Bay 12 Games Forum

What you choose to believe comes down to you, and you alone. I've been going through my own personal trial of faith, and though my circumstances are much different than yours I can say it's not an easy thing to go through. I can say, however, that questioning your beliefs, whether you're a believer or a skeptic, is healthy and everyone should keep an open mind about both sides. It's important to have an accepting attitude of beliefs that directly oppose yours, or you're only going to make things worse for yourself and for your family.

So there's a few things you need to do.


1) Try to understand the "other side".

Judging from your post title you have a very adversarial opinion of religion, and that's just as dangerous as a religious guy thinking atheism will destroy the world and hating all atheists. You need to accept that people will have beliefs that are opposed to yours, and that this doesn't make them dumb, gullible, or whatever. You should make every effort to understand where the other party is coming from, and admit that it makes sense from a certain perspective, even if it's not for you.

Understanding and accepting dogma that's opposed to your own beliefs requires a great deal of empathy and effort. Don't think that you're going to suddenly be converted back to something you don't really believe in just because you're opening your mind to other possibilities. Heck, lots of staunch atheists have read the bible and lots of faithful Christians have read the God Delusion and I've yet to hear a conversion story from either side in those circumstances.

Understand that actions and beliefs often don't have a lot of bearing on each other. There's lots of dumb Christians just as much there's lots of dumb atheists. Everyone's capable of making a bad decision, no matter what they believe. Avoid the temptation to think that someone does something purely because they believe a certain thing.

Understanding why people feel the way they do about beliefs that conflict with their own is very important in cases like yours. If you continue feeling like your parents are the enemy because they hold a different view than yours you're going to have a bad time. You should be open and understanding of their beliefs as you want them to be of yours. You can't possibly expect them to accept your decisions if you don't accept theirs. It's not fair, and it's certainly not going to earn you any points in the "Please don't punish me because I'm thinking about becoming an atheist" category.

Which brings us to point two.


2) Open up to your parents.

As in, sit down and tell them that you love them and respect them and all that jazz, but you're having a bit of a conflict of faith right now. It's probably not a good idea to jump up one day and say, "Mom, dad, I'm an atheist!" Start with delicate questions, like "How do we know that God exists", "If I'm not 100% sure God exists will I go to hell", stuff like that. Best not to mention atheism directly until later, maybe much later.

Depending on your parents, it's going to be a delicate dance. If they ask if they can help, tell them you need space and time and don't want to feel like you've been forced to a decision. Promise to pray and read the bible, and actually follow through with it if you're comfortable. Never hurts to try. Exactly how much you tell them and what you promise to do is up to you to decide, just remember that these people probably thought that their child was a faithful teenager not five minutes ago. They may be sensitive about having their child question what they've been teaching him. Do your best to make them think you're going to do all you can to make the right choice.

Do not. DO NOT. Do not be angry or confrontational. There's no way that you're going to convince them that God isn't real. You may be tempted to hurt them in order to make your point if things turn sour.

Don't do that. It would be incredibly dumb. It's not a competition. Your parents love you and want the best for you, but if they think this crisis of faith is going to turn you against them, you're definitely going to lose points in the "Please don't punish me because I'm thinking about becoming an atheist" category.

Be open, understanding, and loving, but be honest. It probably won't be easy. Stamp out that anger and self-righteousness and put on a humble face. These people are your parents and deserve your respect, and if you give them that love and respect, and show it in the best way possible, they're a lot more likely to respect you. Try to take any advice they give you sincerely, even if you don't find it palpable.

Act like an adult, be treated like an adult.

If things turn sour and they react badly, we can talk about that then since from there it's mostly damage control on your own feelings. Which brings us to the final point.


3) Come to terms with your beliefs (or with what you don't believe).

With the those "understand the other side" and "talk with your parents" things out of the way it's time to sit down and figure out, sincerely, how you feel. If the first two points were hard, this is going to be the hardest. You're questioning beliefs that you've been taught your entire life. How you feel about and see existence itself is on the line.

Take a philosophy class, if your high school offers it. If not, just read about it online. There's been a lot of thinking done about the nature of existence already, so lots of dudes have done the heavy lifting for you. Read about different religions, read about atheism. Figure out how you feel. Keep an open mind. Keep on trying to accept others for who they are, no matter what they believe is out there.

Reaching a decision and coming to terms with yourself will probably take years. Even if you never figure things out for sure, all the research and thinking you've done will do you some good. You'll come out on top if you do things right, no matter what you decide to believe.

Good luck.

I found the cutest dude ever: ᕕ(ᐛ)ᕗ

I'll go for Papers, Please and FTL, Please.


One type of character I'd like to see more of is older and younger characters.

Most characters in games tend to be 30-something folks. It'd be a nice change of pace to see more characters that are just emerging into adulthood or even have becoming an adult a major part of their character arc. Basically, anyone from ages 14 - 20. It's somewhat common in games - Far Cry 3 and Tomb Raider had somewhat younger characters, as well as a few indie games that have come out the past few years - but these characters' inexperience is often portrayed as nothing more than being whiny and nagging, while they're blowing away bad guys left and right. It's incongruous.

Aged characters appear occasionally in games, but it's pretty rare to see the main character be anyone with more than 40 years under their belt. I can only think of one game where your (Human) character is implied to be in their 40's, and it's a rogue like that lasts all of ten minutes. Older characters really present some opportunities for some bad ass moments that lose their gusto with prime-of-their-life characters.

Call me cynical and whatever, but a book that is "the word of God" as written and edited by man over thousands of years and countless languages will have some error, author/translator bias, etc etc etc. Can't get involved with their debate, cuz we all know what happens when you argue with Christians about their faith.

As a Christian, this is true and the reason I take any old testament stuff (And even some of the new testament stuff) worth a pillar of salt. I think it's true for the most part , but saying it's immutably God's Word is pretty ignorant. Seriously: Just read Song of Solomon and tell me God said that.

And yeah, I don't bring this up around someone unless I can trust them to be reasonable. Just don't assume that all Christians are like that. It's mostly the ones who don't want to hear anything other than an echo of their own opinions.

Most games with a varied health class system balance a class's health with their damage output and mobility. In Team Fortress 2, for example, Heavies are considerably slower than all the other classes but has a lot more health and can inflict a lot of damage if used right. Inversely, the scout is incredibly fast and, if used by a skilled player, can literally run circles around other classes and devastate a good front. Other classes are more specialized for specific situations, each with a health and damage output lowered or raised depending on their stats and utility. You'll also notice that classes with more health have larger hit boxes.

Planetside 2 would have to introduce a health/speed/damage/hit box/utility balance if classes were to receive varying health, which it's currently not balanced for (Except infiltrators, who can become invisible instead of having more health).

I think everything's fine as is. Heavies already have a larger damage potential (Large clips with good weapons, rocket launchers) than all other classes along with the only class abilities that can negate or absorb incoming damage effectively. This is balanced because they have no utility besides being the major mid-to-long-range anti-vehicle class.

It doesn't really make sense to give heavies more health without some major overhauls to the game.

Quote from: Knight of Fools on December 20, 2013, 01:21:43 pm

two inches of snow

Dude, where are you? That's a mild Tuesday here in Michigan. I've driven in snow deep enough that it was coming up over my hood and onto the windshield. Granted, I used to drive a rock crawler, but still, that drive is very doable.

Western Washington, and I've lived in the south most of my life. And note, this was ~two inches of snow (I didn't really measure it) on the roads driving a sedan without snow tires driven by someone used to dry roads all the time.

Snow is a mysterious force that taunts my ignorance of its ways. This was literally the first time I've seen this much snow, much less driven in it. I almost got into two accidents this morning.

So it's snowing more than I've ever seen snow in my life, right? Not saying much considering I've lived in Texas, Hawaii, and places like that, but it's kinda scary when you try to stop your car at an intersection and it just keeps going. I finally get to the freeway and it's a lesson in stress management. "Yeah, screw this, I'm calling in. I'm not risking my car for a five hour shift."


Work's like, "Well, can you come in at 12?" You really think all this snow and ice is going to be melted in two freaking hours? Right. "Well, come in at 3 then. It's supposed to get warmer and the snow will melt."

Yes. It's supposed to melt in the city, relatively far from where I live. I live at the foot of the freaking mountains. The forecast says that it'll get up to the 40's, but there are two inches of snow on the street in front of my house. I'm no snow expert, but just because the air's warmer doesn't mean that the snow's going to melt.

I'm completely unfamiliar with driving in the snow. My car's more use as a bob sled than a motor vehicle right now. And you want me to come in for a five hour shift just so you don't have to change the time sheet.

And it's snowing even harder than it was when I called them. I highly doubt I'm going to be driving any more today. Your five hour shift isn't worth risking a wreck.