~Di

Bon Voyage! We'll try to muddle on without you.

Darque... no kidding. I've spent (and this seriously is no exaggeration) about 500 hours playing JA2 and its mods Urban Chaos and Vietnam SOG this year... and hundreds more hours playing IWD/HOW/ToTL, BG2, Wizardry 8, even Fallout 2 and Civ Call to Power... because the games I've purchased in the past 12 months have been dreary, dismal disappointments. The old games really are the best. The new ones seem more enamored of fancy graphics than solid gameplay. The only game in production that I'm actually excited about is Bio's Dragon Age... and since it probably won't even announce a release date until sometime in 2007, I wonder if I'll even live long enough to play it.

As I just posted elsewhere on this forum, I was looking forward to Dungeon Lords primarily because it was the only freaking RPG coming out in the foreseeable future (unless you consider Troika's vampire FPS/Action game to be an RPG, which I don't... plus I'm not into vampires *shudder*) Anyway, I bopped over to the Dreamcatcher forums to see how folks were liking Dungeon Lords, since it was supposed to be released last week. Lo and behold, it has been delayed until sometime in Q1 2005. Doesn't bode well, IMHO... not well at all.

Bah, I just discovered that DreamCatcher's Dungeon Lords, scheduled for release last week, won't be coming out until sometime in 2005. Bummer.

Bah, it's sad enough when humans are so blinded by the need to win that they are willing to put their own health and bodies at risk... but it's utterly heartbreaking when humans are willing to betray the trust of precious animals, putting their lives and health at risk for that oh-so-important win. Then again, I frequently find I have more affection and respect for animals than many of the people whose paths cross mine throughout life...

We agree on a lot of things, and I'm genuinely fond of you. You are one of the few 'net folks who have the capacity to actually hurt my feelings. Which is my misfortune, I suppose. But this civil war silliness does indeed irk me to my toenails. I'm not the least bit surprised it irks you as well.

Some of you WANT civil war? Are you mad? I doubt anyone dispises Bush more than I, but good God... to think that I'd be willing to murder my friends, my neighbors, destroy my country because I'm not happy with the outcome of an election? How self-indulgent and narcissistic would THAT be? Life isn't a computer game. There isn't any reload key when you see your brother disemboweled by a mortar hit before your very eyes, or when you pick up pieces of your child after your home was cluster bombed by the "loyal opposition." *disgust* I'm with Eldar. Talk of civil war is utter madness. And it's also irksome in the extreme.

Respectfully, it is to me because it truly destroys the basic foundation on which I believe this nation was constructed... and it does so deliberately, with the intent of overthrowing secular government with Christian dogma. If the insertion of Christian God-speak into our pledges, into our schools, into our judiciary and into our congress thereby insuring an evolution from secular society into a theocracy isn't worth getting into a political fight over, then I honestly don't know what is.

While I don't adovocate the forcing of anything, how does it make you believe? Huh? Talk about twisting the topic until it screams. Your question has nothing to do with what I said. Being forced to recite that they acknowledge that their nation, the country they live in and they love, ascribes itself to serving a God that they do not believe in is so obviously a violation of the separation of church and state that you can't even dispute it. All you can do is pull out the lame, "well being forced to say 'Under God' doesn't actually force you to believe, does it?" I mean, get a grip. Not saying 'Under God' doesn't force believers to become atheists either. The point... obviously... was that the secular nation forged by our forefathers was hijacked in the 1950's by a bunch of Christian fundamentalists who inserted God references into the everyday lives of all Americans, including those who did not believe in God... and forced them to recite it daily or be ostracized as a consequenced. This is NOT freedom of religion; it's enforced religion. (Religion does not equate to belief; if you force me into a church weekly, and tie me down to a pew, you are forcing your religion on me even if you haven't drilled a hole in my skull and shoved a copy of King James Bible into my quivering raw brain.) Actually, that fundamentalist Christian judge with the Ten Commandments flapping from his shoulders may very well NOT treat me the same way as a secular judge would... and there are literally thousands of cases to prove it. But your argument to this is that it's okay for government to heap religious icons into its public buildings because the people in charge of those public buildings will probably ignore them and treat the atheist (or the Buddist or the Muslim) the same as they treat fellow Christians. The gaping hole in that theory is that our constitution expressly forbids the co-mingling of church and state. The fact that Christians have been patiently rewriting that and reinterpreting it to set themselves up as a state religion does not change the fact that the original intent has been thoroughly bastardized. You keep twisting topics without responding to what you must know is the basis of the discussion. *sigh* First, a teacher has a right to ask for a moment of silence to remember a student that died... why you suddenly pulled that example out of your pocket I don't know, for crying out loud. However, schools do NOT have the right to blast Christian prayers from the loudspeaker any more than they have the right to blast selected passages from Mein Kampf or the Communist Manifesto from the loudspeaker. Schools are there to teach from approved texts so that children can move into higher education with a modicum of basic knowledge. Schools are not there to flood young minds with religious references so that those children whose families do not ascribe to said beliefs are either ostracized, made to feel inferior ('you're going to hell.... muwahahahaha!") or just plain irritated daily with propagandizing indoctrination of any kind. What is so difficult to understand? Well, you're nothing if not consistent. You've used the same argument for absolutely everything... "you're not forced to believe just because the government officially calls upon God at every turn." And you're not forced NOT to believe if the government doesn't call on God at every turn. This is my country too. It is also the country of atheists, Jews, Buddists and Muslims. We have a right to NOT have Christian dogma plastered on our currency, telling us and the world that OUR NATION, the nation we love and that was founded based on secular separation of church and state, is now a Christian nation UNDER GOD, no less. That our beloved nation TRUSTS in a God that we do not believe in. That our disbelief in the God OUR NATION TRUSTS makes us different... unsavory... hell bound... and basically not as worthly as our Christian brethren who DO trust in that there God. Why can you not get this? Are you kidding me? You ARE kidding, right? 'Cause this makes absolutely no senses otherwise. Are you trying to say that churches shouldn't be taxed because there isn't a special church congress in the government (each church sends a church senator or something)? Are you trying to say that corporations, which are taxed out the ying-yang, DO have government representation that churches don't have? Care to point it out, if so? (Don't say the lobby process, because you and I both know that religions have more government lobbies than Kelloggs has corn flakes... ) Tax exempt entities like the scouts and certain charities do have to meet specific criteria to maintain tax exempt status... and for the church remaining apolitical is one of those criteria. To equate the politicized pulpit rallies ("God wants you to vote for Bush, and if you don't you'll go to hell") with the Boston Tea Party is... frankly ludicrous. Oh, stop. Without "man" the church is just an empty building. Without "man" government is just a theory. Of course we are talking about people, people who are representing ideologies and religions. What you're basically saying that it's okay for the church to lie, to cheat, to break laws and rules, 'cause after all it's just "people" who are doing these things, right? With God's approval, of course, 'cause the people who are doing it are the only ones who God likes enough to let into heaven! And besides, everyone else does it, so that makes it okay for God-folks to do it too! Do you actually realize what you are saying here? It all boils down to, "It's okay for us to take over the government and the nation with our religion, force it into your everyday lives, 'cause even though we force you to read our religious mottos and recite our religious dogma, we don't actually force you to believe what you're reading and reciting." Think about this. I know I do. And it's chilling.

Not gonna happen (although I'd love to see it) because it would be political suicide for any senator or congresscritter foolhardy enough to vote for such a thing... and Bush would veto it anyway. The only way taxing churches could ever be implemented is if we had a SCOTUS courageous enough to declare the favoritism shown to religious institutions as unconstitutional. And somehow I doubt that's gonna happen in my lifetime.

Heh, no more worked up than someone so put out that his candidate lost an election that he's gonna withhold taxes as a protest! Good luck with that, btw! When your paycheck gets garnished for back taxes and penalties, then you can stomp up to Canada to pout one step ahead of the arrest warrant. I'm sure Canada, with a tax rate 3 times that of the USA, would love to have yet another American tax dodger on their citizenship rolls! :D Refusing to pay taxes will have a heck of a lot more emphasis on your life and future than it will on Bush's policy. Trust me. Edit: Ahhhh, I see you claim to be legally tax exempt. In that case refusing to pay taxes one does not owe in the first place is hardly a legitimate protest, even if the public declaration made you feel better! (I'm certainly no Bush fan, but if half the country went on tax strike every election the country itself would be in bankrupt anarchy... so somehow I think there's probably a better way to express one's political leanings. )

I wasn't angry, only irritated because the only way for me to read that text was to individually highlight each sentence, which was frankly too much trouble. Since somebody else had already mentioned once that she couldn't read your text either and you basically blew her off, I figured you actually didn't care what others thought. Perhaps you would have, but you had already been told that your posts were unreadable by some and didn't much seem to care. Sorry you were offended by my post. At least I didn't spend several sentences personally insulting you or calling you an a**. Anyway, thanks for changing your post so it is more easily readable. I appreciate it.

I agree with this ~Di but please tell me where the underlined portion of your post has happened; or is it a preventetive measure the atheists are taking to prevent the possibility? I thought preemptive strikes were looked down apon by the left. I believe that when "Under God" was codified into law and shoved into the Pledge of Alligiance, religious belief was forced upon those who did not share it, since the pledge has been recited daily in just about every school in the country for the past several decades, and refusing to take part in it has resulted in disciplinary action and/or ostracization of the children involved. I believe the same about the change of the country's motto to "In God We Trust", which was then splashed all over our currency. Some citizens do not trust in God, dammit, and that is the point. There are doubtless tons of specific examples on all levels, but not having the files of the ACLU et al, I don't really want to Google 'em up. Suffice it to say that in many places around this country laws are being written to support religious conviction, from "dry" counties to no work on sabbath laws that affect every citizen. I believe it is wrong. Sure. That's actually distorted. Sure, I'm free not to believe in God... but if I announce that I don't believe in God I will be ostracized in most communities in this nation, and excluded from the social fabric of the community. I will also be treated differently in a courtroom where the judge has the ten commandments or Jesus Saves! bannered over the bench, don'tcha think? :D I've already given you instances where law has forced religious belief on the non-religious; there are tons more examples if you care to look. Yes, prayer in school is legal. Anyone can say grace in a public cafeteria, or in a school cafeteria, or anywhere on the school grounds for that matter. However, teachers can certainly not hold "prayers" for certain students in those public arenas, which automatically excludes those students who do not share the faith. Also officially having prayers is not, and that includes using the school's public address system to call upon God, Budda, or Allah loudly around a public school campus. I certainly would agree with those restrictions. That phrase is not so benign, in my opinion. It was shoved down our throats legislatively by the Christian majority during the McCarthy godless commie days, as I have mentioned. It also puts religion into official governmental function, which is undeniable... and in my opinion, unconstitutional. The church has a tax exempt status based on the fact that it has promised to be non-political. It has clearly and repeatedly broken that promise. Now I have no problem with unions being taxed; I certainly believe that churches should be taxed. Everyone has a right to participate in the political process... except those entities who have promised not to in return for financial benefit. Then again, maybe churches figure they're tight enough with God that lying to man and breaking promises to the government doesn't count as a sin, eh?

Eh, I don't think a single post commenting that I am unable to read a certain kind of post equals spamming. But hey, if it makes you feel better to be able to call me a name of some kind, be my guest. I still can't read the tiny blue-lettered posts, and thought I should mention it to the poster. /end topic... forever

Whether the church was supposed to be protected from the state or the state was supposed to be protected from the church is a moot point. The two institutions were supposed to be separate. Religion was not supposed to enter into government, and government was prohibited from entering into the practice of religion. That means that creating laws based on religious belief and forcing those laws on everyone is a no-no. A lot of non-atheists also support the removal of theist language from government. The thing many religious folk ignore is that both the motto of the land and the Pledge of Alligience were created without "God talk." It was changed legislatively by conservative Christians in the 1950's during McCarthy's famous "godless commie" hunt. That was, in my opinion, the beginning of religion inserting itself into the law of the land. It was wrong, dammit. And it's still wrong. It's also wrong for pastors to be telling their constituents how "God" wants them to vote... but they do it anyway. It's a violation of their so-called neutral tax-exempt status. So my position is that if the church wants to get into politics, it damned well better pay its taxes like any other citizen with the same right of political involvement. What I am seeing right now is not a trend toward government taking away the rights of religion to worship as they see fit. But I am seeing a trend toward religions insisting that the rights of those who do not believe as they do are taken away, and replaced by laws enforcing their beliefs on the populace. This was created as a secular nation with religious freedom. For the past few decades, that has eroded substantially. It's little wonder that many folks are concerned about that, IMHO.

Actually, our government is a constitutional republic, which means that although the majority rules when it comes to most kinds of votes, the majority cannot vote away the constitutional rights of others. Which means that even though religious folks may outnumber non-religious folks, they cannot force their own religious beliefs on those non-religious folks through legislative means... because that would violate consitutional rights.

Just a point, in case old Product of the Cosmos cares: Those using a black background cannot read your tiny blue letters. If you believe your words to be so precious they must be distinguished from the words of others by special size and color, you might as well use a size and color that others can actually read. Or not. I don't mind just hitting "page down" every time I come to one of your posts if you don't mind it. That said, I think bashing and generalizing is usually the reflection of immaturity and ignorance, no matter which side the bashing and generalizing comes from. There seems to be a lot of that going around in this thread.

Ahh, I should probably clarify that what gave me a laugh was the clever and hysterically funny essay the woman on EBay wrote... not the Daily Mirror headline, which I found incredibly insulting even to a total Bush-hater like myself. If the world wants Americans to come together as a group, all they need to do is continue to their moronic global insult fest. I'm frankly pretty sick of the arrogance being shown by this kind of garbage, and I doubt I'm the only American who feels that way.

Oh dear Lord, this is the funniest thing I've read in ages! I've printed it out to re-read on those days... and God knows there are many of them lately... when I desperately need a giggle. :D

A rampage?

Right. Let's hoist the banner bragging about freedom of speech on the one hand, while the other waves a sign calling any who disagrees a "fascist." Great way to get your point across. Not.

Hmm. I'm not sure that I would look toward western Europe as a shining example of "progress", and how the rest of the world should be. If you are enamored enough by your personal lifestyle to think the rest of the planet should emulate it, more power to you, however! This is the kind of statement that frankly irks me a bit. Your presumption of knowing what Americans would and would not "flip" about is erroneous... and arrogant, frankly. Gas taxes are rampant in America... federal taxes, state taxes, local taxes. Here in California 75% of the cost of a gallon of gasoline consists of taxes(Edit: The quoted percentage is a guesstimate, and could vary a few percentage points one way or the other!). There are also environmental taxes of all kinds on all sorts of products and services. Not only have Americans not "flipped", but they have in nearly all cases voted those taxes onto themselves. So as you can see, your knowledge of our country does not appear to be as accurate and extensive as you seem to believe that it is. Let me ask you this: What would you and your countrymen think if, during one of your elections, you opened your local newspaper to see various full-page ads from Americans telling you who we wanted you to elect? Would you be a bit peevish about it? Certainly Americans were when we were treated to that very thing by Norweigans and others who took it upon themselves to tell us who we should elect to govern ourselves. (And I did not vote for Bush, frankly, but that doesn't stop me from feeling mightily annoyed at the nerve of those across the pond who believe they have a right to tell us who to vote for). How would you feel if you saw dozens upon dozens of insulting headlines from around the world after your elections, headlines in which your citizens were called idiots, stupid fools, blind sheep and other such nastiness because the propagators of said newspapers didn't care for the individual you elected? Yet that's what Americans are now seeing. Can you guess how we feel about that? Frankly Americans are getting pretty fed up with European arrogance and insult overall. Just a word to the wise. Pass it on to your leaders. And your newspapers.

In other words, they WILL be assimilated! Seriously, what you are implying is that your own culture is better than any other culture, and that superiority is why others should emulate you rather than you emulate them. Never mind the mind-boggling thought that each country should actually keep their own culture, LOL! And there, in a nutshell, is the philosophy that sent hundreds of thousands of your ancestors across the pond to my country, where they became my ancestors. They were searching for religious freedom, the ability to practice their own religion without suffering the prejudice of anti-religious folks like yourself and the persecution of intolerant governments. Which may give a clue to the answer to your next question: First, I won't pretend to respond to the culture and history of Canada. It's not my place to, since I'm neither Canadian nor an expert on Canadians. I can, however, point out that the large percentage of Americans who consider religion a major part of their life has to do with why these people and/or their ancestors came to America in the first place... for religious freedom. Therefore, it stands to reason that a large populace of Americans would be religious. BTW, I'm not a Christian myself, so there are quite a few non-theists running around. Freedom to practice religion also means freedom not to practice religion, which is why I'm quite sensitive to any perceived attempts by the government to enforce the religious beliefs of others onto me via legislative means. We are a massive country. We could stick most countries in Europe into the corner of our large cities, and not notice the increase in population. Therefore, we are as diverse, or more diverse, within ourselves as the whole of Europe, west from east and everything in between. Which is why it's so annoying to have Europeans, or anyone else, generalize Americans. You were quite quick to point out the difference between western and eastern European culture, yet seem to believe that all Americans are homogenious robotrons. I can assure you, we are not.

Yes, I do mean Darfur. And by segregating "western Europe" specifically, you conveniently slice off areas of the world that do not ascribe to your own country's view of governmental purpose. Which basically proves my own point, which is that different areas of the world view their own societies, including their own forms of government, differently than you do based upon the history of those societies. The USA constitution may have been forged 200 years ago, but it still rules our country today, and its purpose has not changed. The words "liberal" and "federal government" are not negative words in the USA, although they have been bastardized by some conservatives who enjoy using the word "liberal" as some kind of obscene insult. It isn't. Federal government has a distinct role to play in American culture, and how much of a role is still the topic of discussion here. At one point, republicans basically believed that government should be small and stick to its basic function of providing for the common defense and enforcing the constitution (although republicans now are expanding government's role to expand their own power base, IMHO). Liberals believed that government should provide womb-to-tomb parenthood for all citizens, thereby removing all incentives beyond that of getting out of bed each day to receive one's governmental subsistance check. Most Americans, however, fall into the moderate range. I guess my question to you would be why you seem to believe that American government, beliefs and society should mirror that of western Europe? Do you have no respect for cultures that are different from your own? I'm genuinely curious.