Interesting Video of the Moment: The Failure of Prayer and Miracles

Presented for your viewing pleasure is a clip from the public access and internet show The Atheist Experience in which the hosts field a call from an ex-Mormon who says that he still “felt something” when he prayed.

I can’t help but think about what this kid says in the context of magick-practitioners who talk themselves into “feeling” all sorts of things that make them think that their magick “works.” It’s a very similar variety of crappy logic that undergirds all of these appeals to “personal experience” in validating the supernatural.

Among the interesting topics addressed (speedily!) in this video include how one knows that the cause of one's feelings is “supernatural,” the need to avoid the argument from ignorance, the Templeton Foundation study that demonstrated prayer does not work better than chance, the lack of evidence for miracles, the trivial kinds of things often claimed as “miracles,” the fact that “intuition” is nothing more than guessing and is susceptible to confirmation bias, and our own infatuation with our mind’s  ability to draw conclusions and see patterns.

You can watch the video here. Enjoy!