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Social Degradation and Religious Decay (Split from "Life on Europa") in General
Drew
By Committee
Member # 4233
 written Wednesday, July 18 2007 04:12 Profile #147
"But Kelandon, it's the Bible!"
Posts: 2242 | Registered: Saturday, April 10 2004 07:00
Social Degradation and Religious Decay (Split from "Life on Europa") in General
Drew
By Committee
Member # 4233
 written Tuesday, July 17 2007 12:29 Profile #140
"But Synergy, it's the Bible!"
Posts: 2242 | Registered: Saturday, April 10 2004 07:00
Final Fantasy in General
Drew
By Committee
Member # 4233
 written Tuesday, July 17 2007 12:21 Profile #28
Tying character development to use of particular weapons was beyond tedious - I have no idea why they went with that versus the simple point system that was so absorbing in FFT. Perhaps it added to the challenge, because you couldn't configure your party the way you wanted, nor really level grind without having opponents outstrip you with better abilities (at least as far as I recall - and I'll admit, I didn't get much beyond the first esper(?) before frustration set in). It really sucked the joy out of the game for me though.
Posts: 2242 | Registered: Saturday, April 10 2004 07:00
Final Fantasy in General
Drew
By Committee
Member # 4233
 written Tuesday, July 17 2007 04:16 Profile #25
If we're willing to consider other genres under the banner, then I would say that Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, or maybe Final Fantasy II were worse. Chrono Cross was pretty bas too. The fatal flaw of VIII, like those games, was that the combat engine and magic system were broken. I thought the story in and of itself was pretty cool. VIII with, say, X's system would have been pretty cool.
Posts: 2242 | Registered: Saturday, April 10 2004 07:00
Final Fantasy in General
Drew
By Committee
Member # 4233
 written Monday, July 16 2007 17:32 Profile #23
Why did I think he liked VIII? Maybe it was Canopy...
Posts: 2242 | Registered: Saturday, April 10 2004 07:00
Europa, God, and you, or Where it all fits. in General
Drew
By Committee
Member # 4233
 written Monday, July 16 2007 09:18 Profile #63
My favorite from undergrad: "Thank God she isn't pregnant!" :)

It's a sentiment that definitely makes for good existential food for thought. Here's another one we encounter pretty frequently when we're out shopping:

"If you need anything, my name's Abby."
Posts: 2242 | Registered: Saturday, April 10 2004 07:00
Final Fantasy in General
Drew
By Committee
Member # 4233
 written Monday, July 16 2007 09:14 Profile #20
XII was a lot of fun, but the plot wasn't quite as engrossing as VI or VII. VII may have been my favorite, but a number of people around here (at least in the past) were big VIII fans - I'm pretty sure TM is.
Posts: 2242 | Registered: Saturday, April 10 2004 07:00
Europa, God, and you, or Where it all fits. in General
Drew
By Committee
Member # 4233
 written Monday, July 16 2007 05:52 Profile #57
I'll let Kel cover that, because my Greek at this point is MEGA rusty, but I believe that the "Joshua" = "Jesus" assertion is sound.
Posts: 2242 | Registered: Saturday, April 10 2004 07:00
3D graphic in General
Drew
By Committee
Member # 4233
 written Monday, July 16 2007 00:57 Profile #4
"Preferences" is about as value-neutral as "orientation."
Posts: 2242 | Registered: Saturday, April 10 2004 07:00
Europa, God, and you, or Where it all fits. in General
Drew
By Committee
Member # 4233
 written Sunday, July 15 2007 05:33 Profile #45
Agnosticism as laziness? Perhaps, but I think it could just as easily be said that unquestioning faith is just as lazy, if not lazier, and sprinkled with disingenuity because of an unwillingness to face unpleasant questions about the nature of being. In that sense, the unquestioning believer chooses never to get into the car, believing that that way they can avoid all accidents. Actually, a better metaphor might be how horses keep running back to their barns even though the barns are on fire...
Posts: 2242 | Registered: Saturday, April 10 2004 07:00
Video Game Addiction in General
Drew
By Committee
Member # 4233
 written Friday, July 13 2007 12:25 Profile #157
When you have a choice, how often do you choose a restaurant based on the carbonated beverages they serve? It's probably a secondary decision for you. For restaurants, there are all kinds of considerations, predominantly having to do with price, but also sometimes because one of the soft drink makers has a substantial ownership share in the chain. I'm not certain that it's the case anymore, but I'm pretty certain that Pepsico used to have a large share of what is now Yum! Brand restaurants, which include Taco Bell, KFC, and Pizza Hut; Coca-Cola may have a stake in McDonalds, etc.
Posts: 2242 | Registered: Saturday, April 10 2004 07:00
Social Degradation and Religious Decay (Split from "Life on Europa") in General
Drew
By Committee
Member # 4233
 written Friday, July 13 2007 12:20 Profile #70
Your opinion obviously doesn't count in making that assertion. Also, just because an institution, be it a family or a congregation, isn't democratic doesn't necessarily mean that men should de facto fill the leadership positions. Where are your statistics that men are better leaders? You have yet to produce them. I'm willing to admit I'm incorrect if you have actual credible evidence.

[ Friday, July 13, 2007 12:31: Message edited by: Drew ]
Posts: 2242 | Registered: Saturday, April 10 2004 07:00
Europa, God, and you, or Where it all fits. in General
Drew
By Committee
Member # 4233
 written Friday, July 13 2007 11:42 Profile #30
I get the impression then that you don't drive, Stillness.
Posts: 2242 | Registered: Saturday, April 10 2004 07:00
Video Game Addiction in General
Drew
By Committee
Member # 4233
 written Friday, July 13 2007 11:40 Profile #155
They usually can't on account of exclusive contract agreements.
Posts: 2242 | Registered: Saturday, April 10 2004 07:00
Social Degradation and Religious Decay (Split from "Life on Europa") in General
Drew
By Committee
Member # 4233
 written Friday, July 13 2007 11:34 Profile #68
Bear in mind that you are the one who has asserted that men are naturally (and thus intended by God) to be in leadership roles in the family and in congregations. My assertion has merely been that the Christian religion is patriarchal in nature. You seem to agree with this, and your faith seems to confirm this. I've merely asserted that I think that's a bad thing. You were the one, however, who took it a step further and brought nature into the fray; as such, it is in fact you who has the burden of proof in this matter, because you are the one using it in your justification for the patriarchal nature of your faith tradition.

My assertion is that there are no EVIDENT characteristics intrinsic to either gender that make one superior to the other for purposes of leadership, outside of the tendency for males to be larger and stronger than females and as such, males are more readily able to dominate females and assume power. This, however, is leadership by force; it does not qualify men to lead by intellect or provide any spiritual explanation.

If you don't have an answer to the question, then you stand on very faulty ground, your own personal experiences and anecdotal evidence aside. Lots of things "just work." I cannot accept your assertion as valid.

You are obviously operating on a way different wavelength than me. I'll likely withdraw from this thread for the reasons Salmon outlined above. By the way - I have some swampland in Florida I'd like to sell you.

[ Friday, July 13, 2007 11:39: Message edited by: Drew ]
Posts: 2242 | Registered: Saturday, April 10 2004 07:00
Social Degradation and Religious Decay (Split from "Life on Europa") in General
Drew
By Committee
Member # 4233
 written Friday, July 13 2007 08:47 Profile #65
We are focusing on that because it is the matter in dispute. What biological, natural factors of the species homo sapiens conclusively indicate that males should serve as heads of household or congregation? I contend that there are none, beyond perhaps a male's superior physical strength and consequential ability to impose his will through force, which doesn't seem to be in keeping with the spirit of the God of the New Testament to me. If there aren't any truly biological factors, then that means that such strictures are artificial, not natural.

You leave the impression through your posts that you understand God's will perfectly. That's a pretty brazen assertion, given that there are millions of other fervently believing Christians who believe differently about different aspects of their faith than you do. Given that we are all sinners and fallible mere mortals, how can you possibly know with certitude what probably only the Son of God returned to Earth could possibly know? Furthermore, even if Jesus is the Son of God and rose from the dead, how the heck can you, an intelligent individual, extend from such an assertion that the documents you rely on for your morals and strictures governing the roles of women and men aren't in themselves imperfect? Heck, there are only probably about a hundred different translations (at least ten major ones) that have passed through the hands of hundreds of keepers over the course of two thousand years. Why should the Gospel of Thomas be excluded from "the canon," and who were the folks who decided on that to begin with, and what were their motivations? It really boggles my mind that you can take all that on faith. Pardon my skepticism.

[ Friday, July 13, 2007 08:49: Message edited by: Drew ]
Posts: 2242 | Registered: Saturday, April 10 2004 07:00
Social Degradation and Religious Decay (Split from "Life on Europa") in General
Drew
By Committee
Member # 4233
 written Friday, July 13 2007 06:00 Profile #62
quote:
Originally written by Chicken:

I wouldn't say the Bible can't be proven, it's a book, it's kind of hard to say "This book doesn't exist".
I'm pretty certain you and everyone else understand what I meant, but to clarify, I meant that the assertion that the Bible is the genuine, authoritative "Word of God" is not provable.

[ Friday, July 13, 2007 06:02: Message edited by: Drew ]
Posts: 2242 | Registered: Saturday, April 10 2004 07:00
Video Game Addiction in General
Drew
By Committee
Member # 4233
 written Friday, July 13 2007 04:24 Profile #153
I'm pretty accustomed to it though, and so prefer it. Part of the reason I've always liked Coke better than Pepsi is on account of it not tasting as sweet.
Posts: 2242 | Registered: Saturday, April 10 2004 07:00
Social Degradation and Religious Decay (Split from "Life on Europa") in General
Drew
By Committee
Member # 4233
 written Friday, July 13 2007 04:22 Profile #60
See, we've run into that Biblical infallibility wall. "The Bible says that this is so..." is not a rational approach, because the Bible cannot be proven. You may as well be saying that an invisible daimon told you that men are suited for leadership in families and congregations, for all the merit your assertion carries, which seems very naive to me. "But no, Drew, it's the Bible..." :rolleyes:
Posts: 2242 | Registered: Saturday, April 10 2004 07:00
Video Game Addiction in General
Drew
By Committee
Member # 4233
 written Thursday, July 12 2007 12:40 Profile #151
I used to be a religious Classic drinker too. A slower metabolism post-undergrad caught up with me though. :( The difference has to do with the sweetener used in the formula; outside the U.S., most of the "bottlers" use real sugar as opposed to high fructose corn syrup.
Posts: 2242 | Registered: Saturday, April 10 2004 07:00
Social Degradation and Religious Decay (Split from "Life on Europa") in General
Drew
By Committee
Member # 4233
 written Thursday, July 12 2007 12:28 Profile #45
Hmm. Well, it's pretty well documented that society contemporary with the birth of Christianity was organized around a patriarchal system, where women had very limited rights to property and virtually no participation in government. However, this has not always been so, but probably was the result of the fact that men are physically bigger than women, which is a fairly amoral distinction.

Why aren't women allowed in leadership positions in your faith? You'll have to pardon me for finding "it isn't allowed" to be an uncompelling rationale. I also think you'll have a hard time justifying this physiologically, and even if you could, such a rationale would be distinct from any religious consideration, outside of "that's the way God made us," which I also find uncompelling.

You and I also probably have different ideas of what natural law or the the state of nature are. :)

[ Thursday, July 12, 2007 12:38: Message edited by: Drew ]
Posts: 2242 | Registered: Saturday, April 10 2004 07:00
Social Degradation and Religious Decay (Split from "Life on Europa") in General
Drew
By Committee
Member # 4233
 written Thursday, July 12 2007 10:54 Profile #43
quote:
Originally written by Stillness:

In my faith women do preach and are actually responsible for most of the preaching. They just don’t have positions of headship because it not allowed.
This pretty much addresses my assertion of patriarchy in Christianity, which I think is a bad thing, because I think it is a baseless distinction arising more from (as SoT mentioned above) cultural considerations around the time passages in the New Testament were drafted than Jesus' underlying message. But whatevs.

Do I have a bias? Sure. I'm biased against any faith tradition to the extent that it makes assumptions it cannot prove, and then crafts policy/doctrine based on those assumptions. Unprovable assumptions are the breeding ground of hubris, which is dangerous for the assumer and those around him. In addition, because the assumptions are unprovable, they are unfalsifiable, and thus very difficult to challenge. As a former student of physics, you should be able to appreciate this.

I guess in some senses I assume that Christianity is fiction, because I have witnessed no evidence that any of what it claims is true, and to me in most significant ways it seems no more valid than any other faith tradition that many Christians would assert are untrue. There have been thousands of organizations over the history of civilization of comparable size, goals, and assertions, so it's not like the church is all that different. The whole "mote/log in one's eye" lesson comes to mind there. I am ready to be proven wrong, but as you say, the "proof is in the pudding." In the mean time, while I appreciate the wisdom behind many of the morals, I prefer that they be vetted by temporal sources, based on agreement of a liberal democratic society.

[ Thursday, July 12, 2007 10:58: Message edited by: Drew ]
Posts: 2242 | Registered: Saturday, April 10 2004 07:00
Social Degradation and Religious Decay (Split from "Life on Europa") in General
Drew
By Committee
Member # 4233
 written Thursday, July 12 2007 06:54 Profile #33
You know, I think his definition is unworkable, because when has society ever conformed to the moral standards he claims as Christian?
Posts: 2242 | Registered: Saturday, April 10 2004 07:00
Social Degradation and Religious Decay (Split from "Life on Europa") in General
Drew
By Committee
Member # 4233
 written Thursday, July 12 2007 06:31 Profile #31
Stillness, advances in technology and demographic changes are almost completely accountable for the increases in combat casualties in the past century versus other times. I could make a similar argument that fewer people died in conflicts that came about prior to the rise of "Christian morals" than afterward. None of your arguments are compelling. It is a simple fact that bombers, tanks, missiles and machine guns are better at killing people than a Spartan phalanx or trireme. Naturally, nations, tribes, organizations, etc. understand that losing a conflict is a bad idea, so of course arms races have occurred, and more lives are devoted to trying to win, though the stakes are the same. The market of competitive commerce is similar. How do we account for estonishing increases in worker productivity over the past century? It's not predominantly on account of employees working harder or faster from year to year; rather, it is because of improvements in technology.

It is also uncompelling to argue that the world is more morally bankrupt because modern conflicts are occurring within the borders of nations. As is most often the case, the population within those "national" borders is hardly homogenous, and frequently composed of different tribes or ethnic groups, so in essence, it really is pitting different factions against one another. Furthermore, genocide has always existed; it's certainly not new to the last hundred years.

Stillness, if Christianity gives you every reason to consider men and women equal, then why do so many Christian traditions bar women from being pastors, priests, etc.?

What is evident is that your viewpoint is completely skewed to the notion that your interpretation of your faith is absolutely correct, and that variance from it leads to moral bankruptcy. Unfortunately, the facts don't line up that way. In fact, many people attribute the rise of Christianity as a major contributing factor to the fall of the Roman Empire; what does that say about the influence of your Christian morals on the world? I am curious to know whether you were raised this way, how far you've ever ventured out of your community let alone whether you've seen the other parts of the world you so casually dismiss as horrendous, or whether any life tragedy has ever affected you, because man, does it ever seem like you have led a sheltered existence with the Bible blinders on.

[ Thursday, July 12, 2007 06:56: Message edited by: Drew ]
Posts: 2242 | Registered: Saturday, April 10 2004 07:00
Europa, God, and you, or Where it all fits. in General
Drew
By Committee
Member # 4233
 written Thursday, July 12 2007 04:42 Profile #21
I was Christian for a long time too, mostly out of fear and denial of the abyss. When I was finally able to admit to myself that it would be better to be honest, I went ahead and stared into it, and it was as horrible as I had always thought. While I wouldn't say that I'm 100% reconciled with the idea of nonexistence, or that the experience was rewarding per se, I think I'm more or less functionally numb to the horror, and find rather morbid consolation and humor in the fact that in the very least, all of us will get our turn to find out what's on the other side (or not). Sometimes - rarely though - the terror will take me if, for example, I can't fall asleep late at night for some reason.

The really funny thing about all this is that all these thoughts started for me back in the day when I watched "What about Bob?" for the first time and thought about why the little boy was fixated with death. Thank you, Bill Murray! :)

[ Thursday, July 12, 2007 04:43: Message edited by: Drew ]
Posts: 2242 | Registered: Saturday, April 10 2004 07:00

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