Bay 12 Games Forum

Probably a gnome

Nurgle would love you for it!

The elves are underneath the dwarf, there are just no words to describe how wrong that it. The elves should be in front of the dwarf, who should be firing her gattling gun perfectly ordinary crossbow...

You are allowed to have 2 anvils, if you can afford them, then you can trade an anvil...
But bear in mind that your three starting wood will all be trading depot...

I say booze, lots and lots of booze, you can trade booze, youcan drink booze, you can enjoy your friends dying wrestling animals to death for their precious bones because of booze, you can even make barrels out of booze...
of course, once you have a bone crossbow and one stack of bolts this becomes far too easy...

I like to think that we have a low entropy past and a low entropy future, and are currently enjoying an entropy high...

I would go with Aesop's Fables, Aesops' Fables would imply that their name was Aesops or that there was more than one Aesop.

Why would anyone want this barely restrained flame war on their recent replies list???

The future can be viewed as a series of states, as each on changes it becomes the next. The past can be viewed the same way, each state perceived is the result of the next one changing. There is no great difference between 10 seconds and 1000 years. There need be no beginning, there is simply an endless succession of states stretching back as far as you are able to understand. The thought of the existence that we are familiar with spontaneously coming into being or being created by an entity that must also justify the cause of it's existence, and the motivations for its timing, is completely alien. The most probable scenario is that the universe was not created, therefore the most probably scenario is that any entity that claims to have created the universe is lying...

I use The Constitution of the United States of America because that's where I live, and those are the laws I follow.  It's not about morality.  It's about working with your fellow man.  A person's morality is judged by the law for the greater good.  This is an important interpretation if you are to understand where I stand on this issue.  No religious (or perceived) right shall ever override another man's rights.  Period.

Fair enough, but understand that some people feel that that constitution is flawed and will disrespect your opinions that are based upon it. Fellow man is a bit of a stretch, it includes many people who violently oppose each other, and sometimes get away with it. There is a perceived right over others inherent in the law, everyone in the United States of America has the right to freedom from being deliberately killed by others, yet if you put a portion of the community together in a court room then they have the right to decide if someone will be killed by the state. They may not be personally killing someone, but they are still citizens choosing to terminate the rights of other citizens. But state induced murder is a very controversial subject, the same can be said of imprisonment, which when applied privately is illegal. While the need of a legal system to enforce it's laws is implied by the existence of a legal system, it still consists of one community deciding to terminate the rights of others, a fact which can, and evidently has, been abused.

I must say however that I respect your stating the source of your morality. It makes arguments much more reasonable if people know each others positions. My own is somewhat undefined at present, which is much of the reason I argue so much, I would like to deduce a better morality, as all those I have encountered seem too flawed to tolerate...

Quote from: RAM on May 01, 2009, 05:10:42 am

The freedom to walk is opposed my the limitation that one cannot obstruct the walking of others. The freedom to murder is opposed by the limitation that murders cannot be opposed. Introducing subtlety complicates matters, but this is most likely true.

There is no freedom to walk, but walking into someone else could be construed as assault, in which point there are rules about "right of way" that have to be considered.

Exactly, those were possible examples to illustrate a point, not suggestions. Instead of the right to walk or the right to murder you have the right to not be assaulted, which in turn limits you from assaulting others, and you are limited to following the 'right of way' rules, which gives you the right to have others do the same.

Quote from: RAM on May 01, 2009, 05:10:42 am

Lesser forms of freedom exist, where one community possesses freedoms over another. Such as with slaves, who, while the property of others,

Slavery is the violation of the Right to live.  It is also illegal as stated in the Thirteenth amendment, though I think the Constitution and Bill of Rights themselves make the Thirteenth redundant.  The Constitution is a document of the people.  All people living under it, not just slave owners and the Bill of Rights grants all people who abide by the Constitution the right to be free people.

Yes, but dumping a bunch of former slave with no money into a situation where the only employment they can get is in a factory with a high death rate due to unsafe conditions, where their wages are minuscule and infrequently given is not such a violation. They are not forced to do anything, they simply choose to be mercilessly exploited due to their alternatives being illegal or starving to death along with their families...
There are things that are covered by laws, for everything else there is absolute freedom for those with the power to take it.

I live in a Federalist Republic.  A person's wealth does not obtain them more rights than another.

Quote from: RAM on May 01, 2009, 05:10:42 am

And of course there are humans and non-humans

I'm discussing human rights.  If cows want their own laws and country, they are free to form them.

What about the Taliban, and Saddam Hussein? What about Fidel Castro? They formed their own countries with their own laws, didn't work out so well for them... What about communism, or undemocratic regimes, which can take many forms. And that is just the philosophical differences, no need to bring up any 'influence' applied to countries with unfavourable economic dispositions...

Quote from: RAM on May 01, 2009, 05:10:42 am

And 100% freedom is impossible, even at the cost of the freedoms of all others. No monarch can feed their people only because they choose to and no religious leader can ascend into the sky simple by the force of their will.

I'm talking about freedoms of life and living.  Beyond that "realist" scope is purely religious preference and non-evidential possibility.

But yes, 100% freedom is impossible.  That's why we have laws granting you your freedom up to said points.  In order for humans to work together in harmony, they have to respect all other human's rights and allow for their rights to end where the other person's begins.  That's the key.  You're right to preach your belief ends at another human's right to be ignorant of your belief.  We all voluntarily accept this to live within the protection of it.  And yes, limitation of another person's right to infringe on your rights is all the protection you really need.

Well, yes, but that was an absolute assessment, if you limit it to such an extent, then yes, 100% is possible, it is just at the expense of everyone else.
Wait, you have a right to be ignorant? That would mean that nobody can share any information without obtaining permission from the recipient. Do you have a right to be ignorant of the community's belief as it pertains to laws...
They are born in your country, there is nothing voluntary about it, and if they don't like it they will be prosecuted. There is no guaranteed avenue for those who oppose your laws to establish their own country or to seek an existing one that suits more of their beliefs...
But that protection is limited, there are many avenues for one will to invalidate another through brute force, be it financial, political, social, or whatever. There are many cases where someone can do something and actively prevent others from doing the same. And if you disagree on that particular set of rights, and lack the power to change them, then you will "need" much more protection in order to feel free.

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It is because the calculator is unrelated to art. If I handed you two boxes and told you to prove the contents of the other box by merely observing what was in the first, could you? Everything we have is irrelevant outside of our box.

What part of "No it isn't, because there's nothing to disprove about art, it doesn't make any claims about the world. Religions, on the other hand, do." did you not understand?

Art claims beauty. Art claims ugly things. Art claims things about the world that whatever the artist decides to capture and display. Happy? Now:
What I want you to address still is how you plan to make any conclusion about the second box.

If one have prior experience of similar matters, then there are any number of method that may be used to assume the nature of something, be it the virtue of an artwork, its subject, or the contents of a box. If all that there was in my world, was myself, two boxes, the inability to determine the contents of one box, and the need to provide an assessment of that content. Then, reluctantly, due to my hatred of assumptions, I would inspect the one box, and then assume that the other, as it is also a container, is identical in all aspects that cannot be verified. So god is a human who has no detectable contact with other humans, so is probably insane by now, if not from the loneliness then from the frustration of nobody hearing them properly...

But dropping the weak metaphors for a moment. In order for it to have any significance a religion must have aspects. Be these demands, observations, histories, descriptions, or whatever, there will be aspects. Aspects which can be compared to similar aspects and assessed for viability. So you have a book that says something happened several thousand years ago. There are methodical investigations of the past, religious evidence can be compared to other forms of evidence to determine if it is an effective source of information.
Laws about how to live, well that is easy enough, it can be compared to the myriad of laws that exist, or simply compared to life, does it have any glaring flaws?

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No. You do not disbelieve either. Right there at the bolded, your are contradicting what you claim atheism to be. So it's a good thing nobody here is saying that, isn't it?

Quote from: Sordid on May 01, 2009, 04:17:03 pm

Isn't it?

Now I have to say it. There is nothing to believe OR disbelieve.

Anybody can say they are an atheist, short of announcing a definition and demanding that everyone assume that definition within the argument there really isn't anything you can do to stop it. I can only guess that the orignal poster asked why people do not believe in an immaterial(sort of) being that holds authority over them and/or the rest of known existence. However, speaking on behalf of others is a clear sign of someone who is willing to claim knowledge that they do not possess...

Quote from: ¿ on May 01, 2009, 05:38:02 pm

There's a difference between claiming that there is nothing and rejecting a claim that there is something because it is unsupported by evidence. I have already said so, you must have missed it.

Rejecting the claim is wrong. You already said this. Disbelief is wrong. By disbelieving you are rejecting the claim.

In some legal systems, there is a concept that the accused is not considered to have committed a crime until they have been legally proven to have done so. Of course the public at large are free to come to such a conclusion after a 30 second television news broadcast...
If you want credibility, then you should only assume that something is true after demonstrating that it is, at least, the most probable explanation, or decided that there are insufficient resources(mostly time) to reach a satisfactory conclusion. But obviously, there is nothing stopping you from believing your favourite scenario...

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I am sorry, but you're simply going to have to at least try to be coherent and not self contradictory if we are to have an intelligent conversation. Perhaps you would understand my statement better if you bothered to read the rest of it that you ever so conveniently failed to bother with:

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outright believe to be wrong, which isn't even in your definition of 'simple lack of belief' atheism.

I do not bother with the irrelevant, so please stop your pathetic attempts at derailing the discussion. Thank you.

I do not have a lack of belief in the various gods you listed. I have a claim, an outright belief, that they are wrong. That is not your 'atheism'.

If you want someone to present their definitions, and maintain them, then I suggest you ask them to do so, with as little critique as you are able.

But you can't sell artefacts...