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HE'S PATRICK STEWART HE CAN MAKE ANYTHING GOOD

I'm doing what any sensible internets user does in his spare time when he's waiting for the ambien to kick in: I'm stumbling. They just added "adult" categories to their list, and I'm pretty sure it's awesome. Not that I would ever begin to imagine using such things :D No sir.

I was underwhelmed by Patrick Stewart's turn in Oblivion. It was probably the trite high-fantasy nature of the material :'( but come on, he could've done so much better. He was ****in' Picard, man.

And everybody else here is bitter because their preconceptions aren't being met.

Eh, just so long as they don't make every NPC capable of initiating conversation, and write specific dialogue for important NPCs, no one will be able to tell the difference. The Fallout riff-raff had only slightly more to say than TES riff-raff, because you didn't have the opportunity to ask them about everything, and thus they didn't have the opportunity to give stock answers.

An air of pretention, and some comfortable black corduroy pants.

It's hard to argue for an act's selfishness when the act destroys the self. A mother who would donate her kidneys to her sick child, ensuring her own death, is being selfless, not selfish. No matter what good feelings she might be gaining out of doing the right thing for her child, she's losing much, much more. If she's doing so because she's programmed to do it, she's not being selfish, she's being a slave.

You could, but that wouldn't prove that humans are always naturally self-interested. If we accept that premise, when the lifeguard sees a drowning child, his desire is not to save the child, but to avoid a guilty conscience, or get a thrill out of risking his own life. That's counterintuitive. Of course the lifeguard's goal in saving the child is to save the child. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Again, looking at it from the individual level. This will have to wait to tues, as I'm trying to finish two papers for a midnight deadline tonight + class all day tomorrow, however: You could argue that, but that wouldn't prove that humans arn't always naturally self-interested (Remember, Dawkins argues that human intelligence may be able to overcome such gene self-interest). It may be argued that it is counter-intuitive that the life guard risk his own life to safe that of another's (he is being paid btw). So, if that is counter-intuitive, what drives him to do it? Hint: Think genes! Aka Dawkins argue that altruism isn't natural, is cultural. Hence the term "meme". as I said, it's deep, and me rushing through it isn't doing it justice at all. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Still, the statement that "there are no acts of altruism" is proven patently false, which was the original premise. A lot of mothers would argue against altruism being unnatural. Mothers naturally want what's best for their children. Many will risk their own lives for their children. It's preposterous to argue that mothers do this because of some external societal influence. Even if we argue that a mother sacrificing herself for her children is doing so because of natural selection or "to pass on her genes" or whatever, you still can't get around the fact that what she's doing is both unselfish and natural.

You could, but that wouldn't prove that humans are always naturally self-interested. If we accept that premise, when the lifeguard sees a drowning child, his desire is not to save the child, but to avoid a guilty conscience, or get a thrill out of risking his own life. That's counterintuitive. Of course the lifeguard's goal in saving the child is to save the child.

What about a lifeguard who instinctually and reflexively risks his own life for the sake of another, where there is no self-interest and no thought involved? The case is easily made that humans are not naturally selfish.

No reason you shouldn't be You weren't concerned before? I'm downloading all kinds of podcasts, most of which will probably suck.

Dawkins is not credible as a thinker then, if he would argue that there are no altruistic facts. He might have many necessary arguments for his viewpoint, but he would not have sufficient counterpoints against the well-established arguments that altruism, in fact, exists. We went over this with Rand some time ago in the gaming forum. The "Could God make a rock he couldn't lift", prima facae, looks like a good argument against the omnipotence of God. But it isn't. It presumes, fallaciously, that if God can do something, he will do something. If he does create the rock, he is no longer omnipotent. But if he doesn't, he remains omnipotent. For this reason, the "unliftable rock" example fails. Or to put it a little more densely, I found this on a philosophy site (this un):

Counting down the minutes....

I'm kinda curious here, how so? Because, on the surface, it's not evolution if it is "guided" by god (tho I'm prolly getting your meaning wrong). <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I'm somewhat confused as well. I read it as a non-interventionist viewpoint. God is the creator, but he doesn't have any direct influence on the way things happen. He wound it up and let it go.

It's more than a little prejudicial to think that catholics would jump into a crusade when the Pope wills it, these days. Popes no longer have that power. Not now, in the post-enlightenment, post-reformation world, where there aren't kings to excommunicate, or landed nobles looking to curry favor with the church. There's no political leverage.

So... you're an intuitionist?

It'd probably strengthen religious fervor, not weaken it. When people are scared for their lives, a metaphysical world is comforting. We could all die at any moment. Wouldn't it be nice if there was a paradise waiting for us? To many, it's a choice between that and nihilism. You may be misattributing what makes those cultures weak over time. Nomadic barbarian cultures generally do 3 things: raid, trade or stay. That is, if a sedentary culture is weak, barbarians will raid and steal what the sedentary culture has. If a sedentary culture is strong, they'll trade with it. If the sedentary culture is weak, but wealthy in land and resources, they'll invade and then stay. The etruscans in Italy are a good example of barbarians staying. The mongols and huns were generally inclined towards the first option, because of their superior military tactics. But those invading cultures and their traditions were comparitively weak in their staying power compared to those they invaded, not necessarily because of religion, but because of more practical considerations, such as forms of writing and language. Oftentimes those things did concern themselves with religion. By all accounts, the Jews have been an oppressed culture for 3000 years and counting, but they kept their identity generally gestalt, because they taught all their children Hebrew and placed emphasis on memorization of the Torah, and this never changed. Nomadic, raiding cultures didn't have much use for written history and cultural identity, as they had oral traditions they relied upon. When circumstances in which the people lived changed, so did their traditions, and they were eventually washed out. Thus the staying power of a culture has probably less to do with religion in and of itself and more with the way in which it's conveyed.

Imogen Heap - Closing In Enon - Disposable Parts Bonobo - Dinosaurs

Mononoke > all else

For one, God is a scorekeeper. If I can murder somebody and assuredy never get caught, is it wrong? What's to stop me? Gods keep a record of deeds, such that when I die, I would be judged. Thus I can never really get away with any misdeeds. Thus I have good reason to live a good life, even if I have the opportunity to go happily through life murdering and raping without consequence. If there's really a big great void at the end of life, and there's no supernatural, what's the point of living right? Why can't I go out and rape? When I turn 80, I could become the Unabomber out of boredom. Any punishments against me would be inconsequential. I'd be prepping up to shuffle off this mortal coil anyway. So there's really no reason why I shouldn't wantonly murder, lie, cheat and steal. I'm not going to be held accountable. Humanistic morality would have no teeth against me if I didn't care whether I was right or wrong. Of course, forgiveness puts a wrench in the supernatural judgement. Constantine used to baptize his soldiers en masse after a battle to absolve them of the terrible sins they committed on the battlefield.

Yes, wanking. Tiddling. Fapping. Verbally autoeroticizing. Creating an unnecessary discourse. Self-important sermonizing. By God, you'd think she was on an internet forum. You'd think she was me. And baby, I'm like the Highlander. The schtick got old, imho. Guess I was never that much into the character in the first place. I appreciate the importance droids play in connecting SW narratives, but he's the C3PO of KOTOR. He's grating.

GOTO was just terrible. Just... Terrible... awful... ****... Failure... Pointless... Inexplicable... Useless... robot. Die die die die die. Kreia comes in second, because of the egoist wanks she goes on. 1 - Visas 2 - Handmaiden 3 - T3-M4 4 - Atton 5 - Bao-Dur 6 - Mira 7 - Mandalore 8 - HK-47 9 - Disciple 10 - Kreia 11 - G0-T0

A heterosexual man of uncommon vanity and consumerist sentiment, who puts an atypical emphasis on personal grooming. But Pop, you say, can't a heterosexual man exhibit a little fashion sense and discriminating taste and not be branded as a fem faux-man? Sure, I say, but one can do those things without necessarily laying it all on his designer sleeves. It's in the presentation. They're like streetwalkers and mennonites, they're walking billboards for their sensibilities. They look clean, they use product in their hair. They're usually without body hair, but if they can make a five-o-clock shadow work, they'll do it and they'll do it well. The term in and of itself is somewhat like "emo", in that not everybody agrees in what it actually means, but, oh, you know one when you see one.

Dawkins is smart, but completely without a sense of irony. Unless this is all a big satire. I've followed this debate for a number of years, and I have yet to unearth any argument that is both sufficient and necessary to prove either viewpoint. Plenty of necessary, not nearly enough sufficient. The problem I have with this "evangelical atheism" is that it's just as reactionary as religious evangelism, with its "Faith in God must be destroyed" rather than "non-faith in God must be destroyed". They're functionally the same. Instead of God's chosen people, keepers of His covenant, we've got Brights, keepers of the one truth. The same desire for an oligarchy of power, not among those most connected to God, but those least connected to God. Instead of a pope and cardinals, we have a provost and professors. What Dawkins calls for is nothing radical, but in fact transferrence from one orthodoxy to another. On top of that, you have Sam Harris declaring "There would be a religion of reason, we would have realized the rational means to maximize human happiness." Which is the most self-deluding crock of **** I've ever heard. As if excising faith from the public consciousness would allow all reasonable people to agree on things. ****, humanists can't agree on something like abortion. Reason has its own doctrine, which many times flies in the face of our sentiment. It all flirts with subjectivism. The idea that absence of proof is proof of absence, that one can throw metaphysics under an empiricist lens and discern truth. It's laughable. It's unreasonable.

You're full of ****. The fact that the NWN2 forums are on the bioboards is irrelevant for the purposes of saying that they ought to be here. and for the record, I don't give a **** about Atari. They didn't make the game, their decision regarding where the forums should be is illegitimate. Also for the record, this board is useless if NWN2 has no official place here. Either this is the Obsidian board or it's the KOTOR2 board, in which case why the **** is NWN2 even an issue here?