Angels and Evidence

PZ notes that Time magazine reports poll results showing that 55% of Americans believe that they have personally been helped by a guardian angel. Yup, that they have experienced an interventionist magical spirit at work. I present the following as a public service, reminding people that just because you don't personally know how you survived an event, that does not mean an angel helped you. Honest.

That time when the limb fell, and just missed your head—
What was it that caused you to duck?
A split second later, you might have been dead;
It had to be more than mere luck!

An Angel, perhaps watching out from above?
Or some shimmering, heavenly light?
The manifestation of God’s perfect love?
An Angel, you say? Well, not quite.

The reticular system, at work in your brain,
Can react without consciously thinking—
Avoiding the accident, saving you pain,
Reflexively, almost like blinking.

This primitive pathway has helped us survive—
Evolution at work once again!
No, it wasn’t an Angel that kept you alive,
But your primitive animal brain!

That time, late at night, you were hit by a car
And were comatose over three days?
Was an Angel the one who looked down from a star
And guided you out of the haze?

Well, no. There’s the lady who called nine one one,
And the ambulance, quick to the call;
Blood donors—seven, before you were done,
And the doctors and nurses and all.

It wasn’t an angel, but dozens of people
In whom you should place your reliance;
There’s nothing for you in a church with a steeple
But rather, in medical science.

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Of course there are Angels, all over the place;
There's nothing that’s plainer than this:
Every time you feel raindrops go splash on your face,
Some Angel is taking a piss.

Say what? It’s not Angels, but clouds in the sky?
That’s nonsense, as any can tell!
I tell you it’s Angels that piss from on high—
You cynics can all go to Hell.