Colrom

Some of these critical comments seem sorta unprofessional and bogus and maybe even trollish/childish. I think they have been played on the NWN2 official boards too - perhaps by the same people. I still believe.

Is this your performance test for God? He needs to speak to you directly otherwise you will not grace him with your belief. Would you like fries with that? The internet does not have the sum of human knowledge. In fact much that is really worth knowing is not available on the internet. You usually have to buy or borrow a book or something. Some might believe that God made alot of creatures (and things) in his own image - imperfect images. Imperfect like two dimensional images of a three dimensional thing.

You are talking about a demigod.

The book "Misquoting Jesus" by Bart D. Ehrman has an extensive discussion on textual variations of the Bible and associated documents motivated by theological debates about whether or not Jesus was Christ (the Messiah) the Son of God or even God the Father at various points in his life. Some of the different views persist among Christians.

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. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Since God is believed to transcend time it would not be a problem for him to wind it up and let it go and then only keep the one (or ones) that best satisfy him - sort of like an artist might chuck some of their paintings. Sort of like rolling D&D characters and then just keeping the one that is good as a Paladin or Wizard.

You should source this. I have seen it before as a matter of fact - but I don't remember where.

Shouldn't we see some reviews soon?

I really wish they would put out some better PR. I look at the new pics and they look OK but they don't really satsify. So I replay that Dutch (?) preview and gaze at the Russian screenshots over and over. They satisfy. Just a few more days.

Is that right? What behaviors?

actually, that says absolutely nothing. your rant was next to not even on topic and basically bereft of substance. this has nothing to do with politicians, and otherwise public presence. this goes beyond that to the point where any moron can make some sort of "oppression" or "racism" claim, and then sue to get their way. in the end, all they are trying to do is push an agenda. political correctness is simply the term people use to suppress others' free speech. taks <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Perhaps what I said earlier about political correctness is off the mark. I'm not sure I understand political correctness at all. Here are some thoughts: So far as I can tell what it is politically correct to say varies from group to group and every group, right, left, and center, both has politically correct speach and complains about the need for politically correct speach in so far as they feel it constrains them from saying what they want to say. What is politically correct to say on these boards is not politically correct to say in my church or my school or even in my house - but the flip side is true also. Politicians rarely miscalculate such things since that is one of their areas of expertise but the rest of us sometimes do. I have participated in conversations which have altered substantially as the members involved changed - a person who was careful about what they said about a minority group started talking differently when others (of like mind I guess) showed up. My take is that comments which are derogatory about Muslims are politically correct throughout the Western world. I base this on the observation that such comments are widespread and are generally met with aclaim in the West. The fact that this aclaim is often accompanied by ridicule of Muslim complaints on the grounds that they are "attempting to enforce politically correct speach or behavior" just shows how powerful the political force is behind this criticism. Not only must Muslims endure the derogatory characterizations they are told that any efforts they make to criticise this behavior will be viewed as suppression of free speach and won't be tolerated and will be cause for further derogatory characterizations. I really don't understand what is and is not politically correct speach at all and whether I should be happy that it exists or not. So far as I can tell though, like politics everyone does it whether they admit it or not.

Like I said. :D

Nafonso I answered your survey. I suggest you enhance it some to increase the range of allowed answers for all the questions. Also make sure you cover game types like RPG, FPS, RTS, 4X, adventure; real time and turn based and hybrid and so on if you are going to ask what people like - and provide for "other" since you will certainly omit some. You may also want to work a thread on the issues on this and perhaps other forums to help.

I used to think the same thing. But I don't anymore. If there is any pressure at all for people to be "politically correct" then what is meant by "politically correct" must be behaviors which are homophobic, anti-black, anti-semetic, anti-catholic anti-muslim, pro-violence, etc., etc......and of course, anti-politically correct. Politicians regularly deliver even racial and religious slurs and then pretend to appologize. Most folks know it's just a pretend appology. One great politician took the occasion of not being called a bigot to say, "I don't appreciate being called a bigot", immediately establishing a lasting rapor with all those who knew just how he felt. These things are all on public display every day with only occasional comments against them - and those who comment are quite often ridiculed. That says alot about what really is "politically correct".

Troll! (w00t)

The issue is entirely rediculous. The fact that it was made a national and international issue by the leadership in the UK and others of like mind around the world - including people on this forum -indicates that there is more involved here than one Muslim woman and a question of whether she should be allowed to wear a veil while acting as an aid in a school. This issue like other divisive issues was publicised and framed to foster hatred. For the benefit of those who benefit from hatred. :angry: I don't see any consensus for good. That's too bad. But I don't see any consensus for bad either. And that's good.

Good for you Di! You have been quite eloquent about this topic! And right on! I think there is merit to affirming that you intend to be morally straight. It is unfortunate that the Boy Scouts has embraced extremist views about what is required to be morally straight. It certainly is not extremist to suggest that stealing music is wrong. But a merit badge? I don't see it.

It would be refreshing to see you follow your own instructions to others more often - with or without the accompanying disrespectful language. :D

Chris Floyd is much more well spoken than I am. Here is the second section of his article which deals more concretely with the issues we have been discussing here. I was impressed with his presentation. I'm not going to post the last part. You can find that if you care to by following the link "What is surprising, however, is the suddenness of the current campaign, and its blunt, even coarse nature. It exploded out of nowhere with an article in a small regional paper, an October 6 column written by the local MP, Jack Straw - leader of the House of Commons and former foreign secretary. In the latter capacity he was one of the prime enablers of the illegal invasion of Iraq, serving as a key conduit between Blair and Bush as they connived to manipulate their nations into war - a deceitful process well-documented by the Downing Street Memos. In his column, this paragon of moral rectitude complained about veiled women coming to his office seeking constituent services. The fact that he couldn't see their faces made him feel all wiggly, Straw said (in so many words), and he found it hard to communicate with them. They should all just stop it. In fact, UK Muslims in general should stop being so strange and separate, and try much harder to assimilate further into British society. As was no doubt intended, Straw's comments instantly ricocheted around the national media, where they conveniently knocked the frenzy of violence and chaos in Iraq off the front pages. The article also dovetailed, again most conveniently, with another minor story, about a young teaching assistant who had been fired for refusing to remove her veil in front of male colleagues, although she didn't wear it in front of students. Another Blair cabinet minister leapt showily into this strictly local matter, backing the school's action - even as yet another Blair minister publicly denounced British Airways for demanding that a Christian flight attendant remove her cross while on duty. BA actually prohibits the wearing of all jewellery on chains by attendants, not just crosses, but this point of fact was lost in the fine media frothing about the airline's "religious discrimination" against Christians - jeremiads that appeared alongside angry calls for "banning the veil." As the days went by, more Blair ministers joined the fray, which spread from attacks on the veil to stern lectures on the Muslim community's stubborn refusal to integrate properly and its collective failure to denounce terrorism with sufficient self-abasing rigor. These grievous shortcomings were leading to "dangerous divisions" in British society, the Blairites said, and fuelling the alarming rise of hard-right factions like the British National Party. Here was an echo of old hate-mongering campaigns. Who was responsible for Germans' hatred of the Jews, according to the Nazis? Why, the Jews themselves, of course, swanning around with their weird get-ups and strange rituals and their terrorist conspiracies. As Guardian columnist Jonathan Freedland noted this week, "I try to imagine how I would feel if this rainstorm of headlines substituted the word 'Jew' for 'Muslim' - I wouldn't just feel frightened. I would be looking for my passport." Tory leaders - sensing that Blair was, once again, outflanking them from the right - leapt into the breach. David Davis, the shadow home secretary, berated Muslims for fostering an "involuntary apartheid," adding that their intransigence was breeding national division that "could corrode our society." The security organs also got in on the act, with a leak to the Times about an unnamed "terrorist suspect" who avoided capture for a few days "by allegedly disguising" himself in a burka. Meanwhile, Tony Blair - the most ostentatiously Christian prime minister in Britain since William Gladstone prowled the streets in his off-hours looking for prostitutes to save - kept quiet for days as the official furor grew and eventually, inevitably, spilled into the streets. Attacks on Muslims sharply increased, the Independent noted. One mosque was set on fire, another was battered by a brick- throwing mob, who then stabbed a Muslim teenager. Several Muslim women had veils torn from their faces in the street, while verbal assaults and threats escalated. Finally, Blair broke his silence in order to ... calm the storm? call for unity and tolerance? urge the nation to move on to more important matters? No, of course not. Instead, he heaped more coals on the fire, at one point even refusing point-blank to say that a Muslim woman in a veil could make a contribution to society. "That's a very difficult question," he said. Having thus segregated these women from the rest of society, relegating them to the status of useless parasites, he went on to denounce the veil as a "mark of separation." Blair's hypocrisy here is compounded by the fact that he is probably more responsible that any other individual for fostering religious divisions in British society today. He has lavished state funding on a vast expansion of "faith-based" schools, each under the rule of single religion - Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Sikh, Greek Orthodox, Seventh Day Adventist - excluding most children of other faiths. Yet it is a 24-year-old teaching assistant in a veil - not Blair - who is fostering religious "separatism." At every turn, it seemed, the British Establishment - an overwhelmingly white, overwhelmingly male, closely-knit network drawn almost entirely from a tiny group of elite schools and universities, and ensconced in unassailable sway and privilege, including the full, dread power of the state - was condemning a tiny, overwhelmingly powerless minority for the social and political ills of the nation."

Here is another view, taken from the article "Long Black Veil: Tony Blair's Dangerous Game of Muslim-Bashing" By Chris Floyd, TO UK Correspondent The whole article can be found at Long Black Veil "For centuries in Britain, each sentence of death was accompanied by a strange ritual. Before handing down the verdict, the judge would first take a piece of black silk cloth and put it on his head. With this rather bizarre and ancient drapery covering his powdered wig - itself a relic, a cultural fossil carried into modern times - he would then render the prisoner into the hangman's care. In such a guise, the black cloth once represented the full, dread measure of state power. Today, however, a cloth of similar size, shape and color - worn across the faces of a small number of some of the most vulnerable members of British society - has become a target of that same dread power, after Britain's high and mighty unleashed a sudden, thunderous sneak attack on the nation's Muslim minority, centering the campaign around the tabloid-ready symbol of the veil. But although the carefully orchestrated furor over this seldom-seen scrap of material has been so ludicrously disproportionate that even the Blair-fawning New York Times cried foul in a recent editorial, the campaign - and its disturbing implications - go far beyond the issue of religious vestments. Indeed, the veil row is just a covering for what appears to be a deliberate, wide-ranging program of diversion and division, aimed at creating a scapegoat - "strangers in our midst," "the enemy within" - to bear the blame for the sins of the Blair government: the fear, repression, guilt, lies and rancor produced by the abomination in Iraq. The anti-Muslim campaign is not merely rhetorical - although the heated rhetoric from Tony Blair and many of his ministers has certainly been bad enough, giving a patina of respectability to more extremist viewpoints, now seen as a legitimate part of the "national debate. (Much as the button-pushing imbroglio over immigration in the United States has transformed fringe white-power advocates into respectable media figures, lauded by the likes of Lou Dobbs and Arnold Schwarzenegger, and welcomed in the halls of Congress.) No, Blair's Islamophobia-fest has bite with its bark: not only the on-going evisceration of civil liberties, which has fallen almost entirely on British Muslims, but new measures as well - such as the Stasi-like plan to induce university professors and staff to spy on Muslim students and report all "suspicious" behavior to the security organs. The plan, uncovered by the Guardian on October 16, has already been sent to "selected official bodies for consultation" and will be foisted on Britain's universities in December. It acknowledges the fact that the program will make academics feel they are "collaborating with the 'secret police,'" but still urges university staff to be pro-active in their spying and informing on the activities of "Asian-looking students." (In British parlance, "Asian" usually denotes someone of Indian, Pakistani or Bangladeshi descent.) Far from being abashed by this revelation, the Blair government has openly embraced the program. To be sure, Education Minister Ruth Kelly - a member of the zealous religious order, Opus Dei - says it's not really spying; it's just "monitoring" the activities of certain students in order to "protect" them from extremists. But for some reason, Kelly's maternal concern has failed to allay the fears of those captured in the state's benevolent, all-seeing eye. The program is "potentially the widest infringement of the rights of Muslim students that there ever has been in this country," Wakkas Khan, president of a national Islamic student group, told the Guardian. "It is clearly targeting Muslim students and treating them to a higher level of suspicion and scrutiny. It sounds like you're guilty until you're proven innocent." Here, of course, Khan has defined the organizing principle of the Bush-Blair "War on Terror," where thousands have disappeared into prisons and torture rooms without charges, without defense, and very often without any evidence whatsoever, beyond perhaps the word of a paid snitch, a bounty hunter, a personal enemy or an over-zealous security op looking to make his bones. Blair, like Bush with his warrantless surveillance program (to cite just one of many tyrannical examples), is simply bringing the Terror War home."

I'll say this - I don't have tolerance for abuse of others - even when the others are willing to go so far as to carry out the abuse themselves. I frankly don't care about whether you are embarrased - I won't join the mob you represent. Please spare me your name calling.

It is actually (although, some people consider it more of a request)... and, yes, I've read the Qu'ran in the original form (yes, arabic) and understood it before people want to tell me what they think they know about my religion Regardless of that, I take the side of the school and BA in both these cases... one should respect people's religions... and the terms and conditions of a company/workplace <{POST_SNAPBACK}> That's not the point. The point is that humiliating someone publically and forcing them to conform to petty standards is itself not "understanding" of others. Also, with regard to the teacher's aid there was no condition of dress in the job - so far as I can tell. The claim about difficulty in hearing her speak seems bogus and likely manufactured to bring out the issue of her ethnicity, religion, and dress - considering the background of the school. This type of widespread public bullying of a powerless local minority is fundamentally wrong and often a forrunner to rationalizations of violence. People engaging in antisemitic behaviors in the past have blamed their targets and claimed they are "different", "uncooperative" and "dangerous". It is ironic that many Muslims seem eager to rationalize the abuse of this woman - perhaps to save themselves from the hostility they might otherwise experience. Not dissimilar to the behavior of certain Jews before the Holocost demonstrated that behavior was not the issue and conforming to behavioral standards was not going to be enough.

(w00t)

I read the US and European descriptions. I wonder if it means you get more enjoyment out of abstract thinking than other folks - and yet are less inclined to say so - heh.

All their faces and heads are covered - by hair and hats or garments.

While I tend to agree that fireball is often overrated it can be very very good against certain types of targets like undead and trolls in the right circumstances. Is this the final manual or a late draft?