No Sense of Irony.

Every weekday morning at around 7:30, a sort-of local pastor of a Methodist church gets a 1-minute blurb called "Perceptions." I dug around a little to find that this is a national "outreach" thing intended to lure people to their local churches, yadda yadda.

www.perceptionsoutreach.com/Testimonials.htm

He tells a little (scripted) story, then gives the context that brings "meaning" to the "message." In one last week, he used some trick by Penn and Teller to make a religious point (pretty funny, given Penn's vocal atheism).

This sort-of local pastor had this offering this morning--first he told this well-worn joke:

"One day at a busy airport, the passengers on a commercial airliner are seated waiting for the pilot to show up so they can get under way.

The pilot and copilot finally appear in the rear of the plane and begin walking up to the cockpit through the center aisle. Both appear to be blind; the pilot is using a white cane, bumping into passengers right and left as he stumbles down the aisle. The copilot is using a guide dog. Both have their eyes covered with sunglasses.

At first, the passengers do not react thinking that it must be some sort of practical joke. After a few minutes though, the engines start revving, and the airplane begins moving down the runway.

The passengers look at each other with some uneasiness. They start whispering among themselves and look desperately to the stewardesses for reassurance.

Yet, the plane starts accelerating rapidly, and people begin panicking. Some passengers are praying, and as the plane gets closer and closer to the end of the runway, the voices are becoming more and more hysterical.

When the plane has less than twenty feet of runway left, there is a sudden change in the pitch of the shouts as everyone screams at once. At the very last moment, the plane lifts off and is airborne.

Up in the cockpit, the copilot breathes a sigh of relief and tells the pilot: "You know, one of these days the passengers aren't going to scream, and we're all going to die!"

*sort-of-local pastor adds his irritating fake chuckle here*

...then he adds the "perception" bit (paraphrased):

"Flying blind. When we fly blind, we run the risk of going the wrong way and making the wrong decisions."

I wish I could remember the rest of that paraphrased bit; it really added to the unintended irony of his position.