Roy Natian, founder of the Bruin Alliance of Skeptics and Secularists, found his group in a unique position when Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron appeared in person on UCLA's campus to distribute the Living Waters Ministry's version of Darwin's Origin of Species.  Roy and Ben Jolitz both shared their experiences "confronting Comfort."

Roy Natian explains the situation and his group's plans:
Ray Comfort’s Living Waters Ministry declared months ago it would go to the top 50-100 college campuses in the US and pass out free copies of Darwin’s Origin of Species with a 50 page introduction full of misinformation and lies written by Ray Comfort. They advertised that this would occur on the 19th of November.

Note: If you don’t know who Ray Comfort is, check out this video with him and a banana…it’ll go far in showing you his mental capacity/ignorance/dishonesty.

Well, they changed their mind. They hit campuses all over the US [on November 18th]. Sneaky Ray, very sneaky. This wasn’t unexpected though. BASS saw the possibility of this misinformation campaign occurring on a date other than the advertised one. BASS members were prepared to pass out printed materials from the NCSE any time this week. Several BASS members handed out flyers and bookmarks with information about evolution.

Surprisingly, both Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron were at UCLA in person. A few BASS members engaged and debated with them on evolution and at least one BASS member was interviewed on camera. Spencer Fern, BASS secretary, even got to take a picture with Ray. It’s interesting how Ray is in the same position in the three pictures.

Ray "the Banan Man" Comfort with Spencer Fern

Spencer commented, "I got him to agree to the photo and he asked one of his acolytes to take the picture, but then I casually revealed I was an atheist. He kind of pulled away at that, but I had him in a bit of an armlock and he didn’t want to make a scene."

BASS member Ben Jolitz wrote up his "confronting Comfort" experiences:
Well, in an not entirely unexpected move, Ray Comfort and his creationist cadre moved up the day where they were to distribute their own corrupted version of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species with a 59 page unnoted garbage introduction regurgitating tired disproved creationist arguments of irreducible complexity and claims that Darwin played a pivotal role in Nazi Germany, despite obvious evidence that it was banned under Die Bucherei von 1935 (The Library of 1935):

Quote:6. Schriften weltanschaulichen und lebenskundlichen Charakters, deren Inhalt die falsche naturwissenschaftliche Aufklaerung eines primitiven Darwinismus und Monismus ist (Haeckel).

Translation:

Quote:6. Writings of world natured and living-oriented nature, whose content is of false scientific enlightenment through primitive Darwinism and Monism.

Well, some of my friends actually debated the Banana man himself, while I was late and had to make do with some guy who I think was Latino and claimed to have served in Iraq, not that he looked particularly fit. While he was preaching, he made the statement that is paraphrased as “Without God, there is no reason to live a good life”. Enough being enough, I made my way to the box opposing from him in the circle of the public.

“Sir!” I begin, “That is out of line! You are wrong”

He calls me rude, but I persist, gesturing. As he quiets, I quote Marcus Aurelius, messing it up a bit, but here is the correct quote:

Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.

The crowd cheered, but then the creationist attempts character assassination, asking if I’ve ever lied then trying to call me a liar (someone answered his question with “Christian” to “What do we call those who lie?”), etc,. I call it out – and I get the hypothetical of “If you were at God’s feet”, etc, at which I concede that if God was in front of me, I would accept judgement and bow down, but only under extreme and exact conditions. He then devolves back into proselytizing and professes how much he cares for me. At that point, I am weirded out again, but looks like he is tired too, so someone else takes the boxes away and it ends.

On the upside, my club and I passed out many fliers from the NCSE on “Why Ray Comfort is Wrong”.

Ben Jolitz with Comfort's "Origin"

 

For more information on BASS's Confronting Comfort activities:

PZ Myers on Pharyngula linked to BASS and a post written on Spencer’s website about Ray Comfort being at UCLA today.  BASS president Joe Creason posted some video of Ray Comfort on Youtube.