This video recently came across my news feed on Facebook. To summarize it: a woman had accidentally driven into the lake. Rescuers were unable to break the windows out to save her. As the van finally sunk beneath the water, one of the rescuers felt the woman grab his arm beneath the water, and he pulled her out to safety. When they pulled the van out of the water, though, none of the windows were open or broken. The previously-linked site, and all others I found of the video, proclaim about how this was obviously a miracle by their god.
This is a prime example of credulity. The truth of the matter is, I don't know how she was able to get out of the van, and neither do these people. This exposes their ignorance and their simplicity: instead of trying to figure out a rational, likely explanation for the situation, they simply cry, "God dunnit!" and claim it as a miracle. They never stop to think that - maybe - she was able to open the door and pass through that. While such a hypothesis struggles with the fact that it would require significant force to open the door against the pressure applied by the water around the car, it's still more likely to be the cause than divine magic - at least for this explanation, we have the additional substantiation of amazing feats of strength when someone's pumped with adrenaline, and nothing gets adrenaline pumping like imminent death by suffocation or drowning.
What's more annoying is that sites and people like this don't like to tell the stories of when their god sends tornadoes to kill people, ignores prayers by his followers to save them, and brutally murders and scatters them. No, these people, in their annoying credulity, only look to credit their god when it makes them or their religion look good.
This isn't intended as an argument against the existence of a god (another place, another time), but an argument against falling into a state of giving up intellectual pursuits simply because it might be too hard and simply easier to credit your god with a miracle. Isaac Newton made the same mistake when he couldn't explain the stationary orbits of the planets, instead crediting his god with keeping them in place. Imagine where we would be if, every time we came upon something we didn't understand, we simply threw up our hands, declared that a god must be responsible, and stopped there.
If you'll excuse me, I'm feeling quite ill right now, and I must rush to a doctor's appointment where he'll proceed to drill holes in my head to let out the evil spirits that afflict me so with this illness.
Physics tells us that once the car fills with water, the pressure is equalized and the door would be as easy to open as if the car were not in the water at all. That's my guess as to how the door miraculously opened: the basic principles of hydraulics.
ReplyDeleteAnd, if the car were filled with water, that would further support that hypothesis. Alas, no one seemed interested on reporting on that.
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