The Christian author whose book "You Can Lead an Atheist to Evidence but You Can't Make Him Think" bumped atheist Richard Dawkins' "The God Delusion" on Amazon.com's best-seller list says he's uncovered a conspiracy to attack his work.
Ray Comfort, who works with Living Waters ministry and has argued against atheism at Yale University, debated the issue on ABC's Nightline and has authored some 60 other books, including "God Doesn’t Believe in Atheists," "How to Know God Exists" and "Evolution: the Fairy Tale for Grownups," noticed an unusually large number of negative reviews on the book sale website.
"If you look at the reviews on Amazon.com," he said, "you could come away thinking that this is worst book ever written. It has masses of one 'stars' with scathing reviews, saying things like 'Comfort is a charlatan' and 'Dreadful piece of drivel.'"
But he said he also found five-star ratings with comments such as "Great logical thinking" and "a must read."
Ray Comfort, who works with Living Waters ministry and has argued against atheism at Yale University, debated the issue on ABC's Nightline and has authored some 60 other books, including "God Doesn’t Believe in Atheists," "How to Know God Exists" and "Evolution: the Fairy Tale for Grownups," noticed an unusually large number of negative reviews on the book sale website.
"If you look at the reviews on Amazon.com," he said, "you could come away thinking that this is worst book ever written. It has masses of one 'stars' with scathing reviews, saying things like 'Comfort is a charlatan' and 'Dreadful piece of drivel.'"
But he said he also found five-star ratings with comments such as "Great logical thinking" and "a must read."
When he got to one that said, "You can tell how good this book is by how many atheists are claiming to have read it and then give it a one-star review," he got to thinking and looking around.
On the Reddit.com website he found the answer: a conspiracy among atheists to drag his book down through their responses on the Amazon website.
A participant identified as "The Milkman" wrote, "Let's all vote one star on this piece of s---."
"Mithridates" also commented, "Pro-tip for people reviewing the book: giving it one or five stars makes it painfully obvious that you're just giving it that number because you feel the author to be on or against your side. To actually make it look like a real review you're going to want to go with two or four stars."
"Atheists spammed my blog, spammed our website and sent abusive e-mails about our new billboard, so I suspected some sort of atheist conspiracy on Amazon, and fortunately I found it," Comfort said.
On the Reddit.com website he found the answer: a conspiracy among atheists to drag his book down through their responses on the Amazon website.
A participant identified as "The Milkman" wrote, "Let's all vote one star on this piece of s---."
"Mithridates" also commented, "Pro-tip for people reviewing the book: giving it one or five stars makes it painfully obvious that you're just giving it that number because you feel the author to be on or against your side. To actually make it look like a real review you're going to want to go with two or four stars."
"Atheists spammed my blog, spammed our website and sent abusive e-mails about our new billboard, so I suspected some sort of atheist conspiracy on Amazon, and fortunately I found it," Comfort said.
The best-selling author said it was no big deal when spammers attacked his website, because it is so big it just didn't make much difference.
But he said he's sure his book sales have been affected because of the negative reviews, "because people purchase upon other people's opinions."
Still, he said, the book can't be too bad.
"The atheist who wrote the foreword backslid," Comfort said. "I sent him a copy, and a week later he wrote to me and said that he was no longer an atheist."
Amazon, which had featured dozens of single-star ratings and comments before this article was published, later apparently edited its content to provide only two reviews, one positive and one negative.
"There are interesting theological books out there, but this isn't one of them," the mild negative review said. The positive one said, "This book will receive hate-filled reviews, but the points will not be refuted."
Comfort said the strong opposition easily is explained.
"I simply expose atheistic evolution for the unscientific fairy tale that it is, and I do it with common logic. I ask questions about where the female came from for each species. Every male dog, cat, horse, elephant, giraffe, fish and bird had to have coincidentally evolved with a female alongside it (over billions of years) with fully evolved compatible reproductive parts and a desire to mate, otherwise the species couldn't keep going. Evolution has no explanation for the female for every species in creation," he said.
"I also show that the 'God' issue is moral rather than intellectual. No one needs to prove that God exists. Creation is clear evidence for any sane person that there's a Creator. But if I can convince myself that there is no God, it means I am not morally accountable, and evolution opens the door to a whole lot of sinful delicacies such as pornography, fornication, lying, theft, and of course writing bad reviews for a book I haven't read," he continued.
He said the logical problem that follows atheists, though, is that once they convince themselves God doesn't exist, they are left with the "insane" philosophy that nothing created everything.
"They will deny that through gritted teeth because it is intellectually embarrassing, but if I say that I have no belief that my Ford Truck had a maker, it means I think that nothing made it, and that's a scientific impossibility," Comfort said.
"When we said this on a billboard on a major Los Angeles freeway, Dan Barker, the President of Freedom From Religion, Inc., happened to be in California and happened to be on that freeway. He saw the billboard and wrote a scathing e-mail to me, calling me a liar. They hate their beliefs being exposed, and this book does just that."
One online review predicted such attacks.
Comfort "disproves every dumb atheistic assertion very simply with both scientific fact and common sense. This book is sure to enrage the atheistic and seculars of the world; but, their anger and 1-star reviews are only proof that they are not only losing the argument, but, have already lost," the reviewer said.
One of the critics went beyond attacking Comfort to cover all Christians in his opinion: "Ray Comfort appeals to the kind of people who would believe in Christianity. People who can't think themselves out of a box," the forum participant said.
WND has reported Comfort recently challenged atheist Richard Dawkins to a debate over God's existence, but Dawkins snubbed offers of both $10,000 and $20,000.
But he said he's sure his book sales have been affected because of the negative reviews, "because people purchase upon other people's opinions."
Still, he said, the book can't be too bad.
"The atheist who wrote the foreword backslid," Comfort said. "I sent him a copy, and a week later he wrote to me and said that he was no longer an atheist."
Amazon, which had featured dozens of single-star ratings and comments before this article was published, later apparently edited its content to provide only two reviews, one positive and one negative.
"There are interesting theological books out there, but this isn't one of them," the mild negative review said. The positive one said, "This book will receive hate-filled reviews, but the points will not be refuted."
Comfort said the strong opposition easily is explained.
"I simply expose atheistic evolution for the unscientific fairy tale that it is, and I do it with common logic. I ask questions about where the female came from for each species. Every male dog, cat, horse, elephant, giraffe, fish and bird had to have coincidentally evolved with a female alongside it (over billions of years) with fully evolved compatible reproductive parts and a desire to mate, otherwise the species couldn't keep going. Evolution has no explanation for the female for every species in creation," he said.
"I also show that the 'God' issue is moral rather than intellectual. No one needs to prove that God exists. Creation is clear evidence for any sane person that there's a Creator. But if I can convince myself that there is no God, it means I am not morally accountable, and evolution opens the door to a whole lot of sinful delicacies such as pornography, fornication, lying, theft, and of course writing bad reviews for a book I haven't read," he continued.
He said the logical problem that follows atheists, though, is that once they convince themselves God doesn't exist, they are left with the "insane" philosophy that nothing created everything.
"They will deny that through gritted teeth because it is intellectually embarrassing, but if I say that I have no belief that my Ford Truck had a maker, it means I think that nothing made it, and that's a scientific impossibility," Comfort said.
"When we said this on a billboard on a major Los Angeles freeway, Dan Barker, the President of Freedom From Religion, Inc., happened to be in California and happened to be on that freeway. He saw the billboard and wrote a scathing e-mail to me, calling me a liar. They hate their beliefs being exposed, and this book does just that."
One online review predicted such attacks.
Comfort "disproves every dumb atheistic assertion very simply with both scientific fact and common sense. This book is sure to enrage the atheistic and seculars of the world; but, their anger and 1-star reviews are only proof that they are not only losing the argument, but, have already lost," the reviewer said.
One of the critics went beyond attacking Comfort to cover all Christians in his opinion: "Ray Comfort appeals to the kind of people who would believe in Christianity. People who can't think themselves out of a box," the forum participant said.
WND has reported Comfort recently challenged atheist Richard Dawkins to a debate over God's existence, but Dawkins snubbed offers of both $10,000 and $20,000.
