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[Loud Whispers]

So I had time to waste and decided to start watching "God is not dead," on the basis that I remembered seeing a poster for it; each one seemed absolutely designed to build a platonic urge within me to slap Nietzsche all over the place like so:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Immanual Kant: Critique of pure disappointment (click to show/hide)

At first I had hopes for the movie, there were some immediate flaws what with the main character being so naive and pure that if I ever met such a person in real life I would do everything in my power to corrupt them, (which probably wouldn't bode well for the stereotype of being evil infidels but Satan wills it) and the philosophical arguments being no better than the old youtube comment flame crusades of old, but the supporting cast were great (with exception to a few bizarre cameos of people who I thought were poor stereotypes until I realized they were real Americans). When I mean the supporting cast is great I mean it, the side characters include two fundies (one Christian missionary from Africa and one Muslim immigrant to America, the latter who pressures his daughter into wearing the burka and the film actually goes out of its way to explain why he does it in a way that is actually rather respectful), the aforementioned daughter herself who is succumbing to the wonders of Western degeneracy (I exaggerate, she secretly enjoys Western liberal ideals such as not wearing the Burka when her father is not around), some sort of business lady who is ok, a whole bunch of other minor characters who have the ethnic diversity of a textbook cover and the professor starts out all right. I was won over from being completely critical of the film to actually start enjoying it, the professor is a hardline fedoracore atheist who abuses his educational authority to further his agenda (in all my experience with American teachers is this standard? Because it seems standard) but even then it seems like a respectful figure and just like all the other characters the movie goes out of its way to try and explain why he holds his views just as the others hold their views.
At about 40 minutes in he goes full Disney evil. From there everything goes rather downhill as the main character's love interest (who up until this point had opposed him out of care suddenly develops a bad case of mean spiritedness and dumps him brutally for little reason) and everything gets two dimensional and what had looked like a film that had intense amounts of care wrapped into everything that wasn't about God threw it all away rapidly in the name of the Hollywood format. FFS one bloke actually says love is useless to his fiancee who has just told him he has cancer. You can pull something like that off sure, but you have to actually give a shit movie. You can't just throw out these heavy handed things with the subtlety of an Orca making love to coconut crab, you actually have to respect the intellectual integrity of your audience and actually allow for situations that aren't opaque or blindingly bright.

The only consolation I can see is that it has a good start and during the middle there's an unintentionally hilarious scene where the main character is talking to a man called Martin from godless China about Jesus and all that and Martin just has this constant look of dude let me read my fucking book on his face.

The biggest flaw in this all is that the main character has to persuade the students that God is alive. He argues that because the professor got them on his side then it should be hard for him.

EXCEPT THAT THEY DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT THEISTS, ATHEISTS AND AGNOSTICS ARE. THEY ARE IGNORANT AS FUCK AND NOT GOOD JUDGES.

God damn it movie, I had hope. I guess I'll just stick with my reckless infidel ways. This movie could learn a lot from the Book of Eli about how to do a religious film right; it says something about your film when a movie that has Kung-Fu action black Jesus fighting chainsaw fat man in a tunnel is more subtle, less preachy and respectful to its audience's brains with its message than your film about a college debate. Seriously though, go watch the Book of Eli. It's a much better film. And its soundtrack is sexy.

[TD1]

Gotta love Kant XD

[Vector]

Gotta love Kant XD

I'd say it's categorically imperative.

[Frumple]

Oddly enough, I actually enjoy the smell of cigarettes and other burning stuff.

Yeah, as per Alev, wood smoke and whatnot often isn't that bad. Still likes to bugger my lungs a fair bit, but at least the smell's pretty bearable. It's pretty specifically cigarettes, cigars, etc. Almost all of them smell worse than shit. Like. That's a literal statement -- I'd rather go through a sump than go through the smoking area of anywhere.

Though there's a few exceptions. I have ran into some cigars and pipe tobacco and whatnot that's not nearly as bad -- almost enjoyable, even, insofar as the smell itself goes. Still will knock me into a migraine induced catatonia if I'm in it for too long, but at least those ones don't smell that bad. There's just something about cigarette producers that apparently make them completely goddamn incapable of creating something that doesn't smell exponentially worse than ass.

in all my experience with American teachers is this standard? Because it seems standard

If you're asking as to actual american teachers, then no, it's not standard. Least hasn't been in my experience, doubly or trebly so in relation to actual philosophy/related classes. Slightly worse in areas with heavy agenda bias in the population, but the flat fact is that spouting shit along heavy ideological lines is a very fast way to get your arse kicked out of the public school system in the parts of the states I've been in. You start getting complaints, your boss starts looking for a replacement.

It's actually been kinda' amusing, since this area is highly ideologically leaning in certain ways, and watching a professor get notably uncomfortable when one of the students starts yammering something about prayer is somewhat amusing/sympathy inducing.

[Lightningfalcon]

Is that the movie that spawned the meme where the college professor teaches something completely biased, and completely stomps his students to the ground, but then one brave student stands up, dismantles the professors argument with a single sentence, and then teaches the class him/herself?

[Frumple]

Seeing as how it's apparently a 2014 film, presumably not. Unless someone's been buggering around with time loops while no one was paying attention.

[Loud Whispers]

Is that the movie that spawned the meme where the college professor teaches something completely biased, and completely stomps his students to the ground, but then one brave student stands up, dismantles the professors argument with a single sentence, and then teaches the class him/herself?

No it's an old copypasta that predates this movie by 18 years.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

AM I ON MY PLANE YET? NOPE! GOOD JOB BASED DELTA, BEST SUDDEN HOUR DELAY EVER.

[TD1]

Gotta love Kant XD

I'd say it's categorically imperative.

Hm.

"Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law without contradiction."

That is why I love Kant.

Not viable, but still admirable.

[Vorthon]

Guh, somewhere between panic and rage: The Vinesauce forums apparently has SMF recently installed, and it apparently fucked up the password recovery system. Went to do it because I hadn't been on said forums in months, and I'd forgotten my password. Still haven't gotten the recovery email yet. >_<

[BFEL]

They intentionally overbook and overload flights because it's cheaper to the airline than underbooking the flight. They have an anticipation of a certain number of cancellations and adjust the price of the vouchers they give you accordingly. It's optimization, not a "mistake."

This^

Its not stupidity. In this case it IS malice. Well mostly greed, but malice by proxy.

Oh, my rage today is in my new IRONKERBAL game I managed to kill Jeb on day one, flight one, because FAR.

[Loud Whispers]

Its not stupidity. In this case it IS malice. Well mostly greed, but malice by proxy.

Maybe it's negligent direct avarice, not malicious proxy greed.

[nenjin]

How does that title sit with you MSH?

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Now that I finally find myself at home, perfectly.

In other news, my collusion with other screwed-over passengers suggests that gate agent bitch intentionally did not call us in order to pawn off our seats to a group of captains and their relatives, who were suspiciously nearby and boarded the plane.

[BFEL]

I think MSH should be glad he didn't board Kerbal Airlines.

Our program has now officially declared the experimental basic jet engine testbed craft to be "cursed" after losing 3 separate iterations of the vehicle, and Bill Kerman to the monstrosity.