Religious logic or lack thereof.

I have a relative who is very, very religious. This relative has been religious all her life. I get religious emails from her frequently and generally trash them. A recent email got my attention.

Here is part of her email –

“I have been sick and the problem comes from my back.  My back did not hurt, just a pain down my leg.  I had every symptom but the back.  It took a year to finally figure out just what was happening, but God is good and does heal.  Hope everyone is doing good.  God's Blessings, …..”

I’m not a doctor but it seems to me that from her description of the problem, I would suspect she had a sciatica nerve issue. My wife had similar symptoms with a pain down her leg and the doctors suspected a vertebrae pinching the sciatica nerve. This is pretty common. I’m not saying that this is exactly what my relative had but that’s what I suspect. Again, I’m no doctor nor do I play one on TV.

But the second part of her email is what peaked my interest. It took a year to figure out what was going on (she and or the doctors?) but God is good and does heal. Huh?

I’ve had back issues most of my life. When it acts up I generally take it easy and over time it resolves itself. What if during one of these events, I prayed to God to heal my back and over time it did get better? Did God heal me or did it resolve itself without God’s help?

I imagined my relative saw doctors during this time and since it seems from the email that the problem was “figured out” by, I’m assuming, doctors, who then had the most impact on fixing her issue? God or the doctors?

The issue with evangelicals and those who fervently believe in prayer, is that no amount of reasoning will convince them that God and prayers had nothing to do with solving the problem. If the issue didn’t get resolved, then they didn’t pray enough, or the right way, or loud enough. If the problem got resolved then, of course, God, not the doctors, get the credit. Either way God comes out smelling like winner.

From the TV show “House” this quote sums it up – “If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people.” Can I have an “Amen!”

Too low, too slow!

I’m going to put on my Flight Instructor hat for a few moments and talk about the Asiana crash at San Francisco Saturday. We don’t know EXACTLY what went wrong so any comments by me are speculation although I will let you know that I know a few things about landing an airplane, having taught many pilots over 15 years. What applies to small single engine airplanes also applies to large Boeing 777’s.

I saw a news report that bothered me because it quoted someone apparently from the FAA talking about “stabilized approaches” as being a problem. I’m not sure the news service got this right as the FAA has instructors such as myself teach and emphasize “stabilized  approaches.” What this means is that the pilot sets up the plane on final approach to fly towards the runway at a constant descent rate, at a constant airspeed and a constant power setting. This is what I did when I taught brand new pilots from the first lesson.

For example on a Cessna 152 I would set the power to 1500 RPM, the airspeed to 70 knots and get a descent rate of 500 FPM. What this meant was that as you flew towards the runway, you would see the plane descending constantly and the airspeed would not fluctuate.

It was apparent from the crash at SFO that the plane’s tail hit the end of the runway just as the pilot was apparently applying full power. By then it was too late. Why he came in so low and so slow we don’t know. That, I’m sure, will be looked at closely by the FAA and NTSB.

What is lost somewhat in all this, is that only 2 people died and although there were over a 180 people injured, many others survived without injury. Watching the few clips of the crash, I was amazed that the 777 stayed intact after hitting the runway so violently. I think we should commend Boeing for making such a tough airplane. Also we should praise the cabin crew for getting everyone out as quickly as they did. With all the hype about the miraculous nature of people surviving, remember the two things, the strength of the airplane and the training of the crew. That’s really what made this survivable.

Flying is still safe!