How is arguing with a lawyer like wrestling with a pig in mud? • • • • • • Sooner or later, you realize they like it. • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Speaker B

Welcome to the Cross examiner podcast, the Internet’s courtroom in the case of rationality versus religion. Here, our host uses his experience as both an attorney and an atheist to put religion on trial. We solemnly swear that it is the most informative, educational, and entertaining jury duty you will ever do. And now it’s time for the Cross examiner. • • • • • • •

Speaker A

Welcome to the Cross examiner podcast. I am the cross examiner. I am an atheist. I am an attorney. And I’m alarmed. I’m alarmed by the rise of Christian nationalism in the United States. And I am alarmed by the massive amounts of misinformation that’s powering that rise. So I started this podcast in an attempt to both educate and entertain, specifically focusing on the intersection of religion and the law, but also in any areas regarding the law or religion. Today is episode four, and it very well may be my last episode, and I’ll tell you why. Friends, I have witnessed what could be the biggest miracle in the history of humanity. And I’m not exaggerating here. It very well could be the biggest miracle in the history of humanity. And if so, • • I think we all need to convert to Christianity. Now, I hear you asking, wait a second. Are you kidding? I’m not kidding. • This is a miracle that people are demonstrating through video, and they are claiming as proof that Christianity is true. And I’ve taken a look at the evidence. I need you to take a look at the evidence and see how impressive this is. So let’s dig into it. I’m going to play you clips, audio clips from the miracle event, and we’ll analyze it together. So this clip is from a pastor talking to his church, setting the stage. Here we go.

Speaker C

Amazing things are happening. People are being healed online. And, uh, so, uh, this involves a creative miracle. Chrissy Thompson was shot three times in 2015 by her husband.

Speaker A

All right, let’s stop here and explain a few things. First, he said this involves a creative miracle. That is a Christian termed for a type, a category of miracle where you’re asking for God to make something or to heal someone, to bring about a new reality, basically. • • Second, he mentioned that Chrissy Thompson is the subject of this miracle, and she was shot by her husband three times. He’s giving you a lot of information here, a lot of detail. He’s saying it’s Chrissy Thompson, shot by her husband three times. Okay, let’s continue.

Speaker C

And was in a coma for two months. Her injuries included the need to have three toes amputated. • • • • When Pastor Bill asked if anyone needed.

Speaker A

A creative miracle okay, jumping in another time. Here two other details. She was in a coma, and she had to have three toes amputated. More very specific details about this woman, Chrissy Thompson. Let’s continue.

Speaker C

Chrissy responded that she had three toes amputated. • • • • Kelly, who serves on the prayer team, • • told her that the Lord wanted to grow her toes back tonight. • • • • • So Kelly had her take off her shoe • • • anointed where each of the toes would be.

Speaker A

Oh, yeah, we’re going there. This is exciting, right? We know it’s about to happen. I won’t spoil it. But I think you can see where this is going, and it’s pretty thrilling. I did want to explain two things. One, • • anointed, uh, • • • he said, we took off her shoe and we anointed her foot. That just means rub some oil on it. Not blessed oil or whatever. It’s just oil, right? Could be • • • holy, um, • • • oil, or it could be olive oil. It could be anything. • • So they rub some oil on her on her naked foot. And this is in accordance with James 515. No. James 514 and James 515, which reads as follows is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well. The Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven. So call the elders, anoint him, and pray, and you’re cured. Now, interestingly, it’s always him that you’re praying for him. Side note, • • those of you who are on the conservative Christian side, why are you faith healing a woman? The other thing I want to explain is you hear that music in the background? • • That, uh, dramatic sort of humming of angelic chords? That’s not part of the miracle. That’s part of the stage show. This guy is on stage in a megachurch. Thousands of people in attendance, band behind him. Professional extreme lighting going on. He’s got the sort of a Steve Jobs type of look. Imagine Steve Jobs presenting a new iPhone. If you lived through those shows, that’s what we’re dealing with. Except it’s sort of pinkish, uh, • • bluish background and heavenly chords are playing. And as you listen in on this miracle revelation, realize that when the important parts are said, they change the key, or they’ll have a little bass kick in to add some dramatic effect, which I think is amazing. It’s really part of the miracle experience. I think that scientific papers should do this. When you present your paper at a conference, you should shell out some bucks to get a band to do this for you, because emotional reaction to information • • is how we best determine what really happened. • • That’s how science should work, right, is we should instill emotional reactions to new information so you can sway people to believe that things are real. So this is an amazing, amazing, miracle presentation. Let’s listen to the details. And I think you’ll be as amazed.

Speaker C

As I was and began to pray. • • • • • The skin began to change color. • • • • • Pretty soon there was a pulse • in the foot that she could fill. • • • All of a sudden, Chrissy said, • • • are you kidding me? • • • • • • • And they saw the toes begin to grow. • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Speaker A

I mean, this is thrilling. You heard that bass kick in the notes change. This is how you provide, uh, evidence of miracles. This is amazing. Let’s continue. • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Speaker D

Mom. • • • • • • •

Speaker C

Thank you, Lord. • • • • • • • • • Hey, there’s more. • • • • • • • • Several other team members joined in to pray with Kelly. • • Bone began to form where there was none before, as the ladies prayed for Chrissy. You want to stay standing, because, I mean, he was me back up here. As the ladies prayed for Chrissy, over the next 30 minutes, all three toes grew, • and by that point were longer than her pinky toe. • • • • Within an hour, nails began to grow on all the toes. • • • • • • • • • • • • This morning, she went to it, to Kelly’s husband’s, a medical doctor. She went and was examined. She has three toes. • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Speaker A

Wow. Right? • • • • • They prayed, and her toes grew back. This is the first recorded • • instance of prayer regrowing, amputated limbs or body parts in the history of humankind. And it happened while we happen to be walking the earth. I feel privileged to have experienced this. Now, it doesn’t end here. You may be thinking, we need some evidence, right? Like, this is just a pastor talking on a stage. Well, they do give you some evidence. So here we go. This is a video featuring Chrissy Thompson. The person he said was shot and had to have her toes amputated because her husband shot her. Right. Gave us all this information about her. Well, she made a video. I think she made this video, at least initially. It looks like somebody filming from a phone. She is in a mall, and she is talking directly to the camera after telling people that I’m Chrissy Thompson, and I experienced a miracle. But you can also hear there’s some music in the background. So I think the church did some post production on this for her to • • • as I said earlier, when you present information that’s supposed to be convincing, you want to do it in a very emotional way, because that’s how we best determine what’s real in the world. So they’ve added these sort of soundtracks, so to speak, to her video. But it’s the content of the video I’d like you to focus on and her evidence that her toes have regrown. Here is Chrissy Thompson in her own words.

Speaker E

I had three toes that were amputated in a terrible accident. I heard the word for creative miracles, and I thought, well, I certainly have a creative miracle that I might need. I need three toes to grow back. The person next to me said, do you want new toes? And I was like, well, sure. All the women got down, and they prayed over my foot. And I decided to take my shoe off to see what was happening when he said, let’s see the progress, or if anything’s happened. And when I did, I had to grab the person next to me and say, do you see what I see? • • • •

Speaker A

Uh, now, • • this is a little awkward. So I just noticed this. She’s saying, um, • I had my shoes on, and they started praying. I felt something, and I took my shoe off and revealed that my toes were growing, whereas the pastor said that they did what the Bible tells them to do, which is take the shoe off anoint the skin where the toes would be with oil and then pray over it. And then they saw the skin changing color and the toes start to grow. That seems like a pretty • • • • key point. So probably one of them is misremembering, or maybe the pastor heard the wrong thing. Or maybe you don’t have to follow what the Bible says to get healed. And maybe she’s right, that they just prayed over her toe or prayed near her or asked vaguely for her toes to grow back. And it worked. I’m sure that the video of this prayer session and the video of her toes growing will sort this out. So here’s the rest of her story where she presents the evidence. Here we go.

Speaker E

And I saw three toes • that were forming, and now there’s length to them. Um, tonight I can stand on my tippy toes. Listen. Do you understand? I can stand on tippy toes. No, I couldn’t do that because I didn’t have toes that tippy on.

Speaker A

Need I go on? I mean, we have a woman • in a video wearing her shoes never showing us her foot, but we don’t really need that. We have a woman in a shoe in a mall standing on her tippy toes, and we have a pastor saying that they grew her toes back. This is evidence of the single greatest miracle ever performed in our history since Jesus walked the earth. We have never in human history documented a case where a human has grown back an amputated part of their body. And this is proof positive that it happened in our lifetime when they prayed to Jesus Christ, right? • • So • • • I know I’m saying we don’t need any more evidence, but here is what they provided beyond Chrissy’s video, because they did this whole package. All right, • • so here’s what happened after her video. One, they produced a video of the toes growing back during the prayer session. Two, they had medical doctors present medical records that were authenticated, • • that showed the initial trauma she suffered, the procedure where they amputated her toes. X rays and videos and pictures of her toes being amputated and her foot post amputation • • along with her. Not just the afoot, but her foot attached to her. They then, uh, produced authenticated medical records that show, after the prayer treatment, that her toes had grown back. New X rays, new images, new video, the doctors involved. And now they realized that what the pastor said, which is the husband of the prayer team that did. This • • is a, uh, medical doctor. We don’t know what type, but is a medical doctor. And he examined Chrissy, and she has three toes. That’s what the pastor says. They realized that that’s a biased person. You need disinterested people running these tests and verifications. So they got other medical doctors that don’t know her and are not affiliated with the church, • and they examined her and verified all of this. I just want to make that clear. They also wrote a paper. Obviously. I mean, you’re going to publish this. You’re going to be famous for publishing this paper. And they published it in the Journal of American Medical Association JAMA, which is, I think, still the most read medical journal in the world. • • And when you publish, you’ve got to submit your findings, your evidence. It gets peer reviewed by a team of experts in the area, and if they don’t find any problems with your methodology, they then publish it, which is what happened. This went on to win them the Nobel Prize. In fact, the Nobel Prize created a whole new category • of prize, not just in medicine, this is in religious medicine. It’s a new field of study because we have now finally have evidence, hard evidence, that this person was healed through prayer and again regrew an amputated body part never before happened. Right? Now, of course, • • • none of this actually happened. Everything after Chrissy’s video of hers, tiptoeing in them all, none of this actually happened. And of course, I’m kidding about my belief in all of this. What I just described is what would happen if this really was real. Right? We all know from the get go, as soon as you heard this, you thought, this is a bunch of bullshit. The cross examiner is pulling our leg. This didn’t happen. The fact that their evidence was a pastor who is getting money from his congregation when he faith heals people said, uh, • • this happened, and the woman is playing along with it, and Tiptoeing in the mall as proof of this. That’s all they’ve got. That’s all they’ve got. So • • what I just described, I want you to keep that in mind. • • What I just described is what would really happen if the adults were in the room, okay? If people who were very serious • about helping people and serious about being honest were in the room, that’s what we would do. We would record on video every prayer session to demonstrate whether or not it works. We would use disinterested parties to assess this. We would keep meticulous records, and we would then establish patterns. That’s what’s called science. • • The old joke about, what’s the difference between goofing around and science? • Science. You write it down. You just keep records. You keep records, you create evidence. They have none of that. They have stories, they have music, they have drama. And of course, the press got a hold of this and went wild. • • • They started asking a very simple question. What would you do if you were a reporter and you heard these two pieces of evidence? A pastor says a thing on a stage. A woman says a thing in a video. There’s no video or images of toes. There’s no medical records. There’s no published paper. There’s no Nobel Prize. There’s just people claiming things. • • • You would ask for. What? Show me the toes. Right? In fact, the press started doing that. In fact, some very clever person very quickly set up a website called Showmethetos.com. I highly recommend you visit it. It is very simple. It tells this story. It shows the social media posts that the church used to publicize this event. It has the videos of this pastor talking about it. It has a video of a senior pastor over multiple megachurches. That’s part of their • • M church circuit. I don’t know how these work. Apparently, there are campuses, and you can be part of a larger each campus can be part of a larger group. That’s one big one pastor makes all the money. Multilevel marketing type of scheme. So this campus pastor is who we heard talking, I think. And then there’s a senior pastor who talks about, heard the story, gets the details subtly wrong. Again, it’s only the most important thing that we could ever claim. But all of them, their details don’t even match. Was the shoe on? Was it off? Who prayed? Did they anoint how many toes? • • • It’s a mess. So it’s got all of those videos on Showmethetos.com. Please go visit it. Give them the traffic they need, because I want to reward them for putting that up. And what happened? • • • • • What do you think the church did with this media attention? • • • • • • • Here’s what the pastor did. After a few days of worldwide media attention, the pastor decided, well, I’ve got to respond. And he to quote, how the Grinch Stole Christmas, he thought up a lie, and he thought it up quick. Here’s what he said.

Speaker C

She’s had, uh, a lot of trauma in her life. And it breaks my heart, uh, to see people do that, uh, towards her, because her miracle is real. It’s genuine. People, uh, are saying, well, if it’s genuine, why aren’t you doing anything with it to publicize it? There’s a couple of reasons that I want to say to you. First of all, um, I’m less interested in proving to people what I know God did than I am in protecting sheep who are vulnerable. • • • • And I’m going to protect sheep first. My first concern is for her. • • • • •

Speaker A

My first concern is for her. • • How noble of him, right? He said, I’m not going to publicize this. I’m not going to use this for publicity. I want to protect her. I’m not interested in proving the word of God. I’m not interested in converting people to Christianity. I want to protect this one individual person, because according to him, reporters asking • • for evidence constitutes harassment. • • And m. She’s been through enough. I want to protect her privacy, right? Even though I got on stage, said her first and last name, told you her medical history, told you her family history, I told you her husband shot her three times. I told you she had these medical procedures, that her toes were amputated. I did at least post production if not produced a video with her in it to publicize this event. He says, I don’t want to publicize it. They had this plastered over social media, and then within 24, 48 hours of the reporters getting hold of this, they took it all down. • • • • So what’s really going on here? Let’s talk about what’s really going on here. These people are scam artists. These people are • • the worst of the worst. They are trump level. I am going to lie to everybody that supports me in order to get them to give me money. And I don’t care what happens to them. That’s who these people are. They are scum, • and they know it, and they are hiding. Now, • • • • every week, he does sermons where he talks about healing. • • • They • • ask you to give if you go to this is the James River Church, by the way. If you go to Jamesriver Church, you’ll see their website and you’ll see the wonderful picture of him and his wife and their ministry on the COVID And you’ll see at the top there’s a menu. And one of the big menu items is Give. And let’s make no mistake, that’s what they’re all about. Give us money. And the way they induce you to give them money is they have these presentations. And you heard even when he was talking about why I am not going to show you the toes and why Chrissy is not going to show you the toes. Even during that, there was the band in the back playing the angelic music because he’s a peaceful, wonderful, kind person who would never lie to you. • • That’s the image they have. So every week they ask for money and they tell you they’re healing people. • • • And • • this week, I think what happened is he • • • • went abridge too far. • • He got himself all worked up thinking that he’s the shit, thinking that he can get away with anything. And he said, oh, you know what? We grew back toes. We got this person who’s willing to say that we grew her toes back. We grew back toes not realizing either through ignorance or arrogance, not realizing the attention that it would bring, that this is an actual claim we can verify because most other, if not all other • • • faith healing claims • • center around things that can happen naturally. If I pray for you to cure your cancer and your cancer gets better and goes into remission, • • his argument is the prayer caused the remission. Even though all of our studies show that X percent of cancers will naturally go into remission as the body fights them back. The more we learn about cancer, the more we focus on helping our own immune system fight it, right. That cancer does go into remission naturally. Oh, I prayed for my, uh, grandmother who had cataract problems, and it went away. You know what? They can go naturally into remission. There’s lots of reasons that the things that faith healers claim to heal can get healed naturally. And not just that they actually get healed. It can be a lie to begin with, right? I can’t walk. I pray over you. All of a sudden you can walk. What are the odds that that person was lying? It couldn’t be that she was lying, right? That she didn’t have any toes? Well, I don’t think so. I’m betting she just doesn’t have I bet she lost the toes and still doesn’t have it. But those people that you see in faith healing videos where they’re in a wheelchair and Jimmy Swagger • prays over them and shocks them, and then they stand up and walk, we all look at that and go, oh, they could walk all along. That wasn’t the power of prayer. Otherwise, what would we have? We would have the medical team, we would have the medical records, we would have the published paper, we would have the Nobel prize, and we would have a new field of medicine open in every university in the world. They would have a whole college devoted to • • religious medicine. And this pastor would be the chair. Right. There’s a lot of recognition and money available for anybody who could prove that this would help, because, let’s face it, it would change the world if this were true. • • We could cure amputees. There is a website • • • that, from an early time in my life, influenced me to • • • • make me realize exactly how empathy the claims of the religious people were. And that website is called why won’t God heal amputees? It’s been around a very long time, and it bills itself as this is the most important question • • we have to ask religious people, right? • • Why won’t God heal? Amputees and it goes into great detail, and it was the first instance I saw of something that was just so blatantly, clearly problematic with claims. And when I studied that website and I read everything that they were saying, I think that’s what triggered my angry atheist phase, okay? Everybody who was even mildly religious or was open to the idea of God, much less a devout Christian, who then • • discovers that the evidence is so poor and the evidence is so lacking that there’s no justification in belief, • • • everybody that goes through that typically goes through the angry atheist stage. You’re so pissed off that • • • either you were taken advantage of or that people are being taken advantage of, and you want everybody to realize, • • oh, my God, have you just gone and read this stuff? So on. Why won’t, uh, god heal amputees? It points out, and it does a very good job of pointing out that • • • the Bible says a lot of things about you. Pray and you get what you want. Mark 1124 whatever things you desire, when you pray, believe that you receive them and you shall have them. Matthew 1819 anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them by my father who is in heaven. John five seven if you abide in me, and my words abide in you, you shall ask what you will and it shall be done unto you. That’s just a sample. That’s just a few of them. And uh, many of them are proceeded with things like verily, verily truly, truly to differentiate them to say no. Literally. • • • We’re talking plainly here. We’re not using parables, we’re not using metaphors. If you believe in me, where any two or more of you are gathered in my name, you get what you want, right? And many people take this to be true, that if you sincerely believe and you pray, you will uh, get what you want. So the question the site asks why won’t God heal amputees? Is if that’s true. And we assume that sincere Christians have prayed to be healed of their lost limbs. Why don’t we have a single documented case of this in 2000 years? Which is a great question. And they go through the common tropes that are the responses that you get from religious people and pastors. For example, a very, very common response you will hear if you grew up Christian is yes, god does answer all prayers. But sometimes the answer is yes, sometimes the answer is no. And sometimes the answer is wait, • which is the moment you m devote one brain cell to. Think about it is like saying, oh well, we cannot distinguish the response to your prayers. We can’t distinguish that response from the response to random chance in the universe. The website puts it as if I pray to a m milk jug. I’ve got a milk jug that I pray to and I pray to find my car keys or regrow my limbs. Sometimes the milk jug will say yes, and sometimes the milk jug will say no, and sometimes the milk jug will say wait, • • • • you can’t tell the difference, right? You can’t tell the difference between the milk jug and God. And if that is true, if there’s no difference, then what use do we have in the idea of prayer and of a God? Another common response is well, God can’t be too obvious. If he’s too obvious, like if he revealed himself to you, you would have no choice but to believe in him. And God doesn’t want to take away your free will. He wants to test you to see if you’re gullible. I mean, if you’ll believe in him without any evidence, • he wants to avoid taking away your free will. Basically that’s the idea. Yet in the same breath people are pointing to lesser miracles, right? I prayed that my son’s fever would go away or that his bronchitis would get cured, and it did. Therefore, that’s evidence of God. If it’s evidence for God, shouldn’t that be taking, uh, • away my free will? It’s this little dance they do between actual evidence and • • witch stories, right? They want to be somewhere in the middle because they know if they get asked for actual evidence, it won’t happen. We’re not growing limbs back. We’re not raising people from the dead. It’s never going to happen. And they argue, well, you would lose your free will. You would have to believe in God, and you would have to worship Him. That’s not true. There’s a very simple example of a person, a being who was in the presence of God, in fact, many beings who were in the presence of God and chose not to worship him. • • • • The main character is called Satan. Satan was an angel, right? If I’m understanding it correctly, he was in the presence of God. It wasn’t just he saw Limb grow back and chose not to worship God. He was in the presence of God, part of God’s entourage, and chose to disobey Him. He had free will. So there are beings, theoretically, that God created because apparently God created everything, including the devil, that have free will despite having been in the presence of God. So, • • uh, these excuses they give, oh, well, sometimes God says no or you’d lose your free will are all cover stories. They’re all cover stories that scam artists give you to try to trick you into not asking any more questions and just believe them. So this is a scam, uh • • uh. The scam of faith healing has been around forever, • and it’s fun and light to • • focus on this and to say, ha, • • • • • • • • this is a bunch of people losing their money that they give to this church because they are duped. As P. T. Barnum said, there’s a sucker born every minute. And as many courts have said, as they’ve sort of talked about what the definition of reasonableness is, what the extent is that we can hold people accountable for fraud and things like that. At some point, there’s a limit, and we can’t protect those who are willing dupes. We’re not going to go that far in the legal realm, which is an interesting question here. So if these people are scam artists, and these people are • • asking their congregation for money, and they are doing so in the same breath, in the same session, where they are telling these lies on a weekly basis about the faith healing they’re doing, is that criminal behavior? And there’s been a lot written on this. There have been prosecutions for fraud in faith healing. Let me tell you what fraud is. The common law definition of fraud. And it will have been enacted in different statutes in different states. But the general common law definition of fraud is, • • I lie to you. Intentionally in order to induce you to give me a thing of value. And you do, in fact, rely on my false statement. • • And that does, in fact, induce you to give me a thing of value. It’s kind of complicated because you have to prove a lot of things. So if you’re going to prosecute a faith healer on fraud, you have to prove the following. One, that the person made a statement, uh, • • of fact, and he did. Uh, he’s up here saying, we, as a group, witnessed this person with healed toes. We prayed, and their toes grew back. So they said a thing. • • Two, that they knew that that thing was false. Well, that’s easy. Just look at her toes. Have they grown back? No. All right. Unless they then argue, well, they fell off again later, which I wouldn’t put past them. They could do that. They could say, no, her toes were there. They just fell off as soon as the media started asking questions. That would be actually pretty funny. Um, so that would, I guess, be a defense to fraud. Um, but let’s assume • • • that her toes have not grown back. That would be your evidence of the second element, that • • the statement they made was knowingly false. • • Three, that they did it to induce you to give them money. That’s going to be a little harder if you’re in a jury box and you need to have a prosecutor prove that to you, you’re going to need some evidence. And so you’re going to have to show the history of their behavior, that every week they get up and they say, we had some creative miracles. We did the marketing on our website to show that there were creative miracles, and that every week we ask you for money to help fund our ministry. That is curing people. I think that’s probably enough. So you have the first half. You made a knowingly false statement in order to induce people to give you a thing of value. • • But then we get to the harder part. You also have to prove that the person who gave you a thing of value • • • reasonably relied on your false statement. • • And we can show that these people relied on it, but the question will be, was their reliance on your false statement reasonable? • • And here, I think you can do that. Um, and it’s been done in the past. In the past, it’s been other cases have been more blatant than this. More blatant lies, and not as subtle as what’s going on here. Uh, this isn’t subtle. He said he grew her toes back, but the subtlety is that they’re ducking and dodging and, well, we want to protect her, and faith is more important than proof and all of that sort of stuff. But you need to show that the reliance was reasonable. And so if I’m getting up week after week to tell you that I cured cancer and I cured glaucoma, certain people might find that a reasonable reliance. That you know what? A pastor is a trusted member of the community. • • • You are raised from childhood to believe that these pastors are men of God and that they would do no harm. And you are raised in households that raise you to believe that reality, at least in some part, is dictated to you. It’s not discovered through experimentation that, uh, certainly facts are dictated from an authority figure. And if the facts that are dictated you from an authority figure differ from those that you observe or that science has established, then you better listen to the authority figure. See, for example, evolution. See, for example, the definition of human life and what the Bible says about abortion. You follow these people and you believe them. So a court may very well find that reliance reasonable. Ironically, whether or not • • • the reliance was reasonable is a question for the finder of fact. And if it’s a jury, the jury gets to decide whether or not the reliance on this pastor’s word was reasonable. Which means, as a prosecutor, you’re going to be looking for a bunch of reasonable Christians to sit in the box. Because if you get a bunch of atheists, we’re all going to sit there and go, there’s no way it’s reasonable to rely on the single word of a pastor every week telling you he’s healing people. That’s obviously bullshit. Nobody in their right mind would, uh, rely on it. But I think the Christian community certainly would find that reliance reasonable because they grew up under the influence of these people. So that’s interesting. So if you could prove all that, you could convict, uh, this person of fraud. Das rarely, rarely go after faith healing. So obviously, • • • • I haven’t explicitly stated this, but this is not my last episode. That was a bit of a joke. I am not considering this the greatest miracle of our time. I am not • • converting to Christianity. This was a bit of a lark. This was a bit of a pulling of a leg, a little bit of fun to poke fun at what is just obviously ridiculous. Show us the toes. Um, no, we don’t want to publicize this. And did you notice that that’s what he said? Let’s go back and listen to that again.

Speaker C

Uh, people are saying, well, if it’s genuine, why aren’t you doing anything with it to publicize it? • • • •

Speaker A

Notice the way his brain works. The alternatives here are you can either publicize it, you can get publicity out of this, or you can keep quiet and protect this person. There’s no third option. The third option is what I described. Prove this is real and start helping people around the world win the Nobel Prize. Create a whole new branch of medicine called religious medicine. Right? If this were really real, that’s what you would be doing. I would love to see a movie where a faith healer goes through this experience and the toes really do grow back and they lose their fucking mind, right? We’ve had some of that. Steve Martin did a faith healing movie at some point, which was pretty good, and I highly recommend it. It was called Leap of Faith. It was called Leap of Faith 1992. And it doesn’t end up with the person loses their mind. It’s more of a study of an effect that has been well documented, that people who get into faith healing, into the supernatural, like psychics and cold readers, • • they can actually come to believe their own bullshit. And that’s sort of where that study or that movie goes, is in that area to talk about people who start out as con men and their trappings. Everybody around them believing in so much starts making them go, well, maybe I am doing good. Maybe Jesus is working through me. Maybe this really does work, right? So you could make an interesting study out of this toes thing. Like, what if the toes really did grow back? This cynical, this huckster, this scam artist, this scumbag that’s the pastor of the James River Church • is finally witnesses toes growing back and loses his shit and doesn’t know what to do? Would he • • use it for publicity like he’s talking about to publicize himself and to make money? Or would he, in fact, call in the medical teams and prove that this was real and volunteer to cure people, to go to children’s hospitals and cure childhood cancer? • • I think we know which one he would do. Who knows? I mean, maybe not. But yes, I am not converted. It was a bit of a take on a, uh if you know the singer, comedian Tim Minchin, he does a song called thank You God. He starts it by saying, hey, I was giving these shows. He is known for a lot of things, but some of what he does is comedy music in which some of his songs mock some of the inconsistencies in religion, the illogic, the hypocrisy, usually around organized religion. And in this particular song, he says, hey, uh, somebody came up to me after a show and this guy named Sam told me about his mom who had some cataracts diagnosed by his doctor. Early stage cataract, had their congregation pray for her, went back to the doctor and there was no evidence of cataract. And he was offering this to Tim as proof that there is a God. • • • • • • And Tim says, okay, so I wrote this song. In response, I have found God. And he sings the song like, I feel like such a ding a ling. I don’t know why I didn’t see this before. This has been what I’ve been looking for. There’s no other explanation. And he lists a bunch of things that could have happened, but obviously are not the explanation, because the only explanation is this. Uh, • • all knowing, all seeing being took an interest in Sam’s mom. Because of this particular prayer in this particular church and cured her. So let’s take a listen to his list of the things it couldn’t be. This is the end of his song. We’re going to jump into the middle. He is Australian and swears a lot, so the C word is in here and I’m sure the F word is in here, so it’s an Australian thing. Warning on that he’s in front of the Heritage Orchestra. Ah, live at Royal Albert Hall. So this is a big production number, so we’re going to jump right into the middle of it and listen to the end of it. Here we go. • •

Speaker D

Historian sam just about a single explanation a surgical guard who digs a magic operation. No, it couldn’t be mistaken attribution of formation born of a coincidental temporal correlation exacerbated by a general lack of education, visibly physics and Sampirous congregation. It couldn’t be that all these pious people are liars. It couldn’t be an artifact of confirmation bias, a product of grouping a mass delusion, an Emperor’s New Clothes style fear of exclusion north more likely to be an all powerful magician than a misdiagnosis of the initial condition or one of many cases of spontaneous remission or record keeping glitch by the local physician. Or the only explanation for Sam’s mum scene. They prayed to an all knowing super thing to the omnipresent matter of the universe, and he liked the sound of their matter first. So for a bit of a change from his usual stunt for being a sexist, racist, murderous cunt, he popped down to Dan and on and just like that used his house to heal the cataracts of • • sand • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • thank you, God, for mixing the cataract I said • • • • • • I didn’t realize that it was such a simple thing. I feel • • • • it’s gone now I understand a prayer can work a particular prayer in a particular church, in a particular style, with a particular stuff, and for particular problems that are particularly tough and for particular people, preferably wise with particular senses, preferably fights a particular prayer in a particular spot to a particular version of a particular God. And if you got that right, he just mind take a break from giving babies malaria and pop down to your local area to fix the cataracts of your • • • • • M. • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Speaker A

Tim mentioned, ladies and gentlemen. What? What a song. So that’s the joke, right, is, oh, my gosh, this amazing claim is out there, I’m dropping everything and becoming a Christian. It couldn’t be any of these other things. It couldn’t be that these, as he says, these pious people are liars. It couldn’t be what I think that the audience is experiencing that church, which is what he describes as an Emperor’s New Clothes style fear of exclusion. What a great sentence. • • You know the story of Emperor New Clothes? The Emperor comes out, he’s totally naked and says, what do you think of all, um, my new clothes? And the audience is like, oh, it’s amazing. And each person sees that he’s naked, right? But they say, oh, those clothes are so amazing because everybody else around them is saying, oh, uh, those clothes are amazing. And it takes a kid to go, the Emperor is not wearing any clothes. And everybody gasps. So I highly recommend Tim Minchin. He does a lot of serious stuff. White Wine in the sun is my favorite Christmas song of all time. It’s by him, and it makes me weep every time I listen to it. It’s wonderful. And • • • he made the Broadway musical Matilda. If you’re familiar with Matilda the Musical, huge international hit. It got turned into a Netflix movie this year. You can watch it. You can watch Groundhog Day, the musical. He did that. He’s an actor. Very funny, very insightful. Great person to follow online. So that’s the funny side of this, right? That’s what we’ve been talking about is you heard from the very beginning that the claim was, we prayed and the toes grew back. And you knew immediately that it was bullshit, that it was a scam and it was a hoax. And even if you’re religious, you were very skeptical, and you probably thought, yeah, that didn’t happen. And that should tell us something. Why? Because it’s the one thing that we could actually see and verify with our own eyes, and it never happens. All the other stuff that could be, like he said in the song, a record keeping glitch of the local, uh, • • physician, a misdiagnosis of the initial condition. All of these other things that lend into claims of miracles are all obfuscated, right? But the one thing we can see is Bob didn’t have an arm, and now he has an arm. And we’ve never seen that happen. That’s what these people are claiming, and it’s hilarious that people are believing them. But there’s a, uh, real question there is, does prayer work? Does it actually work? What do we know about intercessory prayer? Intercessory prayer is prayer where you’re asking a god to intercede. That’s where intercessory comes from. Please intercede and change something. Okay? • • • We have done a lot of studies on this as a human race because people make this claim all the time that praying for sick people helps them get well. If you’ve ever attended church regularly, at the beginning or the end or in the middle, maybe, sometimes. So at some point during the service, they’re going to say a list of names. We need you to pray for Mary Beth. She’s in the hospital with kidney stones. Please pray to help her get it better. Please pray for the Johnson family. Their child is sick with leukemia, all that sort of stuff. So does it work, or is it a giant waste of time? Even if you are religious, you might still think it’s a giant waste of time. There is a doctrine of faith in, uh, some circles of Christianity that say prayer really is just asking God to change his mind. And God doesn’t change his mind because God knew what was going to happen when he created the universe, when he created everything. He knew that I was going to be on here, sort of attacking the intersection, the mixing of government and religion. So he wanted a universe where I was doing this. He thought that this was a good thing. God knew, as Tim mentioned, uh, • • • when he says, uh, maybe he’ll take a break from giving babies malaria and pop down to your local area to fix the cataracts of your mom. That’s such a biting line. But yeah, he knew that he created a universe where babies die. Mosquitoes. Let me point this out. Mosquitoes are the deadliest animal on the planet. They kill more humans than sharks, than tigers, than anything combined. Mosquitoes kill a tremendous amount of children on this planet. And theoretically, God knew that that’s the world he was created. He could have created a world where that didn’t happen, but he chose not to. He could have seen the future and of all the possible universes he could have created, and he could have said, well, you know what? I don’t want babies to die malaria. And you know what, by the way, while I’m talking about it, I don’t want it to be physically possible for priests and other people to rape children. So I’m going to make that just physically impossible, the same way I make it physically impossible for you to read other people’s minds or for you to levitate or fly all these things that you want to do. I’m denying your free will in that area. I’m also going to sort of make it just physically impossible to sexually assault a child or for a baby to die of cancer or malaria. It’s just going to be this interesting • • thing, and we’re going to call it a child immunity syndrome when people discover it. He could have created that, but he chose not to. So theoretically, under this philosophy, this is desirable, this is what should be according to God, he picked this. • • • So under that philosophy, praying does nothing. He chose this particular future. He chose • • what he wanted. And praying is asking him to change his mind, and he won’t. So you can be religious and still think faith healing is a bunch of bullhocky and even think that prayer is useless. • But you would also be in good company if you thought that, because the science backs you up. We have done study after study after study on this topic, and the vast majority of studies • • show that intercessory prayer has absolutely no effect. There are a handful of studies that show that, uh, in this particular case, the people, the control group. When you do this, you have a control group and a regular group. So you got a control group that is, ah, people who go through a certain procedure. So let’s say heart bypass surgery. And you take 50 or 100 people that go through that, and you make sure that you’re picking them at random, and you’re controlling for • • age and previous conditions and all that sort of stuff. And you create a similar group that is the experimental group, and that group you pray for. And the first group you don’t. And if you see different rates of positive outcomes or negative outcomes, then you might see some statistically different. It has to be enough, right? So in some studies, the very, very few, you do see that the prayer group gets a slightly better outcome. But it’s two studies out of 1000. It’s just noise. In the bigger picture, you have to do these experiments over and over again. That’s the scientific method. You just don’t go out and do one study. You do your study, you submit it for peer review, you get it published, and then people try to replicate your results. That’s how we see if it’s right. And over time, the vast majority, just like any other bell curve of results you expect, the vast majority show no improvement. In fact, in one study, they said, uh, • • what is the effect of prayer if the • • people who are being treated are aware that they’re being prayed for? • • And in that study, they discovered that there was a statistically significant difference in the groups. You had a control group. You had a group that was being prayed for that didn’t know that they were being, uh, prayed for. And then you had a third group that did know they were being prayed for. That third group had, uh, like 10% worse outcomes than the prayed for but unaware group. So if you know that you are being prayed for, at least in this, I think this was a heart bypass one, if I recall correctly. If you know that you’re being prayed for in this study, • • • • there’s a statistically significant change in the percentage chance that you’re going to have a negative outcome. You’re going to have a worse outcome, on average, than if you didn’t know. Why is that? That’s a good question. I don’t remember seeing an explanation of that in the study. Usually they’ll study the phenomenon and then say, hey, we need further study. That’ll be our next experiment. And it could be that, oh, I know I’m being prayed for, so • • I can take it easy. I’m being prayed for, so I’m not going to take all my meds or I’m not going to do all the exercises they recommend to get well afterwards. Or it could be that, you know you’re being prayed for and you’re like, oh shit, this is serious. People are praying for me. And it causes stress, and maybe that affects your outcome. Who knows? I don’t think it’s because there’s some devil working against you, right? There’s no indication of any supernatural cause here. So the point is, we’ve done dozens and dozens and hundreds and thousands of studies. And these studies are paid for not only by scientific institutions, but by religious institution. There is an institute called the Templeton Foundation. • • • It is a religious, uh, • • • institution that funds actual science. Not pretend science like you see from some organizations, but actual science, because they are honest Christians seeking for seek. In their view, they are seeking God’s handprints on creation. They’re looking for evidence of God. They’re going about it the right way, and they fund studies. Does intercessory prayer work? And their own studies show that no intercessory prayer has zero statistical effect. There is no evidence that it’s good or bad. Even that one study I said that, uh, showed that, uh, people who were aware of them being prayed for, that doesn’t count in the study, because we’re just talking about pray. If I’m praying for you and you don’t know it, it should help. According to the Bible, if I get my whole church to pray for your child who’s dying of leukemia, according to the passages we read, and others in the Bible, if we all sincerely believe • • our wish should be granted. And it’s not. • • So we started this out with a very funny take on things. We started this out with a take on here’s a scam artist who is bilking his flock out of money by claiming things like, this woman’s toes showed up. And then when we ask them • • for the evidence, can you please show us the toes? We get a no. Uh, the thought I had when I was listening to this is this is exactly like the founding of the Mormon religion, if you’re familiar with that. Joseph Smith claims that God told him that there were metal golden plates buried on a hill in his backyard. Basically, go dig them up and you will have these two seeing stones. Don’t ask me. They’re magic stones that you can use them to help you see spiritual things. And, uh, he said, these seeing stones will help me translate this, but I need somebody to write it all down while I read this. So he got a fairly wealthy friend of his to come over and he would put the metal plates he wouldn’t show the metal plates to his friend. He would put them into a hat along with the seeing stones. And then he would bury his head in his hat. And he told his friend, well, with the seeing stones, that illuminates the plates, and I can see the spiritual writing on them, and I’m going to read it off to you, and you’re going to write it all down. And that’s what this friend does. The guy’s name was • • Martin, uh, • • Harris, if I remember correctly. And the guy was, uh, fairly wealthy already, kind of superstitious. And he buys into this. He’s like, uh, okay, so a guy’s saying there’s plates in a hat and seeing stones, and he’s putting his hat into his head into this hat and reading words, and I’m writing them down, but he’s not letting me see the plates because God doesn’t want me to see them. Okay? I believe that. And he writes a bunch of pages. He then tells his wife martin Harris tells his wife what he’s doing, and his wife is like, hey, uh, this is my understanding. Correct me if I’m wrong on this. Hey, can you borrow these? I’d love to see this. I know I can’t see the plates, but I’d love to see what this is saying. And Harris borrows plates, and Joseph Smith is like, well, God really doesn’t want me to give you the plates, and he doesn’t really want me to loan out the pages, but I guess that’s all right because this guy’s got money and he can help publish the book. So okay, you can borrow these pages. Well, Martin and or wife conveniently misplaced them and ask him to retranscribe what he had already transcribed. The theory, obviously being if you were really reading off of these plates, what you say, which sounds kind of crazy. He’s saying that, hey, the Jews moved to North America and became the Native Americans when they sinned. And Jesus was in North America and the Garden of Eden was actually in Jackson, Mississippi. Like Jackson, Missouri. Excuse me. These are all like, what he’s saying? You should be able to recreate those pages verbatim because you’re just reading off of plates. And what do you know? • • He can’t do it. And what does he say? Well, God was so angry that I lost those pages, he’s going to make me translate from a different plate where the beats of the story will be the same, but the details might be different. And people believe him, right? People believe him. So that’s one example of how the pastor gets up and says, we cured toes. And you say, Show me the toes. • • • One of his defenses could be well, the fact that you’re asking for toes is killing the miracle. That’s what psychics will do. If you go in to try to read their fortune or do a cold ring and they try to guess, I’m getting an A. Is there a person in your life with an A name? And you say no. You say no to everything. They’ll go, well, you’re blocking the energy. You’re a skeptic. You’re blocking the energy. It just won’t work. They shift the blame onto the other person. So here Joseph Smith shifts the blame onto the people who lost the pages and to himself. Like, God’s angry with me, therefore we’re going to get a different version. But the same answer comes up when people just ask to see the plates. And that’s what I’m talking about with this miracle of we regrew the toes. I, uh, prayed to God, he regrewed these toes. May I see the toes? No. I got a vision from God, from Moroni, this angel of God to get these plates that I translated into this new Third Testament. Can we see the plates? Uh, no. • • It’s the same damn scam in the Mormon look where the Mormon church is today. It’s like huge, wealthy people. Big enough and wealthy enough to engage in massive tax fraud. Right? That was the story. This year, they formed shell companies to hide money from the government, got caught, and back in February, it was announced they were going to pay millions of dollars in fines, a drop in the bucket as to their net worth, which is billions of dollars. And this all came from this story of, i, uh, have these plates. Can I see them? No. Sorry. It’s the same damn thing, just on a bigger scale. It’s just scam artists and the people who fall for it. I feel sorry for them. Right. • • • Uh, we know that prayer doesn’t work. We know that these people are scam artists, and people keep falling for it. So it’s funny to some degree to laugh, but it can also be unsafe. It can cause real harm. If I believe • • • that prayer will heal myself, and I rely on prayer instead of medicine, I can kill myself. Right. This is the theme of my podcast. The theme, uh, of a lot of sort of atheists why we care questions is because if you believe things based on insufficient reasons, insufficient evidence, you can hurt yourself or others. And that’s where we’re going to go next. Now, this has been an hour long episode to talk about the funny side of faith healing. I’ve done a lot of research. It’s taken me two weeks to do the research on this. I took a vacation and two weeks to do some research, and I decided I had to do multiple episodes. So this is the end of episode one. Next episode, which I’ll publish in a day or two, will be about the dark side of faith healing. And you are going to be surprised when you see the intersection in the history, • • because when we talk about faith healing, uh, in the dark side of faith healing in America, it involves the intersection of • • science, • • religion, politics, children’s rights, and the Nixon administration. • So please stay tuned for a deep dive history into faith healing, the dark side of America in our next episode. And how faith healing to this day is letting parents legally kill their children in the United States. That’s up on the next episode. I’ll see you then. • • • • • • • • • •

Speaker B

This has been the Cross examiner podcast, the Internet’s courtroom in the case of rationality versus, uh, religion. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider subscribing. See you soon. • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •