Wednesday, March 14, 2007

When bad things happen to dumb people.


I have been remiss in not staying on top of the National Post's continuing series of bi-directional religious conversions, so let me save you several minutes this morning of excruciating illogic:

"Oh, man, I'm going to die, oh, wait, I'm not dead, it's a freakin' miracle, OK, I'm a believer. Also, I don't know the first thing about thermodynamics."

You're welcome.

UM ... HANG ON A MINUTE ... Being the natural skeptic that I am, I'm always a bit leery of such touching, heartwarming stories, so it seemed only natural to do a quick Google search to read other coverage of Ms. Elliott's plane crash to see if perhaps, just perhaps, any of her Post piece had been -- how shall I put this delicately? -- embellished.

Lo and behold.

I find it rather odd that Google can't find a single reference to a plane crash involving Ms. Elliott, even as a definitely printable small news piece. Doesn't prove that it didn't happen, of course, but does anyone else find that just the least bit suspicious?

NO, SERIOUSLY ... can anyone find objective corroboration of this story online somewhere? I find it hard to accept that something this newsworthy could have happened and Google is unable to pull up a single hit on it. This just smells funny.

10 comments:

M@ said...

According to [the first law of thermodynamics], the universe seemed to me to be implausible; yet it exists. So perhaps God, though implausible, might exist too.

Oh, case freakin' closed, there.

I think she'd better hand back that master's degree of hers.

MgS said...

God may well exist, regardless of plausibility.

The real question is whether you allow your life to be driven by the assumption of the unknowable existing...apparently she did.

Anonymous said...

I love that one...to realize that the universe shouldn't exist according to the laws of the universe. It reminds me of Douglas Adams, except he was kidding.

Not that suspicious there was a plane crash...1974, NWT, and bush planes go down quite frequently even now without making the news.

The miraculous healing is what truly sets my alarm bells ringing. If I had horrible ankle pain, which was quickly and painlessly cured by the name of Jesus, I don't think I'd "eventually" come around. Hell, this woman has proof of the healing power of Jesus, what took so long? If I had "proof", I'm there tomorrow. And did they even do ankle replacements at that time?

Ti-Guy said...

I absolutely loathe the Christian predilection for miracles and the supernatural. It's so superstitious and primitive.

...although, if a burning bush talks to me today, I'll, like, totally change my mind.

Anonymous said...

The predilection for miracles and the supernatural - kind of like paganism.

...although, if a burning bush talks to me today, I'll, like, totally change my mind.

Either that or I'll give up doing drugs.

Anonymous said...

"If I had horrible ankle pain, which was quickly and painlessly cured by the name of Jesus..."

Your shins are forgiven.

Anonymous said...

All these medical miracles....If god wanted her to live so bad, why didn't he just keep the damn plane from crashing in the first place!

Jason Hickman said...

Re: On-line searches turning up zip:

The crash happened on August 8, 1974, according to the article. It was a small (2 occupants) plane, and no fatalities were involved.

Needless to say, not too many newspapers were putting their stories online in 1974. Some of the bigger newspapers do have on-line archives of stories from their print editions going back to 1974, but they tend to be of the "Nixon Resigns" variety, not the "Small Brush Plane Crash Injures Two in Northern Canada, No Fatalities" variety, assuming those archives are caught by a Google search in the first place.

Ti-Guy said...

Jason, why don't you go correct some of the bad reasonning and factual innacuracy among your Blogging Tory buddies?

Believe me, they are in desperate need of reality-based people like you.

Anonymous said...

...and why are you reading The National Post?