Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Failure: A Powerpoint Presentation

The military never fails to disappoint in its adamance to chase atheists out of foxholes.




Ooooo. It's true because he is using real words. Now, let me breathe for a moment, take some medicine to lower my blood pressure, maybe chew angrily on a chocolate bar between muffled screams of unintelligible rage, and I'll be right back...
That was fast.
Okay. God-given purposes are irrelevant if God doesn't actually exist. People do, you do, God might not. Motivation based on shaky premises or outright falsehoods aren't exactly reliable. Humanism is more based on self-given purpose, but it supports the "love of man" just as much as "philanthropy", which is not really an ideology. And, icing on the cake, is the fact that loving God is only deemed to be relevant to you because it leads to loving both man and yourself. Why not just love man and yourself simultaneously, have both a man and self-given purpose, and leave the speculative entities out of the equation altogether, hmm?




"Theories of Hope"? Well, considering that that is the name you are giving to issues involving the origins of existence, that does not bode well for your bias, now does it? It implies that whichever one you find more pleasing is the one that will be taken as true. Religion as a security blanket...

Anyway, "chaos" is a strawman of chance and randomness due to implying that chance and randomness cannot be confined, or have any direction. Whether a coin comes up as heads or tails is random, and is chance. But that isn't chaos. Chaos is when you cannot predict anything, and things not only happen by chance, but the possible outcomes are everchanging, and have no limits. It is what you try to imply these things to be, when they clearly are not. Random chance leads to predictable results over time. That is not chaos.

And I have to find it hilarious that the bulk of their reasons for why a certain view is better than another is by saying that one favors men and the other focuses on God. You're using "god" as a vapid buzzword to serve as a point of contrast between that bland, ego-centered materialism I enjoy and the flighty, metaphysical idealism suggested by saying "God" over and over again, but doesn't really mean anything. Preaching to the converted, and alienating the dissenters, as per usual.


Only two nations have ever existed, in the history of the world? I've heard of cherry-picking, but I didn't know you applied that tactic beyond the realm of Bible verses. You did it well. (Especially since you somehow lumped Darwin and Evolution in with Communist ideology). You've presented a tiny case study involving a free society that has existed for a few centuries in relative prosperity, compared to a relatively poor, oppressive society that had existed for a few decades, had been devastated by war, was simultaneously trying to get up defenses against us in the Cold War while simultaneously trying to assure that it wasn't sundered by dissent from within. But, yeah. Atheism and Communism are the only reasons why they had problems. You know, sometimes people just aren't in a convenient enough of a sociological, or economic position to worry about defining their purpose. When you are basically fighting for survival from day to day, happiness and meaning are a privilege that, like everything else, you can scarcely afford, and is of less value to you than the more pressing issue of staying alive. That isn't to say that the Communist regimes aren't to blame: they seemed to almost intentionally screw over everyone else in order to get more wealth, and power, and to preemptively remove all potential threats to both of those out of existence. Over and over and over. Has nothing to do with individual definition of purpose as much as the quality of living provided by the laws and economy of the state.

Oh, where was I? To summarize: Why in the name of all that is unholy was this blatant, airheaded propaganda shown to our Air Force? Why in the name of all that is unsacred do they think that this is the secret to preventing suicide? And why am I even surprised anymore?

8 comments:

pboyfloyd said...

The armed forces are showing this to the boys/girls in hopes of preventing suicide?

If I were a soldier, thinking, "They must really know what they're doing, right? They went to college and stuff, right?"

Then, if I were given THIS presentation, practically accusing Darwin of being a Russian communist..

The Maze Monster said...

WoW! I've never seen anybody call Philanthropy a bad thing.

Yeah, why are we surprised?

Asylum Seeker said...

"practically accusing Darwin of being a Russian communist.."

Well, Marx had a beard, and so did Darwin. Hummm, could they be brothers?

"Yeah, why are we surprised?"

I honestly don't know. I feel like a person who is perpetually surprised that the infamous pickpocket lying on the street on their way to work stole their wallet, even though he had been doing the same thing for the past six years, and had been found out each time. I guess it is more along the lines of "he wouldn't possibly have the gall to do it again today, would he?" then "that guy is alright and would never steal from me". They have plumbed the depths of religious retardation for so long, that I am not surprised that they have reached such depths again, I am just surprised that they have been able to remain submerged in bullshit for so long.

Pliny-the-in-Between said...

This looks like art of the very dangerous trend in the US Airforce Academy to promote evangelical Christianity. Personally, I don't want the guys flying bombers with nuclear weapons to believe they are on a mission from God. I think that realizing that you could destroy all of humanity for all time isn't a bad thing to keep in mind. Maybe that's why during the first cold war, US actions were often a lot more provocative than those of the USSR. If they had a godless humanist view, then they knew this is all we get.

Fabulously in the City said...

This is supposed to keep people from hanging themselves? God, I see shit like this and all I think is, "I'm surrounded by idiots! To hell with it, I'm outta this world!"

:-P

But, seriously, I can't believe they're actually sharing this. Kind of stupid.

GearHedEd said...

Not at all. I was in the Army for ten years (yeah, I know!) and they are, in fact, that stupid.

Michael said...

I guess I am not too surprised, considering we live in a "christian nation" but these slides were absolutely ridiculous!

Remind me again, what century do we live in, cause for some reason, i was thinking it was the 21st, not the 18th ::shrugs:::

mac said...

Yeah, Ed.

I was in the Army also. I must agree, they are that stupid.

I'm not trying to insult anyone. I was stupid when I enlisted as well....hence the service :-)