http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3472265.stm

I'd imagine the Christians were mad, too. I can't imagine that anyone of any ethos really wants to talk to their neighbors on an airplane flight.

Could be worse. Imagine if he'd replaced "Christian" with "Amway"...

wow

I don't have enough time to get into this right now.....

"No, it's not a pyrimid scheme......."

Bitt:
Actualy we're mad because he did something rather dumb. Well intentioned, but dumb. And since the rest of the world is in the habit of judging us by our loudest and dumbest, the rest of us become guilty by association.

I hope that Christians don't mind sharing their beliefs with others, it is, after all, the main directive of the Great Comission. However, they don't need the pilot of their plane to tell them to do it.

Neo is looking for you.

After having a think about this, I've decided that the reason the pilot did it was because he deliberately wanted to get fired. Like in those contrived comedy movies with a convoluted plot where the main character has to get fired in order for something else to happen.

Edit:(I seem to recall seeing a South Park recently with that plot...)

Striker! Striker!

Surely you can't be serious!

Yes I'm serious, and don't call me Shirley.

Excuse me, I speak Jive.

Supprised to see me, Mr. Anderson?

Quite a culture we live in where encouraging people to learn about another's faith will get you fired.

Learning is bad. Okay?

Quite a culture we live in where encouraging people to learn about another's faith will get you fired.

I think it would be equally as bad if the pilot had said "Who on this plane is an atheist?" and encouraged those people to espouse the atheist viewpoint to the theists onboard the plane.

For that matter, I think it would be equally as bad for the pilot to have said "Who on this plane is a fan of rock music?" and encouraged them to talk to the country music fans and tell them how stupid they are for not liking rock music.

I think in all cases, it would have been inappropriate for the pilot to espouse his own viewpoints like that, and should find another line of work.

Tony, I agree with you there. I think that some people feel that it would have been handled differantly, even those any of those situations would have been just as wrong.

Shrug.

Regardless of the religion in question this seems extremely inappropriate for a numbr of reasons:

- Airline pilots are looked up to as thoroughly professional - responsible for the lives of their psx. This was not professional behaviour for a pilot.

- The comments were highly offensive to non christian customers of the airline.

- At a time of much anxiety about flight safety the pilots intentions could easily have been misinterpreted.

- Further anxiety could well result from concern about the pilots state of mind and hence ability to fly an airplane.

Rob

Further anxiety could well result from concern about the pilots state of mind and hence ability to fly an airplane.

I fly an awful lot these days. If a pilot pulled a stunt like that while the door was still open, I'd get up and leave for precisely this reason. If he pulled that stunt after the plane was in the air, I'd most likely sit there in stunned silence. If I got my composure back before the pilot finished, I'd whip out my camera and record his behavior to ensure he gets his due.

Further anxiety could well result from concern about the pilots state of mind and hence ability to fly an airplane.

Absolutely. And I think that's what makes this such a shock to most of us. If this happened in most other settings, I think it would just be weird, but on a plane, I would be a little nervous about it all.

Maybe he had the fish.

Who on this plane is an atheist?

I prefer my pilot to be an atheist. It seems to me he would be a lot more motivated to land the airplane safely. That being said, I would image if there was a big problem with the airplane in flight, there would be very few atheist on it until after it landed.

I prefer my pilot to be an atheist. It seems to me he would be a lot more motivated to land the airplane safely.

You didn't just type that did you?

Good point on their being very few until after it landed though. lol "Dear God, I know I don't pray very much... but there's this plane with like 1 engine on fire .. .and um... I promise..." lol

Well just to point this out, faith or no faith, what the pilot did was very rude and I'm offended as a Christian at what he said. Asking people to identify themselves is inneffective at best, certainly making both parties uncomfortable, but insulting non-Christians by calling them "crazy" is as un-Christlike an attitude as I can come up with. Offending your audience is never likely to help your cause, not matter what you're trying to convince people of.

Jesus said "blessed are those who are persecuted because of me", he didn't say "blessed are those who are presecuted because they were nasty to people."

I'd just like to see the airline's letter of apology to passengers, it must rival the Justin Timberlake school of apologies!

"It was completely accidental, and deeply regrettable, and I'm sorry if I offended any of you." Pretty lame apology...sounded a little to rehearsed.

Not only rehearsed, but required by the Grammy organizers as a condition to allow him to appear. The same offer was made to Janet (who had been scheduled), but she declined.

--Dan.

but insulting non-Christians by calling them "crazy" is as un-Christlike an attitude as I can come up with

I don't want to start something here, but I can't agree with that statement. I think that Christians regularly treat people who disagree with their faith as if they were crazy, sometimes even pointing it out to the "heretic".

You have to be careful when you say "Christians" without qualification. Because if you're including all Christians, you're including:

Operation Rescue: I think they're sometimes offensive and nasty to people. They've also been known to harass people who honestly don't need it at the moment.

Focus On The Family: Would probably be more than happy to see the Inquisition brought back, if only to see gay people "get what's coming to them".

...and so on. All guilty of "un-Christianlike behavior". But all most admittedly Christian. So it would seem there's a bit of a paradox. Because by definition, "Christian-like" behavior is behavior like that of a Christian....

Is it Christian-like behavior we expect? Or Christ-like?

Because I see a lot of Christian-like behavior all the time. That pilot displayed some. But not a lot of Christ-like behavior to be found.

Except on this board. What with helping Drakino get to Amersfoort. That's about the coolest damn thing I've seen in a while.

but insulting non-Christians by calling them "crazy" is as un-Christlike an attitude as I can come up with

I don't want to start something here, but I can't agree with that statement.

I honestly never saw you disagree with me, really. You did say

Because I see a lot of Christian-like behavior all the time. That pilot displayed some. But not a lot of Christ-like behavior to be found.

Which I'd agree with, or at least I understand. Remember, though, as has been said before, Christians not displaying Christ-like behavior are more likely to make the news than those that do.

I also should mention that I don't know specifics about Operation Rescue or Focus on the Family, so I'm not necessarily agreeing or disagreeing with those examples. I’m familiar with FoF, but haven’t ever heard anything that indicates they despise gay people (though they do regard homosexuality as sin)- but even at that I’m not ready to speak in defense of FoF either as I’m not intimately familiar with their ministry. However, I've known plenty of "Christians" who seem to think it's OK to hate gay people so your point still stands.

For the record, though, most Christians that I know regularly display what I’d consider to be very Christlike behavior. It's those I hear about on TV who don't.

As much as I hate quoting DC Talk:
"The greatest single cause of athiesim in the world to day is Christians; who acknowldge Jesus with their lips, walk out the door, and deny them by their lifestyle. That is what an unbeliving world simply finds unbelivable."

If your definition of Christian behavior is the way Christians do behave then you are absolutly in the right and I could not agree with you more.

If you mean the way Christians should behave, then I think we can all agree there are plenty of people out there who are simply bad at being Christians.

Let me just say a fewmore things for now.

There are a lot more "good" Christians out there than people realize. You probably don't know them because they arn't running around doing stupid things to get attention.

Truth is, even if we all were "good" Christians socioty as a whole still wouldn't like us very much. The problem is, some people look at when Jesus said "you will be persecuted because of me" to mean "if I'm being persecuted, I must be doing something right!" which of course is a logical falicy.

helping Drakino get to Amersfoort. That's about the coolest damn thing I've seen in a while.

It is. And it is closer to Christ-like behavior than what the pilot did. But I wouldn't call it the coolest "damn" thing youv'e seen unless you are trying to put a hex on his trip