Thank You God - Tim Minchin

sorry I'm procrastinating look there's just something I I kind of need to address and I should do it I know I should do it now that I over the years I've realized that a lot of my audience has come to my shows particularly because of a sometimes because I quite often sing about beliefs specifically in the past I've sung a lot about faith and religion and if I'm completely honest with you I've tended to mock some of the not in general but some of them might perceive hypocrisy but I just don't want anyone to be waiting for that because I'm not doing it anymore well I know I know it look I should you just an explanation you're right it's something something happened to me is say when I was touring my last show in Australia as their begin the beginning of last year and I was doing a gig not one of my gigs it was a sort of it was actually a new material night hosted by the Ross Noble you know the the long-haired mentally ill northerner and obviously he's a genius which is a mentally ill person with an audience he's beautiful he's the you know Russ is the best and and he does this amazing gig and we were having a drink afterwards and it's a really nice vibe in the bar but I noticed this dude who slightly uncomfortably was hovering sort of on the periphery of our group and I noticed in particular he's tall really handsome guy had those nice dreadlocks that you can get for about six hundred quid at the hairdresser and he had a shirt open to about here and it's very tanned but I noticed him particularly because he had a long silver chain and hanging on the end of the chain a quite prominent silver cross you know sort of cross he might wear a fan of intersections or the lowercase letter T or probably most commonly if you're a fan of the apparatus by which first century Romans put to death and tortured Jewish insurgents and anyways sort of standing there and eventually he he may made the move and he came over it's lovely polite I said ha I good I am Sam his name was Sam I'm from Dandenong he was from Dandenong which is the suburb Dandenong set in the Dandenong Ranges just just to the south east of Melbourne and we got talking but I could tell he wanted to talk to me and eventually he managed to kind of you know isolate me from the pack and he said to him I've always wanted to talk to you cuz I'm a fan of your work and I don't want you to think I'm offended or anything but as you might have noticed I'm a Christian and he said I've just I've always want to ask you why why you don't believe in God an icicle Sam I don't believe in God for the same reason that anyone that doesn't believe in a thing doesn't believe in it because I haven't yet been offered enough evidence to allow my doubts and he said but you don't just go through your whole life only believing things for which you have evidence and I said stuff in my way through my turgid existence yeah he said what about love and I said what about love Sam and he said do you believe in love and I said yeah III believe in love I think I I love I am loved sure he said aha you don't have any evidence for love love without evidence is stalking and he said well Tim if it's evidence you want how about this and he told me this story this incredible story about his mum you see Sam and his mother were members of a big Evangelical Church congregation in the Dandan Augustine one of those new glass hype ones and in in her early 60s Sam's mum had gone to the doctor with a problem with her eye and she had diagnosed an irreversible degenerative eye disorder and he told her that if she didn't get surgery very quickly that she would lose her eyesight and Sam's mum was afraid she didn't believe in modern medicine she didn't trust doctors she was she was afraid of hospitals and the idea of surgery but Sam and his mum went to this this church this incredible Church and that Sunday the entire congregation of their church some 1,700 people prayed at the same time for Sam's mum and the following Tuesday they went back to the doctor and there was no sign that they'd ever been anything wrong with her eyes she was healed she was cured and the reason this story had an impact on me is because I try I try to be intellectually honest with others and with myself and all I've ever asked for is evidence and here I was witnessing a first-person account of what can only be described as a miracle so I went home and I have an apology to make I'm afraid I've made a big mistake I turned my face away from you I was too blind to see the light I was to make to feel your mind I closed my eyes I couldn't see the truth Lord but then I saw on the Damascus Road you sent a messenger to me and so now I've had the truth revealed to me please forgive me all those things I said I'm no longer betrayed your Lord Halle Brady you're in the shale and I will say thank you thank you thank you God thank you thank you [Music] thank you God thank you God thank you God for fixing the cataracts off Sam's mom I had no idea about it suddenly so clear now I feel such a cynic how could I have been so dumb thank you for displaying now praying works a particular we're in a particular church thank you Sam for the chance to become a thank you God for fixing the cataracts of Sam's mom I didn't realize it was so simple but you've shown a great example of just how it can be done you only need to pray in a particular spot to a particular version of a particular God and if you pull that off without a hitch he takes one eye of one middle-class white [ __ ] I know my other purse be limited I can't my life at being derivative but I can admit him when the evidence is clear as clear as Sam's mom's new cornea thank you God for fixing the cataracts on Sam's bone I have to admit that in the past I have been skeptical but Sam described this miracle and I am ever come and the sighting of the site based intervention should open my eyes to this exciting new dimension it's like someone put an eye chart up in front of me the top five letters say I say thank you Sam the show and how my body was being so floored I assumed there was no God at all but now I see that cynical it's simply that is interests are particularly broad he's largely on my bettered by the starving masses during the various classes begin sound strictly limited the surgery or two of history's nations the victims of the plague or the flannel agents but healthy private the common incurable lens degeneration historian Sam's is bad a single explanation essentially buddy did some magic operations over couldn't be mistaken attribution of causation born of the coincidental temporal correlation exacerbated by a general lack of education who visibly physics in samp Irish congregation he couldn't be that all these pious people are liars they couldn't be an artifact of confirmation bias a product approving the mass delusion [Music] the misdiagnosis of the initial condition on a penny cases of spontaneous remission people living rich by the local possession the only explanation for Sam's fancy they prayed to an all-knowing super-big to the omnipresent master of the universe and he liked the sound of their muttered bass suffer a bit of a change from his usual stunt of being a sexist racist murderous [ __ ] he popped down to dad and Arbutus like that used his powers to heal the cataracts [Music] [Music] now I understand a prayer Kawaoka particular prayer in a particular church in a particular style with the particular stuff for particular problems that are particularly tough about particular people preferably white for particular senses preferably sights a particular prayer - a particular version of a particular God [Music] [Music] [Applause] it's a miracle

Channel: Tim Minchin

Views: 6,989,646

Rating: 4.8778958 out of 5

Keywords: Tim, Minchin, Royal, Albert, Hall, Heritage, Orchestra, comedy, comedian, musician, funny, song, Humor, Original

Id: IZeWPScnolo

Length: 11min 4sec (664 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 28 2013

Reddit Comments

[u/canadiancarlin]

Please check out his songs and stand up! "Do you know what they call alternative medicine that's proved to work? Medicine." (Storm)

[u/fikirte]

Had me worried for a minute there.

[u/loogawa]

If you like Tim Minchin you should check out /r/MusicalComedy

[u/canadianpastafarian]

As always, Minchin totally nails it. This is a much more eloquent (and musical) version of what I think every time my believing friends post about prayer on FB.

[u/Gibodean]

I was worried when I saw this live. I was pretty sure it was bullshit, but there was that worrying part of me....

[u/Mr_Vladimir_Putin]

Ah, Tim Minchin. How I love you.

[u/stanleypolley123]

This was truly the funniest post ive ever seen.... Thank You

[u/darwinvsjc]

Really nearly had me at the start