Atheists & Agnostics
Related: About this forumAccording to Twitter, a lot of praying going on (to Yahweh and Allah) over Malaysian Airlines 370...
Doesn't seem to be making much difference.
Goblinmonger
(22,340 posts)AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)I mean, god kept some lamps in some temple somewhere in the backwater desert of a bronze age society burning for a whole 7 days beyond when some human said they would run out of oil.
Same thing right? JP8 is just kerosene.
Heather MC
(8,084 posts)Last edited Thu Mar 13, 2014, 09:22 AM - Edit history (1)
AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)Warren Stupidity
(48,181 posts)Uncrash the plane? have it suddenly land? That would wreck the whole reticent deity shtick he's been playing for the last 2500 years or so.
Goblinmonger
(22,340 posts)Gently set that plane down in front if me right now, I might reconsider the whole no god thing. As it is, I'm likely to adapt the old saying to "pray in one hand and shit in another and see which one fills up quicker."
Heather MC
(8,084 posts)He works mysteriously you know
Vashta Nerada
(3,922 posts)At least those who say they're doing nothing are honest about it.
Curmudgeoness
(18,219 posts)Whenever people have no idea what to do, and want to sound sympathetic, they claim to be praying. I think it is more of an announcement than an actual ritual that they are doing.
Brainstormy
(2,381 posts)It seems a way of presenting oneself as caring and concerned but mostly a way of announcing one's identification as a believer. It's an especially good way to garner "likes" on Facebook--something that's equally useless. I know that God has a twitter account. Not sure about FB. Don't know whether he/she/it keeps track of popularity. But if all the people I know are actually praying over the things they claim to I can't imagine how they get anything else done.
Curmudgeoness
(18,219 posts)And I don't know how god gets anything else done with all these prayers he has to answer. I bet they are lying. They are not praying all the time.
deucemagnet
(4,549 posts)I'm not on Facebook, though. I guess I don't have a friend in Jesus after all. Or I'm not friended by Jesus. Or something.
Iggo
(47,577 posts)progressoid
(50,000 posts)Brainstormy
(2,381 posts)There have been studies done showing that, above all else, God is a football fan.
Heather MC
(8,084 posts)Gore1FL
(21,158 posts)Right?
Brainstormy
(2,381 posts)where millions, for centuries, have been gang praying. Proof of the efficacy of those prayers are in the news every day. Or not.
Arugula Latte
(50,566 posts)No one could have predicted that prayer was utterly useless.
onager
(9,356 posts)And as an aviation expert,* it's really bugging me.
*Translation - I watch a lot of "Air Disasters" and "Why Planes Crash."
To put myself in the running for the Randi Prize, I will boldly predict that the aircraft had a catastrophic structural failure and broke up in mid-air.
That's the only theory that seems to make sense, based on what we know right now.
Security experts are still theorizing that the aircraft may have been hijacked and forced to land, to be used for "other purposes later."
But we're talking about a Boeing 777. A big plane and it needs a long, paved runway to land, if you intend to use it again. You can land it any old place if you don't mind destroying the plane and killing all your hostages. Along with yourself.
A big plane but unfortunately a tiny object, compared to an ocean. I'm thinking about the Air France flight that disappeared in 2009, in the Atlantic Ocean. It took 2 years to find its wreckage and black boxes.
Also remembering that in almost every case I can think of where a large aircraft "disappeared," it turned out to be structural failure so sudden that the crew had no time to send a distress signal etc.
That goes all the way back to the very first commercial jet, the DeHavilland Comet. After a series of mysterious crashes, its problem turned out to be windows with square corners. Those caused stress cracks in the metal skin. And that's why the window you're looking out of today on your 747, 777, or whatever has round corners.
/usual free-form blathering
sakabatou
(42,186 posts)Though there may be survivors, my cup is half empty.