Ricky Gervais on God, Atheism, Belief and Religion. Comments Welcome.

oh you must wake up in the morning and say thank God for my amazing things that are happening and you said why would I say thank God I'm an atheist right and it was the first time I'd heard the word atheist on kind of public radio well I mean yeah there shouldn't even be the word should there if people didn't invent Gods I wouldn't have to deny them and it's just but it's like I uh I was told when I sort of started breaking America to not mention I was an atheist really oh first thing I did I never [Laughter] first thing I did why what what am I gonna do imagine imagine not doing something because people hate you because of what you are that's that's you know um that's my only thing I've got I'm a white rich middle class man but I'm at least I'm hated for being an atheist you know what I mean I'm oppressed in 13 countries I'd never go to anyway for 20 years about how atheism is perceived well I mean you sort of do it I there's part of me that does it because I think I should that there is someone being persecuted now that might you know um I can't I can't change the world but what I mean maybe someone in a in a western world that thinks they shouldn't come out because it's a bad thing because it's still a bad thing in Western Society um in America they took a vote uh America right that probably that big bit in the middle of America but um we will vote at least trustworthy group joint bottom with rapists so there's still a thing about I better not say I'm an atheist or annoying my mum or dad or Grandad or school there's still that so you do that some of it I do it as an intellectual Pursuit because someone asked me a question I'd rather give the right answer than the wrong answer I'd rather tell the truth than lie because it's easier you know I think the ability people think I run into churches and go it's all [ __ ] bollocks I I don't I don't care you know I don't I I'm but if I'm asked if I believe in God I'll say no I mean you know the tricky one is um um I I did a film called The Invention of Lying where I did a scene where my thank you seven people saw that film um um where my mother in that is dying and it's because I'm the only person in the society who can lie she says I I don't want to go to nothingness and I go there's not nothing this is a beautiful place you go and you're young again and I invent heaven right and that comes from the fact that when my mum was dying I did face dilemma if she'd have said you think as a God that's that's a personal thing and that's uh you know um uh so I yeah I I um I I try I just try and be honest really um and the other day if if someone else is kid five-year-old asks me do I believe in God I sort of think what should I say here and I say well I don't but a lot of people do what do you think you know I try and there's still a level of diploma it's not it's not always my place you don't you know what I mean um but you know my house my rules if someone asks me someone on Twitter I tell them the truth because you know and there's also this strange thing that I get from um faithful people um why don't you believe in God well that's a very strange question why don't you believe in God you came up with it why would I as to saying I don't know well if you're agnostic about God in all his glory and in all his impossibility you've got to be the same about Santa you have got to say I don't know I want to say to a agnostic what's your best guess there go another have a pun in fact I don't ask agnostic I don't say to agnostics um is there a god I say do you believe in God now you can't say I don't know to that question because if you say I don't know you're an idiot what you don't know if you believe or not and I had this discussion with someone um on Twitter actually he said well that's not true because I can ask you am I wearing a red jumper and you have no way of informing your guess and that's true but now ask me if you're wearing a red jumper that created the universe now I can't have a little guess new no you are not it's mental well also for you because anyone who follows you on Twitter and you have a huge following they'll know that you are a pathological atheist and therefore the thought of death is very final theory for me is a good Irish Catholic boy it's the start of something new and glorious for you that's it and for me it's the end of something glorious so I have to pack it all in you know I I'm I'm not depressed about it I I don't want to die any more than anyone else and I think there's a strange myth that atheists have nothing to live for it's the opposite we have nothing to die for we want to live for we have everything to live for yes yeah I would imagine you have a more focused attention to life because you think it ends when you die I think it's precious I think it's beautiful I think the world is amazing I love people animals art every hobby I can't I can't believe my luck that I'm alive for these seven here eight years it might be less right you know I'm not long for this world my nan used to say that she lived to 83. I think it was 40 years we were going I'm not long for this one one of the you said the things you like what are the the things that really annoy you um only two things really really make my blood boil I suppose I suppose in general as I get older injustice Injustice quietly makes my blood boy either either personal social political um you know uh personal um I suppose the two two main categories are are religious intolerance this this arrogance that that you think you know arguing over who's God Is Right it sort of gets me down a little bit you know and I've got I've got no problem with spirituality I really haven't you know that's another myth and I always try and make the difference clear between spirituality and religion one is a very personal feeling a journey a hope or whatever a need you know a joy and the other is an organized body that uses that for power and and corruption in in many cases in many cases um and I I you know I I don't have either but um I I I suppose I I think that um um when it affects me that's when I have a say in it and religion affects me religion's very real spiritually it doesn't really affect it there's lots we don't know but we don't jump to conclusions we don't know everything about the brain but that's not to say that everything about the brain is unknowable we rejoice in not knowing not because we don't want to know but because we've got something to work on absolutely that that's why people do puzzles it comes back to Hobbies you do a puzzle because you don't know the answer yet and scientists are doing puzzles trying to find out the answers to the nature of reality absolutely of course that's all we're doing we're uh science just tries to understand the world a bit more for its own ends and it's a wonderful process it's fantastic because living for because it should enhance mankind yeah you know this this ridiculous thing about science coming up the atomic bomb I don't know what argument that is that that's evil well no it it oh this other one as well how many times have you heard someone say some idiot fundamentalist say there was anything oh God yeah but it makes no difference there are good and bad atheists there are good and bad people who believe in God but very few atheists kill in the name of atheism exactly uh it's it's an irrelevance to me I I I hate being labeled an atheist because it's not how I live my life I don't live my life going around going I'm going to just yeah and exactly there's billions of other aspects to my life why I do things it just when God brought into the equation I don't take that on board I don't do anything because of God's watching me or because I feel God owns anything or God's driving me you know um it's a strange it's a strange word and it's a strange label it is Hitler actually wasn't an atheist yes uh Stalin probably was an atheist um but neither of them did their good things or their bad thing not not they didn't of course not neither of them did their bad things because they believed or because they didn't believe in God it was it was relevant I remember I thought what were you on were you on you want us to show in America when um someone said well Stalin and Hitler were both Aces and I think you said well they both had mustaches as well yes it's just just as relevant they're totally irrelevant statistics [Music] thank you yeah I don't I don't I I in the greater scheme of things there there are probably worse things than people believing in all the different gods um uh it doesn't affect me because I'm because I'm free and liberated and and safe and uh but yeah um you can still be annoyed it's ignorance that annoys me more than anything whatever it is it's not I don't want to keep going after religion because that's only one form of this belligerent willful and and it's not even that it's you you can't sort of help what you believe in most people aren't going around thinking this will annoy people I'm trying to oppress people's rights they just think I believe in God because that's how that's how my brain worked when I was little and now I I think yeah there's probably a God and most religious people aren't crazy that it's something else again it's something you know um uh and I uh we we worry about the people who believe the bad bits in their holy book as well as the good bits most nice people who believe in God they can tell the difference they do they know the night they cherry pick and they know the nice bits from the bad bits they don't do the bad bits and my point is if you know the bad bits from the good bits you don't need the holy book you know you're already a moral person I think it's very important you challenge your own beliefs I mean I mean that's what that's what science does really it doesn't constantly try and prove itself right it follows the evidence whatever that is in fact it tries to prove itself wrong it doesn't sulk when science thinks something and then it discovers it was wrong it doesn't solve because it found that out too this is It's the question I often get that people say well you're an atheist you know you're close-minded well no I'm not you know that's a strange thing to say I think the opposite is true I'm going to always follow the evidence whatever that is and they say things like if someone proved to you God existed would you believe well of course I would by definition in fact it would be the greatest scientific discovery of all time scientists would celebrate they'd run round at the moment we have no evidence for the existence of any God or anything Supernatural never have possibly never will but who knows um we're across that region we come through it when someone puts forward a jar of God we'd test it for its godiness and if we find there's anything Godly in it we're we're writing down I I think that's really important and it comes back to the point we made earlier about um ideas not having human rights because I think people think when we criticize religion we're critical criticizing people who are religious which is couldn't be further from the truth because we think they're victims too absolutely I mean the word islamophobia is all about that it's about it people think that if you criticize Islam you're criticizing Muslims quite the contrary they're the primary victims of Islam well this is the other thing that sometimes I say to Christians why do you believe in that God and they say well it's the only God to believe you know what you know if you were born in Delhi you wouldn't believe in that God probably if you were born in ancient Rome you certainly wouldn't believe in that God you know and uh but it is it is a thing there that they yes you believe in the in the god of your parents and your grandparents most people do I think so yeah I mean you know there's just there's conversions and many people that what do I have to do forget it what do you do I can still smoke and drink I love that one you know of course there are people who say well I was on a quest and I tried Buddhism and it was all right but I thought maybe I'd try again so I cried Hinduism I know yeah yeah which one spoke to yes yeah I know and uh but um it's it should be irrelevant but it isn't because it does infringe on people's Liberties certainly religion not spirituality you know someone believing in God that's fine absolutely doesn't bother me at all religion isn't harmless it's when it's when your God starts telling you that you should kill homosexuals and exactly that's when it that's when it's not harmless anymore I think um religion's greatest trick wasn't convincing some people that there was a god it was all-powerful um it was convincing everyone else that you couldn't ridicule the idea it's when you get them I think they'd be more atheists and less faithful if you weren't allowed to teach anything you weren't allowed to mention any gods or any beliefs or atheism right until they were 20. I think we see a different pattern the human brain when it's when it's young is a sponge it has to be it has to take in all the information it has to trust his parents its Elders to survive uh without question don't touch the fire why not Don't Go Near The Club Don't Go Near The Wolf don't touch that spider with a red butt don't touch that why not just don't there is a God what there is a God and if you're bad to go to hell okay and if that's constantly confirmed like all the other things wolves eat you black widows kill you fires burn you if it's given that same level of credence and truth you're never gonna go over it it's going to be a lot harder to undo that I think the myths came up maybe you know often as a stop Gap to to knowledge until we find out more you know the Earth is flat and now we've proved now okay the Earth's not flat we were wrong okay but that's not personal you don't take that person it doesn't affect you it doesn't affect your afterlife you know and so they often want to hold on to to that but only because the way they've been conditioned we know it's it's fun to tell children there's a Santa Claus and there's there's fairies at the bottom of the garden and all these cute things it's cute till they're seven or eight if they're 34 it's a bit embarrassing socially this is my son what's he doing he's looking for fairies is he okay we better leave if you're born in India you're probably a Hindu if you're born in America you're probably a Christian if you're born in Pakistan you're probably a Muslim that's a coincidence isn't it that you're always Born Into the right God always and that lucky I was born under the right God all those others are going to hell but I was born into the right religion I'm going to heaven it's strange that we we hold on to these sort of medieval beliefs you know where did the universe come from God made it which doesn't solve the problem for me because we always say well who made God and if they say well he's always been around well let's just say the universe has then let's just cut out the middleman it saves time it is yes if we accept that we don't know if it's the default we don't know no one's come back from Heaven no one's proved it you can't prove the non-existence of something and why would you at the Periodic Table of non-existent things is infinite you know it's like um so if we accept that that's that's a knowledge that's a category of knowledge but if you just say what do you believe yeah you have to step up like you have to say what you believe and if you don't believe in any God right you're an atheist that's the other misconception people think that atheism is denying the existence of God right it's not it's just not accepting the claim that there is a God you know if there were three doors which God exists God doesn't exist I don't know that doesn't make sense there's three doors it says God exists it doesn't exist I don't know but you not knowing is irrelevant where there is or isn't a god again you've done a sleight of hand there on a category mistake because one is knowledge and two are beliefs right no what no no there's always let's I'm saying three is always there if you had to choose one yeah it's um I but I believe there's a God I don't believe there's a God I don't know is irrelevant then isn't it public I think they have to lump Us in with um you know agnostics which I I again I keep trying to explain that on Twitter that they're not mutually exclusive you know one deals with knowledge One deals with belief and so um you know and people say on Twitter it's illogical to be an atheist you should be agnostic and I say well I am I am as well um you know don't agnostics get on your nerves a bit well um um no because we we're all agnostic aren't we we're all agnostic by definition if if we accept that no one knows knowledge you know I'm being very diplomatic here but if we accept that no one knows that there's a God or not right we might be wrong with 99 sure you know um uh but let's say we we don't know we're all agnostic so take it out it doesn't matter now we ask about belief what do you believe what's your best bet but when someone says they're agnostic isn't it sort of attempting to go why don't you just think about it a bit more then because it well I just think that there's a there's a yes but there's a category mistake I some people do do it because they don't want to say yeah they believe in God you know but if you you shouldn't ask an agnostic if there's a God or not you should ask them do you believe there's a God or not because then they can't say I don't know because that doesn't make sense well you mean you don't know whether you believe or not right you know so yeah foreign [Music]

Channel: Celia Long

Views: 804,564

Keywords:

Id: 7sYNuuIuOPk

Length: 20min 23sec (1223 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 07 2023