The Gaming Den

Libertad wrote: Basically the main controversy was that the setting was more blatant about gender and homosexual equality. Heterosexual monogamy was common in Aldea, yet it was not the only form of love. Approximately 10 out of 224 pages discuss the nature of romance and relationships in the campaign world. One of the main gods of Light has a male lover. And one of Aldis' enemy nations (Jarzon) is a carbon copy of the US Christian Right; Jarzon's theocrats are anti-magic, patriarchal, xenophobic, and are angry that robes are just as common men's wear as pants in Aldis ("they're wearing dresses!"). Even though their culture is "Neutral" on the alignment axis (Aldea is "Good"), their religious fundamentalism is objectively a flaw in the setting (they're less "Good" than Aldea).

Given the immorality of christians (see: the holocaust, the crusades, the inquisition, the pedophile priest scandals, the slaughter of the Native Americans), as well as the wickedness of the bible itself (Judges 11:29-40, 2 Kings 23:20-25, Ezekiel 21:33-37, and Deuteronomy 13:13-19 all command or condone human sacrifice; Judges 21:10-24, Numbers 31:7-18, Deuteronomy 20:10-14, Deuteronomy 21:10-14, Zechariah 14:1-2 all command or condone rape), is it any wonder that someone would make a series of villians modeled after christianity?

John Magnum wrote: Whether or not the NWOD Virtues system is a steaming pile of offensive shit has NOTHING to do with whether or not it's a 100% reflection of the author's religious views.

It manages to be both, by performing poorly in a mechanical sense, and assuming by default that your character follows a very specific set of christian values.

Prak_Anima wrote: Well fuck, I don't know if I'd ever play it, but I want a copy just to support the guy. All the more so when I see Mercedes Lackey listed as an inspiration (and thinking about it, Aldea does sound a lot like a Lackey setting).

It manages to be well-intentioned, hopelessly idealistic, and mechanically unsound. I kept thinking while reading it "stop monologuing and give me some useful information."

Holy crap this brought the crazy train out.

I find it amazing that people honestly still can't see below the veneer of 'liberals' and 'conservatives', and then to just rub salt in the wound those same people attach cliches and anecdotal evidence to their views on said political 'side', then let loose.

Politics (and even religion) are not a matter of strictly left/right, you can make an argument that there is also an up/down. Even that is a poor comparison for deeply rooted complex issues like political beliefs and theories ( and religious beliefs and theories).

Not every liberal is an anti-capitalist pinko-commie hippy.
Not every conservative is a theo-fascist gay hating hick.

European (and Canadian) conservatives are not the same as American conservatives. (Primarily because if you want to use a left/right scale Euro-conservatives are still left of center.)

Charity is not antithetical to corporations and businesses. Neither are cooperation or trust.

Christian understanding of Christianity is all over the map; finding a Christian organization to back any positive or negative argument for/against Christianity is akin to finding a book in a library. Christianity is crazy diverse, in both good and bad ways. This is pretty common knowledge. (At least I hope)

Faith is not simply blind faith in God or a god to fix all of your problems. Faith can understood in a variety of ways from faith in family to help/support/love you when you need them, faith in humanity (in a civil society) to do the right thing in a dark time.

(Modern)Faith is not (inherently) opposed to reason, holy shit that argument is fucking retarded. Many of the American Founding Fathers were men of faith, but pretty damn reasonable and 'Enlightened'.
Stop confusing religious grognards with any one who happens to be faithful.

Some of the contortions a lot of these posts have made would be funny if the posters weren't so serious about them.

There are arguments being made on assumptions about extremes. Capitalism works solely on greed? Really? So no one has ever built a successful business and in doing so elevated their family, friends and/or associates?

Greed, Pride, Envy, etc all actually have their place. Those are simply the names given when a person takes their ambition too far, to a point of excess where it either hurts him/herself and/or others around them. That's why they are bad; they are a good thing taken to EXCESS.

Being proud of your family and taking pride in your children is a lot different than believing you and your family are better than the rest of humanity because of how awesome your testicles are.

The various settings which people try to write systems for tend to drastically simply things to make it easier for people to discern good and bad. Which may be a flaw in us gamers because we happen to like good and bad, black and white scenarios. That may not be true for everyone, but a good deal of people just want identifiable objectives. Good guys, bad guys, princesses to save.

Therefore you get a lot of settings where fascism rules the day. Even liberating people from a tyrant and "ruling them with a fair hand" or... what ever, is still fascism. You are still a dictator as king/queen.

Trying to imagine a future where government falls apart and corporations step in to fill the power void isn't particularly liberal or conservative. It's a fantastical spin on human history. When there is a power vacuum, another power (or many powers) tend to fill it.

Fiction (Fantasy, sci-fi... w/e) tends to promote the creation of extremes. Extremes are much easier to identify as good/bad or simply identify WITH on occasion.

So that's how you end up with mega-corporate polluters who want to strip mine the entire planet and then take their 1 million closest friends and live in a new solar system.

Not necessarily because the writer is some eco-terrorist super-enviromentalist. But because a mega-corp that has gone out of control with power is a really easily identifiable (and faceless) bad guy. No one wants their drinking water filled with feces and uranium, so let's go get em!

The same can be said about why you don't often see entire NATIONS (at least I haven't) as being evil. Because then defeating the 'Big Bad' may just seem pointless. He'll just be replaced with a new one... maybe a worse one.

Although I suppose drow, orcs, goblins, etc could be construed that way... but I think you'll know what I'm trying to say there.

edits: spelling/grammar

Duke Flauros wrote: Given the immorality of christians (see: the holocaust, the crusades, the inquisition, the pedophile priest scandals, the slaughter of the Native Americans), as well as the wickedness of the bible itself (Judges 11:29-40, 2 Kings 23:20-25, Ezekiel 21:33-37, and Deuteronomy 13:13-19 all command or condone human sacrifice; Judges 21:10-24, Numbers 31:7-18, Deuteronomy 20:10-14, Deuteronomy 21:10-14, Zechariah 14:1-2 all command or condone rape), is it any wonder that someone would make a series of villians modeled after christianity?

Jarzon's more akin to US fundamentalist Christians than Christians as a whole. I personally think that a straight lift is kinda unimaginative, but I understand why Kensen went this route.

@codeGlaze: the Gaming Den's pretty partisan when it comes to politics, falling firmly within the Left-wing spectrum in regards to the overall views of its regular members.

Libertad wrote: @codeGlaze: the Gaming Den's pretty partisan when it comes to politics, falling firmly within the Left-wing spectrum in regards to the overall views of its regular members.

I realize.
But really...

Given the immorality of christians (see: the holocaust, the crusades, the inquisition, the pedophile priest scandals, the slaughter of the Native Americans), as well as the wickedness of the bible itself (Judges 11:29-40, 2 Kings 23:20-25, Ezekiel 21:33-37, and Deuteronomy 13:13-19 all command or condone human sacrifice; Judges 21:10-24, Numbers 31:7-18, Deuteronomy 20:10-14, Deuteronomy 21:10-14, Zechariah 14:1-2 all command or condone rape), is it any wonder that someone would make a series of villians modeled after christianity?

In trying to remain a rational human being, that line of thinking is pure fucking fallacy.
Look at the shit fundamentalist Islamists are doing. Does that make every muslim evil?

What about football players? Hey, Sandusky just raped a kid... so by that line of thinking all football players/coaches are evil scumbags.
Humans are fallible, but I am not responsible for the actions of you just as you are not responsible for my actions. The Catholic church covering up the sex scandal was just as reprehensible as Penn State covering up their scandal.
The Church AND the children's program that Sandusky ran were/are both institutions people trusted. The individuals that broke that trust are reprehensible and deserve the punishment that they receive. But that doesn't mean everyone involved in those institutions is a rapist or just plain-ol' terrible human being.

From a historical perspective most religions have done some pretty terrible shit in the name of their religions. Get the fuck over it. That's NOT how most act any more.

Duke Flauros, a couple posts up you attributed a quote to me that's not mine. That description of Blue Rose is courtesy of Libertad.

John Magnum wrote:Duke Flauros, a couple posts up you attributed a quote to me that's not mine. That description of Blue Rose is courtesy of Libertad.

Fixed.

codeGlaze wrote: In trying to remain a rational human being, that line of thinking is pure fucking fallacy.
Look at the shit fundamentalist Islamists are doing. Does that make every muslim evil?

Of course not- but the genocides that were committed in the name of the Catholic church were religiously motivated, as was 9/11 and the Munich massacre.

codeGlaze wrote: What about football players? Hey, Sandusky just raped a kid... so by that line of thinking all football players/coaches are evil scumbags.
Humans are fallible, but I am not responsible for the actions of you just as you are not responsible for my actions. The Catholic church covering up the sex scandal was just as reprehensible as Penn State covering up their scandal.
The Church AND the children's program that Sandusky ran were/are both institutions people trusted. The individuals that broke that trust are reprehensible and deserve the punishment that they receive. But that doesn't mean everyone involved in those institutions is a rapist or just plain-ol' terrible human being.

Sandusky then didn't turn around and claim that god was on his side and that he was being oppressed by the devil. Only a few coaches worked to hide his acts, instead of the entirety of the worlds single largest religious institution, boasting over a billion members and an unknown but tremendous budget.

codeGlaze wrote: From a historical perspective most religions have done some pretty terrible shit in the name of their religions. Get the fuck over it. That's NOT how most act any more.

The catholic church is still working to spread aids in Africa by stopping the distribution of condoms. American protestant denominations are working to pass "kill the gays" bills in African legislatures. Islam still holds the entire Middle East and large parts of Africa hostage.

Hizbolah, an Islamic terrorist group:


Lords Resistance Army, a Christian terrorist group:

Libertad wrote:According to many Old WoD fans, they felt that the new setting was just too bland and unimaginative, bereft of direction (in the case of Vampire) and freedom (in the case of Mage).

This is getting away from the OT, but does anyone have an explanation for exactly why the nWoD books switched to a "all supernaturals have 5 races/5 clans" format? (I am not into WoD at all and I am just noticing this now.) Was it some kind of forced "design theory" thing or what?

I don't know if it's what you're looking for, but Luke Crane (designer of Burning Wheel) designed an RPG called Free Market(...)It's a transhuman society running on a reputation-based economy with no form of government aside from social contracts made between individuals.

...Probably not what he's looking for. (Without addressing whether "FreeMarket" was kind of a misleading/bullshit name for that game, there's the issue of whether post-scarcity anything really has an "economy". Technically there are "finite resources" but how finite are those, really, when you get access to matter printers as soon as you gather enough Facebook likes? I've only read the beta, so maybe they spelled out somewhere that they were assuming a steady-state of equal liking/disliking, but if not then I wonder if you'd have any stability at all, if people keep relentlessly inflating the currency through chain-liking/friending/gifting each other etc.)

codeGlaze wrote:From a historical perspective most religions have done some pretty terrible shit in the name of their religions. Get the fuck over it. That's NOT how most act any more.

I feel like you wanted to say "people have done some pretty terrible shit in the name of their religions", but only got halfway there, saying something that could be construed as zen, or dada, instead. Which would have been more accurate; religion is very much tied to the societies to which it is tied, and is in no way some kind of homogeneous, metaphysical entity that is or is not "evil". When you have crusades, you have cultural warfare before you have religious warfare. Usually religion, like any cultural object, is used retroactively to try and justify doing terrible shit, rather than a motivation for doing terrible shit in and of itself.

wrote:(Modern)Faith is not (inherently) opposed to reason

Yes it is.

Faith is believing things without evidence. It is literally and specifically belief without reason. It is the most UnReasonable thing it is possible to have. Now you can believe one thing with faith and know another thing with reason, and most people operate that way. But the fact that two things are capable of existing at the same time does not mean that they are not opposed.

People simultaneously have love and hate, have smart and stupid ideas, and all kinds of other contradictory things. People are complicated. But opposites are still opposites. And Faith is still the opposite of Reason. Always has been, always will be.

-Username17

Mauver, you're being overly generous. Martin Luther, for example, made open calls for genocide after establishing his own little splinter group, but then decreed that while God should and could obliterate all the Turks (by which he meant Muslims), Protestants as a whole were too sinful to be deserving of that 'blessing.'

Mind you, Luther was all sorts of crazy, and there are recorded conversations with his friends and neighbors where he derides peasants as the scum of the earth who are undeserving of blessings like children, and should 'only be allowed to raise swine.' And the Lutheran church actually publishes this stuff, though I can't actually tell if its through some surprising sense of intellectual honesty, or if they are actually proud of it.

So while religion can be used to make retroactive justifications for horrible shit, it is well established that religions and religious figures actively extort people to go out and do fucking horrible things. Take those sick fuckers who go around to funerals and tell the mourners that their friend/husband/child _deserved to die_ because gays exist.

Prak_Anima wrote:Well fuck, I don't know if I'd ever play it, but I want a copy just to support the guy. All the more so when I see Mercedes Lackey listed as an inspiration (and thinking about it, Aldea does sound a lot like a Lackey setting).

Eh? It doesn't sound like it has nearly enough rape to satisfy her fetish.

codeGlaze wrote:(Modern)Faith is not (inherently) opposed to reason

No. Get stuffed. It entirely is. It is also fucking insulting when we're so damned well off, based almost entirely on scientific achievement (food and medicine, bitches). We walk around with the sum total of human knowledge in our fucking pockets, and perform 'miracles' on a second by second basis that a bunch of ignorant, bronze-age sheepfucking morons couldn't even imagine. None of that came through their fucking sky-fairy, but through actual human work and suffering, so the idea that people should emulate their frankly disgusting beliefs (remember, the same book of the bible that says homosexuality is evil also tells you that it is ok to sell your daughter into slavery or murder your wife) is a damned insult to everything humanity has ever built.

You want me to buy into a religion? Fine, then the divinely revealed word of your god better offer up the cure to most major diseases, not tell me that if I don't suck his cock, he'll torture me forever.

The same can be said about why you don't often see entire NATIONS (at least I haven't) as being evil.

Not sure what you read, but its pretty common in fantasy novels and the actual real world. Go take a look at some WWII era newspapers, in addition to outright denunciations of evil, they are full of some of the most racist shit of the 20th century.

Mauver wrote: I feel like you wanted to say "people have done some pretty terrible shit in the name of their religions", but only got halfway there, saying something that could be construed as zen, or dada, instead. Which would have been more accurate; religion is very much tied to the societies to which it is tied, and is in no way some kind of homogeneous, metaphysical entity that is or is not "evil". When you have crusades, you have cultural warfare before you have religious warfare. Usually religion, like any cultural object, is used retroactively to try and justify doing terrible shit, rather than a motivation for doing terrible shit in and of itself.

You are mostly correct here. However, as excuses go, it's a pretty damn good one.

Whereas "they have brown skin" will only bring in the rascists, and "they have oil" will only bring in the war profiteers, "God is on our side" not only validates the speaker's position to any listener, it also excuses any actions the listener might take. As a moral arguement, it saves someone what would otherwise be hours of footwork dancing around various issues, and intsead validates the speakers position in just a few words. It can be used to excuse literally anything, not just a limited variety of things related to the topic at hand. Instead of defending against a dissenting arguement, you can simply call it heretical, which automatically invalidates it in the eyes of your listeners.

FrankTrollman wrote: Yeah.

Well you have an interesting interpretation of "mild regulation", but it is all relative, I suppose. And with that in mind, all you have demonstrated by referring to a study (by the World Bank, lol) saying US is "4th easiest place to do business" is... the US has milder regulation than a lot of other places? Ok.

But a general feature of regulation in modern democratic nations is its nigh-totalitarian scope (i.e. nearly every aspect of business is regulated), and if the CFR is MILD then it's still crazy and burdensome levels of regulation. So when you say "4th best place to do business", it's not the same as saying "US has mild regulation" in absolute terms. Instead, it is like saying "This group of people rolled in shit, but this guy is the fourth cleanest because he rolled in a bit less shit -- therefore he has a mild stink." But come on -- he still stinks like shit.

Also interesting: the two countries whose ease of doing business come right after the US are Norway and Denmark - which are of course both Socialist Worker's Paradises.

LOL... what? SOCIALIST WORKER'S PARADISES??? They are pretty much the same as social-democracies like the US and every other Western democratic state, i.e. huge welfare states. Those welfare systems are just a little different in size and scope and emphasize different things, but SOCIALIST WORKER'S PARADISE??? I think you are exaggerating the differences A WEE BIT. If fucking Norway is a socialist workers paradise, so is the fucking USA, and Canada, and France, and England, and Germany, etc. But for the term "socialist workers paradise" to have any meaning I don't think you should use it with such caprice.

rasmuswagner wrote:Here's the counter-intuitive truth: The only way to get anything approaching a "free market" is by FUCKLOADS of regulation. Laissez faire economics leads to monopolies and opaque markets.

Uh, no. This is pure confusion. "FUCKLOADS of regulation" implies a deviation from the free market, not, as you say, "the only way to get anything approach a 'free market'." I mean seriously, you are just contradicting yourself at the most basic level. You may as well not participate in this discussion because you are intellectually rooted in the kind of pabulum fed to kids in Grade 9 civics class.

There is nothing inherent to the market economy that creates monopolies, because a real monopoly that actually matters is a grant of privilege by the State that legally restricts competition -- THAT is the counter-intuitive truth, NOT the bullshit proposition you obviously pulled out of some anti-market textbook written by bureaucrats and economic cranks. And if monopolies are so bad why do you think the state is so great? Because yo, the state is a monopoly. So shut the fuck up until you can address that basic problem.

infected slut princess wrote:a real monopoly that actually matters is a grant of privilege by the State that legally restricts competition

That's some pretty impressive goalpost shifting.

codeGlaze wrote:

Libertad wrote: @codeGlaze: the Gaming Den's pretty partisan when it comes to politics, falling firmly within the Left-wing spectrum in regards to the overall views of its regular members.

I realize.
But really...

Given the immorality of christians (see: the holocaust, the crusades, the inquisition, the pedophile priest scandals, the slaughter of the Native Americans), as well as the wickedness of the bible itself (Judges 11:29-40, 2 Kings 23:20-25, Ezekiel 21:33-37, and Deuteronomy 13:13-19 all command or condone human sacrifice; Judges 21:10-24, Numbers 31:7-18, Deuteronomy 20:10-14, Deuteronomy 21:10-14, Zechariah 14:1-2 all command or condone rape), is it any wonder that someone would make a series of villians modeled after christianity?

In trying to remain a rational human being, that line of thinking is pure fucking fallacy.
Look at the shit fundamentalist Islamists are doing. Does that make every muslim evil?

That's a false equivalence. Duke Flauros didn't just say "Some Christians have done bad stuff, therefore they're all bad" he took actual passages from the book they tell us is their guide to good and evil. If you want to say that Christians don't believe the Bible is the word of God to be followed (in which case what the fuck do they follow?), then that's a different matter, but you can't call foul for bringing up actual examples from their holy book as reasons the religion is suspect.

Mauver wrote:

codeGlaze wrote:From a historical perspective most religions have done some pretty terrible shit in the name of their religions. Get the fuck over it. That's NOT how most act any more.

I feel like you wanted to say "people have done some pretty terrible shit in the name of their religions", but only got halfway there, saying something that could be construed as zen, or dada, instead. Which would have been more accurate; religion is very much tied to the societies to which it is tied, and is in no way some kind of homogeneous, metaphysical entity that is or is not "evil". When you have crusades, you have cultural warfare before you have religious warfare. Usually religion, like any cultural object, is used retroactively to try and justify doing terrible shit, rather than a motivation for doing terrible shit in and of itself.

This; thank you.

The bible does have some pretty fucked up stuff in it. Most of that is ignored in modern industrial societies, though (say what you will about that facet). My experience with various sects of Christianity has been one that promotes love, acceptance, community and (obviously) faith.

Clearly there are complete ass holes out there who have not received that memo, unfortunately. As I stated above there are probably more denominations of Christianity at this point than there are colors. They all exist because of disagreements about what the religion means and how it should be practiced.

I have faith (her der) that society will correct bigots who hide behind their bibles. (Such as bikers following around the Christians who picket soldier's funerals, then rev their engines to drown out the picketing people so the grieving family at least doesn't have to hear hate mongers while grieving)

FrankTrollman wrote:

wrote:(Modern)Faith is not (inherently) opposed to reason

Yes it is.

Faith is believing things without evidence. It is literally and specifically belief without reason. It is the most UnReasonable thing it is possible to have. Now you can believe one thing with faith and know another thing with reason, and most people operate that way. But the fact that two things are capable of existing at the same time does not mean that they are not opposed.

People simultaneously have love and hate, have smart and stupid ideas, and all kinds of other contradictory things. People are complicated. But opposites are still opposites. And Faith is still the opposite of Reason. Always has been, always will be.

-Username17

You are correct, but what I was trying to address was the broad attack on people of faith as being purposefully ignorant and backwards. Clearly despite Christianity being so prevalent (and even getting in the way many times) there are plenty (the majority) of Christians who can comprehend both Reasoning and Faith. People who appreciate medicine, science and civil law outside the scope of Biblical text. People who can properly process their faith and use it to help provide spiritual strength and guidance in both good and bad times.|

TL;DR It's my belief that the existence of faith does not necessarily impede reasoning.

John Magnum wrote:

infected slut princess wrote:a real monopoly that actually matters is a grant of privilege by the State that legally restricts competition

That's some pretty impressive goalpost shifting.

You do not know what you are talking about.

Rasmuswanger just said "monopolies". He really didn't clarify what he meant specifically.

But unlike him, I am not an idiot and am very familiar with the problems in the literature on monopoly theory. And one of those problems is definitions.

For example, the following are SOME examples of definitions commonly used, depending on what people are talking about:

1) a grant of privilege by the state
2) the sole seller of an economic good
3) A firm that has any control over its price
4) "natural monopolies"
5) a firm that achieves a monopoly price -- a monopoly price arises when you get a higher price by restricting supply.
6) "monopolistic competition" (i.e. something other than "perfect competition" and "imperfect competition", which are bullshit categories btw but whatever)

Now I don't know what Rasmuswanger meant. You don't know either.

IF we go with the definition of "exclusive legal right to employ capital or labor in some particular way", then we have a meaning that is both economically significant (because it is something that is less productive/efficient) and coherent when you analyze it.

BUT, if we use this definition, which I remind you is both economically significant and coherent (you know when I said to rasmuswanger: "real monopolies that actually matter"?), then we find it is not a problem with free markets at all. Instead, it is a problem created by a particular non-market institution.

Voss wrote:

The same can be said about why you don't often see entire NATIONS (at least I haven't) as being evil.

Not sure what you read, but its pretty common in fantasy novels and the actual real world. Go take a look at some WWII era newspapers, in addition to outright denunciations of evil, they are full of some of the most racist shit of the 20th century.

I wasn't trying to speak to novels and real-world propaganda.
I was referencing campaign settings. Most campaign settings have areas lorded over by evil people, suppressed by evil tyrants, and so on; but they are rarely ever 'hopelessly evil'. Y'know places that are just filled with denizens who are just completely evil. Like demonic planes. xD

I do have to rescind that line of thought though. Because there are plenty of counter examples, I suppose. The Drow in Faerun, A nation in Eberron I believe, Tyr in Faerun (I think?). Then, of course, there's Ravenloft; and Warhammer @_@.

@Red_Rob:

Religion's a tool for societal control more than anything. A lot of religious texts encourage good stuff and kindness and generosity, but also encourage terrible acts. Contradictory elements force people to pick and choose. An awful lot of religious people just ignore certain parts and pretend that they don't exist if it feels wrong to them; and many people haven't studied their religion closely and are thus unaware of the contradictions. So you can get Christian pacifists who are into love and peace and all that, but you can just as easily get guys like Fred Phelps.

I agree with codeglaze on the point that you shouldn't group in everyone in the organization with the bad eggs, but the problem is that the bad eggs can point to the holy book as justification for their atrocities. People will use religion to justify anything, and that's the problem.

As to "evil nations," in RPGs it's mostly a way to have the PCs kill legions of soldiers without feeling guilty or miring the game in shades of grey. "They're evil, they're doing evil stuff, there's no innocents" is a great way to get PCs to dive into battle without hesitation. It gets problematic if there are children among the evil groups (the Baby Kobold dilemma), so it works best with creatures like demons instead of "humanoids, but evil!"

infected slut princess wrote: BUT, if we use this definition, which I remind you is both economically significant and coherent (you know when I said to rasmuswanger: "real monopolies that actually matter"?), then we find it is not a problem with free markets at all. Instead, it is a problem created by a particular non-market institution.

I'd argue that limited governmental intervention for limited, sane, regulation (with absolute governmental limits attached) is a pretty safe approach to promoting competition and limiting the chance for monopolistic entities to arise.

Humans are crafty, that's why you need to accommodate for the human aspect of any given theory. Capitalism works the best because it limits the damage humans can do to it by feeding off of the base human desire to grow and 'acquire'.

Libertad wrote: I agree with codeglaze on the point that you shouldn't group in everyone in the organization with the bad eggs, but the problem is that the bad eggs can point to the holy book as justification for their atrocities. People will use religion to justify anything, and that's the problem.

Unfortunately due to the nature of religion, especially Catholicism, your popularity is also your 'downfall'. There's very little room for 'growth'. Civilized industrial society has moved far beyond the need for more of the draconian and outdated stories of the bible. But they've been there for so long, how do you justify removing the stories of 'lying' with your daughter and all that with out 'changing' the religion. So people simply choose to reinterpret the religion by ignoring those 'outdated' bits.

Or, at least, that's how I've interpreted it.

codeGlaze wrote: This; thank you.

The bible does have some pretty fucked up stuff in it. Most of that is ignored in modern industrial societies, though (say what you will about that facet). My experience with various sects of Christianity has been one that promotes love, acceptance, community and (obviously) faith.

Clearly there are complete ass holes out there who have not received that memo, unfortunately. As I stated above there are probably more denominations of Christianity at this point than there are colors. They all exist because of disagreements about what the religion means and how it should be practiced.

I have faith (her der) that society will correct bigots who hide behind their bibles. (Such as bikers following around the Christians who picket soldier's funerals, then rev their engines to drown out the picketing people so the grieving family at least doesn't have to hear hate mongers while grieving)

We aren't just talking about the loonies here. Mainstream Catholicism, in 1936, told its adherents to support Hitler. Much of mainstream Christianity believes that its beliefs are justified whatever they are, and that anyone who disagrees with them will be eternally tortured. In some parts of Africa, terrorist groups like the LRA are the norm.

codeGlaze wrote: You are correct, but what I was trying to address was the broad attack on people of faith as being purposefully ignorant and backwards. Clearly despite Christianity being so prevalent (and even getting in the way many times) there are plenty (the majority) of Christians who can comprehend both Reasoning and Faith. People who appreciate medicine, science and civil law outside the scope of Biblical text. People who can properly process their faith and use it to help provide spiritual strength and guidance in both good and bad times.

People like Joe Kony? Sam Brownback? Richard Cheney? The KKK? The IRA? Scott Roeder?

codeGlaze wrote: TL;DR It's my belief that the existence of faith does not necessarily impede reasoning.

In the same way that a broken windshield does not necessarily impede the functioning of a car.

Libertad wrote: I agree with codeglaze on the point that you shouldn't group in everyone in the organization with the bad eggs, but the problem is that the bad eggs can point to the holy book as justification for their atrocities. People will use religion to justify anything, and that's the problem.

+1

Blue Rose isn't just about LGBT, it also deals with religion and a bit of politics too. Basically, it's the first game I see that actually FULLY detaches itself from all canon established by the christian paradigm (if anything, I'd call Blue Rose a Wiccan/Neo Pagan game rather than a LGBT game).

Now, yes, the "Romantic Fantasy" genre as a whole IS sort of a huge wish-fulfillment thing, but meh it's fantasy, so if we're gonna play goody-two-shoes good guys, then might as well go all the way and have the full moral high ground. Romantic fantasy is about an enlightened heroine (it's usually a she) living in a backwards, crapsack world, and is about the enlightened heroine gathering like-minded friends, forging their slice of "the way things should be" heaven away from the evil backwards world, and then resisting attacks from the evil oppressors.

If you can, give it a read, if only for being a game actually free of Christian crap.

P.S: I'm Cathollic, just not a (particularly) stupid one.

codeGlaze wrote:
You are correct, but what I was trying to address was the broad attack on people of faith as being purposefully ignorant and backwards. Clearly despite Christianity being so prevalent (and even getting in the way many times) there are plenty (the majority) of Christians who can comprehend both Reasoning and Faith. People who appreciate medicine, science and civil law outside the scope of Biblical text. People who can properly process their faith and use it to help provide spiritual strength and guidance in both good and bad times.|

TL;DR It's my belief that the existence of faith does not necessarily impede reasoning.

No. Faith is different than reason, and to the extent that you rely on it for justification, you are NOT relying on reason for justification.

And I don't think this is an uncharitable thing to say, because most people who speak favorably of faith actually celebrate this. Faith is made out to be just a different form of knowledge that, hey sure it's logically invalid, is nonetheless it is indicative of truth somehow. "Having faith" is not "using reason" -- they are just in COMPLETELY different epistemological realms.

Theists back in the day at least tried to justify the existence of God with arguments like the Ontological Argument or the Cosmological Argument. Now those are CRAPPY arguments, but at least they were trying to engage the issue in a serious, intellectual way with arguments that had the at least the pretense of logical validity. Don't even get me started on that Intelligent Design crap that is all the rage among desperate theists these days, but I guess that sort of counts as an intellectual position as well. Because it at least tries to offer evidence and real arguments.

Faith is not like that. It is about basing beliefs about issues of fact ("does God exist?") on feelings ("I feel in my heart there is a God! The Christian God, no less! JESUS TOUCHED ME!").

EDIT:
AND... on a different subject, you said:

I'd argue that limited governmental intervention for limited, sane, regulation (with absolute governmental limits attached) is a pretty safe approach to promoting competition and limiting the chance for monopolistic entities to arise.

Don't argue that. It's completely wrong. As an illustration, see USA.

Capitalism works the best because it limits the damage humans can do to it by feeding off of the base human desire to grow and 'acquire'.

That isn't why capitalism "works best". That proposition doesn't even make sense if you stop and think about it. ANY socio-economic system, other than "everyone just dies right now", is based on the human desire to grow and acquire.

codeGlaze wrote:Unfortunately due to the nature of religion, especially Catholicism, your popularity is also your 'downfall'. There's very little room for 'growth'. Civilized industrial society has moved far beyond the need for more of the draconian and outdated stories of the bible. But they've been there for so long, how do you justify removing the stories of 'lying' with your daughter and all that with out 'changing' the religion. So people simply choose to reinterpret the religion by ignoring those 'outdated' bits.

Or, at least, that's how I've interpreted it.

Religious values change over time, even in isolated and fundamentalist communities. The religions of today may as well be a completely different theology than their ancient counterparts. See something disturbing in your religion? Ignore it. Something in you religion doesn't make sense? Reinterpret it. Eventually these small bits add up over time. It does change the religion in significant ways, even if the holy text still contains outdated stuff. Even linguistics and evolving languages can cause things to get lost in translation. As an example, the passage about someone "lying down with his daughter" may eventually come to mean something entirely nonsexual. Future generations of Christians may just think "it gets cold at night, so they shared a bed for warmth."

ISP wrote:But for the term "socialist workers paradise" to have any meaning I don't think you should use it with such caprice.

Denmark has the lowest Gini index of any country that has ever existed. The difference between rich and poor is seriously less than any country that has made becoming classless a goal in their actual constitution. They are more communist in practice than the Soviet Union ever was.

ISP wrote:There is nothing inherent to the market economy that creates monopolies

This is total History Fail. Every industry has barriers to entry, and in any technically advanced field, major players in any industry can and will do things that increase those barriers to entry. Without huge government anti-trust actions, the major players will make it essentially or even actually impossible for smaller firms to even enter the market. What pharmacy is going to carry your drugs if signing a delivery contract with Pfizer is mutually exclusive with doing so? What incentive does Pfizer have to not make such brutal, competition busting demands on pharmacies?

Without really quite extensive regulations from the government, any firm with an advantage can simply start not playing fair and prevent competition from even reaching the stage of giving end consumers a valid choice. And they will. And they have.

ISP wrote:So when you say "4th best place to do business", it's not the same as saying "US has mild regulation" in absolute terms. Instead, it is like saying "This group of people rolled in shit, but this guy is the fourth cleanest because he rolled in a bit less shit -- therefore he has a mild stink." But come on -- he still stinks like shit.

Here's the deal, chucklefuck: countries that have no or virtually no regulations aren't mild and unobtrusive! Somalia is not a business paradise. You don't have an explosion of economic growth in libertarian hellscapes - you get roving bands of cannibals and rapists.

Actual areas of zero-regulation aren't considered the best places for business, they are considered the worst. Your libertardian whine cascade is noted and rejected. There are no "absolute terms" of regulation mildness. Regulations are only harsh or mild compared to other things. And the US has regulations that are mild and unobtrusive compared to anything that has ever existed and has one of the greatest business environments in human history. By any possible metric, the US has mild regulation.

-Username17

Hi, newbs! It's totally awesome of you guys to still be posting here with a positive attitude. On the topic of religion, though, the Den's OGs will beat you down until you shut up because they hate it. You could go to pretty much any neo-atheist site that hates religion (mostly specifically Catholicism, but it bleeds into a broad generalism about how religion - not people - are evil and suck ass) and copy/paste all their arguments here. They bow to the feet of Dawkins and confuse having a reason with using it.

So save your breath, close your eyes, and call them fuckwits in your head. Then move along. They really don't care what you post.