A great comment from atheistmedia.com: "We will just ignore all the people who pray to win the lottery who DON'T win. I see your 'conditioned response' and raise you a 'confirmation bias'."

By the same logic, if I pray and DON'T get what I want, is that proof that god doesn't exist?

Boosting this quality contribution up in the Hot Listing - declared quality by KnivesOut.

Nice comments about signs from the "journalist". Yeah, there's no Christian bias on Fox News though. Also, throwing holy water on your son while he sleeps!? Pathetic. Don't they understand that Catholics aren't true Christians anyway?

i thought this was going to be an Onion video....
that's sad.

edit: to be honest, if anything this is obvious proof there is no god... to reward the non-believer for his mock prayer whilst screwing over millions of actual believers.

Please God, save me from the holocaust.

Denied.

Please God, don't let my children drown in the tsunami.

Denied.

Please God, help my mom win the lottery.

Done.

that reminds me of a poem that I wrote and sung for the band XTC when I was a young boy.

Dear god, hope you get the letter and...
I pray you can make it better down here
I don't mean a big reduction in the price of beer
But all the people that you made in your image
See them starving in the street
'Cause they don't get enough to eat from god
I can't believe in you>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

Please God, save me from the holocaust.
Denied.
Please God, don't let my children drown in the tsunami.
Denied.
Please God, help my mom win the lottery.
Done.

I'll convert for a million dollars. Any Christians want to buy a conversion? Wait...hmm, if I was true to my word and actually followed the teachings of Jesus I'd have to give all my worldly possessions away. Crap! Or maybe just maybe, if I just conveniently ignored that continuing theme in the bible.. GENIUS!! Life of luxury and hypocrisy here I come!

Umm, if he really was an Athiest, what was he doing praying in the first place?

the primate planet

Upvote to show the crazy.

This retard prayed for a lottery ticket while being an Atheist? WTF? I am glad religion can claim him.

It's a miracle!!! They were able to piece together a series of events to fit with what they wanted to see, how amazing is that!

I guess that's just because 'god' works in mysterious ways.

Don't forget 10% goes to the church, then there is the cut for US income tax.
I think he should start praying for another million.

I wonder where his faith will be in two years when he finds out that one-million dollars isn't a lot of money. Especially if you live in NYC.

Do you think he'll learn piety, or just become an atheist "again"?

true atheists and agnostics are not brain-dead. Look at the guy's face between 0:14 and 0:19. Nothing going on in that head for sure.

What more do you need?

I like what happens in the conversation sarting at about 2:00 to around 2:10. Notice where the conversation starts to slip towards and gets bluntly cut off.. ending with, "..and then Gloria, what happened?.".

If he'd prayed to God and she'd won without buying a ticket - now that would have been something, huh? She won the lotto because she bought a ticket, not because of intercessary prayer. End of.

Plus: all that money, and those are the clothes they bought to wear on TV? Shoulda prayed for good taste.

These are the type of people where that million dollars won't last very long. They'll spend it on stupid shit and in a year or two they'll be back where they started.

What then, God?

Now if only he could pray to not be a douchebag.

>> ^Drachen_Jager:

Umm, if he really was an Athiest, what was he doing praying in the first place?
And further, how did he even know who to pray to? What if it was Buddha that answered his prayers?

"According to one underreported 2008 U.S. Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life survey, 21 per cent of atheists expressed at least some certainty of belief in God or universal spirit, and 10 per cent admitted to praying on a weekly basis.

Nor should we be surprised to learn that more “than 20 per cent of atheist scientists consider themselves to be ‘spiritual,’ according to a Rice University study.” From the Religion News Service: “The findings, to be published in the June issue of the journal Sociology of Religion, are based on in-depth interviews with 275 natural and social scientists from 21 of the nation’s top research universities.” The two in ten study refers to atheist scientists who acknowledge their spirituality. Like Oscar Wilde’s deathbed conversion, this is an issue campaigning journalists are afraid to touch. Scratch beneath the surface, and you’ll find that all men make spiritual-sounding noises, from Catholics to self-styled New Atheists."

>> ^Drachen_Jager:
Umm, if he really was an Athiest, what was he doing praying in the first place?

>> ^shinyblurry:

"According to one underreported 2008 U.S. Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life survey, 21 per cent of atheists expressed at least some certainty of belief in God or universal spirit, and 10 per cent admitted to praying on a weekly basis.
Nor should we be surprised to learn that more “than 20 per cent of atheist scientists consider themselves to be ‘spiritual,’ according to a Rice University study.” From the Religion News Service: “The findings, to be published in the June issue of the journal Sociology of Religion, are based on in-depth interviews with 275 natural and social scientists from 21 of the nation’s top research universities.” The two in ten study refers to atheist scientists who acknowledge their spirituality. Like Oscar Wilde’s deathbed conversion, this is an issue campaigning journalists are afraid to touch. Scratch beneath the surface, and you’ll find that all men make spiritual-sounding noises, from Catholics to self-styled New Atheists."
>> ^Drachen_Jager:
Umm, if he really was an Athiest, what was he doing praying in the first place?



Ha, you do well to bring Oscar Wilde's "conversion" as a comparison. So atheists "convert" when:

a) They win the lottery
b) They are dying of cerebral meningitis, pumped on morphine and semi-comatose

Sweet.

As for the rest: *citation needed*

Atheists convert for all sorts of reasons..it's actually fairly common and not hard to find. If you want a citation, you can check out this site called google and try putting in "2008 pewforum religion public life survey"

>> ^hpqp:
>> ^shinyblurry:
"According to one underreported 2008 U.S. Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life survey, 21 per cent of atheists expressed at least some certainty of belief in God or universal spirit, and 10 per cent admitted to praying on a weekly basis.
Nor should we be surprised to learn that more “than 20 per cent of atheist scientists consider themselves to be ‘spiritual,’ according to a Rice University study.” From the Religion News Service: “The findings, to be published in the June issue of the journal Sociology of Religion, are based on in-depth interviews with 275 natural and social scientists from 21 of the nation’s top research universities.” The two in ten study refers to atheist scientists who acknowledge their spirituality. Like Oscar Wilde’s deathbed conversion, this is an issue campaigning journalists are afraid to touch. Scratch beneath the surface, and you’ll find that all men make spiritual-sounding noises, from Catholics to self-styled New Atheists."
>> ^Drachen_Jager:
Umm, if he really was an Athiest, what was he doing praying in the first place?


Ha, you do well to bring Oscar Wilde's "conversion" as a comparison. So atheists "convert" when:
a) They win the lottery
b) They are dying of cerebral meningitis, pumped on morphine and semi-comatose
Sweet.
As for the rest: citation needed

Or you could learn some netiquette and use (hyper)links.

edit: @AnomalousDatum 's comment below shows why sources are asked; it's about knowing where/how one gets one's information. Also: whether one's a troll or not.

>> ^shinyblurry:

Atheists convert for all sorts of reasons..it's actually fairly common and not hard to find. If you want a citation, you can check out this site called google and try putting in "2008 pewforum religion public life survey"

God damn. Look how fucking retarded these two fucking people are at 00'-4:03'

http://religions.pewforum.org/reports
"one-in-five people who identify themselves as atheist (21%)... express a belief in God or a universal spirit." The breakdown appears to be 6% believe in a personal god, 12% believe in an impersonal force, and 3% don't know/other. The question then becomes, do they understand what atheist means? The sample size was 35,000, of which 560 (1.6%) were atheists including 120 of whom didn't know what atheist meant. Ok then. I'm sure that's representative of atheists as a whole. It's not possible a study on the varying views between religious groups would overlook a group that was non-religious.

Also... Shinnyblurry's comment looks suspiciously like
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2718697/posts

He is just a troll right?

Good catch @AnomalousDatum. Try this out: cut & paste commenting is awesome.

my god responds to entreaties on the scratch-n-win.

what about yours?

If track records are to be taken into account, I suggest praying to Odin.

It amazes me how some people think that conversions under extreme circumstances supports their position!

Show me an atheist who converts to Christianity, not because of a hallucination or wonderful boon or imminent death, but because he studied the religion and it all started to make sense. That's something worth talking about, and a person worth talking to.

Because the truth is, for a person who isn't suffering from confirmation bias, the more you study religion, the more you realize it's fake.

Are we sure this isn't Tim Heidecker of Tim & Eric Awesome Show pulling a very elaborate prank?

Tags for this video have been changed from 'fox news, lottery, atheistslashagnostic, magical thinking' to 'fox news, lottery, atheist, agnostic, magical thinking' - edited by xxovercastxx

All religious people are converted atheists. Nobody is born believing that stuff.

Wow. Slow "news" day...

Fucking moronic.

Reporter, "This story is unbelievable".

Me, "Exactly"

*dead

This video has been declared non-functional; embed code must be fixed within 2 days or it will be sent to the dead pool - declared dead by xxovercastxx.