The Atheist Experience 744 with Russell Glasser and Don Baker
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- The Atheist Experience 744 for January 15, 2012 with Russell Glasser and Don Baker.
Don talks about the failure of prayer.
SHOW TIME-STAMPS
00:48- Intro & Announcements - Russell Glasser
02:24- Don Baker on Failures of Christianity - Failure of Prayer
18:46- Andy: autistic people being less likely to believe in fantastic things, Biblical claims appealing to anthropomorphism
26:04- Anna (pagan theist): CZcams documentary 'In God We Trust'
29:46- Jay (theist): thinks that prayer does work, magic crystals and resonating voices, meditation can affect the world
41:28- Fred (atheist): bought furniture from devout theists, wants a registry to do business with atheists
49:47- Chris (atheist): describes how Christianity has scarred his life, discrimination due to atheism and veganism
55:35- Matthew: is debating someone who claims Jesus is not a religious figure
You can read more about this episode on the Atheist Experience blog:
► freethoughtblog...
WHAT IS THE ATHEIST EXPERIENCE?
The Atheist Experience is a weekly cable access television show in Austin, Texas geared at a non-atheist audience. The Atheist Experience is produced by the Atheist Community of Austin. The Atheist Community of Austin is organized as a nonprofit educational corporation to develop and support the atheist community, to provide opportunities for socializing and friendship, to promote secular viewpoints, to encourage positive atheist culture, to defend the first amendment principle of state-church separation, to oppose discrimination against atheists and to work with other organizations in pursuit of common goals.
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MUSIC CREDITS
Theme song: "Listen to Reason," written and performed by Bryan Steeksma.
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NOTES
TheAtheistExperience is a fan appreciation channel on CZcams.
"The Atheist Experience" is a registered trademark of the ACA.
Creative Commons license: BY, NC, SA
► creativecommons...
When I started listening to the video, I instantly remembered the stand-up of George Carlin on the subject of praying. I started laughing uncontrollably.
Statistics prove that prayer does not work . We keep very accurate statistics on medical outcomes for medical insurance for example . There is no difference between those that pray and those that do not or atheists would pay different rates , same goes for car insurance .
Insurance is a huge unintentional study of the effectiveness of prayer and it clearly shows prayer does not have any measurable effect . Smoking does , as does drinking , but prayer - nothing
I love the people praying for the cruise ship missing persons and ignoring the prayers for a safe journey that were unanswered.
Just as it's his WILL that I suffered in silence for 15 years, that I never got a chance for a normal childhood, that I live my life with shame, painful memories & even nightmares sometimes. It was his will for me to be physically, mentally, sexually, & emotionally abused. A stable, happy childhood wasn't best for me. Perhaps it was a "test," huh? I guess I failed. Funny, my life didn't get better until I was LEGALLY able to control it myself instead of letting my parents control it.
“And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full."
Most trouble I ever got into in Catholic School growing up: My teacher, a nun, said that if you had true faith, you could move mountains. I pointed out the window and said "Hey, watch out, there's a mountain headed this way!"
Am I justified in being annoyed that she didn't check if I was right before punishing me?
you guys are awesome, but you must have the patience of job (lol) to be able to be so nice to he more irrational callers. love the show, so glad i found it!
I prayed once that the coin I was going to flip would land on tails rather than heads, it did, divine intervention AT WORK!
I was speaking to a christian that mentioned that her brother was 'depressed' and that she and her mom were praying for him...so I suggested some natural and allopathic remedies choices to deal with it...she said that the prayer was enough...So I retorted that if you had diabetes, you'd do more than pray to deal with it...and she implied that you couldn't know if it was prayer or the meds that worked...So I said, "You could worship Satan and the drugs would still work - Faith is not required!!"
cant believe in 2016 ppl still think prayer works lol
Jay: "I feel, I feel, I feel". But what can you show?
3:50 For years, I've been using those bible verses to illustrate the inconsistency between Jesus' words and the experience of believers. I'm with you 100% in this argument.
I am a living proof that prayer doesn't work. I am in a wheelchair with a physical disability and my legs don't work very well. You know how many times as a child I prayed to god for my legs to work. No answer at all. PRAYER = FAILURE
This has to be the best show online. I love it. I just wish they would upload it sooner. I really want to meet these guys one day. Maybe at the next national reason rally. I'm in Australia but it would be worth it just to meet the people in this show. Awesome.
were you in the appropriate vicinity for the "unholy trinity" tour of Aron, Matt & Seth?
He replied, “Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”
Don : That's Quite Powerful To Move Mountain With Your Voice.
Ask The Dovahkiin a little Fus Ro Da , He Has THE VOICE !
To pray is the craziest way to talk to yourself.
I love that the social study was mentioned.
People who care less about what others think are much less inclined to be religious.
Its unfortunate that just saying people act more religious because it is tied into the social acceptance of their community is not enough.
Psalm 45:10
Listen to me, O royal daughter; take to heart what I say. Forget your people and your family far away.
To this day, I STILL mourn my childhood. I can't look at a happy family without tears in my eyes, because I never had that. And you honestly think the pain I endured & the pain I STILL endure is part of some divine, "wonderful" plan? That I NEEDED that? That I'm SELFISH for wanting a happy, normal family? If you believe that, you are warped in the head.
The harm of prayer: Being a small child in an abusive family with a religious mother who always feels god's love, while you pray constantly that the abuse will stop and the family can be happy together but it never happens & actually gets WORSE for you - so you feel God must love your abusive mother more than you, & there's something wrong with you, not her, b/c you can't "feel" God like her. And you spend guilt-filled decades trying to get close to god before finally realizing it's NOT REAL.
We need to share these links with everyone. I'm amazed that these shows don't get more viewers.
18:42 for the Calls
I believe pray works. But, I have no evidence. And... I'm not really willing to actually test it either. And... I know that in reality, the facts argue against my beliefs but... I just feel good believing it. Forget about the 2000 years of prayers for world peace and Christian unity that went totally unanswered. I believe prayer works.
My college chapel has been displaying "weekly prayer intentions". So far, one was for missing children, and another was for unity of christianity. This is in England, as well.
I don't take issue with prayer when someone uses it to try and contact their deity. I take issue with the attempt to affect the real world via prayer, as opposed to actual effort. And I don't tolerate the attempt to claim prayer is effective.
36:15 I literally laughed out loud!!
I feel that it is important to look at things from all points of view, and hear what others have to say. I am Catholic and I do believe in god but keeping opened mind is important to me. Just before my aunt died of cancer, I asked if I could pray with her.Despite the fact that she was so weak and in pain. She got up and was sitting for a few minutes, and we prayed and a since of calm seemed to come over us both. She even smiled as we prayed. Even though the prayers did not save her life. For me and, I hope for her it brought some closer to both of us, just be for her life ended. So if there is a god or higher power, then our prayers where heard. If not then perhaps prayer can hold power in a way that it can calms you. Like people use mediation after a stressful day, but that is just my take on it.
Pray:
Did it get answered?:
Yes = Praise the Lord
No = God works in mysterious ways
As an atheist with aspergers I can tell you, my resistance and I_don't_give_a_fuckery regarding social pressure did play a role in my ability to reject the idiocy of religion
Curses upon dialect...! It took me five minutes to work out that Americans and Irishmen both pronounce "autistic" the same as "artistic", not as "OR-tist-ik" but as "O-tist-ik". Rewind, play it again, now it makes sense.
@me25422 I didn't say belief in a deity, I said faith.
If you've read the Pali suttas, you'll be aware that Saddha is one of the seven dhanas. It is one of the bases of our spiritual power. It is also one of the five indriyas.
Ananda and Vakali both show that faith is more important to Buddhism than objective reasoning.
In short, Faith is found throughout all of Buddhism, in it's writings and it's teachings, to say Buddhism does not require of you faith, is nonsense.
Jay: Sure, prayers may certainly trigger events that wouldn't have happened otherwise, and according to the "butterfly effect" no event is too small to make a difference. But the question was if a prayer can trigger those exact events of which ripples has an effect IN YOUR FAVOUR. Butterfly effects on it's own can just as well end up in a catastrophy.
Fred claimed (at 46:30) that he wrote a "homonym", which at first I thought was a mistake for "homily". But when he came back a few times to the notion that "faith is a homonym", he became wrong for a different reason. A homonym is a case when a word has the same sound as a different word which is unrelated, e.g. "fair" (light), "fair" (just) and "fair" (a public festivity). A subset in which the words also sound the same but are spelled differently are homophones, e.g. "alms" and "arms". The situation to which he refers does not have a specific name; it is just considered to be a semantic variation, e.g. "house" (dwelling) and "house" (dynasty or lineage, esp. of royalty). Perhaps the universities and English teachers did not respond to him because he made it clear that he did not really understand what he was talking about.
I've seen some insanely fat christians wearing insanely huge crosses on their hairy chest. I can't say naked. Because they weren't.
When I was young I used to pray to God to give me a bike. Then I went to Sunday school and was told,that that's not how it works... so I stole a bike, and prayed for forgiveness.
Keep Talking by Pink Floyd was your best intro! Thumbs up if you want it back!
Oh Russell have you heard expressions like Please and Thank you? Really nice and appropriate in the context of these calls
Wishful thinking a great way to describe prayer. It makes you feel as though you've done something about something when you have'nt.
I have a suggestion for this show. At the very beginning, put a website up on the screen and say "all the weekly announcements are posted here" and then we won't have to suffer through them every week. Or whoever uploads the video to youtube can take out the announcements.
@dsrtdawg1 This line "Forget about the 2000 years of prayers for world peace and Christian unity that went totally unanswered." should have clued you in.
P.S. I was strong believer once (but not a Church member), to a point "I don't believe, I KNOW god exists". I wasn’t sure if god,if it exists, is a person or just some life force (Star Wars, anyone?) that doesn’t really tinker with our lives. So, the only thing I asked for was an answer, and to my amazement the very next day there was the sign, a real world event (very specific, no coincidences possible) I was asking for.
However there might be another explanation, like my brain fooling itself.
you know...an open mind isn't open anymore after it's closed on an idea to accept and teach as truth.
Don and Matt are my favorite hosts.
4:16 "Move mountains with your voice." Sounds a lot like the Thu'um.
The documentary that one caller talks about is called "In God We Trust." It can be found on the youtube channel scottburdickart. It's an excellent documentary.
Jay: Gee, I believe in this stuff. Let me go look for a study that backs me up...
(Months later)
Jay: Aha! I found this one study that backs me up. Therefore, my belief is sound.
VERY SAD... She's probably now a Republican Senator...
@hardinmichael1981 Thank you. Yes, I am ok. It happened a long time ago. I think the experience gave me more empathy and caring for other people. I am an atheist, and when I gave up faith and prayer I became a stronger and better person. It isn't about god pulling the strings, its about making the best of your own life and the lives of others while you are here. I have my own family and a good life now.
@ganggan the point of having a secular government is to protect the rights and religious freedom of religious minorities and therefore of everyone. a secular government is not a goal unto itself. a secular government is the best way to ensure and protect freedom. that's the point.
other than that i think i agree with you about the symbology stuff. although there is a slippery slope.
Sorry can't stop any tsunamis this week, too busy influencing sporting events.
Jay can't seem to differentiate the difference between action and thought.
I think the caller Jay was talking about the power of positive thinking and not necessarily prayer.
You don't have to prove God isn't involved when he's not required, in fact he can still be involved even if he's not required. However, you DO need God to be involved if he IS required, and you need to show he IS involved, or any statement saying he is required cannot be backed up.
Q: Being purely hypothetical, If prayer worked and people were healed because god intervened and helped those people what does it say about all the people who weren't helped when they were prayed for, is god biased? And if so how do you know if he care about you?
For those that believe in prayer and miracles, explain why in the entire history of the world, there is not one proof of god, jesus or so called faith healers restoring a missing limb, or curing a child with a cleft pallet, or a child with down's syndrome. Why not?
@Mindlessfroot Thanks. It was a long time ago. I'm over it. My life is pretty good now.
The mustard seed thing always bugged me; what size quantity of faith equals a mustard seed? When a prayer fails they say either God had something else in mind or your faith was not great enough. If it's the latter, then the quantity of faith preachers and such who have failures in prayer, could be equal with an atom for all we know.
@betlamed I don't know the details of the study and it could just be chance. But, one explanation I've heard is that it could be due to stress from a form of performance anxiety. Basically, if you know you're being prayed for then you may feel more pressure to be healthy, and to the extent that added pressure causes you added stress then you could experience complications. It's like worrying yourself sick. But as always further study would be necessary.
@SuperMemzzz Yes, that's true when it is about things that are in your hand, like to change a behavior or to face a situation, etc. But praying doesn't work to avoid famine or wars, or to win the lottery. We could talk better about autosuggestion but I think this is about the alleged interventionism of an alleged god. My opinion: there's not such a thing like god. But if it is, it is no interventionist. But if it is so, it doesn't answer the prayers. That's a fact.
Prayer really does work. Once I prayed really hard to travel through time, and when I finished I found I'd been thrust almost minutes into the future. That's why I don't pray anymore. I don't want to waste what time I've still got left. I suppose it's a bit like atheism in that respect. Basically, Jesus wants me to be an atheist. Who am I to argue with him?
People sated with themselves are so because of their hunger for something else.They are therefore hungry.Those who turn back from wrong doing, they are the ones who are at prayer; not those who merely seem to bend in prayer.Prayer is an activity.
---Sanai, Hadiqa
I learned late in life that I would of been better off relying on myself than on prayer.
I've heard xtians claiming "prayer works" when anything good happens, with no evidence that anyone involved prayed.
Prayer works for people who want to feel good about themselves without actually doing anything helpful.
Sweet, the opening song sounds less obnoxious
Yes, of course.
Christian: Takes 10 minutes to make a point.
Athiest: Takes 23 seconds to make a point.
This is a follow up to my other comment. Actually prayer and belief in an external power to intervein in the affairs of man is a destructive and harmful belief. It is harmful because man and man alone is responsible for the state of the world and only man and man alone has the power to change things. To believe in these things relieves us of the responsibilty to step up and address these issues ourselves.
Apparently prayer follows the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. :-)
The more you observe it the more it acts like a placebo.
I'm an atheist but the caller that was talking about buying from just atheist really rubbed me the wrong way like they were talking about earlier not every christian is crazy just blinded Christianity is unfortantly the normal luckily even if my parents have religious beliefs they were very opened minded which made easy for me to find my way out to say I don't want to do business with Christians just because they are christian is wrong in my opinion
All things are possible when you have faith, but only if it's God's Will, and only after you have done your part, and only if ya got the bucks.
Dr. Robert Schuller
The whole Texas praying thing? Yeah... literally the day after wild fires started and the daily temp jumped about five degrees.
@me25422 To be Pedantic, Buddhism is nontheistic, and those that follow it can be atheistic, or igtheist, or theist if the want to. But it does require faith, both in general, and it specifically calls upon it's followers to do so.
There was divine intervention in that Steelers/Broncos game.
Big Ben was on a hobbled leg.
They had lost their workhorse RB in the final game of the season.
They lost their starting center in the final game of the season.
Their starting free safety can't play in Denver because of the altitude and some syndrome he has.
Their assistant coach was in intensive care after getting badly burned in a house fire the week before the game.
Jesus on the warpath for Tebow's career.
I think I would ask Jay .. do you mean when you meditate you feel better then go out in the world feeling better and that affects the world? Or during your meditation some force goes out and affects the world?
Faith can't move mountains, but it sure can shift those skyscrapers.
Was that the biggest factor in you losing faith you had, or do you just not pray anymore?
@Akira625 that is exactly the point of the video I posted the link to. It shows a starving kid praying for food while God is busy helping a football game to be won.
Since so many (religious) politicians believe in prayer, is it illegal anywhere to pray for bad things to happen?
I prayed to God for speaking in tongues and now I can't stop! Since prayer doesn't work how do I undo this.
@Amsah "He was a Catholic.."
Hitler was baptized catholic as a child, but never practiced as an adult. By the time of the war he was arresting catholic priests and nuns and seizing church property. I don't think you can call him Catholic, though I wouldn't call him atheist either.
@TheLivirus ok, maybe there are weirder ways to do that. Let me correct myself: to pray is a very crazy way to talk to yourself.
To be a winner, SOMEBODY has to lose.
@me25422 Depending on what type of Buddhism you believe, you accept certain things which are untestable, this is faith.
If you believe in the soul, karma, rebirth, transcendance/ascendance as a location.
If ou follow the teachings of the Buddha or his disciples, you arequired to have faith, if you want, I cant put citations for where they say that, for example, faith is one of the four cornerstones of their belief.
@jknightxx "he continuesly invoked god in his speeches"
Absolutely, he never said anything that makes him anything but a theist. It is just early on (in the 20s), he spoke favorably of Christianity as he consolidated power, but by the 40s, he saw the Catholics as an enemy and denounced the Christian religion (blaming the Apostle Paul) who had perverted Christianity & that Jesus wasn't Jewish. He did like mysticism & searched for the items of power you mentioned as well as Norse and pagan items.
if i ever make it over to the US, asuming SOPA doesn't make it implode even more, id like to swing round to El Arroyo when u guys are there, assuming ur still doing it then lol
Fred seemed to have a very christian mindset for an atheist. What's so bad about doing business with christians? If they offer desirable products/services at a good price while maintaining quality, they deserve their customers.
Feel awful sorry for the guy who used to be homeless with posttraumatic stress disorder.
Greetings from The Philippines! You guys are amazing! Thank you for these lovely shows!
One weird thing that happened to me was a sort of reverse deja-vu. I was just woke up and this weird feeling came over me. I looked at the TV and the picture there was all wrong. I also knew that it was December and that I was sick. Then the feeling passed and I was also sick at the time and thought to myself "I'm going to be sick in December again?" Come December, bacterial infection, coughing out my lungs for 2 weeks. I saw the image on the TV again and it was the latest ep of a new show. ???
An atheist directory would be nice, but not to be exclusionary, just to be more... accepted. Around here, we have a homosexual directory, which has gay and gay friendly businesses in it. A directory of atheist and atheist FRIENDLY businesses would be nice, and not exclusionary. Those Buddhists he talks about would likely be atheist friendly.
Its quite interesting that in the face of all of this evidence - why do people keep praying ? Its so odd
prayer is basically meditation.....or talking to ones self.........science and reality are my religion
I'm an atheist, but I LOVED Bruce Almighty, because it was hilarious. I laughed so hard I gave myself an asthma attack!
Is it me, or did that Jay woman not know what she was talking about? Seemed like she was having troubles understanding the points Don and Russell were making. Meh.
Jay: "...PERAYEAH..."
Me: *cuts off ears*
Finally, another video! You guys have been falling behind.
@TheHigherVoltage well i can understand national support cause it actually benefits the countries economy. But religious background of a person doesn't support anything cause the money used doesn't support atheism or a religion. Specially when it is a larger company
Yes the callers here were heavy on the weed
@LeanOnUs then it asks you to follow something else blindly. if it didn't, it would actually have some evidence to offer, and it wouldn't make such a big deal of faith.
Does anybody else smoke a bowl before watching this in the morning?
@Akira625 That's because Tebow was god's number 1 fan, and Brady was god's nephew, it shows that nepotism exist in the afterlife.
why does this girl jay keep saying 'right' when what she is saying is being disagreed with by Russell and Don--they are talking past each other