Nyarlathotep

Damn! I knew it didn't look right! I'll edit it real quick before anyone notices

I remember that as a little kid, I thought Return of the Jedi was the best of the three. As I grew older, I appreciated the darkness of the Empire Strikes Back more and more, and now it has become my favorite of the three. I suspect that most of the people who enjoy TDS the most may change their minds as they grow older.

I'm game, but I'm rather skittish, on the principle that I'm not sure I'll have sufficient time.

Overlapping isn't all that bad when it's intentional. If you're limited on the number and types of arrows, having a much larger arsenal than what you're allowed gives the player tactical choices to make. Do I have enough room for the fancy lockpicking kit (versus a very basic one) and fire arrows, or should I just go for acid arrows and hope I have enough? Which are more appropriate to the mission and my play style, ice arrows or water arrows (when both come with complementary disadvantages)? Are rope arrows and vine arrows enough, or do I need climbing gloves and a grappling hook? Vast arsenals give the world a more "lived-in" feel, as there are a variety of weapons and tools to suit different purposes, and several to suit the same purpose (if in different ways). Obviously, bigger arsenals work better when you have more time to devote to them, and TDM already has a very nice spread. Still, it might be fun later on to expand the arsenal significantly.

Personally, I'd like to see something similar to Oblivion, but not quite as annoying. Oblivion had issues with your character letting go too soon. I would prefer it work a bit more like this: Your character has a grip point positioned at the center of the screen. This point defaults to half an arm's length from the character, but can extend to a full arm's length at pick up time (or contract to a quarter arm length). The point is "floating" point, allowed to stray 170 degrees (total: 340) from the center in any direction. To pick up objects, you attach this grip point to the object, and the point is assigned an appropriate amount of force in the direction of its default position. Accidental dropping of the object can be handled by assigning the point an amount of gripping force--the amount of force to be exceeded before the character lets go (arguably entirely separate from the force assigned to bring it to bear). This can be modified by a friction coefficient, enabling it to be potentially more realistic (at the expense of potentially feeling less natural). The point is never allowed to exceed the maximum length, nor allowed to precess from the center of the screen more than the allotted 170 degrees. If the grip force is exceeded to maintain the position of the point, the character is prevent from moving the point further. This manifests in three ways: one, the character cannot move his screen faster than a certain velocity in that direction, two, the character is blocked from further turning his screen (the object has been obstructed), or three, the character is slowed down (more so than usual). Of course, this does raise the question of how you plan to handle distinguishing between picking up items, dragging them, throwing them, dropping them, or using them.

It isn't an ad hominem. Try this on for size, big boy: you wouldn't recognize an ad hominem if it slapped you across the face with a rather large herring. No? Try this, then: Ouch! That one really stung! Good job, Macsen! Let's go for the whole play book then! Great! Nice fallacy of equivocation there! Subtle, but oh so sharp! I think that's enough for now.</troll> In case you didn't notice, I've been opening mocking your style of debate. Outlandish claims and outrageous statements, however humorous they may be, do not help to establish yourself as a reasoned man. As any master debater(!) knows, your arguments must be fool-proof, but failing that, give yourself the demeanor of a man whose arguments are fool-proof--intimidate your foes into believing they are indeed fool-proof. Your argument about where the burden of proof lies is a great one (if it weren't first built on a straw-man), but just don't go overboard on the humour and hyperbole.

For me, I just sing a little ditty to lift my spirits: Whenever life gets you down, keeps you wearing a frown And the gravy train has left you behind And when you're all out of hope, down at the end of your rope And nobody's there to throw you a line If you ever get so low that you don't know which way to go Come on and take a walk in my shoes Never worry 'bout a thing, got the world on a string 'Cause I've got the cure for all of my blues I take a look at my enormous penis And my troubles start a-meltin' away I take a look at my enormous penis Oh, the happy times are coming to stay I got to sing and I dance When I glance in my pants And the feeling's like a sunshiny day I take a look at my enormous penis And everything is going to be okay

I don't care if you strip it naked, paint it purple, glue pink faery wings on it, and hang a sign on it saying, "I am a lark!"; it's still an ad hominem.

Yeah, but you have to admit, selling top hats for 10s 6d is positively mad! I'll buy three!

You imply that you anyone had the patience to read the damn novels more than once.

Well, okay, yeah. But besides all that! What have the Romans ever given us?

Well, yeah, besides that!

It's definitely because Komag is a Spinal Tap junkie.

Huh. I always assumed that the street lamps were carbon-button lamps, rather than incandescent.

Yeah! What have the Romans ever given us?

Although it left much to be desired, I thought Dark Messiah did a much better job of full body awareness than TDS did. In fact, if it weren't for the limited time and resources we have available, I'd say that TDM ought to include FBA.

It didn't bother me much either. I think what bothers most people though isn't so much the movement itself but the jerkiness of it. It felt chaotic, uncontrolled, like your character was at the edge of exhaustion.

I've never heard anyone else that had made such predictions before. But, let's be honest, what's truly horrible is the fact that he has essentially made America a mockery of everything she stands for.

You'll have to excuse me for my limited memory. I had forgotten what you had said at the beginning, and assumed that your statements on belief were also meant to apply to religion. While, to a certain extent, I feel they are still somewhat apologetic to religion, I see that they weren't intended as such. BTW, I edited my previous post. It should read a little easier now.

The point is that we have to stop the stupidity, and unfortunately, there's very little we can do at the source. It's a deadly and vicious circle. Educators don't know any better and therefore can't teach the children any better. What's worse is that generally they don't just not know better, but they refuse to admit that there is a better way of teaching them. They actively go out and try to poison their students' minds, although they generally don't see it as such. The final result is that they are conditioned to believe the church and to deny any evidence that contradicts their beliefs. The churches themselves seek to encourage and reinforce this behavior at every step of the way. By getting their sheep into positions of power, they can ensure that status quo remains true to their god. Any and every attempt to counteract this process results in further backlash. To be honest, I don't see how this process can be stopped any time soon. Teaching science better would help, but would result in instant backlash--and of the very worst sort. To tell the truth, the only way we can really end this is by having a much higher rate of public acceptance. When was the last you ever heard of an atheist whose mere existence wasn't controversial? Exactly. True, but am I doing that? No. But, that sort of thinking can easily foster it, and that's the whole reason why I've been jumping on your case, so to speak. You have to know where to draw the line. Use their own beliefs to console them; use your beliefs, but don't teach them what their beliefs should be. Let them find them on their own.

True, but I would still argue that subtle head motion can be far more effective than either no movement or exaggerated movement. It's hard to find a proper balance, but smoother motions look and feel better, in general.

I highly doubt that 9-11 was an "inside job." However, it made for an amazing excuse for Bush to try and beat out his daddy with Iraq. In fact, after hearing the address to the nation on that fateful day, I actually predicted the Iraq war. Would was not originally there, but added by our fearless leader at speech time. From that statement alone, I knew that he would use it to leverage our nation into a pointless war that had nothing to do with actually fighting terrorism. While no, I didn't predict which country we would invade, I knew we would be lead like lambs into the next Vietnam. That night, I predicted that 9-11 would be used as leverage to pass a bill severely restricting our freedoms. As Ben Franklin said, "Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." I also predicted that this bill invariably would be used to restrict our freedoms, no matter the protests to the contrary. Our country's insecurity was soon rewarded with the Patriot Act. When we were gunning for war with Iraq, I predicted that one, there were no nukes, two, this would be a long drawn out war and occupation, and three, the entire thing would be a fiasco to rival Vietnam or the Bay of Pigs invasion. When Bush was running for reelection, I predicted that if we reelected him, things could only get much worse. When the Patriot Act was passed, I said, "Freedom has a gun pointed to its head." When Bush was pushing to invade Iraq, I knew we had wandered off the path and were now entering the darkest thickets of the woods. When the Iraq people viewed us as liberators, I could only wonder, "How long?" When Bush declared that all major combat operations were over, my only response was, "The hell it is!" When reporters published the abuses of the Patriot Act, I could only shake my head. When conditions in Iraq degraded exponentially, I didn't feel vindicated; I felt bitter, drained. Damn, I hate it when I'm right. But for all that, it was only when I saw the execution of Saddam Hussein that I looked back and saw the tyrants we had truly become. We had systematically destroyed our alliances, demolished our hope to stop bin Laden and al Qaeda, stripped ourselves of the protections of our freedom, and all because we were too foolish to see it. Don't blame me, I was rooting for Al Gore.

For starters, quote me in context. Specifically: Note the italicized text. Your specific example would be an agnostic consoling a person from his or her own beliefs, which would be more than acceptable. They are arguing from their own belief, instead of telling them some crap just to make them feel better. That is only because that is what occurs when one treats one's beliefs as fact. In fact, I would argue that it is a far more general mechanism, and one that has plagued us for centuries. If you want to know what the harm in belief is, why don't you read the rest of my post? The harm does not lie in belief itself--in faith; it lies in humans treating it as far more than the sum of its parts. Their faith becomes "fact", and they feed this poison to their children, closing their minds to both the truth and humanity. Don't think I am too harsh or too quick to condemn these men; if you do, you haven't heard much of the drivel, lies, and propaganda they will feed these children, and all to protect their faith.

Two points: one, this doesn't actually explain why my viewpoint is actually negative in any way, just that other viewpoints are better salve to some people; two, the objection that we skeptics have is that the afterlife amounts to the greatest propaganda campaign in the entirety of human history. To use your words, "...the 'logic' of the idea that something happens after death...won't stand up to scrutiny." You then suggest that the reason that such an idea may be allowed to persist despite such faulty logic is that the notion is comforting. You've essentially suggested that lying to loved ones is acceptable. While you can argue that using a loved one's preconceived beliefs are still acceptable (or your own beliefs), you can't argue that continuing to teach these flawed notions to children is still acceptable. If you believe that these ideas and notions are ultimately wrong, i.e., they don't stand up to scrutiny, then teaching (preaching) them is to deceive the public. Essentially, consoling a loved one must necessarily be an exception to the rule, rather than the norm. Let the children come to embrace these ideas on their own, if they do at all. Misguided or not, teaching your beliefs as anything else is wrongheaded and ultimately unacceptable. While someone who does not accept that their beliefs are unfalsifiable or downright wrong will generally preach their beliefs as the truth, someone who realizes this cannot, as they would necessarily be hypocritical to do otherwise. It is my firm belief that it is the responsibility of those who realize this (the only acceptable defense of belief is that it is a strictly personal one) to prevent the fallacious teaching of beliefs as truth. I suspect that the conception of one's (usually shared) beliefs as the one, ultimate truth is the source of the deadly disease that is fundamentalism.

You've got to be kidding me. You agree with my argument, but you're going to nitpick with me over my use of terminology, even though I've already made myself clear on what I mean by those terms. I use disbelief to mean a belief that a statement or another belief is false (corresponding more closely with the common usage of the term), but you use disbelief to mean a lack of belief (corresponding more to the literal definition, but what I would term unbelief). Can't we just agree to mutually accept the context of our arguments, at least so long as they're explicitly stated? Then we agree that there are different levels and types of belief, and now we're simply arguing on the categories. Exactly. I don't think Domarius has explained this sufficiently why this is negative. Yup. Maximus has more than covered the flaws in your argument, so I think I just leave that bit alone for now. However--about the strawmanning--I know perfectly well what I was doing; I was simply illustrating our viewpoint. A strawman does nothing to refute another's argument, but it does show a great deal about their perceptions of said argument. I wish I could give a more detailed argument, but I always wind up doing this just before I have go do something else--this time I have to go argue religion live, rather than behind the safe veil of pretend anonymity that a keyboard affords.