USC Prof. Craig Stanford Dumps on Evangelicals, Calls Ray Comfort's 'Evolution vs. God' Video 'Biblical Porn'
University of Southern California professor and author of the book Planet Without Apes, Craig Stanford, says evangelicals who don't accept Darwinian evolution are being intellectually dishonest and dismissed evangelist Ray Comfort's recent film "Evolution vs. God" as nothing but "biblical porn."
Stanford, who appears in the 36-minute film, noted in a There Is No God podcast that Comfort, although a congenial guy, used dishonest tactics to lead four evolutionary scientists from leading universities to say what he wanted but cut them off in the film before they could get into a more comprehensive discussion of the topic.
He said the end result is a film that won't win any new converts and argued that people should ignore it.
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"The best approach to people like him and the evangelical community that might be making films like this, in general, is to just ignore them because they're obviously preaching to the converted, they are not winning over any hearts and minds of anybody else who is not evangelical," said Stanford. "It's a bit of a silly approach that they have that's all about trying to validate their increasingly marginalized beliefs."
"If you're not going to accept evolution I guess that's your civil right, but that means you're working on a fundamentally irrational and a kind of slightly crazy mindset," he continued.
The film, which has garnered more than three quarters of a million YouTube views and sold 180,000 DVDs, has reportedly irritated that atheist community.
When the host of the interview suggested that Comfort lacked scientific understanding Stanford disagreed, but called him and other highly educated evangelicals intellectually dishonest.
"He seems like a bright guy and many evangelicals are doctors, lawyers and I think that they are bright people, but as you know you can be a very intelligent person but you can close off your knowledge in certain compartments," said Stanford.
"Basically those prejudices…I think they are intellectually dishonest," he noted.
"I know this will offend some people in the evangelical community who may be listening but that video to me is a great example of what I would call biblical porn. It's a whole set of images and words that are really intended mainly to titillate and excite evangelicals. There's actually no actual inquiry in that video into science vs. creationism," he said.
