Pop

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?

I agree. Or at least I agreed before playing Dark Messiah's demo. The best way to describe the combat in it is that it feels crunchy. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Better than Kotor? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Why not... just... get the demo and find out? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> It's 1500 ****ing megabytes, that's why It's taking my DSL over 12 hours to download.

I Am X - President (Be forewarned that the video is not terribly good. It sucks, actually.) Hecate & Venetian Snares - Blood on the Rope Nine Inch Nails - NIN just announced that they're dropping a new European tour and an album in April, for those interested.

American Mudcrabs

No, because for the most part I think peelers are evil. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I always get a lapdance for my B-Day. Then again, it's not always with women... <{POST_SNAPBACK}> With enough birthday sangria, it all becomes relative :cool:

Bah, the Ministry song, the Daniel Ash song and the Hollywood song are the only good trax on that soundtrack. You should replace the rest with better stuff. I'm listening to the Diablo s/t. You can't go wrong with Bauhaus-y goth acoustica. I still love the Tristram theme.

Why have you not ordered the Limited Edition? Answer or we shall feed you to the sharkticons! <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Because I didn't have the cash when they were being offered, and I wanted assurances that I could play the game ASAP. Plus, I live in big, gay America.

Im all for direct downloads, except that Id never want to give up all the juicy goodies you get with the limited edition box ) <{POST_SNAPBACK}> But for me, who has no limited edition (<_<) it seems pretty rosey. Music has already moved completely past physicality, why not do the same with games?

The reason I didn't like the Salvatore books (I read the first 3, in a big bitter block going on a FR binge after getting back into BG for the second time) was because they contained too much melodrama but didn't really flesh out the characters much, so reading it was about as uncomfortable as seeing a really bad play. I found the fights to be boring, but I also found them to be largely unnecessary, which is the problem I have with fantasy in general. I felt like I was reading a D&D campaign, and while I love D&D campaigns and combat, it just doesn't port well to literature. People don't ****in' fight that much and that casually. Just about any high fantasy would be on my no-list as far as books go, because of that. No doubt the untouched wilderness environments are fun to imagine exploring, though. What about Ian Fleming? Anybody want to be a secret agent man?

As an owner of an Xbox, I can say with all certainty that I do not care in the slightest about this. If the port took this long the changes had better be imminently noticeable and prevalent throughout the game.

Meh, it was about as good melee combat as you're going to get out of an FPS. Morrowind was ****tier by light years. I imagine I'll have to play this at some point.

Much as I'd encourage you to cause trouble, it doesn't make much sense, if you're looking to discuss NWN2 on the internets, to get banned from the official site Still, if you're going to get yourself banned, you might as well go out in the best way possible. God bless you.

Birthday slide.

When we get a real NWN2 forum here. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> If that doesn't happen in the next 2 weeks, I'm quitting the internets