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Famous Christian filmmaker, author and evangelist Ray Comfort, whose common-sense attitude toward atheism is evident in his books “Nothing Created Everything,” “You Can Lead An Atheist to Evidence, But You Can’t Make Him Think” and “God Doesn’t Believe in Atheists,” is reluctantly canceling plans to give books and gift cards for Subway sandwiches to atheists at a coming rally in Washington.
Police forced him to cancel, he explained to WND, because of the size of his contingency.
More than 1,000 Christians had volunteered to help hand out the gifts to atheists who will be attending this year’s Reason Rally on the National Mall in Washington on June 4.
The event, by its own description, is to “showcase the presence and power of the nonreligious voting bloc, and to demand that reason be put at the forefront of our public and political discourse.”
“Not only are we celebrating our secular, atheist, agnostic, humanist, freethinking, and nonreligious identities, we are preparing to exercise our power at the voting box to bring good sense back to government,” the event’s promoters say.
See Ray Comfort’s works at the WND Superstore.
Speakers will include several members of the Wu-Tang Clan, physicist Lawrence Krauss, “Saturday Night Live” alum Julia Sweeney, paranormal investigator James Randi and poet Victor Harris.
Comfort, whose programs, books, movies and outreaches are online at the Living Waters site, said there will be an estimated 20,000 atheists meeting at one end of the National Mall, and he is planning to film open-air preaching for his TV program, “The Way of the Master,” the same day near the Washington Monument.
So he proposed giving away 5,000 copies of his new book about atheism, along with Subway gift cards totaling $25,000, as a gesture of Christian love. The book is called “Fat Chance: Why Pigs Will Fly Before America Has an Atheist President.” It’s a direct counter to one of key objectives of the Reason Rally.
But he said the huge number of people who volunteered to join him apparently caused concern among Washington police.
“To the D.C. police,” he said, “that constituted a protest and therefore we needed a permit to gather. We would have to stay at the other end of the National Mall, and they said that if we persisted to approach atheists to speak with them we would be arrested.”
He still plans to be there with a crew of 17 people.
“The Reason Rally is free and open to the public, so if any other groups of individuals show up on their own initiative they won’t need a permit either or be arrested if they approach atheists,” he said.
“To authorities, Christians and atheists are enemies. So they want to keep us apart for the sake of peace, especially with more serious threats facing America,” he said. “That’s understandable. But at the same time I’m a little frustrated, because I have a very good relationship with atheists.”
He noted that in 2001 he was flown from Los Angeles to Florida by American Atheists Inc. to speak.
“They put me in a nice hotel and gave me a gift basket. Since then I have had meals with high-profile atheists, and I’ve been in correspondence with two of their top speakers at the Reason Rally, trying to figure out a time in our schedules when I can interview them,” he said.
Ray Comfort and Subway gift cards that had been intended for Reason Rally attendees (Image courtesy Ray Comfort)
“In what is so often a cruel world, we tried to show a little kindness and it didn’t work. So it now looks like we will be eating Subway sandwiches for the next 40 years,” he said.
The gift cards had been provided by a donor.
He noted that he also still is being interviewed for a special documentary about the event, alongside Johnny Depp, Bill Nye and others.
In his “God Doesn’t Believe in Atheists,” he addresses questions such as “Who made God?” and “Where did Cain get his wife?”
Comfort uses humor, reason and logic to challenge the faith atheists have that there is nothing out there.
Comfort is the founder and president of Living Waters Publications. After relocating from New Zealand to Southern California in the 1980s, he introduced a long line of pastors and churches to a biblical teaching he called “Hell’s Best-Kept Secret.”
“The Way of the Master,” with actor Kirk Cameron, is broadcast in 70 nations, and he has written more than 60 books.
With such topics as Hitler and the Bible, the Beatles and the Bible, and changing minds about abortion, Comfort regularly finds himself in conflict, even if friendly conflict, with an increasingly secular American society.
He recently disputed with YouTube over a trailer for one of his movies. The trailer promotes Comfort’s film “Audacity,” which challenges the belief that homosexuality is unchangeable.
According to Comfort’s Facebook page, YouTube explained in a message: “This video has been removed as a violation of YouTube’s policy against spam, scams, and commercially deceptive content.”
Comfort invited the public to view the trailer on the movie’s website and “see if it’s spam, a scam or has commercially deceptive content.”
The trailer is also available here:
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from PropagandaGuard https://propagandaguard.wordpress.com/2016/05/28/police-say-christians-cant-give-atheists-gift-cards/
from WordPress https://toddmsiebert.wordpress.com/2016/05/27/police-say-christians-cant-give-atheists-gift-cards/
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