Scoffing at all that's holy since 2004 FALLACIES AND OTHER SILLY BELIEFS Prayer Works Simply stated, no it doesn't.  Prayer either absolutely works or it doesn't work at all -- in which case seemingly successful prayer may be attributed to other (non-divine) external causes.  That being the case, it's time for a challenge.  Since I contend that no god exists, it must follow that prayer is utterly useless.  But since those who pray obviously reject this truth, they'll have to either put up or shut up. I will give $10,000 (U.S. funds) to the first person to come forward and claim responsibility for me accepting Jesus as my personal lord and savior by virtue of their prayer for me.  Seriously.  The cash is yours for the taking if you can deliver the goods in compliance with my rules as stated below. Attention Backpedalers: There are absolutely no exceptions to what may be received or accomplished through prayer, and free will does not give you a valid excuse to find any. Virtually everything that one might pray for (aside from acts of nature, like for rain to save a crop from drought) can be linked to an act of free will somewhere down the line. For example, anyone who prays for the ailing to regain their health or for the financially troubled to rebound is (at some level) at the free will mercy of doctors, nurses, technicians, researchers, administrators, and countless financial business entities. There is absolutely no doubt that at this very moment there are Christians with failing marriages who are praying for their holy union to endure and for their spouses not to leave despite free will.  This is an absolute certainty.  In the exact same manner, you can most certainly pray that I will accept Jesus.  Sorry, but virtually all prayers eventually collide with free will so I'm afraid you'll have to abandon that lame excuse.  (Hey, have a little faith.  After all, you've got the almighty on your side!) If prayer does work, then you could fairly argue that no prayer will necessarily be answered, but then you couldn't fairly argue that some prayers may never be answered.  That is to say, if prayer works then ANYTHING is possible through it, so don't even think about trying to argue that my challenge is impossible.  If your god is all-knowing, all-powerful, and listens to and answers prayer, then you have no excuses.  None. So, wanna make a few bucks? ALL of the following seven conditions MUST be met in order to collect the $10,000 reward: You must pray for my salvation (i.e. for me to accept Christ as my lord and savior).  You may also have others pray for me if you choose, but I will pay only one person the $10,000 reward which he/she may do with as they please. I must accept Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior. I must announce on this website that I've been saved. You must be the first person to notify me (based on the date and time received) by sending no more than one email to TheBastard@GodlessBastard.com. Your email must include a phone number at which you, personally, may be reached else it will NOT count as notification.  The first-response status will go to the very first person who includes a valid phone number in their email. I must call you at the exact phone number specified in your email to verify your name and mailing address. You and I must both act on our own accord, and at no time may anyone else act on our behalf in whole or in part. This is not a joke, so please DO NOT send me an email to claim the reward until my salvation has been announced on this website.  I will hold up my end of the deal if you hold up yours.  Really.  You can trust me on this.  I mean, isn't $10,000 a small price for me to pay for my eternal salvation? Keep checking this website because I'll announce if/when Jesus and I are best buds as soon after it goes down as possible.  Tell you what.  I'll also make the announcement via email to my faithful website devotees, but condition #3 (above) will still be in effect and must be met to earn the reward.  Stay ahead of the rest and get on my email list. I will pay the reward via bank check delivered by U.S. mail. Disclaimer: Since I must protect myself from litigious opportunist nutcases out there looking to screw me over on some legal technicality, I reserve the right to retract this offer at any time, for any reason, or no reason, at all.  Litigious opportunist nutcases notwithstanding, I give my word and will stand by my offer as long as all seven conditions (above) are met and your involvement remains within the spirit in which the challenge is offered.  So pray away. Oh, here's the flip side.  (You knew there had to be a flip side, right?)  Either facilitate my personally confessed salvation to fruition through prayer, or admit that prayer is a sham. This is my challenge.  Put up or shut up. But here's the thing.  You're not going to pray for my salvation.  Not now, not ever.  You won't even try.  And it has nothing to do with free will or god's "master plan" or anything else along those lines. The truth is, you won't pray for me because you KNOW it will have absolutely no affect.  Deep down inside you KNOW that prayer doesn't work.  Deep down inside you KNOW that prayer is for quitters.  Deep down inside you KNOW that prayer is nothing more than the final act of desperation for weak-willed, self-deceiving, cowardly people who can't cope with imperfection in the world as well as imperfection in their own lives. You KNOW all this to be true but just can't bring yourself to admit it.  It's too threatening to your entire belief system. Finally, if you think my challenge is silly, then congratulations!  You now know how I feel about the efficacy of prayer. But if you're still deluded by the possibility that your prayers may be answered, submit a few of them online here for free.  I wouldn't hold my breath if I were you.  Actually, no.  Hold it.  Hold it for about 18 minutes.  Please. The Godless Bastard is sickened to present... The "Falling on Deaf Ears" Prayer Watch An Exercise in Human Futility (Updated Daily) Click Here God Is Looking Out For You In short, no, he's not.  You're just suffering from the delusion that he is. We've all seen these bottom-feeding "psychics" who take advantage of weak, gullible people through rather lame (and obvious) cold reading techniques.  They toss out random generalities and vague, mundane references that could apply to most anyone.  Human beings are natural puzzle solving creatures, so the subject finds (or rather manufactures) a personal connection to whatever vague reference the psychic offers up.  In the mind of an idiot this creates the illusion of what people who are in on the scam call a hit.  And then the psychic will pepper those vague generalities with specific references that are most certain to miss.  But from time to time they'll score a lucky hit with something so specific (and seemingly so impossible to guess) that the subject's desperate need for confirmation will have them conveniently ignore all the ones that missed. This is called, "counting the hits and ignoring the misses." Well, the same proclivity is seen with those who so desperately need to see god's positive involvement in their life and the world around them. It doesn't matter if they're cherry-picking hypocrites or extreme wacko fundamentalists who believe in and follow the letter of bible lunacy.  What they all have in common is their delusion-reinforcing need to see what they want to see.  Their confirmation bias has them giving god credit for the good in the world (counting the hits) and conveniently playing dumb when things go bad (ignoring the misses). Submitted for you approval are the following Facebook wall postings by a former coworker who can't go 30 minutes without attributing god's personal involvement in her life when something good or positive happens -- even if it's found in the most mundane and non-impactful aspect of daily existence.  She does this incessantly like it's some sort of religious tic that she can't control.  Let's explore just a few of the dozens of her myopic hits and how they conflict with the misses. Burnt chicken, people.  BURNT FRICKING CHICKEN.  You see, god is good and he's looking out for her...because over-cooked poultry is such an awful thing to have to endure. DING!  That's a big hit! By the way, I've been burning shit in my oven for 25 years and the house never burned down. And just when life couldn't possibly turn more tragic, this poor victim of life-crushing misfortune left her cell phone at the restaurant...and went back to miraculously find it.  Unfortunately, her truck lost its ability to magically heal itself (like everyone else's automobile can), but she's not dying of cancer and she has a family.  Like what are the odds of having your health AND a family?  Amazing! DING!  DING!  DING!  More big hits for the most mundane of situations!  God is good! FYI, I misplace my cell phone DAILY.  That's every single god damn day.  And, miracle of miracles, somehow I manage to find it without divine intervention. This moron not only asked for people to pray for her daughter's professor to let her into the class... ...but she actually believes that the prayers were the reason for her getting in. DING!  Another big hit for the most unlikely event ever!  Imagine that.  Someone on a waiting list actually getting whatever they were waiting for.  God is good! Burnt chicken, a misplaced cell phone, and a classroom filled to capacity.  Mundane, unimportant trivial events in the grand scheme of things.  And god had a hand in all of it, until... Chicken is burnt to a crisp, god is good.  Baby is burnt to a crisp...um, er, uh...well, let's just sweep that one under the rug and remain conveniently silent as to causality and the involvement of the almighty.  But she wants you to "pray for the babies" for no articulated reason while she runs off to search for a hit elsewhere. BUZZ!  That's a miss, and she conveniently ignored it. I mean, seriously people.  What kind of person has the temerity (or perhaps it's stupidity) to see god's involvement in the burnt chicken incident (exact words: "I know God is looking out for me") and then not acknowledge the glaring dichotomy in her burnt baby posting?  You'd think that any sane and intellectually honest person would say, "You know what?  Maybe I'm reading too deeply into my trivial daily occurrences and ascribing god's good grace to random chance that yields a positive result."  This woman is raising a child, and it scares me senseless that she's shaping her mind with such utter nonsense, bad thinking, superstition, gullibility, weakness, and general stupidity. Christians set up the rules so that their test for god's watchful eye and goodness can never fail.  Just count the hits and ignore the misses and you'll never be let down. Yes, god is good...as long as you ignore anything in his world that isn't. Design Implies a Designer My two favorite movements are "Intelligent Design" and bowel.  Both expel shit, permeate the air with a foul scent, and I enjoy flushing them away. First, there is nothing apparently intelligent about the design of the world around us when you consider all that is terribly flawed within it.  And this is doubly true when you consider the alleged omnipotence, omniscience, and perfection of its so-called creator. From this one thing becomes patently clear.  Any apparent intelligent design in the world that one may infer is negated by just as much apparent unintelligent design.  And given this little dichotomy, no certainty may be derived about "design" or any intelligence behind it. Imagine you're an all-powerful, all-knowing car manufacturer.  Would you build a car that you knew would shut-down every 5 minutes whenever a CD was playing in the stereo?  Of course not.  With the knowledge of that future flaw you would be pre-emptive in your design and prevent it.  And you'd have the ability to prevent it because you're all-powerful. A god who knows everything would know that cancer, for example, would eventually infiltrate his allegedly "perfect" creation. Being all-powerful, he'd have the ability to "design" our bodies in such a way that we'd be immune to it.  After all, we're his children and he loves us.  If any mortal human would move heaven and earth to save their child from disease, then so would their allegedly omnipotent creator. Sure, the appearance of "design" in the structure of the human eye is quite impressive, but don't you think this all-powerful, no-limitation-having god could have "designed" us so as to be spared the unpleasantness of having to squat over a bowl and expel this horrid brown stuff?  He knew we'd go to extreme lengths to get it far away from us, and he knew how infectious and disease-causing this substance would be.  He even knew there would be an entire industry based on trying to cover up its foul odor.  I can deal with having nipples that I don't need.  I can overlook such a harmless and inoffensive design flaw, but the stench of human excrement is unforgivable. Intelligent design, my ass.  It seems to me that most of human existence serves to fix those "design" flaws. Christians argue that apparent design in the world is proof of their god's existence.  I say that the billions upon billions of flaws in the universe are proof that this allegedly omnipotent and omniscient god doesn't (and can't) exist. But to indulge the notion that "design implies a designer" I respond... While I offer no comprehensive refutation of the notion that "design implies a designer," I wish to offer a perfect real-world example pointing to the contrary. From Wikipedia: Currency evolved from two basic innovations: the use of counters to assure that shipments arrived with the same goods that were shipped, and later with the use of silver ingots to represent stored value in the form of grain. Both of these developments had occurred by 2000 BC. Originally money was a form of receipting grain stored in temple granaries in Egypt and ancient Mesopotamia. Evolution (as a general concept) is observable fact.  Organisms, relationships, mindsets, technologies, attitudes, and economies evolve.  Many "things" evolve. The world economy has as complex a design as just about anything else you can point to.  It's bigger than ourselves and incomprehensible to (and unexplainable by) most of us.  It's a living, breathing thing.  It even heals itself from time to time -- just like our bodies do.  Did ONE person sit down and design the world economy?  Of course not.  Did MANY people sit down and design it?  Nope.  Not that either. The world economy has evolved over the centuries (it's STILL evolving) and continues to be influenced by thousands of variables and worldwide occurrences like technological advancements, corporate mergers, government policies, international diplomacy, wars, consumerism, the supply of natural resources, and even weather patterns.  It has evolved, like everything else, since man first conjured up the concept of currency (initially counters, grain, stones, and ingots) and bartered them in exchange for goods and services. Today the largest monetary transactions are digital.  But who specifically, thousands of years ago, first came up with the idea of using receipting grain as a measure of currency from which the world economy evolved?  I have no idea, and neither do you.  No one knows for sure. But one thing is clear: Complexity and design do not necessarily imply a designer. God Will Reveal Himself to Non-Believers for the Asking You've been approached by these ass-hats, haven't you?  God damn, I hate these people. First off, god won't reveal himself to anyone, believer or non-believer, because he doesn't exist.  But let's put that stunning reality aside for the moment and stick with this most asinine and illogical bet-hedging challenge. You've heard it before a thousand times... "Just trust me on this.  Pray to Jesus and ask him to come into your heart and he will reveal himself to you and change your life in ways you never imagined." This is when you invoke some simple logic that makes your average bible-punching Christian start to backpedal... "Okay, I'll take you up on your challenge...BUT...if Jesus doesn't reveal himself to me, then you must admit that he doesn't exist at all, or at least that your challenge is pointless and a complete waste of time." Wait for it.  Here it comes... "Well, it doesn't work that way.  You have to really believe it." Really believe it?  Really?  No, I'm sorry, but it doesn't work YOUR way.  You're setting a logically incoherent rule that belief is the prerequisite for belief.  Are you completely clueless? Listen up, Lenny.  I DON'T BELIEVE.  Was that not clear to you?  Um, hello?  That's the whole point of your challenge, isn't it?  How can I possibly [your words] "really believe" that Jesus will reveal himself to me?  If I did then there would be no need for you to challenge me in the first place.  A little logic please.  It's all I ask. The burden isn't on me to [make huge quote fingers and say in a mocking voice] "really believe" so that I [again with quote fingers] "can believe." It offends my sensibilities to have to explain this to seemingly intelligent people, but pay close attention.  The burden is on your allegedly ubiquitous god TO REVEAL HIMSELF ON HIS OWN ACCORD so that non-believers will have some credible reason to be swayed.  He's got the chops to do it, so his excuses are his own.  Trust me on this.  You just have to "really believe" me. There is Life After Death (a.k.a. "I See Dumb People") Every clear-thinking person knows that there's no life after death.  When you're dead, you're dead, and that's the end of that.  But not everyone is that clear-thinking.  What follows is an excerpt (unedited) of a chat log between Godless Bastard ("GB") and someone I'll refer to as Wacko Angela ("WA"). Wacko Angela sprung a teeny tiny surprise on me when she revealed that she not only talks to the dead (suicide victims), but that she also talks to my older brother who died 22 years ago.  But here's the funny thing.  Wacko Angela didn't start her little astral dialogue with my brother until after I told her that he passed away...by suicide.  How convenient. But I must honest.  Wacko Angela is very sweet and friendly, articulate (she's a journalist and a former actress...hint-hint), funny as hell, and otherwise quite intelligent when not consumed by her afterlife delusion. Anyway, Wacko Angela and her friend were supposed to attend the premier of The God Complex (with a largely non-believing audience) last August.  Notice the way she tried to wiggle out of coming by putting the "un-invite" on me.  I mean, how could she possibly put her ass in a theater filled with people who (by and large) think she's nuts?  That would be just a wee bit too threatening to an experience she wants (or rather needs) so desperately to be true. Hold on to your hats kids 'cuz this is gonna be a wild 'n crazy ride!  Here we go... WA: your bro says hi.  i'm not kidding. GB: what??? WA: long story. i'm getting a lot of stuff going on here. big day. got a spirit here who needs me, need to focus on her, but now they are all knocking. she's a suicide. unresolved stuff. we're IM'ing in our own way. GB: ok, well take care of that. WA: but i wanted to tell you your bro says hi. he's fine. it was rough for years, but he's good now. GB: oh, i thought u meant dave [my living brother]. WA: no GB: okie dokie. WA: it's weird i know, but i thought you should know. i feel like they are all taking a number and lining up right now. GB: what have u done with angela? WA: i've been working all day and still am b/c my victim showed up and has lots to say.  and we've been incredibly busy. she survived her attack but took her life 6 years later, etc. so, there it is! feel free to uninvite me to your movie premier. but, i might have to bring her. i don't want to upset anyone. but i'm not gonna lie that something is happening with me right now.  and i wouldn't trade it for anything. i had it as a kid, and it's back. and it makes perfect sense to me, the timing of it given the last couple months of my life. no need for details. Wacko Angela is a textbook case of someone whose life is so vacant and unfulfilled that she must manufacture something uniquely self-important to fill the void.  Quickly approaching 40, not married, no kids, and runs off to Borneo alone, on a whim, and on less than one weeks notice to commune with orphaned orangutans.  (Yes, she really did.)  Now there's nothing wrong with any of this, but the list of distracting activities and void fillers is quite lengthy and just goes to demonstrate her search for midlife purpose and meaning.  Several recent meaningless, mundane, random chance encounters (which she described as "serendipitous") with old friends and other select acquaintances have her believing that the universe is trying to tell her something.  And then enter the dead...to talk to her alone...for spiritual counseling to ease their eternal existential pain.  Hmmm.  It's a no-brainer folks.  Textbook self-reinforced delusion. For the record, talking to the dead is easy and anyone can do it.  Getting them to talk back is the tricky part. Copyright © 2004 The Godless Bastard. All Rights Reserved.