Factual accuracy of "Left Behind"

Factual Questions
1

I decided to read the “Left Behind” series just to see what all the Christian fun was about. I’m on page 16 and, if this is the most popular book series in America today, we in trouble. But never mind, I have some factual questions.

At the beginning, when everyone who believes in Christ suddenly vanishes and becomes flying nudists, one of the book’s heroes is piloting an aircraft towards Europe. He mentions that contact with air traffic control is going to be “slow” because the plane’s at its midway point. Seeing as radio signals travel at 180,000 mps, and, seeing as there must be places he can contact in locations such as Canada, Iceland and so forth, I wonder if this is really a common problem or one the authors made up so they could cast their characters as being isolated.

Here’s another one that caught my eye. In what struck me as one of the most unconvincingly motivated attacks in the history of fiction, Russia decides to annihilate Israel using nuclear missiles. They also send in MIGs so their airforce can be defeated by divine intervention. Now, if you’re going to bomb the crap out of a country the size of, maybe, Connecticut, with nukes, is there really any reason why you need to send fighter pilots too — especially since you’re catching Israel completely by surprise? Or is this what you might call artistic license?

And, finally, here’s a small one. When our pilot finally lands in Chicago (apparantly all European traffic controllers are devout Christians, which would make them something of a statistical anamoly) there is a mention of how the passengers trudging from their planes toward the terminals (there’s a huge parking problem beause so many other airports are out) have to put up with the ear-splitting noise of other planes landing. This is presented as sort of a generic problem all of the passengers are putting up with. The only time I had to put up with ear-splitting noise was when a plane came in or went outdirectly over my head. But I’ve never been up close to a tarmac when one is landing. Would this really be a problem?

2

  1. As simple math tells you, a radio signal across the entire Atlantic takes on the order of 10 milliseconds, well below even human reaction time. Myth busted.

  2. Either the nukes are really, really tiny, or they’re just making sure.

  3. An airport is generally pretty noisy, yeah - that’s why ramp agents wear hearing protectors. But it’s tolerable for brief periods.

Score: 1 win, 1 tie, 1 loss.

3

Nice post, but you’re going to have to explain your scoring system to me one of these days.

4

Just wait until you get to the part where it is revealed that you can tell who the Antichrist is based upon skin color. It’s certainly not a fact based book.

5

Like I said, it’s a scary book. Just not the way its authors intended.

In fact, the reason Russia attacks Israel is because Isreal now lays claim to having the planet’s single greatest agricultural paradise. This is because a scientist has invented an amazing synthetic fertilizer that can make deserts bloom like the Genesis project from “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.” Israel, however, will not sell or reveal its secrets because they want to hog all that agricultural boodle for themselves. That’s why Russia tries to nuke it off the face of the earth, though exactly how this is supposed to help Russia is never explained.

Replace Scientist with “a Jew” and any mention of Israel with “The Jews” and you can see how certain, ah, traditional notions find their way into the book.

Um, if anybody wants to debate this with me, please invite me to the entirely new thread you just started over at “Great Debates.”

My God, I’m not even to page twenty and the thing’s 468 pages long. Heaven help me.

6

Both authors have studied (their brand of) religion with a bit of marital counselling almost exclusively. Given that they get most of the theology in the books wrong, it is not hard to see how they can make a few errors in the actual technical details of science, military strategy, and day-to-day life.

(Dopers, they ain’t.)

7

Here’s a good one: Cameraon “Buck” Williams, big-time journalist, keeps flying to Europe by taking off and landing at LaGuardia Airport which, as every American frequent flyer knows, is a domestic airport. Wow, these guys really aren’t much for homework, are they?

And the questionable stereotyping of Jews keep cropping up. At one point some reporters are discussing the Middle East situation and one tries to help explain some of the politics by noting that Israelis “hate Jesus.” No one, of course, objects. This is said in New York in the offices of a big-time news weekly among reporters who have all been LEFT BEHIND. Is it me, or does the versimilitude seems just a little off here?

Oh, and have I mentioned the big meeting of Orthodox Jews in New York interested in forming a one-world government?

This is really some book.

8

Keep us posted as long as you keep your sanity- edited lowlights are much beter than the real thing.

There are some choices reviews over at Amazon, but they might spoil the “plot” for you :wink:

9

As you continue through the book, you’ll find many, many, many places that make it abundantly clear that the authors did absolutely no research whatsoever. That doesn’t bother many people who read the books, obviously.

10

I know I’m probably making an ass of myself even thinking this might be accurate but, even so, here’s the direct quote (page 233):

“The flight to Atlanta was full and busy, and Rayford had to change altitudes continually to avoid choppy air.”

I’ve been on a couple of vomit comets flying back from overseas and, as far as I know, the pilot never changed altitude even when some of the attendants found themselves to be slightly more airborne that is usually the case. And, if there were levels of air less turbulant than others it would seem to me that the airlines would keep air traffic control posted on the information and pass it around, right?

11

Point 1 can be true but probably not in the way you (or the author) are thinking. If your aircraft is a long way from civilization, it may be beyond the range of VHF radio and have to rely on the greater range of HF. HF radio can be quite poor quality (a lot of background noise and sometimes very faint transmissions), this can make communications difficult and it may take more time to talk to ATC simply because you need to repeat everything you say.

Now, around Europe you’re probably never out of VHF range, but midway across an ocean you might be.

If the dude is travelling internationally with an airline from a domestic airfield then you can safely call BS on it, but if he is travelling on a private jet then it is not BS. Private aircraft can fly internationally from and to a domestic airfield provided they make arrangements with customs, immigration, and quarantine.

The point about changing levels to avoid turbulence is accurate. Airline pilots will change levels to avoid turbulence if there is another, more suitable, level available and if the benefits outweigh the negatives (eg poor fuel economy or airspeed). Pilots will inform ATC of enroute weather conditions, but it may be widespread so changing levels may not be of any value.

12

In the book, our hero keeps taking off from LaGuardia on a fictional airline called Pan-Continental.

I’m a little unclear about the answer about air turbulence, so let me restate the reality as I now have it in my head. Pilots will change altitude, but there are considerations, like fuel effiiciency and meterological conditions. But, it would seem to me, that a pilot would not “continually” change altitude. For one thing, if you keep going up after having gone down, that’s going to cost a lot of fuel and the airline would probably be unhappy about that, especially if all that altitude changing isn’t doing much good.

13

Pan-Continental should only be operating out of an international airport :).

You are right about the altitude changes, there’s no point constantly changing levels. Either you find a level that is more suitable and stick with it (maybe change a couple more times on a long flight), or you stay where you are.

14

This is certainly proving an interesting thread. I have heard of the “Left Behind” series of books myself, and while I have (very) occasionally been tempted to check them out myself, particularly after reading braintree’s initial impressions of them (the series sounds hilarious), I fear what might happen to my sanity should I do so. (Unfortunately, much as it shames me to admit it, there is still a part of me that is unhealthily receptive to this sort of bilge. Early childhood religious indoctrination has left its subtle scars. :wink: )

As braintree says in his first post on this subject, if those books are proving as popular as they are in America, then that country is in trouble. I sometimes despair of America, great a country as I think it is (and as pleasurable a place to visit as I found it when I went there for a holiday in 2002). One of the most technologically advanced, modern and liberal nations on this planet, yet so many of its citizens gleefully devour crap like that (and, in many cases, believe it too, I’m sure). (I used to experience similar feelings of despair whenever I happened to catch a glimpse of Oprah or Ricki Lake (purely by accident of course!).)

Anyway, getting onto the subject of the book series being rubbished, I remember seeing a TV documentary on the Book of Revelation, and all the crap associated with it, that basically said that the concept of the Rapture was actually invented in the 19th Century by some Seventh Day Adventist to give him a convenient escape route should his predictions about the date of the end of the world fail (which, of course, they all did). Thankfully, the concept hasn’t caught on too much in that part of the world where I live (Australia) although I have started noticing some of those stupid stickers on cars which say, “In the event of the Rapture, the driver of this vehicle will disappear” (or something similarly brain-dead). Aside from the fact that I believe the Rapture to be just as fictitious as the “literature” it appears to have inspired, the sentiment expressed on those stickers is awfully presumptuous when you think about it!

15

If it’s any consolation, there are vast swaths of the country where the only contact you have with these books are message boards like this one. I’m sure there’s people in the NYC area who have read the books, but I dont’ know any. Not a Catholic thing at all, so there’s 22% of the populace that’s immune :wink:

Seriously–big, big country. You could have the entire population of Australia’s worth of people watching a TV show and it’s cancelled as a dismal flop.

16

I read the first one out of curiousity long ago and spent most of my time laughing. When I finished I almost felt cheated out of the time I spent, but now I had ammunition against those who believe what the books say.

Then again…is anyone even reading them anymore?
Bueller?

I want those three hours back!

17

Another factual question. When the rapture happens, plenty of cars and airplanes crash, which you might expect — and I do think it was awfully discreet of the authors not to graphically describe the last terrifying moments of screaming emotional agony sure to have been the lot of all those helpless passengers on board doomed aircraft. But a lot of commuter trains crashed too (with typical misinformed presumption, the authors describe passenger trains getting around crash sites between New York and western New Jersey by “zig-zagging” accross different routes — a hilarious impossibility to anyone familiar with the territory). Now, I had always thought that there was something called a dead man’s switch — something about the throttle that would require a live person to hold it in place because, let’s fact it, there’s always the possibility that an engineer or motorman could have a heart attack or a stroke and die while in transit. If that certain something is not held in place, the train, one imagines, automatically coasts to a stop. Obviously the same principal would apply as soon as one became a flying nudist for Christ. On the other hand you will very occasionally hear about runaway engines. Anybody know something about the reality on this one?

The stupidity of the book continues to astound. The McGuffin here is a plot to install the antiChrist as head of the United Nations so the world can be put under the rule of one currency and one religion and — wouldn’t you just know it? — those darn Jews are right in the thick of it. This, of course, is supposed to be very frightening. (Oh, and they’re moving the UN to Babylon — the original, which is being rebuilt, though I personally would have preferred Long Island.) And, of course, there’s a lot of hand wringing about the fate of the earth. But wait! As part of the plot, it’s been disclosed that every baby, every fetus and every child under the age of 12 has vanished too and that no one shows any sign of being able to reproduce. So here we have all of these people worried about the future without taking into account the simple reality that pretty soon there isn’t going to be one. About the only time it’s brought up is so the authors can get in some really unfair and incredibly nasty digs at abortion and its supporters. (Again, anyone who wants to debate that point, please start a new thread in Great Debates and invite me over.)

Incidentally, the bit about one group controlling all the money is right out of “The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion” which I once took the liberty of reading. That one’s even stupider than “Left Behind.” You really have to love these guys.

Another thing that’s stupid is that nobody every thinks to verify the religion of all the disappeared to see what percentage were known Christians. Also, despite the fact that Israel was saved by divine intervention and that Biblical prophecies are being fulfilled live on CNN over at the Wailing Wall a lot of characters stupidly consider other, supposedly more rational explanations such as alien abduction and odd confluences of electrical magnetic rays. The the authors appear to be underscoring what in their view is the stubborn, proud resistance of secular society to the reality of the miracle of God.

Well, that’s great but the problem here in real life is that irrefutable religious miracles dosn’t ever seem to really happen. We’re told about miracles that happend thousands of years ago that can’t be verified and miracles that are going to happen in the futre that can’t be verified either. So the whole thing comes off as desperate, yet strangely-gloating wish fulfilment (if you want to argue, Great Debate defense invoked once more).

18

The biggest factual problems that struck me when reading it were the concept that being able to grow as much food as you need will make a country prosperous and the fact that the only thing stopping a region from growing as much food as they need is inadequate fertilization.

19

Since we’re in GQ, here is the Staff Report on the Protocols.

20

Dudes- it’s fiction. The “rapture” is not much more unlikely than Talking Lions, Harry Potter or FTL travel.