Ricky Gervais on Why Prayer Makes No Sense 😳

Added: 2026-05-23

[00:00:00]It's not concept praying for me.

[00:00:02]I can't work out how God decides. All those people praying at once for different things. Is it like best idea wins or is it a democracy? Like he puts things at each issue he goes, right, votes for and against, you know? If it's a democracy, we're in trouble. We're a tiny nation. Like next time there's a flood warning in the West Country, if we're all going, oh, I hope everyone's okay. If the whole of China is going, yeah, [ __ ] Bristol.

[00:00:30]There's a billion of them. All right.

[00:00:33]More about China later.

[00:00:40]Yeah, I've always found praying quite strange. Like if I bump into a friend or neighbor and I know they've got a little kid and I go, oh, how's so-and-so? And they go, oh, not good. Um, he's in intensive care.

[00:00:54]Uh, we don't know if he's going to pull through, but I pray every night. What I do as an experiment, I go home and I pray twice the On a serious note, um, I've been doing a lot of video messages recently for terminally ill children and um, only if they request it, obviously. I don't I don't burst into hospitals and go, wake up, baldy.

[00:01:24]Look, meet working on Tik Tok. Look.

[00:01:29]No, um, I did a lot through the pandemic, presumably because they couldn't even see their own family and it's through Make-A-Wish Foundation. Do you know the charity Make-A-Wish Foundation? They're great and they give these dying kids their like one wish and if it's me, I always say yes and I always start the video the same way. I go, why didn't you wish to get better?

[00:01:50]What, you [ __ ] [ __ ] as well?

[00:01:55]I don't do that either, okay?

[00:01:58]These are all jokes, all right?

[00:02:00]If I I don't even use that word in real life, the R word. You just used it, Rick. Yeah, in a joke. That's not real life, is it? I'm playing a a role. You sounded pretty convincing. Yeah, cuz I'm good.

[00:02:14]You wouldn't level that accusation at other art forms. You wouldn't go up to Sir Anthony Hopkins and go, "I saw you in Silence of the Lambs. What's a You a cannibal, liar?"

[00:02:23]No, I was I was playing a role. Oh.

[00:02:25]It seemed pretty convincing. Yeah.

[00:02:29]He's good. And I'm good, and that's why I do things well. Imagine if I came out here and did things not very well, so you knew I was joking. That'd be Do you know what I mean?

[00:02:37]Those of you too young to know who Harold Shipman is, right? He is our most prolific serial killer, right? He killed 300 people. He killed old people. That's my point. He'd have his eye on me. Go, "Give him a few more years." And he was a doctor, right? But, the reason you haven't heard of him, right, is because he never appears in those lists of the worst serial killers. And he was like one of the worst ever, but he didn't act like a serial killer, right? He was a GP. He was old school. He had a little shirt and tie, little tweed jacket, little beard, little glasses. He'd do house visits. He'd go out and see Edna, 85. You all right, Edna? Yeah. Do you want a cup of tea? Yes, please. And he'd make Edna a lovely cup of tea, right?

[00:03:19]Then he'd put a in a lethal amount of opioids, right?

[00:03:23]And he'd just give Edna the tea and watch her drink it and fall asleep and die. And that was it. He didn't even masturbate.

[00:03:31]Yes, it is a waste, sir. Yeah.

[00:03:40]And um They reckon he got the idea when he was a little lad, Harold Shipman, little little Harold Shipman. He watched his mom dying of lung cancer being given morphine, and something triggered him.

[00:03:51]He thought, "I'll grow up, become a doctor, and I'll do this." I don't know whether it means that he liked the way the morphine got his mom out of pain.

[00:03:58]So, these were like mercy killings, like, you know, re- reliving the kindness or the opposite. He was jealous of old people who lived longer than his mom should have, so he was punishing them. I don't know. Doesn't matter.

[00:04:09]Actually, it does matter cuz if you can really understand why someone does something like that, you might spot the signs in the future and stop a crime before it happens, you know? I always think that when there's a school shooting in America, right? It's usually some emo, right? Who goes into a kid and they always say the same thing. They go, "Oh, he was a loner. He sat at the back. He was shy.

[00:04:30]He was bullied." Let's round those [ __ ] up now.

[00:04:34]Do you know what I mean?

[00:04:36]It's like, go into a school, see who the bullies smashing, all right? Go, "I'll take it from here, mate. Thank you." All right?

[00:04:43]And drag that little dwib off to borstal or jail or something. Go to the bully, go and find another one.

[00:04:50]You know what I mean? He's doing a He's doing a great job, but we need more but they're beating up future child killers.

[00:05:03]You get obsessed with crime and punishment as you get older. I've always been pretty interested. I I studied philosophy at university, and a big part of that is morality, and I've always been again There really is there's good and bad to getting old. For example, yes, there's more chance now of me having a heart attack, having a stroke, getting cancer, but much less chance now of me ever being raped in prison. Yeah.

[00:05:27]So, when I was a young man, I thought I could never go to jail, not not with this cute ass, all right?

[00:05:33]But now, I'd be pretty confident I'd be left alone, you know, like I'd go down the corridor with my first day with a little towel, just whistling away. They'd all come to the bars and go, "Ooh." You know, I like I'd spend as much time as I wanted in the shower.

[00:05:50]No one's even looking. Not a sniff.

[00:05:51]Nothing.

[00:05:53]The big danger for me these days bending over in a prison shower would be my back going. All right?

[00:05:58]I'd just sort of crumple into the floor and I'd have to be helped to my bunk by two big gay rapists. And they just put me down naked and leave. And I go, "Lads, before you go, I done my shoulder. Can you Can you give it a little tug? All right?

[00:06:11]They go, "Nah." I go, "What do you What do you mean no? You're literally gay rapists." They go, "We're not monsters."

[00:06:20]I'd also be a bit more confident these days going to jail cuz I've got a bit of cash. I reckon I could buy my way out of danger. Do you know what I mean? Like Like the first day I'd go, "Right, who's in charge? Who's Mr. Big?"

[00:06:30]And they go, "Chopper Harris, D wing."

[00:06:31]All right? I go So I I'll go and see Chopper and I go, "Right." I said, "Right, I'm in for a year. There's a million pounds waiting for you if you make sure no one beats me up, steals my food, no one so much as fingers me."

[00:06:43]>> [snorts] >> I've never said that before. I've never Chopper would be like, "There's no foreplay in jail, mate."

[00:06:59]I'm at that age where I'm glad we haven't got a Harold Shipman knocking around. It's not in self-defense. It's not in the heat of the moment. It's cold justice, you know? Don't matter what you've done. You could have murdered people, you know? You You stand trial.

[00:07:12]They find you guilty. They put you on death row. Some times for 10, 15 years, which seems unnecessarily cruel. And then they murder you in front of witnesses. And it's from the Bible. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. The state says, "You murdered someone, so we're going to murder you." But if you rape and murder someone, you still only just get murdered.

[00:07:36]That's a loophole, isn't it? That's like That smacks of misogyny to me. That's like the judge going, "The rape was free, but we're going to you know what Just once I want the judge to go, "Right, you raped and murdered someone.

[00:07:47]So, you're going to be taken from here to a place where you'll be hung by the neck and raped."

[00:07:52]"What, at the same time?" "Yes. Yes.

[00:07:55]We've got loads of volunteers with dildos."

[00:07:58]So, he sort of goes down, "Ah, AH, AH, AH, [ __ ] OFF.

[00:08:07]"OKAY, he's dead." "Yeah, I know. I know."

[00:08:15]Oh.

[00:08:17]>> [applause] >> It might work.

[00:08:23]But the longer you live, the grumpier you'll get. It's not just going to happen to me, it's going to happen to all of you. Cuz the longer you live, the more [ __ ] you see, and you go, "Oh, [ __ ] this again. This again." Right?

[00:08:32]And the more burden you carry. And you Older you get, the weaker you get, and the burden gets heavier, and you go, "Oh, god, this again."

[00:08:39]Now, I love it when someone gets killed doing something they shouldn't at the time. Like, you see uh bloke in Brazil, a hostage video. He's got a young girl, he's got a gun to her head, and he goes, "You won't take me alive, copper." And then the marksman just takes out his brain stem. Oh, I love that. Pause, rewind. All right?

[00:09:02]Or when a bull fighter gets gored to death. That is my favorite, right?

[00:09:07]Particularly when the horn goes up the ass. That I call that a hole in Juan.

[00:09:15]Thank you. Um Or those those videos coming out of lawless New York. You see them on Instagram and YouTube. It's all with a iPhone It's got someone, right? He's knocking over this little convenience store. He's got a [ __ ] hoodie and a knife, and he's nicking all the booze.

[00:09:33]He doesn't care he's being filmed. He's going to get away with it. He's going to get away with it. Then, from behind the counter comes a little 70-year-old Korean man who batters him to death with a broom. I [ __ ] love that. I can't wait to be a 70-year-old vigilante. Just walking around Hampstead with a walking stick. Oh, but it's a sword.

[00:09:54]I paint it white as well to look even more vulnerable, right?

[00:09:58]Wear dark glasses.

[00:09:59]I'd see a gang of youths. I'd go over to them and go, "So, oh, so excuse me, guys. Do you know where the the Nike stores is? I want to buy some Air Jordans with all this cash." And as they go for it, "You little [ __ ] cunts."

[00:10:12]>> [applause] >> We're all on the spectrum, aren't we?

[00:10:17]We've all got a little bit of OCD or anxiety or whatever. Like I'm a hypochondriac, right? Every morning I wake up and I think, "Right, what's wrong?" Like I go, "What's that? Is that a That wasn't there yesterday. Oh, that was a What's that? What's that?" And I I Google it. I think, "What And I catastrophize as well." So, I Google it and I And the first sort of like five or six I'll be fine with. Like it goes, "Ah, could be anxiety. Yeah, could be a Could be lack of sleep. Yeah, I didn't sleep well. Could be lack of fiber. Yeah, I'll have some more fiber. Could be lack of vitamin B. I'll get a And then I just keep pushing it like it goes, "Could be cancer." I go, "It's cancer. It's cancer."

[00:10:48]Once I came out of the bathroom and I went, "Jane, I think I've got bowel cancer." She went, "We had beetroot last night." I go, "Oh, yeah, cheers."

[00:10:59]>> [laughter] >> I want to end with a a couple of true stories, if I may. Um And uh as I said, I think this is my most honest No. Does a cat die? No. Are any animals abused? Someone answers, "There is a chicken that's handled roughly, but otherwise unharmed."

[00:11:20]Now, I love animals more than anyone I know, but if I was Jewish, I'd be slightly offended by this avenue of questioning. Imagine that in real life.

[00:11:27]Imagine someone says, "Oh, yeah, my um my pet grandparents were murdered by the Nazis." You go, "Oh, what happened?" Oh, they were dragged from their house and sent to the gas chamber. Oh, was a chicken hurt? What?

[00:11:41]But, as I say, it's become You can ask any question about anything. Someone says, "Is there child abuse? Is teeth damaged? Is there a hanging? Does someone struggle to breathe?" Yeah.

[00:11:52]Well, yeah. Yes.

[00:11:54]Um Someone says, "Does someone fall downstairs?" Who's scared of slapstick?

[00:12:00]It's like Anyway, so, this website was founded in 2010. So, it's been about 13 years, right? And the later questions start reflecting the times we live in now, and they get more and more fragile and narcissistic. These questions were asked this year. Check it out. Schindler's List, right? Someone says, "Are there any fat jokes?"

[00:12:24]Would that make this worse? Well, Imagine the real thing. Imagine I'm in a concentration camp, right? I'm naked.

[00:12:32]Everyone around me is naked. We've got a commandant herding us towards a gas chamber, and he goes, "Move it, fatty."

[00:12:38]Right? And I go, "Rude."

[00:12:46]No.

[00:12:47]That has ruined the whole experience, if I'm honest.

[00:12:55]Someone asks, "Is there hate speech?"

[00:12:58]Yeah, there is.

[00:13:01]Suck it up, buttercup.

[00:13:04]"Are there any man-in-a-dress jokes?"

[00:13:07]Very few jokes, isn't it?

[00:13:09]If you've come to this film for a giggle, you're going to be very disappointed.

[00:13:14]But, this one takes the biscuit for me.

[00:13:16]Remember, this is a movie set in the '90s. It's about arguably the worst atrocity in civilized human history.

[00:13:21]Check this out. "Is someone misgendered?"

[00:13:27]This is quite week. Is there any anti-Semitism? Yeah.

[00:13:32]This is pretty much the mother lode, right?

[00:13:36]Forget Kanye. This This is off the [ __ ] charts. Don't do that when you're talking about this.

[00:13:44][ __ ] sake.

[00:13:45]I was I was doing the graph. I was I'd do it like that. I would this This is off the charts.

[00:13:53]The wouldn't things have been different if that was Hitler salute. The whole thing would have been He goes like, "Is Hitler?"

[00:14:06]This is interesting. Does it have a sad ending? Right? Someone says yes, and then someone else says no. And I thought about it. No, but then I remembered if you if you've seen the film, if you remember, when the story sort of ends, Spielberg then taps on a real bit of footage where he gets real life descendants of people murdered in the Holocaust, and he films them coming into a a Jewish cemetery, and they each leave a stone on the grave to represent their family members that were murdered, and it builds up, and it's very moving. And so, I think I get the ambiguity. Does it have a sad ending? Yes, in the sense that 6 million Jews pointlessly lost their life, but no in the sense there were still enough left over to build a little rockery.

[00:14:50]So,