Bay 12 Games Forum

Delicious elf meat
om nom nom nom nom nom nom
mmm...plump helmet man.

Green tinge of vomit
Stains the floors and walls,eww yuck!
Why aren't they cleaning?

Search for elves.And if you find some,brutally slaughter elves.

It is Gordon Freemans famous quote to...pretty much everything.

The axe that I have to grind with religion is the lust for power and wanting almost everything that dosen't relate to their religion to be banned,yes I am looking at you Christianity,and also the hate towards lesbians and gays (mostly gays by what I have been hearing) and the going to your door and yelling "THE END IS NEAR,REPENT REPENT REPENT REPENT REPENT,JOIN US NOW!!!!!!" yes I am grinding an axe to Christianity.

I usually breach the cavern before the first month.

Quote from: smigenboger on July 18, 2010, 09:00:51 am

I sort of prefer the 'don't bother me with your stuff and I won't to you' approach.

I would, but that encourages stagnation. I'd like to see the debate be a lot more... honest, though. As in, actually trying to understand your opponent's point of view, rather than just destroy it.

I come back to one of the things the book that converted me said- it had a chapter talking about the course of a person's spiritual development, through four stages. Stage 1 is Criminal- you follow no rules, have no spiritual awareness, and think only of yourself. Stage 2 is rules-based- you start to follow the rules of the society you belong to, and believe that doing so makes you good (or godly, as the case may be). Stage 2 people may do a lot of good in the world, or a lot of bad, depending on which "rules" they most follow. Stage 3 is Explorative where people begin to most think for themselves, and question/abandon the rules they followed in stage 2- in our society, most atheists would be stage 3. Stage 4 is Mystic, where people start to find answers to some of the more difficult questions from stage 3, and understand the reasons behind the rules of stage 2; one of the big points of stage 4 (at least in my view) is a subjective rather than objective understanding of truth. For me, stage 4 means theism, but that's the product of the path I walked through life- I could certainly recognize a sufficiently sophisticated atheist as stage 4, and not doubt the legitimacy of his own path.

The problem with religious debates is that stage 2 people think all stage 3ers are in stage 1, and stage 3 people think stage 4 is the same as stage 2. And, beyond that, everyone is trying to force objective understanding on the people that disagree with them, which fails miserably. You get arguments of the form "This is why you're wrong so stop being silly and come be like me" not "Here's an idea you might find interesting, see where it leads you."

Huh?