And I'm atheist

Well, going by your rather refutable comments in the past opposing conflict for the just, you are at the very least a humanist.

People should be able to make and sell whatever the hell they want. It's up to us to decide whether to play it or not, the more choice the better I think.

lol...god. stfu. you believe in letting the average person making and selling explosives? starts getting a little threatening and you'd probably run away from that thought.

what about the second amendment? are you one of those silly NRA evangelists who believe in giving guns to everyone for "defence" and "personal protection" and the "God-given right to bear arms"? let the gun companies make their shit so you can feel good about being american? stfu you silly little boy.

Uhm. I was talking about video games and by extension movies, art, books, etc. Not sure where you got explosives and me being an NRA supporter from.

And I'm atheist, not 'american' and don't support the NRA.

I've been lurking here for long time and just wanted to say "random.thought" and "lolicon" are both pieces of shit. Random.thought posts on other forums like a troll and acts like a dick, too. He's a developer, as he claims, sure, but his giant accomplishment was providing second string support for testing development platforms. In effect lolicon was right, he's just a beta tester. Lolicon's just a plain shithead. I would even say they're both the same poster. Anyway, you fairies keep having your religious war on the gaming forum. I'm going back to lurking now.


This comment was edited on Sep 2, 02:45.

If I may again be permitted to use the Catholic Church as an example, to quote from the Catechism

Personally, that sounds to me like the Vatican is trying to justify it's ability to arbitrarily reinterpret church doctrine to suit the needs of the Church. If history has shown anything it is that the Roman Church, like the Roman Empire before it, is run by consummate politicians. Where scripture has suited the needs of the Church that has been the justification for doctrien, otherwise there is always the ex cathedra pronouncement and papal bull.

Why should it be surprising then that they foul up a lot at the beginning, and discover a more "enlightened" (by our standards) set of ethics near the end?

By the end I assume you mean the New Testament, where we find delightful gems of wisdom declaring that the Jews are progeny of the devil:

"Jesus said unto them [the Jews], If God were our Father, ye would love me: for I proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of myself, but he sent me. Why do ye not understand my speech? Even because ye cannot hear my word. Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do do. He was a murderer from the beginning , and abode not in the truth, because there is no turht in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it. ANd because I tell you the truth, ye belive me not. (John 8:41-45)"

or

"For ye, bretheren became followers of the churches of God which in Judaea are in Christ Jesus: for ye also like things of your own countrymen, even as they have of the Jews: Who both killed Lord Jesus, and their own prophets, and have persecuted us; and they please not God, and are contrary to all men: Forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they might be saved, to fill up their sins alway: for the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost. (Thessalonians 2:14-16)"

It surprises me then, that people who *do* choose to seek the value in it would "disgust" you enough to make these big posts about it.

My issue is that if we are only to treat the Bible as literature, which seems to be how you treat it, then there are far better works of literature to read. The Bible really only needs to be read today because of it's influence on our culture. As an instructor of morality and the human condition we have far better works than the Bible.

Man is a god creating species, but the modern world has outgrown the needs for which gods were originally created. Gods are a relic of our species past, when we needed myth to provide explanation and meaning to our lives; as a species we have always liked to at least think we know. I do not mean to preclude the existence of the divine, that is not something we can test or prove, merely that the conceptions we have of the divine are rooted in a time were muthos not logos reigned.

The great monotheistic religions are rooted in the paganism of the near east, particularly of the Canaanite and Egyptian Pantheons. The gods of both such pantheons were explanations for natural phenomenon. I live in the Santa Clara valley where to the west the hills are green and fertile and to the east the hills are brown. An ancient, ignorant of ecology and climate, would have said that a god of fertility must live in the hills to the west. Perhaps such a god could be persuaded to help the fertility of the ancient person's land. Ritual and cult would then develop around propitiating the deity of the western hills so as to make the farmland fertile. Over time a group of such gods would be formed. To the modern person it is clear that the gods are nothing more than the imaginations of a pre-scientific people. To the ancients however it was real, and one ancient people (the Israelites), having been heavily influenced by both the Canaanites and the Egyptians, would come to worship one god (Yahweh, an Egyptianized version of the Canaanite god El) to the exlusion of all others. In time exclusive worship of a deity would be translated into their being only one deity, and the rest being false. The groundwork is thus layed for the monotheistic religions.

If God of the Bible and the Torah and the Quran, is nothing more than a derivation of some dead Canaanite deity, then what is the sense in attaching any special meaning to him? How is he any different than the god of the fertile green hills to the west? We know that it isn't a god that makes those hills fertile; such a god was just the imagination of a human mind in need of an answer. God as we know him/her/it is no different. Science has made God obsolete for the needs for which he was created.

What about the meaning of life, you say? Yes, religion provides meaning for many people but again we don't need religion to provide meaning. If God as we know him is just a figment of ancient man's imagination, then the only significance that can be attached to his book is the book's worth as literature. Unfortunately for God, humans have proved to be far better writers. Yes, the world is much scarier without God looking after us and heaven awaiting us. But to face the terror of inevitable death and still get up every morning is what makes our species so remarkable. Meaning can be found simply in the remarkability of the human condition and how we continue to seek to better ourselves.

Only man can reason, it is what makes us what we are. When we apply our reason to the need for meaning, the meaning thus derived is all the more human. When we turn to a dogmatic belief taken on faith to provide us with meaning we are turning away from our species highest faculty.

I believe the fate of mankind is to evolve into a higher condition and escape from "the evil that men do". I admit that that is an issue of faith, but it seems to be that reason alone isn't enough to get us over that hurdle.

We all will die someday, and such knowledge makes it easy to give up. Yet most of us don't because we feel that each day offers us the opportunity to improve ourselves. That is the beauty of being mortal: we have room for improvement. If we existed for eternity we would quickly max out our potential. But as humans we don't have the luxury of time. Our time is finite and uncertain; what time we do have is luck. Each day therefore offer the opportunity for improvement as we will never be able to acheive perfection. Does this preclude the possibility of the higher state you speak of? Maybe, but to be perfect would be boring. For that reason we are better than the gods, and with reason we no longer need what they can provide. We do however need other people and it is the relationships we form within our community that is the source of meaning in this life that we can most depend on. Heaven may or may not exist, but the happiness we find with the people we love here on Earth most definitely does. The fragility of human life makes such happiness tenuous but if we can embrace the limitations we face, most importantly death, then we can accept such fragility.

I could go on but I've rambled enough. I suppose my point in all of this was that reason has supplanted the need for gods. God may or may not exist, the divine is beyond our capality to test, but in the end it really doesn't matter as reason has shown that it is the laws of nature that govern the cosmos and not the whims of supernatural forces.

But what's wrong? Don't want to use your regular name? Afraid of people thinking you're an obsessive degenerate? Too late.

Nothing's wrong, just wondering why you're getting so worked up about some anonymous poster on the internet. Call you out on some suspected bullshit (like I did with you on your devkit and your supposed work for EA) and you get defensive. What, do you enjoy the attention or something?

But what's wrong? Don't want to use your regular name? Afraid of people thinking you're an obsessive degenerate?

No, it's called "fucking with you" and it's easy to do with people who rather...mental. Five minutes and you're all worked up. Hey, it works for amusement sometimes, especially with incompetents who you know will rise to the occasion. No, I could care less, frankly. You're just another jackhole with a computer.

Like I said, you live up to your handle.

This comment was edited on Sep 2, 02:12.

6 posts in a row, lolicon. Yeah, i know it's you, ever since you accidentally posted the same response under both names. Thanks for the fan support though, douchebag! Glad i play a large enough part in your life that you're able to spend so much time responding to me. But what's wrong? Don't want to use your regular name? Afraid of people thinking you're an obsessive degenerate? Too late.

The Religions of the Book are just that, of the Book.

Interesting. If I may again be permitted to use the Catholic Church as an example, to quote from the Catechism: "Still, the Christian faith is not a 'religion of the book.' Christianity is the religion of the 'Word' of God, 'not a written and mute word, but incarnate and living.'" (108) Furthermore, "In order to discover the sacred authors' intention, the reader must take into account the conditions of their time and culture, the literary genres in use at the time, and the modes of feeling, speaking, and narrating then current" (110). The idea is not so much a politicized picking and choose of the Scripture we like, but an understanding that even if you believe the scriptures are divinely inspired, the human instrument used to write them down is imperfect in its humanity.

In this sense, the Bible becomes an epic history (literal or not) of a people struggling to find their identity and their morality. Why should it be surprising then that they foul up a lot at the beginning, and discover a more "enlightened" (by our standards) set of ethics near the end? Even in Deuteronomy, the most barbaric offenses are "punished" by God.

This does not mean however that the Sermon on the Mount isn't without value. One could read the Bible without any belief that it is the word of God and still get something out of it.

Agreed. It surprises me then, that people who *do* choose to seek the value in it would "disgust" you enough to make these big posts about it. You're not the one having your beliefs misrepresented in this thread, as far as I've read.

What I'm getting at here is that if you arn't going to be a fundamentalist then you don't need God or a Church to learn "how to Be Excellent To Each Other".

I actually agree here too, though I would ask why you would seek such a thing out in that case. But I think that's a whole other can of worms, and we've probably belabored this point enough. That being said, I'll say that both theists and atheists have "good" and "bad" adherents, depending on how you define those terms.

Why be intellectually dishonest and pursue moderate religiosity when one can learn just as much if not more about the human condition from the great humanistic works of Western Culture?

Because it seems to me that the great humanistic works increasingly want to show us that the human condition is the Hobbsian, Heart of Darkness one. I believe the fate of mankind is to evolve into a higher condition and escape from "the evil that men do". I admit that that is an issue of faith, but it seems to be that reason alone isn't enough to get us over that hurdle.

In the meantime, I'll keep faith that one day I can log onto the Internet without being preached at by atheists.

People should be able to make and sell whatever the hell they want. It's up to us to decide whether to play it or not, the more choice the better I think.

lol...god. stfu. you believe in letting the average person making and selling explosives? starts getting a little threatening and you'd probably run away from that thought.

what about the second amendment? are you one of those silly NRA evangelists who believe in giving guns to everyone for "defence" and "personal protection" and the "God-given right to bear arms"? let the gun companies make their shit so you can feel good about being american? stfu you silly little boy.

This comment was edited on Sep 2, 00:42.

That's gotta be the quote of the century. Nazis = Roman Catholic? WTF are you smoking, dude? Do you even have a brain? Or did that just come out your ass?
Please educate yourself about the Nazi attitude towards religion (and Roman Catholics in particular) before making up shit or spreading stupid lies based on your retarded world view. Thanks.

uh, hate to break it to you, but the nazi party (hitler in particular) had the blessing of the catholic church to exterminate the jews. a blind eye, so to speak. history has laid down a bed of lies for your ignorant mind. you accept in blind faith what has been presented before you. quit playing ww2 shooters and study some real history.

And what are the consequences for the rest of the world when a religion dictates that unbelievers should be put to the sword (which both Judaism and Christianity advocate, as well as Islam)?

While we're speaking about evidence, I'd love to see some backing up this statement.

LOL!!! the crusades? spanish conquests in s. america? brit colonial interests in the caribean/africa? good god, just break out a world history book and you'll find plenty of examples.

People with strong religious leaning tend to look for evidence that supports their beliefs, rather than searching for evidence that best explains something.

are you serious? the very nature of research is finding evidence that supports your hypothesis.

you just received the "no shit" award for the day.

By confining yourself to religion, you close your mind to new possibilities.

evidentally you've never heard of the great scientists who were also devout christians.

Just imagine, what if religion didn't exist? We'd probably have warp drive and fucking transporters and be exploring the damn delta quadrant by now.

history of theology as spouted by a high schooler, with either/or arguments included. stfu

religion is nothing more than man projecting his image upon himself. thus it acted as a societal glue that kept civilizations together and allow man to reach a point of advancement that allowed science to take a more socially accepted branch of study.

what's hillarious is you're trying to reason that humans are wholly rational creatures. they aren't. hell, we can't reason ourselves into existing peacefully on the earth, so what makes you think we'd jump from basic hominids searching for food to running around blasting shit in the stars? again, you live up to your handle.

Just look at the Dark Ages; 800 years where scientific intellectualism was considered blasphemy and scores of brilliant minds were most likely put to death.

as if the beloved science didn't? engineer a slingshot, before too long you're onto machined weapons, firearms, all that jazz. there's no difference in your reasoning for an either/or argument other than you're attempting to substitute one for the other and failing to realize the human element.

I can't even fathom what 800 years of scientific, medical and technological advancement at the rate we've reached today could have done for our society.

what society? american? chinese? lol, european? such advancemnets typically only benefit those who live within your "society".

STFU

The thing about science is that to adhere to the scientific method your theory must be able to be proveable or disproveable.

did they teach you that when you worked beta-tested at EA? too bad the theory didn't carry over to the game. lol.

It is the nature of science that we use the best information we have to explain why something is what it is or does what it does.

or you just call it quantifying an answer to a question with verifiable fact.

This is why there is a huge difference between what is considered scientific fact and everything else: scientific theory. Some things truly are scientific facts; they have been proven under the guidelines of the scientific method and these facts have persisted after hundreds of years.

well, no shit sherlock holmes, these are what are called the fundementals of science.

Other things, like Einstein's theory of relativity, have not yet been proven or disproved, and of course there's "bad science" -- people who claim fact without appropriately testing their hypotheses.

*lolz at random.thought attempting to group einstein with campy "bad scientists"*

there's a degree of seperation between guys who sit in their basements and claim to make cold fusion and a guy who mathematically proved the theory of relativity.

But it is science's constant re-evaluation of itself that makes it easy to believe in -- it is a culture that is constantly trying to prove itself wrong, through the introduction of new ideas, rather than proving itself right by reinforcing old ideas. The reverse of this is religion.

i imagine a theologian or two could run your ass around that statement.

This comment was edited on Sep 2, 00:13.

The reverse of this is religion.

lol, you are saying spirituality isn't quantifiable? tell that to the fuckers blowing themselves up in the name of allah.

random.thought lives up to his name yet again.

I personally think The Iliad has far more to say about the human condition and the tragic nature of life than does the Bible. Plus, the Iliad has been influencing our culture for even longer than the Bible. No one reads the classics anymore so this is all probably a mute point.

You're talking about the merits of the books themselves, but I'm talking about how they've been used over the years. I think few people have based their entire lives around The Iliad or used it to justify all their actions.

I hope people realise that I said the most significant book, not the best or most worthwhile or anything else. It has nothing to do with their intrinsic value.

And contrary to popular uninformed belief, not all Christians are fundamentalists.

The Religions of the Book are just that, of the Book. All three Abrahamic religions have a holy text that is at the very least considered divinely inspired by believers. Those Books have some pretty barbaric things in them and advocate some less than peaceful courses of action. Religious moderates tend to gloss over the passages that make them uncomfortable while embracing the passages that they believe are truly holy. While such an approach cleanses the religion of it's distasteful elements it is ultimately inconsistent.

If one is to say "That barbaric passage in deutoronomy or leviticus was just the redaction of some zealous priest with political ambition. But Jesus' Sermon on the Mount is how God truly wants us to behave." one is again being inconsistent. The reason being that evidence suggests that the whole text is authored by priests, some overzealous and some not, and to apply critical analysis to the sections that are unappealing but to allow the appealing sections to stand unmolested as the word of God is, again, to shut off the critical reasoning part of your brain.

This does not mean however that the Sermon on the Mount isn't without value. One could read the Bible without any belief that it is the word of God and still get something out of it. The thing is that when the Bible loses it's holiness and becomes a book that offers instruction in virtue and the human condition, the Bible becomes nearly irrelevant. The reason being that God, or the less than divine authors that actually wrote the Bible, wasn't a very good author. Again I would suggest that The Iliad has far more to offer one who is interested in the human condition and the meaning and elements of the good life. I've also gotten a lot more out of Plato than I ever did out of Sunday School.

What I'm getting at here is that if you arn't going to be a fundamentalist then you don't need God or a Church to learn "how to Be Excellent To Each Other". As you have said Religious moderates pursue religion not as a matter of pure dogmatic faith but as a means to better themselves. The selective critical analysis that religious moderates apply to their religion requires some intellectual dishonesty however, as explained above. Why be intellectually dishonest and pursue moderate religiosity when one can learn just as much if not more about the human condition from the great humanistic works of Western Culture? Grappling with the ideas of the great authors requires not dogmatic faith, but man's highest faculty: reason. Personally I'd prefer to use what is highest in me to answer the question "what is the good life?"

And which fairy tales do you choose? Science? Do you honestly believe that everything that you currently believe is true? Give it a couple hundred years' time and it's likely that much of what science now proclaims as fact will be proven to be a fantasy. (No, I'm not referring to evolution. I have no problem with the theory and I believe it is a sound working model, even if it does have flaws.)

You have just described the very essence and inherent core of science and the scientific method. The thing about science is that to adhere to the scientific method your theory must be able to be proveable or disproveable. It is the nature of science that we use the best information we have to explain why something is what it is or does what it does. This is why there is a huge difference between what is considered scientific fact and everything else: scientific theory. Some things truly are scientific facts; they have been proven under the guidelines of the scientific method and these facts have persisted after hundreds of years. Other things, like Einstein's theory of relativity, have not yet been proven or disproved, and of course there's "bad science" -- people who claim fact without appropriately testing their hypotheses. But it is science's constant re-evaluation of itself that makes it easy to believe in -- it is a culture that is constantly trying to prove itself wrong, through the introduction of new ideas, rather than proving itself right by reinforcing old ideas. The reverse of this is religion.

This comment was edited on Sep 1, 16:23.

I'm at work right now so I can't look up specific verses at the moment. The Book of Deuteronomy is a good place to start however. If you really want me to pull out scriptural and doctrinal justifications for violence against disbelievers I can do so this evening.

Note that the contents of the Bible are not the same as doctrine for any non-fundamentalist religion. And contrary to popular uninformed belief, not all Christians are fundamentalists.

So for your assertion, that Christianity, Judaism, and Islam all advocate violence against nonbelievers, to be true, these beliefs must be held institutionally by each group. Since there is no governing body for any of these as a whole, you'd have to demonstrate that each splinter group codifies the violence you refer to. I don't know about the others, but for example, the Catholic Church has a Catechism which is essentially a book that collects the Church Doctrine. If you can find the evidence in there, you'll have taught me something very dismaying about my religion. Otherwise, your assertion reduces to bigotry based on terrible actions by members in the name of the whole.

Speaking of bigotry, here's a great article about the fallacy of trying to indict religions (or atheism!) by the murderousness of their members: http://www.infidels.org/secular_web/feature/1999/violence.html

My personal experience of religion is mostly about getting together on Sunday to talk about how to Be Excellent To Each Other. Christ basically walked around trying to get people to stop judging each other and love their enemies. Let's not throw that baby out with the bathwater because of a few corrupt politicians who weaseled their way into the papacy and some bloodthirsty abortion clinic bombers who hijacked the message as justification for their evil actions.

So has anyone actually played this demo? It may have a created a firestorm for a forgettable gameplay experience for all we know.

You can't reason with dogmatic belief. If you truly believe in your religion you will ignore any evidence I present that shows that your believe is unreasonable. How are you supposed to negotiate with people that have such a significant chunk of their brain turned off?

I haven't turned off any part of my brain. I read papers by atheists and skeptics all the time! It's just that often times I find their arguments unconvincing. Other times, I believe they're right. For example, I see inherent problems with the mere idea of God not existing, yet I also believe that anyone who believes the Flood story or that evolution is not a sound scientific theory based on our current level of knowledge is incorrect. Also, the claim by many non-Christians that Christ is based not on a real historical figure but rather from pagan myths is laughable.

And what are the consequences for the rest of the world when a religion dictates that unbelievers should be put to the sword (which both Judaism and Christianity advocate, as well as Islam)?

Judaism at one time was violent, however now it is not. Killing unbelievers is not the focus of Judaism.

Christianity specifically advocates NOT killing unbelievers but converting them; if they refuse to convert, they are to be left alone.

Islam clearly and unequivocally calls for the killing or conversion of all unbelievers.

Aetheists didn't put people in concentration camps, Trainwreck; that was the Nazis. And they were Roman Catholics. Your grasp of history seems to be a bit of a... well, trainwreck.

I wasn't referring to the Nazis so much as the communists in Russia, China, Vietnam etc. Now, as we all know communists and communist regimes and communism are/were atheistic in nature. I was merely pointing out how absurd it is to blame the millions of deaths through communism on atheism. It is similarly absurd to blame modern-day Christianity (or the Bible itself) for the Holocaust or even the Crusades.

As for Nazi conduct with Catholics (and keep in mind not all Christians are Catholics) during WW2, ahh, I do remember something about Hitler ordering the kidnapping of the Pope. And keep in mind that Nazi ideology made use of some strange belief system which can best be described as neo-paganism, not Christianity. Also bear in mind while reading early endorsements by different churches that many people around the world were at first deceived by Hitler. Many were too naive to see him for what he was, or what he was to become.

And muslims haven't killed nearly as many as the Christians have; today or in all years past.

Tell that to the two million killed in Sudan alone over the past few decades. Oh wait - you can't! "Radical Islam" (I hate the term but I use it for lack of a better one) has been since its inception the largest, bloodiest religion on the planet. But that's not to say that any individual Muslim is a bad or unreasonable person of course.

But I still don't think that people object to Christianity in particular so much as the blind fanaticism required for grown adults to believe such fairy tales, no matter what the religion.

And which fairy tales do you choose? Science? Do you honestly believe that everything that you currently believe is true? Give it a couple hundred years' time and it's likely that much of what science now proclaims as fact will be proven to be a fantasy. (No, I'm not referring to evolution. I have no problem with the theory and I believe it is a sound working model, even if it does have flaws.)

Fuck curing cancer, we'd probably be regenerating limbs by now.

Not if the Catholic church has it's way:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/01/world/europe/01vatican.html?ex=1157256000&en=b3ec3fb682034730&ei=5070

Turns out the Dark Ages aren't really that far away after all. People trying to cure cancer and heal broken bodies need to be driven out, while Hitler's just okey-dokey by them. Nice f'ing religion you got there.

http://emperor.vwh.net/images/bishops.jpg