When will people learn, prayer doesn’t work
26 March 2009 by Stardust
Here is something for you to make fun of:
Crash pilot who paused to pray is convicted
PALERMO (Reuters) – A Tunisian pilot who paused to pray instead of taking emergency measures before crash-landing his plane, killing 16 people, has been sentenced to 10 years in jail by an Italian court along with his co-pilot.
The 2005 crash at sea off Sicily left survivors swimming for their lives, some clinging to a piece of the fuselage that remained floating after the ATR turbo-prop aircraft splintered upon impact.
A fuel-gauge malfunction was partly to blame but prosecutors also said the pilot succumbed to panic, praying out loud instead of following emergency procedures and then opting to crash-land the plane instead trying to reach a nearby airport.
Another five employees of Tuninter, a subsidiary of Tunisair, were sentenced to between eight and nine years in jail by the court, in a verdict handed down Monday.
The seven accused, who were not in court, will not spend time in jail until the appeals process has been exhausted.
Yet another instance where this god doesn’t show up. When will the sheeple ever get it. All those people died because of the religious bullshit belief of a delusional pilot.
26 March 2009, on 10:00 pm
It is very sad, indeed – but I really very much like the accompanyng picture!
26 March 2009, on 10:39 pm
I do too – it’s gonna be my Facebook status.
27 March 2009, on 4:25 am
I’m afraid that story doesn’t prove that ‘God’ doesn’t answer prayers, just that ‘He’ didn’t answer the aircrew’s prayers – hardly surprising since they were a pusillanimous bunch of delusional psychopaths who are worthy of about as much respect as a bath of hot diarrhoea. Ten years? I would have given the shits a hundred!
27 March 2009, on 5:55 am
Afterthought: I bet the only reason that Il Poopoo Benny Ratsarse didn’t condemn the verdict is because it was only a bunch of cowardly Muslims that were sent down, not jackbooted ex Hitler Youth ‘the real deal’ Roman Catholics like himself. Hmmm, hardly surprising that ‘God’ didn’t answer their prayers. Guffaw!
27 March 2009, on 8:05 am
Sounds like he was just a really crappy pilot. Who certified this guy?
“Okay, what should you do in a fuel emergency?”
“Like, pray, totally”
“Correct, you pass”
There are a number of other, equally incorrect answers, none of which have to do with deities. As my brother the mechanic would say, most problems are due to the loose nut holding the steering wheel.
27 March 2009, on 9:37 am
[NOTE: I also posted the following in Stardust's "The Greatest Story..." thread; thought I'd repeat it here for...emphasis.(?)...with a slightly different link variation.]
OT…Did anyone else catch ABC “Nightline” last night…IMHO, a totally ridiculous debate on whether Satan exists, or not?
To give some indication of the level of debate…the most “rational” person on the debating panel was Deepak Chopra. In other words, right off the bat, everyone on the panel was a believer in some kind of god.
Me thinks…somebody like Christopher Hitchens was desperately needed in the rather stupid fiasco.
There’s supposed to be more of the original content online than was actually shown during the broadcast.
Check it out?:
http://abcnews.go.com/nightline/faceoff
To use a word…”unbelievable”!
27 March 2009, on 10:24 am
ChuckA,
I had the misfortune to catch the first two or three minutes of that broadcast but I quickly got a grip on myself, turned my TV off and went to sleep. The very notion of supposedly educated people debating the existence of the boogy man in the early 21st century was too much for me to handle. What will be the follow up – Santa’s existence? There isn’t enough beer in the world to enable me to deal with loons like this!
27 March 2009, on 11:30 am
OT…Did anyone else catch ABC “Nightline” last night…IMHO, a totally ridiculous debate on whether Satan exists, or not?
How does this shit manage to get on the air, on a major network no less??? It’s absolutely mind-boggling to me. There are far more important and REAL things to discuss, the list is endless. To be seriously debating the existence of a debbil when there are so many real problems to be confronted is totally insane.
27 March 2009, on 11:52 am
To be seriously debating the existence of a debbil when there are so many real problems to be confronted is totally insane.
Actually belief in the ‘Devil’ and belief in ‘God’ are both technically insane, despite the fact that psychiatrists prefer to exclude ‘religious or culturally supported delusions’ from their compendia of mental disorders.
27 March 2009, on 12:00 pm
Actually belief in the ‘Devil’ and belief in ‘God’ are both technically insane, despite the fact that psychiatrists prefer to exclude ‘religious or culturally supported delusions’ from their compendia of mental disorders.
Exactly, they are both equally insane. If someone would tell people that they believe that a six-foot tall rabbit wearing a purple suit follows them around everywhere and watches over them, the men in the white coats would come take you away to the looney bin! But when someone says that a zombie man-god who was executed and came back to life to save them from some imagined crimes, no one bats an eye about it.
27 March 2009, on 5:48 pm
Let’s expand the debate. Is it even conceivable that ANY non-physical personality exists?
27 March 2009, on 5:53 pm
Yes, but just because something is conceivable doesn’t actually prove anything other than the power of subjective thought.
27 March 2009, on 8:00 pm
Now see here, you leave Harvey alone, you hear?
27 March 2009, on 9:01 pm
KA, Love that movie. Harvey could be replaced with Jeebus — same thing.
27 March 2009, on 10:52 pm
Well, you know what the problem was? When the fuel gauge malfunctioned the pilot thought, “What would Jesus do at a time like this?”
28 March 2009, on 12:21 am
Tangential to the basic subject of this post; with the current flooding problem going on in North Dakota, and watching, on a daily basis, a high profile major media outlet…namely CNN…and specifically Wolf Blitzer on “The Situation Room”, one hears all to frequently, the inane…”our prayers”…”let’s pray that”…”Gawd forbid”…”our hearts and prayers”. And, all too frequently the various Catholic commentators doing similarly, bring up, additionally, the fact of their clinging and bowing to their religion, never criticizing the basic dogmas associated to some stupid decision by Poop Ratzo. (Fr’nstance: Paul Bagala, Rich Sanchez, et. al.)
This is the level of so-called intelligence, lack of real critical thinking, and ultimate cowtowing to blind, brainwashed belief that perpetuates, by example, the continuation of superstitious thinking to the all too gullible public.
Specificully regarding the prayer notion; I’ve said this before on GifS…the whole concept of prayer needs to be publically challenged. I say, we atheists start challenging the believers to choose one day…some Sunday?…any Sunday…to pray for one specific thing. Let’s make it the complete disappearance of one major disease; with no connection to any Scientifically oriented “Cure”. Let’s make it ALL CANCER, World-wide, in ALL humans. We’ll, of course, designate a time span for it to happen.
How ’bout…one year? That’s fair enough, I’d say.
We all know that nobody will take up the challenge. Everybody knows, even subconsciously…”It ain’t gonna work”.
Remember last year…with the drought in the South East…the prayer shtick…that didn’t work? Notice how nobody commented to that effect.
As to the New Testament’s “rules of the prayer game”; it’s all been very nicely…and thoroughly…written about on
“God is imaginary:
http://godisimaginary.com/
Also at: “Why Won’t God Heal Amputees?”:
http://whydoesgodhateamputees.com/god5.htm
I highly recommend checking it out, if you haven’t already.
Should we GifSters start an ACTIVE movement toward that challenge? Hmmm?
Along with, of course, other Sites, like Austin Cline’s, f’rnstance?
Something additional to barrage, through email, the CNN, MSNBC, etc…and even Obama’s Sites.
It’s WAY past time for the all too ancient and blatant religious fraud to be exposed…
in a BIG TIME high profile way!
[The ABC "Nightline" Satan crap reminded me.]
28 March 2009, on 3:37 pm
Lynda,
Apologies for sounding hyper-critical, but the pilot was a Muslim, so his first thought would be something like: “If Muhammad’s horse could fly him to Paradise maybe prayer will do the same for this aeroplane?”
Of course the pilot was a mentally defective retard, but then so was Muhammad, so what’s the diff?
Answer: The pilot wasn’t a paedophile.
Conclusion: The power of paedophilia is wondrous – as long as you’re not the victim!
28 March 2009, on 3:57 pm
How on Earth does your brain malfunction to the point where your professional training, your professional ethics and a basic desire to survive are overwhelmed by a complete misfiring of the mind? The pilot’s reaction reminds me of B. F. Skinner’s experiment with pigeons….The birds’ brains were conditioned to produce elaborate dances in the hopes of receiving a random reward (food)…The pilot’s brain must have been “religiously wired” in a similar fashion…Unbelievable!!!
28 March 2009, on 4:57 pm
How on Earth does your brain malfunction to the point where your professional training, your professional ethics and a basic desire to survive are overwhelmed by a complete misfiring of the mind?
Daisy,
Because the man was religious and ALL religion represents, by definition a ‘misfiring of the mind’.
Similarly people often mistakenly ask: How can such an intelligent person believe in ‘God’? As if intelligence is directly correlated with non-delusional belief systems. In short, there is no established causal relationship between psychopathology and intelligence per se. The fact that intelligent people may believe in ‘God’ has no bearing on their intelligence and only indicates that they are suffering from psychopathology of some sort but not whether this is due to neurological or physiological causes.
In the instant case, howeve, it was probably due to the fact that the pilot was simply a religious nutter.
Which raises the question: Why was he sentenced to gaol rather than an indeterminate stay in a secure mental facility?
Answer: Because he would have been released from the latter sooner than a term in gaol and his crime , for it was a crime against humanity, merited a proper length of incarceration in a penal institution
28 March 2009, on 5:35 pm
Off topic, for those who hadn’t noticed yet, I added “Recent Comments” to the sidebar so ya’ll can see when we get a comment on a post that is not on the main page (and will be able to see when we get a cowardly fundie troll who comments in the archives thinking we won’t notice
) Also, I have put the calendar back in the sidebar which will make it easier for readers to look for posts on a specific date.
28 March 2009, on 5:43 pm
Old Git,
I guess I’m still naive enough to believe that at a moment of critical decision making (he KNOWS he’s going to die if he doesn’t react according to professional protocol) *something* in the man’s head would snap him out of the delusional state…Surely the dendrites were greased enough to make connections…
I survived a cult. Even with all the childhood brainwashing, I don’t think I could have endangered my own life or that of others…
Religion frightens the living heck out of me.
28 March 2009, on 10:47 pm
^ Thanks, Stardust, for that thoughtful touch…the sidebar addition…and many thanks, indeed, to you, and all the dedicated mods for your excellent service in keeping the GifS ship afloat.
For me, GifS is a regular, daily favorite (albeit, even somewhat personally vital) atheist “oasis” in the rather vast internet desert.
And while I’m at it, thanks also to all those who take the time and effort to contribute to the various stimulating discussions.
Ummm…Ramen?
28 March 2009, on 11:10 pm
Ramen, Chuck! And thanks to you for being such a loyal GifSter!
29 March 2009, on 3:37 am
…for those who hadn’t noticed yet, I added “Recent Comments” to the sidebar…
Great addition Star, especially for old dodderers like me who can’t remember where they last posted and had to hunt through the threads to see if there’s been any subsequent comment.
29 March 2009, on 12:06 pm
Old Git,
Hyper-critical is better than hypo-critical which is unfortunately the problem with the thinking skills of the majority of humans on the planet.
Thanks for pointing out my mistake. I hadn’t done any further reading that gave me the pilot’s religious persuasion and it just seemed the kind of thing a Christian would do. I’m so “happy” to discover Muslim pilots are as prone to praying during emergencies.
This is why I prefer to drive myself places.
29 March 2009, on 12:47 pm
Stardust,
I like the addition of the “recent comments” on the sidebar. Thanks!
3 April 2009, on 10:32 pm
As a side note, no doubt some of the passengers were praying, too. Also unanswered, but at least they had nothing better to do while hunched over in crash-ready position. The man at the stick, however…
Maybe the pilot is a recovering alcoholic and AA member; He was super-stressed, thought to himself “I could use a stiff drink about right now.” and then remembered to “Let go and let God…”
Unfortunately God’s piloting skills were even worse.
Maybe the (human) co-pilot took a second or two to react, staring in DISbelief before yelling at the pilot the Arabic equivalent of “What the FUCK, man!”
4 April 2009, on 5:50 am
Funny how Xtians stress that humans’ have free will and can ignore or disobey “God’s” exhortations and preferences but Muslims claim that everything that happens to humans is “InshAllah” or “Allah’s Will” – yet both sets of believers accept that ‘God’ and ‘Allah’ are one and the same entity.