WOTM Watchdog! Keeping Ray, Todd, and Kirk honest... because they don't know how to.

Thunderf00t has done a great job over the years on his youtube channel.  We coordinated efforts closely during the Kent Hovind extravaganza 2 years ago.  A few months ago he sat down with the Ray Comfort.  

Here is the entire 10 video playlist.  Grab your favorite beverage and prepare for fun...

I had a request today for a statement from the Philadelphia City Paper about the upcoming visit of WOTM to The University of Pennsylvania campus.  Here is my statement:

I am not worried about the mission to distribute revised Origin of Species books from the Way of the Master team at The University of Pennsylvania.  The students at UPENN are some of the brightest in our country. They surely have accumulated enough knowledge of the sciences at this point to see Ray Comforts destruction of The Origin of Species for what it is, a desperate attempt for attention by an ailing Christian movement as it slowly breathes it's last breaths.  I hope the students at UPENN are familiar enough with evolution and natural selection to understand that it's verified every day by scientists across the planet in numerous fields of science.  

During the period thatpaleontologists call the Cambrian Explosion, virtually all the major animal forms appeared suddenly without any trace of less complex ancestors. No newbody plans have come into existence since then. - Comfort

One wonders exactly what is meant by "major animal forms".  The highest taxonomic rank below kingdom (all animals are in the kingdom Animalia) is Phylum.  Some animal Phyla originated before the Cambrian such as Cnidarians and Sponges among others.  Many other animal Phyla did not appear until much later in the fossil record such as Onychophora.  It is suggested by some studies that only eleven out of thirty two animal phyla first appeared during this time period.  In any case the more "major form"Kingdom Plantae did not originate until after the Cambrian Explosion. Since the Cambrian this one kingdom has evolved to include more than three hundred thousand species of plants.  In addition to this the remains ofcreatures from the Cambrian Explosion such as Anomalocaris and Opabinia areclearly transitional fossils between arthropods and lobopods. 

Despite all of these "major animal forms" that came into existence during that time, all of the animals most familiar to us such as mammals, birds, reptiles, insects, etc. did not appear until much, much later. 

Ray Comfort's introduction to Darwin's On the Origin of Species is standard creationist arguments that have been used over and over again against his caricature of evolution.  First and foremost nonscientific layman of this sort seem completely unwilling or perhaps incapable of understanding the difference between something that has been proven as fact (evolution) and something that is continuously tested as a theory of how that fact occurs (natural selection).  Whether evolution has occured is supported by an overwhelming body of evidence and has been established with utmost certainty.  Evidence for this has accumulated from all biological disciplines including paleontology, comparative anatomy, biogeography, embryology, biochemistry, molecular genetics, and others.  The evolution of organisms is universally accepted by biological scientists.  "Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution" (Dobzansky 1973).

I've been clicking around the 'Way of the Master' website and let me just say, first off, it's simply puke-tastic! The homepage reminds me of a bad local car commercial, and I can almost hear them in the background chanting, "Sell, sell, sell!" That's what it comes down to, though, how many of their videos and altered Bibles can they sell? And they've really pulled out all the stops too: the flashy graphics, the comforting photos encountering people "just like you," the exciting sounds! They bombard you with links and advertisements to attend conferences, price reductions for books, and videos about how to "get on fire for God." They are doing exactly what I saw an anti-abortion website do not too long ago; they post anything and everything they can on the homepage with the hopes you'll find SOMETHING which appeals to you, enticing you into hidden folds within their propaganda.

Criss from Romania tags Kirk and Ray...

On the first hour of WOTM Radio on Tuesday, May 20th, Todd Friel made an interesting observation: The rights of Christians are being attacked. And he offered proof! Proof, I tell you! PROOF! On May 10th, in London, an anti-Scientology protestor was cited by police for the use of the word "cult" in a picket sign. Todd of the Friel People was incensed! British police are clearly violating the free speech of fine, upstanding Christians who oppose the false religion on Scientology!

Believe it or not, we here at WOTMWatchdog actually find ourselves in a rare moment of agreement with Frielly Todd, Demon Preacher of 147th St. Scientology is a dangerous cult (something it has in common with Christian fundamentalism), and the London police were indeed out of line for hassling a protestor over calling a spade a spade.

But was this a case of Christian religious freedom being supressed? Well... No. That's quite an absurd claim, as we shall see.

I've recently found myself pondering what makes Way of the Master such a force to be reckoned with in the evangelical Christian world. Whether non-theists want to admit it or not, WOTM is quite a dynamic and successful ministry; I have the financial reports to prove it (another entry for another day). However, just because they are good at what they do, it doesn't mean that what they do is good. Ray Comfort's Living Waters Publications (the umbrella organization of WOTM), has quite a heavy revenue (and expenditure) report and it is interesting to speculate why it has risen to such status in such a short matter or time. I think I may have the answer.