embarrassed himself. I didn't think it was even possible to think less of him. You just want to grab his neck and try to squeeze just one honest answer out of him.

 

[detrean]

This was well done by Aronra.

In the past Aronra has not been so consistently poised and deliberate. He has allowed creationists to get out of the corner he boxed them into by following rabbit holes made slick with their bullshit (only in live debates, in written debates he is amazing). He also tends to interrupt when the shear amount of bullshit becomes overwhelming. Unfortunately both those problems will work against him from the audience's perspective.

In this debate he did not allow Ray to change the topic unless Ray openly stated he was. Showing the audience without a shadow of a doubt that Aronra was right point by deliberate point. He also would allow Ray to finish his BS if Ray started claiming he was being silenced. That shows the audience that Aronra is calmly taking Ray apart rather than being worked up or upset. I'm sure he was frustrated at times but he did well not showing it to the audience.

Bravo Aronra. In this debate you executed perfectly. After seeing many of these types of debates I think Aronra is one of the best debaters this movement currently has. No one knows the science, logic, and creationist tactics, when taken together, better than him. I wish he could have more exposure within the movement.

 

[Daealis]

It was funny to listen Ray become more and more agitated over the course of the debate. Every time he said one of his many "hooks", the first thing Aron points out is that "now you're going to do this, and here's why it's wrong". Not a single time was Ray allowed to insert his more predictable and inane garbage, without pointing out some underlying flaw in the whole reasoning that got him there.

In the end Ray come out as a petty kid stomping his feet shouting "NO!NO!NO! I'M RIGHT AND YOUR WRONG!" While Aron calmly explained some very simplified ideas that should be able to sink in, even to the more simple creationist folk. This is as close to a Hitchslap I've ever seen anyone besides Hitchen come, but with a more respectful tone to the BS spewed against you.

 

[nemesiss]

there are several that was pure epicness!

- the fact that their server was being overloaded and crashing all the time.
- ray stating he was anti-religious, while following a specific religion.
- the term "street-evolution"
- ray claiming he was being interupted, while he interupted aron ra within the first few minutes to promote his own books and video's.
- aron ra trying to explain why population are important for evolution and ray complain it was too complicated.
ok, for laymen it may be too complicated... but ray was just being a douche
- ray thinking he could outwit aron ra by claiming he could be classified as a pig and aron ra just said; "no, because you don't have any hoofs"
- the caller calling out ray's dishonesty
- ray trying to outwit aron ra with an argument for ignorance.

to other internet radio's.... beware of the texan tank, cause your severs can't handle his army!

 

[Inferno]

I'm currently at 17min, writing down my thoughts as it goes along.
First, cudos to Aron for that immense slapdown regarding "blind dog". Beautifully delivered and hits the central aspect of Ray's misunderstanding.

That being said, I have to agree with one thing Ray said: "Keep it simple."
Out of the three (tiny) disagreements I have with Aron (1. being his not letting others finish their point, something he did much better here so kudos there and 2. the point I addressed in the peanut gallery of the Bob Enyart debate, namely calling someone a liar and other things), this one is my greatest peeve. Aron, your wife is a teacher, correct? I am, too, so one thing that strikes me is you habitually fire shots way over the heads of your opponents. Your way of talking is absolutely perfect for the educated and professionals, but it's likely to fail with the semi-educated and will actually backfire with the illiterate/non-educated.

I loved the argument near minute 30, where Ray is so astounded by Aron saying that we are monkeys/apes. That may have been the funniest, most calmly delivered slapdown I have ever heard. Hitchlaps were all about logic and philosophy, I suggest a Ra-slap for any biology put-down.
"Why is God an ape?" Absolutely excellent, loved that.
The pig-part reminded me of the 15th FFoC: "It's a pig!" "Nyah Nyah"

Ray's projection was excellent. His whole rant on how he doesn't believe in evolution proves two things:
1) Creationists don't know what evolution is. They don't know the definition and they don't want to know it, either. They want to reinforce their precious beliefs and don't want to have them challenged, no matter how wrong they are.
2) The challenge "Define evolution in a biological context" really is so incredibly important.

I laughed at "everything has male and female". Is there any doubt that Ray has never opened a Biology Textbook?
I do have to correct you on one thing though, Aron: The "New Mexico Whiptail" or C. neomexicanus are not "all clones of each other". I'm waiting for my University online-Library to come back up (some error or other) so I can have access to the following articles:
TOWNSEND, C. R. (1979), Establishment and maintenance of colonies of parthenogenetic whiptail lizards. International Zoo Yearbook, 19 [1]: 80-86. DOI: 10.1111/j.1748-1090.1979.tb00533.x

and

CHRISTIANSEN, James L. ,LADMAN, Aaron J. (1968) The reproductive morphology of Cnemidophorus neomexicanus X Cnemidophorus inornatus hybrid males. Journal of Morphology, 125 [3]: 367-377 DOI: 10.1002/jmor.1051250307

They should give me some insight, but as far as I can figure it out from other (less credible) sources, they're so called "half-clones", meaning that meiosis has taken place and not all alleles have been passed on. I may or may not retract this when I've had the chance to read the papers.

I also loved how Ray accused Aron of using incorrect "Wikipedia"-definitions when Ray isn't using definitions at all and Aron said, maybe 15mins earlier, that he took it upon himself to go through the web and books to come up with robust definitions.

What I said above, about Ray assuming his preferred conclusion, also comes up just after the 40min marker. "Ray: Not right. Of course not right. [Aron speaking] Ray: I wouldn't be looking for anything when I know that God created me in his image [as a?] moral creation."

And then... Ray starts preaching. No evidence, no nothing. Plus, wtf was that about "are you some sort of spy?" nonsense... Didn't he even understand that Aron's making a point of "you could do this if you wanted to"?

 

[Prolescum]

Hitchlaps were all about logic and philosophy, I suggest a Ra-slap for any biology put-down.

 

[Inferno]

Hitchlaps were all about logic and philosophy, I suggest a Ra-slap for any biology put-down.

*snip*

Can't see no "Ra-Slap" there.

 

[bluejatheist]

AronRa did well living up to the policy he mentioned when he was on the Atheist Experience, about not allowing his debate opponent to change topics to gain the upper hand. Ray really slipped on the banana this time.

 

[AronRa]

2. the point I addressed in the peanut gallery of the Bob Enyart debate, namely calling someone a liar and other things), this one is my greatest peeve.

And I whenever I can prove that my opponent was deliberately lying with full knowledge of both his error and his attempted deception, I'm going to call him out on that. You said I should not simply call someone a liar, and I understand that. But that doesn't mean I can't still prove they were lying, and that's what I did.

 

[Inferno]

You're possibly right, yet I'd still go with what Ben Goldacre said:

Ben Goldacre: why I'm battling it out with Gillian McKeith again[/url]"]What do you do, as a campaigner for libel reform, when a litigious millionaire calls you a liar? This quandary was presented to me last week when the Twitter account of Gillian McKeith, or to give her full medical title, "Gillian McKeith", called my book Bad Science "lies".

Now, first, there is little doubt that this is actionable, and basically undefendable. "Lies", I know from seven years of exposing dodgy claims, is one word you never use in England: even if you can show that someone was obviously wrong, even that they probably knew they were wrong, you still need to show that they deliberately distorted the truth, and that's almost always impossible, without direct access to their thoughts. So I have a strong case against the litigious millionaire, and a reasonably good reputation for honesty to defend. And although I believe libel laws stifle debate in science at great risk to public health, there's no issue of science here.

 

[DutchLiam84]

That was awesome! Loved how calm Aron was. Still wonder whether Ray is a moron for not understanding anything Aron says or an absolute genius for making millions of dollars.

There is one sentence that should be Arons "catchphrase": You can't assert as fact that which isn't evidently true!

 

[mechtheist]

Wow, what a beautiful thing to hear, AronRa had Comfort way out of his comfort zone, damn near sputtering at times, thank you, that was some fine entertainment. Having seen so many debates come out so unsatisfactorily, I think this one went so well because it wasn't the typical format, the more formal ones that make up the bulk of the ones I've come across. Those really are two guys preaching their points of view, no real back and forth between participants, too often yawn yawn yawn. This was what I have yearned to see, and with Aronra, who I see is masterful, and gleefully unrelenting and merciless, the lying, obfuscating, deceptions, deliberate misconstruing, subject-switching retreats, etc etc fucking etc tactics of the warped-brained believing class stands little chance of surviving.

That said, I am in the middle of plowing through the massive postage on the Enyart saga, and still haven't even listened to the subject debate, god help me, my stomach may not survive that. What can you do with an asshole that just ignores 98% percent of everything that's said? And 98% of the 2% he takes note of, he does so dishonestly, taking misconstual to what can only be called biblical proportions, and pollutes the tubez with the BS of his victory . What a pathetic putz, don't know if I want to feel sorry for him or to feel my hands around his neck.

I hope I get to see AronRa perform his acts of [metaphorically] magical uncreation on the freaks much more often in the future, he's got my vote for best I've seen yet.

 

[Dustnite]

Aron is my hero. This is exactly how people like Ray Comfort should be handled in discussion and debate every time.

 

[Frenger]

*deep breath before I disagree with Inferno and open myself up to look a pratt*

Inferno, I think it may have been important to show Ray was a liar here for reasons I will go into........now.

So, remembering our friend Randy and his debate with AronRa (I say debate, Randy sat, listened and looked in pain) it was clear that he was under the impression his heroes, Ken Ham, Ray Comfort and (oh ffs) Kent Hovind were honest people, not just honest but almost incapable lying. Do you remember how uncomfortable he looked when Aron was calling them all liars (which I did and still disagree with, that wasn't the right time to be pulling down everything Randy had faith in) it was quite painful to watch.

The point is, people like Ray Comfort are not just people to their followers and fans, they are the bringers of truth and as such must be believed on every point and that point defended whenever it is questioned. So Aron can show all the facts, all the data, all the evidence but so long as Ray has that above human platform, those facts mean precisely shit.

But, if Aron can show these people (not just Aron of course, I'm not resting this all on his shoulders) to be consciously telling lies, fabricating the truth, pulling wool over eyes, suddenly they are just the same as the rest of us and their words are judged on their merit.

For fans of Ray who listened to that, they have to know that things are not right in that camp, not only did Ray not know anything, but the things he did know he lied about which for reasons as I have mentioned above is important. Now they will (god I hope so) think twice before swallowing every piece of garbage that comes out of his throat.

I think what Aron did on that show was actually very important.....and of course very funny

*exhale*

 

[Inferno]

Frenger, you pratt.

I seriously doubt it's the best way to make a person question his/her beliefs, that's why I'm opposed to it. I will grant you that it's hard, with someone lying as much as Ray Comfort is. But really, is this the best way?

I'll leave that open to debate, because I really don't know. But I think a better way would be to leave the whole "you're lying" aside and either just make fun of the ideas (see Bananaman) or adhere to the "pyramid of debate".

 

[Frenger]

Frenger, you pratt.

Knew it!!!!!

I seriously doubt it's the best way to make a person question his/her beliefs, that's why I'm opposed to it. I will grant you that it's hard, with someone lying as much as Ray Comfort is. But really, is this the best way?

Maybe not all the time, in fact, probably not almost all of the time. However here, I think it was important to show Ray not only being wrong but also fabricating lies. It's almost always impossible to show that someone wilfully lied and Aron probably risked a lot by even going for it. But the way Aron said it and the way Ray reacted (spluttered and immediately tried to chance the subject) it was very telling. Now anyone who listened to that has to question Ray's integrity. That''s the hope anyway.

I'll leave that open to debate, because I really don't know. But I think a better way would be to leave the whole "you're lying" aside and either just make fun of the ideas (see Bananaman) or adhere to the "pyramid of debate".

I think you're right that as a guide, calling someone a liar is effectively the same as calling them a bellend, but in this case, I think Aron did something pretty spectacular.