The Atheist Delusion (2016) Reviews

• The usual Ray Comfort nonsense and ignorance.

  michaeljb2016-10-24

  People already familiar with Comfort's previous efforts will know the drill here, and it's more of the same. On a positive point, this film does have better production values than the others. As has already been noted, this is just the same old Ray. Same old arguments (some presented differently so as to appear new), and the same old intellectual dishonesty and stone cold ignorance that we've come to expect from this particular antipodean reality-dodger, who doesn't understand what modern bananas are, and thinks calling him a "bibliophile" is a serious insult. If you are an honest Christian, looking for a serious argument against atheism, please do look elsewhere. I'd like to think that most run-of- the-mill Christians are more honest than Ray Comfort could ever hope to be. If you swallowed Ray's promises of this being some kind of death blow to atheism, then I am afraid (but not surprised) that you have been lied to (again). I would be very surprised if any well educated Christians would fall for this kindergarten level nonsense. To any well read atheists who are considering watching this; please ensure your head is well protected from the inevitable pounding it will receive from banging it against a desk, or perhaps wear boxing gloves to protect your hands and face from too much face-palming. This film proves only one thing; that Comfort is a very good salesman and film editor.

• Intellectually dishonest and fails to achieve its bold claim.

  sonofbelushi2016-10-24

  Ray and his contemporaries have a problem and it's not that they don't like atheists, it's that they simply cannot accept what Atheism is. Atheism is, quite simply, the rejection of the claim that a God or Gods exist, nothing more than that. Ray, however, thinks that Atheism is also a "belief" in evolution, that it has its own belief system, its own dogma, its own values and morality (or lack of, in his opinion) and therefore, as he intentionally presents Atheism as something it's not and never has been, the idea that he can "disprove" it with one question is both absurd and deliberately misleading. How exactly does one disprove the rejection of a claim? One cannot. If, however, one presents the view Ray's trying to disprove, dishonestly, endowing it with characteristics and values it does not have, one can set about trying to discredit and may apparently (subjectively) succeed but the conclusion as a result of this process is only going to be dishonest, and that's exactly what this film is. The "question" that supposedly disproves Atheism is an oft-used and tired one, that being "if a book had a designer then so must the Earth, right?" and it's deeply flawed because we can all witness the design process that goes into making a book if we wish to but the same cannot be said for our planet. Unfortunately, for Ray, we have observed how other planets are formed and there is no evidence to suggest that they were designed by a supernatural being. Eventually the film falls back into the fairly standard "How can we believe evolutionists who say there was a bang and the universe came into being, out of nothing?" argument (which is also inaccurate) when that's exactly what he expects us to accept the Christian God did. There's nothing new here, there's no evidence, no testable or peer-reviewed evidence, just a rehash of old arguments from ignorance, flawed from the outset by Ray's intentional misrepresentation of Atheism. Whether you're religious or not, this is an offensively stupid film that never actually comes close to achieving its intended purpose. There's not really much point offering a critique on the style or editing of the film as it's your standard Ray Comfort fare and that's the problem with the whole idea - there's nothing new here, nothing that hasn't already been said and nothing that would convince a non-believer to think twice which, in a nutshell, defeats the object. If Ray really believes that insulting the intellect of people will make them stand up and shout "I believe!" he's very much mistaken. It's not a complete waste of time, however; if you've been having doubts about Atheism this film serves as a reminder that there are no good scientific arguments to support the idea of a supernatural creator and if the best argument for it is "books are designed, so the Universe must be too" then you can feel confident that your apparent "delusion" is in fact entirely justifiable scepticism, and there's nothing wrong with that at all. "The Atheist Delusion" is an exercise in preaching to the converted and so, ultimately, is at best a failure and at worst, intellectually dishonest and factually inaccurate drivel. Sorry Ray, try harder.

• Was hoping for more

  luisalvaradox2016-10-24

  Was actually hoping for more out of this. There was a lot of misleading information, a lot of he said, she said, basically smoke and mirrors and no facts at all. Was really hoping to see something big where I could get and based information from, not until the end is when I realized I could never use this as base for something (or to even have an interesting argument and discussion about). If you are trying to learn about the Bible, how Atheist think, how religious people think and simple trying to get some facts and information related to the topics, this movie is recommended. This way you will also see how awful it was and why I felt really bad without any hope for it whatsoever.

• Typical Ray Comfort nonsense!

  pmfb2016-10-24

  I wonder if he knows the meaning of tautology: repeating the same concept or assertion using different phrasing or terminology, so that the proposition as stated is logically irrefutable, while obscuring the lack of evidence or valid reasoning supporting the stated conclusion. His assertion that "complexity requires a designer" is a basic fallacious argument. The fact that DNA is the "code book" of life does not imply intent or design. Each step in evolution is an imperceptible change; countless minuscule changes over billions of years add up to the vast range of living things that we know today. Simply saying "God did it" is childish ignorance. Mr Comfort is an articulate speaker and no doubt impresses the young people be interviews, while putting them under pressure to respond without the time to reflect. I suspect there were others who were not so beguiled. He's in the privileged position of being able to select the clips to include in his film. That's called cherry picking. He should try reading books other than his favourite collection of myths and legends. A complete waste of time.

• More "God In The Gaps" Hogwash

  spanier882016-07-31

  Should be called "God In The Gaps: The Movie." It's that same old, tired argument we've been seeing for over 100 years, "We don't know the answer, so God must have done it." There's no "gotcha" moment, there's no irrefutable logic, and there is certainly not "one scientific question" that "destroys atheism" as the movie's tag line would suggest. It's just more of the same stuff we've seen from Roy Comfort: badly edited interviews, pointless questions, and conclusions based on one single book. If your goal is either laugh at the stupidity of it all, or to whip yourself up into a logical frenzy, by all means see this movie, otherwise avoid it at all costs.