When your belief system makes you stupit...

[Griff]

OWEGO -- Army Lt. Gen. William G. Boykin's first words to an audience of about 300 on Friday set the tone for the three-part lecture on current events and military history he will give this weekend at the Owego Treadway Inn. "Do we have any Muslims in here?" he asked. "Who's in here to cause trouble?"

"You need to understand that this is a war of ideology -- it's not a war of Islam versus Christianity," Boykin said. "This is a war of Islam against everybody that is not submitted to Allah. Now because most of the world is Christian, it falls out that most of the people who are under persecution, or the targets of Islam, are Christians."

"I have no resentment, no animosity towards them because I know that they're living under a hall of darkness," Boykin said, "and I know that the ultimate resolution to this is to take the gospel to them, to bring light to them."

This guy leaves me wondering who would be next if he managed to somehow defeat Islam. This is a guy who served at the highest levels of our military and civilian government despite being utterly blinded by his ideology. The imaginary world he lives in is leaking into our physical world, what can we do about it?

[Lamplighter]

For this individual, the root of his beliefs can't be known.
Maybe it's along the generic lines in the current thread about " must have an enemy"

But all that aside, maybe it has to due with training an army to go to war.
First, the recruits must be trained to believe there is such a thing as an enemy,
an enemy that is a threat to your "way of life", and who will kill you if you don't kill them first.
Above all else, the recruit must learn to follow orders without question.
After years of service, doing the right things and believing the right way
for both survival and career advancement, the belief systems become rigid and self-reinforcing.

Add to all that a space of time when there is no "war"
Even Roman officers knew they had to keep their armies busy.

All this is needed for those times when a nation calls upon it's military for action.

So then, retire that individual into civilian society and those belief systems go with them.
Some vets re-adjust, some can't, and some just don't.

[Flint]

Originally Posted by Griff

The imaginary world he lives in is leaking into our physical world, what can we do about it?

Stand up and speak out against religion and all its evils.

But, if your boss invites you over for dinner, and his family says "Grace" befor eating, be sure and say "Amen" ... not that this constitutes the sword of Allah hanging over your neck or anything. Of course, we are perfectly "free" to not be Christians in America. . . . :::cough/bullshit/cough:::

[footfootfoot]

Originally Posted by Griff

This guy leaves me wondering who would be next if he managed to somehow defeat Islam. This is a guy who served at the highest levels of our military and civilian government despite being utterly blinded by his ideology. The imaginary world he lives in is leaking into our physical world, what can we do about it?

This is why, when I hear people try to dismiss what they call "conspiracy theories" with claims of "There'd be a deathbed confession" or "too many people would know about it" I think just because YOU would feel the need to confess (because you thought it was wrong) doesn't mean the other guy thought it was wrong, and just because you can't keep your mouth shut, doesn't mean others can't.

The ability to put your mind in someone else's for a moment will help people see another, possibly scarier world.

My first exposure to that was in my 20s when I met a retired fighter pilot who said what made someone a good fighter pilot was that all they wanted to do was fly their plane and drop bombs on targets. IT didn't matter to them if it was Canada or Viet Nam They just wanted to blow shit up with their plane.

He was training pilots in other countries and told me the Thai made horrible pilots because of their Buddhist backgrounds. You can't really make a killing machine out of them.

[Griff]

Originally Posted by Lamplighter

After years of service, doing the right things and believing the right way
for both survival and career advancement, the belief systems become rigid and self-reinforcing.

This is perceptive and depressing when you think of all the retired military diffusing out into the population.

Originally Posted by Flint

Stand up and speak out against religion and all its evils.

Everyone above me in my work organization belongs to one religious organization or another.

Originally Posted by footfootfoot

He was training pilots in other countries and told me the Thai made horrible pilots because of their Buddhist backgrounds. You can't really make a killing machine out of them.

Some belief systems can help people resist brain-washing, so I won't condemn all religion as flint might. There used to be moderate voices across religions in this country but their very reasonableness is used against them by true-believers.

[Flint]

Originally Posted by Griff

Everyone above me in my work organization belongs to one religious organization or another.

Of course they do. See above, the comments I added to my post as an afterthought.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Griff would like to imagine this guy as a blind man -- me, I am not so sure.

Frankly, America's foes strike me as an unsubtle lot: the best propaganda against them is what they go around doing. Count their contemptible, their undesirable actions.

Would you not oppose such beings?

[DanaC]

Originally Posted by Flint

Stand up and speak out against religion and all its evils.

But, if your boss invites you over for dinner, and his family says "Grace" befor eating, be sure and say "Amen" ... not that this constitutes the sword of Allah hanging over your neck or anything. Of course, we are perfectly "free" to not be Christians in America. . . . :::cough/bullshit/cough:::

Couldn't you just bow your head respectfully and not actually say anything?

[Sundae]

Originally Posted by footfootfoot

My first exposure to that was in my 20s when I met a retired fighter pilot... He was training pilots in other countries and told me the Thai made horrible pilots because of their Buddhist backgrounds. You can't really make a killing machine out of them.

Tell that to the Tamil Tigers.

[footfootfoot]

Originally Posted by Sundae Girl

Tell that to the Tamil Tigers.

[Undertoad]

I think she means, the Hindu Tigers had their asses handed to them by a bunch of Buddhists.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by Griff

The imaginary world he lives in is leaking into our physical world, what can we do about it?

You're just jealous because you live in a complicated world, a difficult world, a world that take most of your free time to analyze and decipher.
Obviously, the Lt. General doesn't have that burden.

[Flint]

Originally Posted by DanaC

Couldn't you just bow your head respectfully and not actually say anything?

I don't know... I usually move my lips a litte, at least... just to be safe.

[Sundae]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

I think she means, the Hindu Tigers had their asses handed to them by a bunch of Buddhists.

What he said.
It wasn't a comment on Thai Buddhists, merely an aside about the idea that Buddhists can't be trained as killers.

[footfootfoot]

Trained as fighter pilots, according to that guy. Maybe the difference lies in your example they had a cause that they believed in, in his example it didn't matter what the cause was, they just liked to kill with their planes. I see a big difference, but I have no idea how you could get in touch with that guy to continue the discussion.