Is the Cult Version of Origin of Species Coming to a Campus Near You? It’s a Secret!

Having learned the other day there's a new and improved edition of Darwin's Origin of Species being given away to college students next month – for free! – by a creationist group seeking to point out "Darwin’s racism," "his disdain for women," and Adolf Hitler’s "undeniable connection with the theory," I had to find out: Will the book be coming to a campus near you?

I emailed Living Waters, the California-based ministry of Ray Comfort, who took it upon himself to improve upon Darwin's book by penning a special evolution-busting introduction, which can be read here. This is the same Ray Comfort who believes bananas are proof that God exists – or, in other words, "the atheist's nightmare."

I received an auto-reply thanking me for my "very important letter" but saying that the ministry gets so much correspondence it might be impossible to reply to me personally. Then it said: "If you are in need of counseling, please contact a bible-believing church in your local area.  A local, bible-believing church will be better suited to offer you the counsel you are seeking."

It was signed: "Until the whole world hears, Living Waters/The Way of the Master."

The email listed a phone number, so I called, and was patched through to a pleasant man named Tony Miano, director of the ministry's "Origin Into Schools" project.

"We're not publicizing the list of schools," he told me. When I asked why, he said there are "a good number of atheists who do not appreciate what we're doing." He obviously didn't want the information to get into the wrong hands. He mentioned threatening emails and comments posted online at YouTube, where Kirk Cameron, the former Growing Pains sitcom star turned evangelical crazy person, appears in a video saying crazy things (like about brainwashing) and announcing that he and Comfort will be giving away 100,000 copies of the book.

Some people, Miano told me, had even threatened to hold a mass bookburning (when I went to check the comments for myself, the comment function had been disabled; still available is a counter-video called "Origin of Stupidity," which refers to Cameron both as a "lying snake" and Comfort's "boy-toy," something, for the record, I just refuse to believe. This is Mike Seaver!).

The good news is that Miano promised to add me to his email distribution list to alert me if and when the books are being given away locally. Anyone interested in getting involved in the project should contact Miano from the Living Waters website. He will "screen that individual" for "why they actually want the information."

Comments? Ideas? I'm at eniedowski@washingtoncitypaper.com, and on Twitter.