Richard Dawkins Calls Banana Man "Ignorant Fool"

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On Feb 24, 2009, Professor Richard Dawkins wrote, "I have just had the following email exchange with a journalist, who seems to be acting as some kind of intermediary on behalf of the Banana Man."
 
The "Banana Man" is a reference to best-selling author and television co-host, Ray Comfort.
 
Comfort says, "For years I have held a coke can in one hand and a banana in the other, and compared the two. Both have a tab at the top. The banana has a wrapper with perforations, is biodegradable, etc. It was a parody--the point being, if someone designed the coke can then obviously Someone designed the banana. In the mid 1990's I published the parody in booklet form called "The Atheist Test" and sold over a million copies. When we put it into our TV program, atheists removed the coke can, and sent the clip all over the Internet, saying 'Ray Comfort believes that the banana is proof of God's existence.' I guess atheists don't appreciate parody."
 
But atheists unwittingly gave Comfort a huge international platform. His book, You Can Lead an Atheist to Evidence but You Can't Make Him Think, rocketed up the Amazon.com rankings on its first day of release, moving from No. 69,572 to No. 38 in 24 hours, and was the # 1 book in the categories of religion and atheism on "Darwin Day," even bumping out Richard Dawkin's, The God Delusion.
 
In Feb. 2009, Comfort offered Dawkins $10,000 for a public debate on the subject of evolution versus creation. He refused, saying, "$10,000 is less than the typical fee that I am ordinarily offered for lecturing to a serious audience . . .  It is not, therefore, a worthwhile inducement for me to travel all the way across the Atlantic to debate with an ignorant fool. You can tell him that if he donates $100,000 to the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science (it's a charitable donation, tax deductible) I'll do it."
 
Comfort responded by saying that he didn't have to travel. He could do the debate from a radio studio in his home town, and offered him $20,000.  Dawkins responded with "$20,000 is closer to the fees that I am customarily offered. However, I am not in this for the money." Again, he refused to debate.
 
Comfort said, "During the more than 5,000 times I have spoken in the public forum, I have engaged hundreds of little Richard Dawkins' and have noticed that when their argument is very weak, they always revert to personal insults. While I won't condescend to insults, I will point out that Mr. Dawkins does believe that we were created by aliens.
 
"In "Expelled No Intelligence Allowed," when Ben Stein asked him, 'What do think is the possibility that there then, intelligent design might turn out to be the answer to some issues in genetics... or in evolution?' Richard Dawkins answered,
 
'It could come about in the following way: it could be that, at some earlier time somewhere in the universe a civilization evolved by probably by some kind of Darwinian means to a very very high level of technology and designed a form of life that they seeded onto perhaps this planet . . . and that designer could well be a higher intelligence from elsewhere in the universe.' So let's call the debate 'Banana Man Debates Alien Man' and let the audience decide who is the 'ignorant fool.'"
 
For those who would like to hear such a debate, perhaps if enough people goad him, Professor Richard Dawkins may come out of his ivory tower and give his faithful followers more than a papal wave. He may even condescend to engage Ray Comfort in a serious discussion, and show that he's not just the evolution world's version of a televangelist. You can contact Mr. Dawkins via: http://richarddawkins.net/forum/