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I'm sure most of you have seen the news story about the helicopter accident in London yesterday. Two people sadly died and there were several injuries. What's bugging me is all the nonsense talked now about miracles and divine intervention. It's a "miracle" the road the chopper plunged down onto wasn't busier. It's "divine intervention" that the crane operator was late for work, so wasn't in the cab of the crane, where he might have been killed. Well, no. That bit of road was relatively clear, because the traffic lights along the street were on red. A couple of minutes later, they'd have turned green and the road would have filled up. Did God intervene to make sure the crash happened when the lights were red? Did god go to the trouble of making some people late for work, so they missed being caught in the accident and were saved? But of course didn't bother to prevent the accident in the first place, which would have saved everyone.
It's the same when someone misses a plane, which then goes down. Oh, it's fate! They were somehow picked out to survive! (And once again, why in that case, not just prevent the whole disaster even happening?) But for almost every flight everywhere, every day, someone, in fact often several people, miss it. Or don't turn up at all. (That's why they overbook them. Because otherwise they'd fly with empty seats and that's more inefficient than bumping some people to another class or another flight.) Is it only the hand of god making someone miss a flight if that flight is going to crash, but the rest of the time it's just normal life going on?
One of the uses of "miracle" that bothers me the most is about the so-called "Miracle on the Hudson", where a US Airways Airbus suffered a birdstrike and ditched into the Hudson River. Everyone aboard got off alive and mostly well. It bothers me that it's called a "miracle" because that diminishes the achievements of who really saved the lives of those people. The pilots in particular of course, who made such a perfect ditching, the cabin crew who carried out a speedy evacuation. Even the operators of boats who quickly came to the rescue of the passengers and crew of the plane. Calling it a miracle tells all those people their actions meant nothing. God did it.
Okay, rant over. Any arguments? :D
It's the same when someone misses a plane, which then goes down. Oh, it's fate! They were somehow picked out to survive! (And once again, why in that case, not just prevent the whole disaster even happening?) But for almost every flight everywhere, every day, someone, in fact often several people, miss it. Or don't turn up at all. (That's why they overbook them. Because otherwise they'd fly with empty seats and that's more inefficient than bumping some people to another class or another flight.) Is it only the hand of god making someone miss a flight if that flight is going to crash, but the rest of the time it's just normal life going on?
One of the uses of "miracle" that bothers me the most is about the so-called "Miracle on the Hudson", where a US Airways Airbus suffered a birdstrike and ditched into the Hudson River. Everyone aboard got off alive and mostly well. It bothers me that it's called a "miracle" because that diminishes the achievements of who really saved the lives of those people. The pilots in particular of course, who made such a perfect ditching, the cabin crew who carried out a speedy evacuation. Even the operators of boats who quickly came to the rescue of the passengers and crew of the plane. Calling it a miracle tells all those people their actions meant nothing. God did it.
Okay, rant over. Any arguments? :D
