Monday, March 23, 2009

Ray Comfort claims to find a Cure for Cancer.



“You should never consult a doctor or go to a hospital for treatment, because you would be interfering with the work of God in your life”.


There are two words that make my blood boil.


False Hope.

Combine them with ‘cancer’ and I turn downright nasty.

Any person who offers false-hope to those suffering the ravages of cancer, irrespective of their motivations, is in my books a heartless individual, worthy only of contempt & public admonishment.

And it’s admonishment I’m about to dish-out, in bucket loads, to one Ray Comfort Jr, author of this 111 page sanguine publication, entitled ‘More Than Just Comfort’.

First take another look at the cover to this book, above.

Focus one second on ‘AN ANSWER TO CANCER’.

Now, place yourself in the shoes of someone who is afflicted by this disease.

Then turn-over the book, look at the back-cover, like a prospective and anxious purchaser.




‘Cancer: The Modern Day Leprosy’.

Wow, we can now render cancer, to the historic medical annals of leprosy, right?

Of cause not, it’s all a load of crap, mere figments of Rays imagination.

Cancer is not contagious like some forms of Leprosy (or Hansen’s disease) for starters.

So to make such a nescient comparison, indicates he was never qualified in the first place, to write a book of this nature.

But when has that stopped him, eh?

The diatribe contained on its pages, speaks for itself.

There is no need for me to embellish or castigate Ray’s words – they do a good enough job incriminating themselves, without my help.

It’s time for you to read Ray Comforts ‘Answer to Cancer’ in the abridged form (basically everything minus the all too numerous and erroneous bible references) and make your own conclusions.

“There is absolutely no pointing being healed in our bodies, then dying in our sins and spending an eternity in hell. It would be better to die of cancer and go to heaven because of that cancer, then to live in perfect health and end up in hell”

“God slowly begins to wash the brain, removing all the filth and wrong attitudes it picked-up in the pre-Christian life. He begins healing wrong emotions, the scars of envy, jealousy, hate, bitterness etc, which can cause many common diseases”

“One of the first reactions to the news of cancer is fear. Through the healing of the soul God will teach the principals of faith. One way to rid your garden of the weeds is to cram them out with vegetables. In the same way God can cause you to rid yourself of fear by cultivating its opposite – faith in him”.

“The Bible tells us that the tongue has the power of life and death. Our words can bring either life or death”.

“Pain can be intensified by negative thought, which always destroys peace of mind. Often we have prayed for people who are in pain after being told they only have a short time to live, and the pain has gone”.

“Humanly speaking fear accompanies cancer, but through faith we can look at the situation supernaturally”.

“Satan has no right to afflict us, and when he does we can, by God’s grace, effectively resist him”.

“Therefore you should never take medicine to relieve pain. You should never consult a doctor or go to a hospital for treatment, because you would be interfering with the work of God in your life. If Cancer is the chastening tool of God, then doctors who are fighting cancer are fighting against the work of God. If a preacher or a Christian believes the sickness is a means of chastening, then he should never pray for relief from the sickness, but rather pray that the cancer will continue to grow until the chastening is completed”.

“If doctors were asked to diagnose that woman’s case, not one spine specialist in the world would say “Satan has bound her”. Doctors would call it arthritis of the spine, or vertebrae out of place, or some other medical term, and they would be right as far as medical terms are concerned. But if you get to the real source of the trouble you will discover that source is Satan”.

At this point in the book, whole chapter and a half is dedicated to describing the exorcism of Dave and Jane already covered above, but embellished by the startling revelation Jane’s toy, Kermit the Frog (a.k.a. Hermit the demon) had a cross driven through his heart.

In the Chapter Six, the final one, we hear about Kathy Howell from Auckland, who develops leukaemia and undergoes medical treatment as well as a heavy dose of prayer initially via her mother. Although the story includes specific details about her conventional medical care that lead to her remission, Ray points this to be an example of her belief in God and his ability to cure sickness the recovery.Even Kathy heaps praise on medical intervention first before the supernatural.

“In closing I want to mention the wonderful dedication and commitment of all the doctors and nurses I met, and the faithfulness and love of all the wonderful Christian people who prayed for me. Prayer I believe, is the greatest weapon we have against cancer. But most of all I want to thank Jesus”.

The contents of the late 70’s publication are beyond reproach.

Frankly ‘More Than Just Comfort’ is offensive in the extreme, beyond the bounds of simple ignorance & Ray Comfort, owes an apology to everyone who has been touched by cancer.

Starting first, with me.


Writers Note: These expose on Ray Comfort come from his earlier works – the ones which remain all but anonymous, occupying some dusty 2nd hand bookshop shelf in Christchurch, at best. Many of these books/booklets were limited runs, and never big sellers in their day & thus largely disappeared over the ensuing 30 years. They display a naivety, that I’m sure Ray himself would now cringe at. I am not into character assassination, he did some splendid work in the field of drug rehabilitation.It is however important to record ‘where he was at’ during his time in New Zealand. Remember, people change. We’ve all done things in past we’d rather forget, but generally we don’t make our living telling other people how to live. Ray feels a zeal to run-down atheists that knows no peer, so this alone makes him ‘fair-game’.

11 comments:

nullifidian said...

If I didn't know any better, I'd assume that the "70s" that you refer to was the 1570s.

What a sick bastard Comfort is—sicker than I ever could have imagined.

felix said...

As far as I know, advising people to not take medicine, go to doctors or hospitals in case of a potentially lethal disease is a crime in most countries? Has Ray retrcted these statements, or has anyone ever brought this to the attention of law enforcement?

I never thought Ray was this insane. I always thought of him as a preacher interested in making a comfortable living off selling his material by illusionizing people into thinking they would convert souls.

I don't think he's ever said anything close to the malicious insanity he displayed in that book on his present blog(s). This needs to be spread, unless of course he's retracted it since then. If this is criminal in NZ or the US, and if they're still selling these books, someone should seriously report this to the authorities. US law has made clear (at least since the 90s) that deaths occuring from neglect or adherence to allegedly religious tenets of faith are not excused and will be punished without special lenience. Instructing reader in that spirit is incitement and false medical advice, both punishable by law. The same is true for Germany and all other civilized countries as far as I'm aware.

BeamStalk said...

I just looked to see if he still sold this book, but it is not on the Living Waters website. I didn't check for an alternate name though. This of course doesn't mean he still believes this retardary or not but that he is at least not selling the book anymore.

felix said...

Well, for now I'll try to forget my anger about this, but it's hard, as I have several cases of severe cancer in my family. My mother died of the long-term effects of her medication, without which she would have died two decades earlier.
I couldn't find any copy of these books for sale either, just his earlier works in the Canterbury university library.
I sure hope Ray cringes every time he remembers those works; and although this part means nothing to me, I hope he has asked for repentance for that - the more it means to him, the better. Good thing the library has them. No deleting and weaseling away.

Canterbury Atheists said...

Thanks to the trusty 'School Fair' I secured a whole bundle of Rays ealier works at a nominal price.

So most of the books/booklets I discuss here, I have in my own possession.

It's only since he came back to town on a tour last week, I decided to do something with them.

Prost.

Paul.

PersonalFailure said...

They still sell this in Canada.

http://www.livingwaterscanada.net/store.php?seller=LWCanada&pd=499766

Kerri Love said...

PF: WHERE do I send my complaints to? I do NOT want this TRASH sold in Canada.

Of course most of my family members have had cancer, my grandparents died from cancer, they were Christian, but I'm sure they're not in heaven if Ray's God lives there.

Anonymous said...

If he was in town for a tour, you should have asked him to sign it, just to see the look on his face.

Anonymous said...

Ray addressed this today on his Facebook page. But, while he said it was out of context, he refuses to provide the material before and after the quote you have in bold. I was wondering if you could provide this material.

Ray wrote:

"Here is my response: In the book, I am arguing for cancer patients to seek medical treatment, and not to mistakenly believe that God gave them cancer as some sort of punishment/lesson, because if God had done that, then they shouldn't seek treatment until He has finished teaching them their "lesson."

You and other atheists have numerous times attempted to make it look as though I'm saying the opposite, by taking it out of context. Any quote that begins with "Therefore" should be a clue that it is quote-mined."

https://www.facebook.com/official.Ray.Comfort/posts/627076080646202?comment_id=93011954&offset=0&total_comments=413&ref=notif&notif_t=feed_comment_reply

Dan DeSantis said...

How do you respond to accusations of quote-mining? And do you still have the book? If so, I know that I'm not the only one that would greatly appreciate it if you posted a broader portion (or the book as a whole) for the sake of context. If not, would you be willing to allow someone to read your copy and send it back?

I'm hopeful that the quotes you provided aren't out of context, but this post desperately needs follow-up, even if an apology.

Canterbury Atheists said...

Here’s the story Dan – the city I live in was devastated in a massive earthquake. 183 died in Christchurch three years ago. Thousands were injured and virtually every house damaged to some degree, including mine. Like many in this fractured city my life is in boxes. One day when I feel the energy to open my damaged mementoes I will doubtless come across the book you accuse me of hiding. But even if I did I probably can't be fucked scanning it when I have my treasured Penthouse collection to read first, records to play etc.