Conscience is the title of the second episode from season two of Way of the Master.
Episode walkthrough[]
Introduction[]
(0:30 – 1:57)
- Kirk explain how to share your faith "effectively and Biblically as Jesus did. Do you have a friend or a family member who does not know the Lord and you want to share your faith to so they can become a genuine christian, but you do not want to offend them?"
Kirk does not explain, or even know, what a "genuine" Christian is. A Christian believes in Jesus, but there are about 30,000 different denominations with conflicting views of Jesus and God (what he thinks, likes, wants, hates, etc. and they never once provide any data for their claims, even when they contradict other pastors). Ray Comfort claiming in a debate with the Rational Response Squad that a Christian is someone who is converted by God himself.
When a Christian performs horrible acts, Christians try to claim they are not real Christians (committing the No True Scotsman fallacy) or not Christians at all. Hitler was a Roman Catholic, he was baptized and believed in Jesus, but was he a "genuine" Christian?
- Ray "In previous programs we looked at the case for evangelism to seek and find that which is lost. We have been commanded to go an preach the gospel. We also looked at the Ten Commandments, opened them up to see the power of God's word of sin. Of course the Ten Commandments cannot save us, all they do is act as a school master to bring us to Jesus Christ. God's law is like a mirror, when we look into the perfect Law of liberty, we see ourselves that we desperately need God's forgiveness.
"Lost" only by his definition. Ray claims to be looking at the Ten Commandments, but which ones? The ones in Exodus 20, Exodus 34, or Deuteronomy 5? Using the Ten Commandments alone does not provide proof of god anymore than the 5 Pillars of Islam proves Allah. Ray only uses the Ten Commandments to set a problem that only his God could fix. Ray uses guilt, dishonesty, and appeal to emotion to force them into a position where they need Ray's god.
Ray calls the Ten Commandments the "prefect Law of Liberty." How can this be? The Ten Commandments do not say anything regarding discrimination, rape, slavery, child abuse, pollution, etc. Liberty means "freedom of choice" or "immunity from arbitrary exercise of authority: political independence" but how can this be when the first commandment says there is only one God and he is everyone's god? This god is pushing absolute authority onto everyone. Do people not have the liberty to choose their own god or not god? Where in the Ten Commandments, or the Bible, does it say that people can support themselves, or "We, the People" can form our own government?
Street interview[]
(1:58 – 3:15) The first person interviewed is clip of a man saying "I try to think I don't have a conscience, because if I do something bad I get frustrated."
Way of the master continually asks people "Do you listen to your conscience"
What is the conscience?[]
(3:16 – 4:30)
- Kirk defines the conscience as, "The human faculty that enables one to decide between "right" and "wrong" acts of behavior, especially in regards to one's own conduct."
Of course, through this entire episode neither Ray or Kirk will explain how the conscience came to be through the fields of zoology, sociology, and evolution. Perhaps they do not know anything about those fields of science and their role on the conscience (which seems very likely regarding their lack of understanding of science overall) or they intentionally do not want to inform the audience about this (which also is very likely). Both Ray and Kirk will be basing their claims regarding the conscience purely on religious grounds and faith.
- Ray - "As Christians, we often underestimate the conscience. God has given a conscience to every human being. If you go as far as the tribes of Africa they have a conscience, the work of the Lord written on their hearts. They know its wrong to lie, steal and commit adultery." He goes on to say "Conscience actually means 'with knowledge.' Con=with and science=knowledge. Every time we lie, steal, blaspheme, fornicate, lust we do acknowledge its wrong.
Ray says god has given everyone a conscience, but what about evil people like Saddam Hussein, Hitler, certain Popes, and many others?
Do all cultures know it is wrong to lie and steal? Stealing is against the law, but not lying. What if you had to lie in order to save someone's life? What about folk heroes like Robbin Hood, a thief and outlaw? What about fornication and lust, how can it be wrong? The point to survival is to reproduce. Lust is a natural part of humanity, and many people trained in psychology will testify that lust is involuntarily. Christianity made lust a sin, making everyone born of sin, so everyone cannot escape sin and thus are damned by their God unless people repent.
Ray claims "God has written his work on our hearts" so we are basically without excuse, but this does not prove God any more than the Primordial Covenant in Islam proves Allah (7:172-174: "When thy Lord drew forth from the Children of Adam -from their loins- their descendants, and made them testify concerning themselves, (saying): "Am I not your Lord (Who cherishes and sustains you)?" They said: "Yea! We do testify!: (This), lest ye should say on the Day of Judgment: "Of this we were never mindful;" or lest ye should say: Our fathers before us took false gods.) It is common for religions to include a system that links all human beings as being created by a specific creator and humans are without excuse, such as "thetans" in Scientology
(4:31 – 5:28)
- Ray is about to sear a steak on a grill, based on what a cook showed him on the television, saying, "The bible speaks of the conscience being seared as with a hot iron and has lost its life on the outside." He places the steak on the grill, showing its seared on the outside,but cuts into it to reveal a soft tender inside. Ray says perhaps you know someone who is hard on the outside an does not agree with God's standards with right and wrong, but if you take the knife of God's law and cut into their conscience, they are tender on the inside.
What is God's standards of right an wrong? Does he say "x, y, z is wrong because of this and that?; or does he say they are wrong because he simply says so?" If it is the former, then right and wrong do exist independent of God's standards. If it is the latter, then God can make genocide and abortion right and tolerance wrong.
How to speak to the conscience[]
(5:29 – 6:00)
- Kirk - "If I asked you to listen to your conscience, remember God see's everything, and what your conscience tells you. Or we can do what Jesus did and take people through the Ten Commandments.
Does God see everything? Can God create a box that he cannot look into? If God see's everything, then he knew evil would be present on earth long before he considered creating it. Again, Ray sets up a problem that only his God can fix by playing with their emotions. He also does not explain which Commandments he is going to use ( in Exodus 20, Exodus 34, or Deuteronomy 5).
Street interview[]
(6:36 – 10:35)
- Kirk interviews two people, using the are you a good person? routine. In the middle of the interview, one of them says if they are good 99% of the time, you should be fine. Kirk responds by using an analogy of a person in court. If a man tells the judge 'look I only sold a small amount of cocaine once, but overall I am a good person' the judge will respond 'Your goodness is irrelevant, you have broken the law.'
This scenario is purposely set up to be unfavorable to everyone, and only Kirk's concept of God is the judge, and his God condemns everyone who has sinned, and in Christianity's case this is everyone. This tactic puts everyone into a corner, and then evangelicals like Kirk provide, what they believe, the only solution.
In Ray Comfort's book You Can Lead an Atheist to Evidence, But You Can't Make Him Think, in chapter 8, section 6, Ray says that a judge who dismisses a criminal's charges is merciful. Ray firmly believes that God is a merciful God, but apparently only merciful to Christians.
(10:35 – 12:22) In the interview, Kirk uses another analogy of being in court. You are in court and found guilty. You cannot pay the bail fine, but then someone else comes in and hands the judge a check paying your fine. That is what Jesus did when he died on the cross for our sins. Kirk says we can trust in the payment of Jesus as you would trust a parachute while jumping out of a plane.
Again, this scenario is set up that everyone is guilty and only Kirk's version of religion is the solution. As people sadly know, not all parachutes work. Jews and several scholars would argue that the atonement of Jesus is flawed and sins do not need a blood sacrifice for forgiveness.
How to speak to the conscience, continued[]
(12:23 – 20:30)
- Ray tells of a drug lord who was apprehended by the London police at an airport several years ago. The police found the drug lords calculator that contained all his transactions. the drug lord said that he wiped it clean, so the police took the calculator back to its maker, who then retrieved all the lost data, and the drug lord was convicted and imprisoned for 20 years. Ray explains this is what will happen on the day of judgment: we will all go meet our maker and the data from our minds and conscience will be recorded.
Where is Ray's evidence that the brain is created like a calculator? Ray will deny this, but the truth is our brains are the products of evolution, not special creation. What if we damage our brains badly before we die and many of our thoughts and memories are lost forever. Do our souls fix themselves and then God watches the recording?
- Kirk explains modern evangelism, which is 'radically' different from evangelism from the past thousand years. They present it the same way Jesus, Paul, Charles Spurgeon, Witfield and Westley presented it. Modern evangelism avoids speaking to the conscience because it does not want to make a person feel guilty or offended, so Way of the Master speaks to a persons desire for happiness. Kirk says if his son deliberately disobeyed him, and Kirk says "Son, all children disobey their father" this will not help his son see the seriousness of his transgression but would rather diffuse him and spread out the problem. Nathan, Paul, and Jesus made it personal and spoke to the conscience.
- Ray - "Imagine a boy cuts his leg and then rushed to the hospital by his mother. The doctor looks at the wound and says 'Oh, he will need a shot directly into the wound. The boy will not like me, so I will just give him some candy. He will die, but he will still like me.' No, the doctor says to the mother, "Hold him down tight while I give him the shot. He will hate you and he will hate me, but it will save his life." Ray goes on saying if we truly love the ungodly and lost, we would say Oh God please hold them still for a moment so we can take the shot of Good's Law and penetrate the flesh. It will cause pain but will reveal to the conscience God's law of right and wrong.
It is easy to create analogy like this to view your views, like giving the kid a shot with the 5 Pillars of Islam. The problem really is that throughout this whole program, not once has Ray or Kirk attempted to provide any solid empirical evidence for their claims. Instead, they use analogies like these and nothing more, nothing useful or testable or even knowable.
- Kirk talks about Charles Spurgeon, who spoke to people's conscience, spoke to a Christian who did not approach a person because he did not want to offend them. Charles compares him to a doctor with a cure who decides not to approach a sick person who hides from the bad news.
“Ho, Ho, Sir Surgeon. You are too delicate to tell the man that he is ill. You hope to heal the sick without their knowing it. You therefore flatter them. And what happens? They laugh at you. They dance upon their own graves and at last they die. Your delicacy is cruelty, your flatteries are poisons you are a murderer. Shall we keep men in a fool's paradise? Shall we lull them into soft slumber from which they will awake in hell? Are we to become helpers of their damnation bu our smooth speeches? In the name of God we will not."
- Ray explains as a sick child does not want to take his medicine, because of the bitter taste, the mother tries to cool it down and make it more nice, but it will lose its curing properties. When Kirk and Ray evangelize, they soften the medicine by not mentioning words like "hell", "God's wrath", "sin", etc. but Kirk says its like a firefighter running through a burning house, finding a sleeping person and not yelling "Fire! Wake up! You are going to die!" The firefighter is failing to tell them what danger they are in.
More and more analogies, but no proof. You can simply replace these scenarios as a Muslim, Scientologist, Mormon, or whatever instead of Christian and the analogy works just as effective. There lies the problem, Ray and Kirk do not provide any evidence for their claims at all to give them more credibility than that of any other faith known and unknown to man.
- Ray recalls the biblical story of Jesus and the crowd about to stone an adulterer. Jesus wrote in the sand with his finger, nobody knows what he wrote, but some say he wrote the Commandments, similar to how God wrote the Commandments in stone with his finger. The Commandments bring knowledge of sin into this world.
This story of Jesus and the angry crowd about to stone an adulterer does not appear in the original gospels at all. This section of the story was later added into the gospel several hundreds of years after Jesus supposedly died, written by a person who never met Jesus.
- Kirk "Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom" most Christians, according to Kirk, do not fear God because they are told that God loves them, but they are not told God is righteous, holy, and pure and will judge the world in righteousness. He then quote A. W. Tozer.
“God’s justice stands forever against the sinner in utter severity. The vague and tenuous hope that God is ‘too kind’ to punish the ungodly has become a deadly opiate for the consciences of millions. It hushes their fears and allows them to practice all pleasant forms of iniquity, while death draws everyday nearer and the command to repent goes unregarded. As responsible moral beings, we dare not so trifle with our eternal future.”- A. W. Tozer
- Ray explains that mans mind is at war with God. The mind is not subjected to the law of God nor can it be [referenced to Romans 8]. Mans minds and their wicked works are at war with God, but we all share a conscience that is written on the hearts of the enemies of God. Christians tell sinners "you have you have lied, stolen, etc. just listen to your conscience."
man's mind is at war with irrational silly superstitions, not a supreme being because it does not exist. Claiming God wrote on all the hearts of man is no more valid than the Islamic belief that Allah wrote his law on our souls before we were born. Any moral person who reads the horrors of God of the Bible will quickly conclude that God has no moral conscience and is unlike humans.
Wake-up call[]
(20:31 – 21:50)
- Kirk retraces that they have discussed that Christians and non-Christians have a conscience, a knowledge of right and wrong, and God speaks to us through our conscience like a telephone and tells Christians to go out and spread the gospel and the Christian faith. Kirk says Christians have two options: obey God and demonstrate love for him, or muffle the call of the conscience and go back to the cozy comforts of Christianity.
Interviewing an atheist[]
(21:51 – 27:00)
- Ray asks "where does the conscience comes from?" The atheist, Ryan, says "I couldn't tell ya, its too big of a question, but I don't think it comes from God."
Being unable to answer a question does not mean Comfort's position wins by default.
- Ray says "the conscience seems to be an individual judge of a court room in everyone's mind telling everyone what is right from wrong on all things. We all got it, some people do not know where it comes from, but since you do not think it comes from God, why does it just speak to us about morality and not other things? I mean, you have no control over your conscience on what it considers right or wrong." Ryan responds, "Well I do not think it does necessarily, as some primal sense [camera cut]"
- Ray "you have a moral absolute somewhere. Is rape wrong?" The atheist responds "Rape is wrong." Ray then asks, "well, where do you get that from? Why do you believe that?" Ryan replied "Do not do something to others as you would want them to do to you." Ray quickly points out "that is what Jesus said." Ryan goes on and says reward and punishment is created by the human mind (Ray asks if he is sure about that) so Ryan explains if you do something good without the belief that you will go to heaven and be rewarded or strife because of fear off hell, you do something called absolute choice. You do good without the hope of reward or fear of punishment, it all comes down to choice and everyone's conscience is true to them as they perceive it. Some people's truth is on the same page, while others is not.
Jesus was not the first to point of the Golden Rule, it goes back to the philosophies of Egypt, Greece, Persia, and more. This is just a feeble attempt to give credibility to Jesus. Ryan makes a valid point. Those who only do good just to be good are more moral than those who are good just for a reward to to avoid punishment.
- Ray "Stepping aside for now, I have been addressing your intellect, but now I want to address your conscience." Ray then uses the are you a good person? routine. Ryan, at the end and regarding where he will spend for eternity, said rather than submit to a something out of fear, Ryan will go with "what good is inside my heart, and that is not what is in my heart." Ray asks Ryan to spell "Shop" and "what do you do at a green light?" and tells Ryan that the Bible says he that trusts his own heart is a fool. Ray says we cannot trust our own judgment, since we are all sometimes wrong and make mistakes. Deeper investigation into Ryan's upbringing shows that Ryan was brought up in a Christian family. Ryan says the words of Jesus were profound, and perhaps many of it lost, but also notes the vast amount of text that did not make it into the Bible. Ray asks how does he know that, Ryan says he chooses which story to trust.
Ryan is correct that many gospels did not make it into the Bible, such as the Gospel of Peter, the Gospel of Timothy, and several others. It is also true that the Bible was have today is not the same as the original version, some texts were taken out of the Bible.
- Ray asks Ryan "Do you know why Jesus died on the cross?" Ryan says to remind people about sacrifice because they have forgotten. Ray responds, "Not really, the Bible says he was paying the fine for the law which you broke." Ryan says he does not have a Bible, but plans to study it over the summer.
Best wishes to Ryan, who did a great job in the interview. Many would argue that reading the Bible is the quickest way to atheism. Daniel Dennet notes that there are hundreds of pastors ad priests out there who no longer believe what they preach, but are afraid to come out in fear of losing everything.
Closing comments[]
(27:01 – 28:32)
- Kirk says this program is provided as instructions for the audience, not as a source for entertainment. In order to reach out to friends and family is to do it Biblically. Kirk says examine the Bible to see if that what they broadcast is true, since the Bible says "test all things and hold fast to that which is true."
We already checked the Bible. The Bible says test all things and hold on to truth, which makes Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort liars and hypocrites, since they have no tests or models to confirm anything they say about Christianity. As for discovering if the Bible is true, the debate is over: it is not true. There are plenty of instances were you can stop reading once you find just one false piece. For instance, we know the earth was not created 6,000 years ago; the earth did not appear magically; there never was a global flood; and for many, there is no historical proof at all for Jesus Christ. We know archeology dose not fully support the Bible, the Bible contains many contradictions, discrepancies, forgeries, evident fictions, legendary embellishments, and propaganda.
External links[]
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