Post by KNOWTHIS on Feb 14, 2009 18:50:42 GMT -5
Howard Stern brought up a fantastic point about the calm, cool and collected heroism of Capt. ‘Sully’ who successfully landed the troubled commercial jet in to the Hudson River. When asked by Katie Couric in an interview if he had prayed before the emergency landing he said NO, he didn’t have time to pray. Yet Christians always claim that one must pray for miracles. Stern explained that ‘Sully’ is a true hero because he proved that in a time of impending crisis you need to rely on the rational mind, not the irrational thoughts of a fictional God.
Just because A came before B, doesn’t necessarily mean that A was the cause of B. Just because one prays and something unexpectedly positive happens, doesn’t mean that the prayer had anything to do with it. In the case of this plane crash we found that Sully was able to pull of a “miracle” without the aid of prayer. The difference is that stories like these aren’t usually publicized. We never hear about the hundreds of thousands of people who prayed intently for the safe return of their military family members from the battlefield only to find out that they are deceased. When sports players and musicians win championships and awards they often thank God. But what about all of the losers? Shouldn’t they be blaming God? Yet they never do. The story is always told in only one direction. It’s always spun in favor of the positive.
friendlyatheist.com/2009/02/08/capt-sullenberger-didnt-pray-when-the-plane-was-going-into-the-hudson/
Just because A came before B, doesn’t necessarily mean that A was the cause of B. Just because one prays and something unexpectedly positive happens, doesn’t mean that the prayer had anything to do with it. In the case of this plane crash we found that Sully was able to pull of a “miracle” without the aid of prayer. The difference is that stories like these aren’t usually publicized. We never hear about the hundreds of thousands of people who prayed intently for the safe return of their military family members from the battlefield only to find out that they are deceased. When sports players and musicians win championships and awards they often thank God. But what about all of the losers? Shouldn’t they be blaming God? Yet they never do. The story is always told in only one direction. It’s always spun in favor of the positive.
friendlyatheist.com/2009/02/08/capt-sullenberger-didnt-pray-when-the-plane-was-going-into-the-hudson/
Capt. Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, the pilot who landed a plane safely into the Hudson River, was asked on 60 Minutes tonight about whether or not he prayed when US Airways Flight 1549 had lost its engines.
Here’s Katie Couric talking with CNN’s Howard Kurtz about her interview with the pilot:
Couric:… In fact, at one point I said [to Sullenberger], “Did you pray at any moment?” And he said, “There were a lot of people in the cabin doing that for me. I had to fly the airplane.”
Kurtz: Right. You know, even in normal circumstances, I guess, to be a successful pilot, you have to be able to tune out just about every distraction and focus on the job at hand.
Couric: Yes. He said it took enormous concentration and focus to kind of remove those feelings of fear, and obviously he did what he needed to do to get the job done.
This was from the actual interview:
Asked if he at any point prayed, he told Couric, “I would imagine somebody in back was taking care of that for me while I was flying the airplane.”
“My focus at that point was so intensely on the landing,” he said. “I thought of nothing else.”
That’s not the same as saying he’s an atheist or anything. I don’t know what he believes.
But it’s an important point, I think. In a time of crisis, the man in charge didn’t stop to pray. He didn’t think about God.
He focused on what actions he could take. He eliminated any other “distractions” from his mind, including thoughts about God.
That’s what saved the passengers’ lives.
Here’s Katie Couric talking with CNN’s Howard Kurtz about her interview with the pilot:
Couric:… In fact, at one point I said [to Sullenberger], “Did you pray at any moment?” And he said, “There were a lot of people in the cabin doing that for me. I had to fly the airplane.”
Kurtz: Right. You know, even in normal circumstances, I guess, to be a successful pilot, you have to be able to tune out just about every distraction and focus on the job at hand.
Couric: Yes. He said it took enormous concentration and focus to kind of remove those feelings of fear, and obviously he did what he needed to do to get the job done.
This was from the actual interview:
Asked if he at any point prayed, he told Couric, “I would imagine somebody in back was taking care of that for me while I was flying the airplane.”
“My focus at that point was so intensely on the landing,” he said. “I thought of nothing else.”
That’s not the same as saying he’s an atheist or anything. I don’t know what he believes.
But it’s an important point, I think. In a time of crisis, the man in charge didn’t stop to pray. He didn’t think about God.
He focused on what actions he could take. He eliminated any other “distractions” from his mind, including thoughts about God.
That’s what saved the passengers’ lives.