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October 20th, 2009
August 19th, 2009
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/1
THis man just earned an inch of respect in my book :)
THis man just earned an inch of respect in my book :)
August 18th, 2009
May 26th, 2009
May 2nd, 2009
April 15th, 2009
If you happen to read this, and you are one of the douchebags running around "protesting taxes" I have something to tell you
You're a retard. Please do not breed.
That is all. Thank you.
You're a retard. Please do not breed.
That is all. Thank you.
March 25th, 2009
September 22nd, 2008
. I own a lot of different games.
I've played year long campaigns, as well as one shot games. And everything inbetween.
But one thing never fails. I always return to Runequest.
The specific version may vary.. 2nd edition, 3rd edition, Mongoose. They all have things I enjoy.
But its always what I return to. The baseline if you will.
And I think I've finally put my finger on why:
Modern games (and I use the term modern loosely) have a different focus than many older games. In a way, the best way to sum it up is "style over substance". That sounds terribly derogatory so let me elaborate.
In many newer games, the focus is on the characters and their powers, abilities and ways they can influence things, the story or even the world at large. Crack open a White Wolf book and you'll find countless pages of disciplines, gifts or charms. Check the new D&D or its predecessor D20 and you'll find an ever-increasing number of feats, spells, creature abilities and class powers.
The emphasis is on the character and the powers he posses. The colour if you will.
There's many reasons for this. It obviously appeal to the wish fulfilment we all do, "wouldnt it be awesome if..."
They define and set apart characters mechanically "My guy can shoot lightning" and they give us cool stuff to be excited about.
Those are all good things.
A lot of new games talk about player empowerment, about being able to influence the story directly, sharing the narrative. They often do this by mechanics that let you change details, take over the storytelling or at its simplest form, succeed at a certain dice roll automatically.
Often these things become rewards for actions taken, or even used as a sort of gamble or metagame mechanic.
The reason that these games ultimately don't have the deep internal logic that Runequest does to me is that they were built around these steps. Often every single piece of the game is built around the ideas of character powers and player empowerment. Look at D&D4 for example. When you strip away the classes, races and monsters, you're left with very little information.
Look at Exalted. Its all set up to specifically support a certain style of game, in a certain setting.
Look at Spirit of the Century. The epitome of a given playstyle and mood.
What Runequest did though, and to an extent still does is build a framework that is separated from all that.
If you strip away the monsters and magic, the Runequest mechanics are still rock solid. Nothing seems weird or unusual. The game resonates with an internal logic that matches how we expect the world to work.
Most games look very very strange once you strip away the flavour and the powers.
Some will still work, though they will feel devoid of what made them special. Others will work because they are designed to promote certain narrative ideas (like FATE).
But they don't inherently "make sense" to me. I ran White Wolf's Trinity for a year, and I still find the dice pool mechanic completely nonsensical. I understand how it works and I understand the effects on the game, but every single time I sit there and count dice, I am reminded I am playing a game.
Games with meta-mechanics like FATE are even more jarring. Rather than increasing the narrative, for me, they create a divide between the narrative and the mechanical play by producing strange dice quirks or effects.
To me, Runequest has always represented the fundamental way things work. Your ability scores affect skills, you improve by using your abilities or taking time to train them, limbs can get hurt or incapacitated, wounds are serious etc.
Once you add in the monsters, magic and people in funny suits, it feels more "realistic".. .maybe plausible is the right term here.
Because the foundation is solidly grounded in what we know and expect, the fantastic feels like it makes sense. There's a sense of scale. I know that an axe can seriously hurt somebody, so something doing 3D6 damage is extremely dangerous. I can equate that to something in my head.
This doesn't mean I haven't enjoyed or played other games in the past. I love WFRP, Rolemaster, Traveller, Reign and a bunch of other games. I thought FATE was neat and Heroquest was genius.
But they'll never be "natural" in the same way.
I've played year long campaigns, as well as one shot games. And everything inbetween.
But one thing never fails. I always return to Runequest.
The specific version may vary.. 2nd edition, 3rd edition, Mongoose. They all have things I enjoy.
But its always what I return to. The baseline if you will.
And I think I've finally put my finger on why:
Modern games (and I use the term modern loosely) have a different focus than many older games. In a way, the best way to sum it up is "style over substance". That sounds terribly derogatory so let me elaborate.
In many newer games, the focus is on the characters and their powers, abilities and ways they can influence things, the story or even the world at large. Crack open a White Wolf book and you'll find countless pages of disciplines, gifts or charms. Check the new D&D or its predecessor D20 and you'll find an ever-increasing number of feats, spells, creature abilities and class powers.
The emphasis is on the character and the powers he posses. The colour if you will.
There's many reasons for this. It obviously appeal to the wish fulfilment we all do, "wouldnt it be awesome if..."
They define and set apart characters mechanically "My guy can shoot lightning" and they give us cool stuff to be excited about.
Those are all good things.
A lot of new games talk about player empowerment, about being able to influence the story directly, sharing the narrative. They often do this by mechanics that let you change details, take over the storytelling or at its simplest form, succeed at a certain dice roll automatically.
Often these things become rewards for actions taken, or even used as a sort of gamble or metagame mechanic.
The reason that these games ultimately don't have the deep internal logic that Runequest does to me is that they were built around these steps. Often every single piece of the game is built around the ideas of character powers and player empowerment. Look at D&D4 for example. When you strip away the classes, races and monsters, you're left with very little information.
Look at Exalted. Its all set up to specifically support a certain style of game, in a certain setting.
Look at Spirit of the Century. The epitome of a given playstyle and mood.
What Runequest did though, and to an extent still does is build a framework that is separated from all that.
If you strip away the monsters and magic, the Runequest mechanics are still rock solid. Nothing seems weird or unusual. The game resonates with an internal logic that matches how we expect the world to work.
Most games look very very strange once you strip away the flavour and the powers.
Some will still work, though they will feel devoid of what made them special. Others will work because they are designed to promote certain narrative ideas (like FATE).
But they don't inherently "make sense" to me. I ran White Wolf's Trinity for a year, and I still find the dice pool mechanic completely nonsensical. I understand how it works and I understand the effects on the game, but every single time I sit there and count dice, I am reminded I am playing a game.
Games with meta-mechanics like FATE are even more jarring. Rather than increasing the narrative, for me, they create a divide between the narrative and the mechanical play by producing strange dice quirks or effects.
To me, Runequest has always represented the fundamental way things work. Your ability scores affect skills, you improve by using your abilities or taking time to train them, limbs can get hurt or incapacitated, wounds are serious etc.
Once you add in the monsters, magic and people in funny suits, it feels more "realistic".. .maybe plausible is the right term here.
Because the foundation is solidly grounded in what we know and expect, the fantastic feels like it makes sense. There's a sense of scale. I know that an axe can seriously hurt somebody, so something doing 3D6 damage is extremely dangerous. I can equate that to something in my head.
This doesn't mean I haven't enjoyed or played other games in the past. I love WFRP, Rolemaster, Traveller, Reign and a bunch of other games. I thought FATE was neat and Heroquest was genius.
But they'll never be "natural" in the same way.
June 6th, 2008
I guess ultimately here's my thing: [engage grognard rant mode]
Its a fact of game design that what you put in the game is what people will focus on.
For example, Pendragon has intricate rules for character personality and passions so that becomes a big focus. Reign gives rules for leading a nation or organization, so that becomes the focus.
At the moment, D&D4 provides lots and lots of cool, unique and special options for combat, and virtually nothing for non-combatants.
Ideally, a game should support that a player comes up with an interesting story, then you build the character to match that.
This is a case where you build the story, to match the rules. Lets say my guy was a blacksmith in a village, then joined the town militia. When his father was murdered he fled and lived in the woods for 5 years, becoming an expert survivalist, before taking up the quest to find the men that murdered his father, and to recover his fathers sword.
Pretty classic "zero to hero" story and propably taken straight from any of a billion fantasy and historical novels.
Looking at my gameshelf, I look at GURPS. Sure, we'll buy up lots of survival type of skills, maybe pick an advantage for an animal empathy thing (for his trusted puma companion).
Then some crafting skills, and advantages to make him very hard to persuade or frighten (his determination). For disadvantages we will give him things that makes it harder for him to interact socially, and of course he has a driving goal and a sworn enemy.
We now have a character that fits the background story, and makes the background story relevant and important
Allright, lets look at Runequest (3rd edition). Runequest isn't big on personality type of traits, but its big on skills.
So we decide our guy is propably about 28 or 30. He became an apprentice at 15, and spent 3 years there, picked up a year of militia experience, before "going native". By picking those professions, we'll get a very specific skill set that reflects that our guy did those things, but he isn't terribly great at them.
Then we add 5 years of experience as a hunter, and watch our guy build up those skills to decent levels.
When he starts play, he'll have a skillset that matches exactly what he did as he grew up, and reflects the sort of experiences he has had. More importantly, as he adventures, his skills will continue to reflect what he is learning at the moment.
Lets move narrative and take Heroquest (by Robin Laws, not the old boardgame, bless its heart).
We pick our profession keyword as "hunter" or something similar, which gives us those basic traits. Then we add traits like "sworn enemy", "callous determination" and "puma companion".
Lo and behold, when our character confronts someone that was involved in his fathers murder, he will fight them better, because he can use those skills to augment his abilities. On the other side, his unflinching focus might work against him, if he has to lay aside his quest for a while.
This gives us a character that is not only reflecting the backstory, but is a concrete extension of it, and drives our characters play.
Lastly, we'll turn our gaze to the game Im running currently, Rolemaster. Sounds like our guy is a rural man, which will give him a basic assortment of skills associated with this sort of upbringing. Our hobby skills will be spent on blacksmithy sort of things, teaching him to craft, evaluate metals, and a bit of spearfighting from the militia drills.
His actual profession and training package will be ranger'y things, and we'll add talents and flaws that further emphasize these skills.
Again, our backstory is supported by the character and mechanics. Our guy has a skill set that reflects his abilities, and he has talents that reflect what we want him to do (be implacable, expert survivor in nature, driven by hatred)
Then we sit down with our brand new D&D4 book and take a crack at it. Standard concept, we're willing to make a few concessions but we have a pretty standard idea that's been used in a quarter billion fantasy novels.
Since nature stuff is the focus, we'll make him a ranger.
Hm. Turns out there's no way to actually know crafting skills. Well there goes our backstory. I guess he just really sucked at it, and learned some acrobatics instead.
Allright, well, lets get on with it. The Hunter Quarry ability is very suitable, but there's no way for us to reflect our characters spear and shield style that the militia taught him.
We can use it of course, but all our abilities are wasted then, and we'll suck compared to a ranger that does use them. So we can't really do the militia thing either.
Looking over the abilities available at level 1, not much more luck either.
There is plain nothing to actually reflect our characters background.
"great" says the DM. You're all done ?"
"Yeah, Im done. I have a background on page 1, and a character sheet on page 2, and nothing connects the two.
"Dont worry" says the DM. "You can actually craft weapons good at level 4, if you find a magic book and learn the ritual"
"but my guy isn't a spell caster ? Well, I guess we can work around that, or make something up. What about how my guy is really driven by his quest, but it sometimes gets so intense that he misses opportunities he'd have had otherwise..that sounds like it'd be really interesting, and its a game about epic stories right?"
"sure" says the DM "but all that background stuff isnt worth anything in game terms. Its just how you roleplay your character. Mechanically, he'll be the exact same as Ranger 2 over there, who's background reads I kill good"
"Give me back my Dorritos, Im going over to those GURPS guys. Their books were cheaper too"
Yeah, I knew ahead of time that this propably wasn't going to be my game, and if its yours, Im glad, and I hope you have lengthy, fantastic campaigns that you'll talk about for a long time. For me though, this is so 80's game design that its painfull.
Its a fact of game design that what you put in the game is what people will focus on.
For example, Pendragon has intricate rules for character personality and passions so that becomes a big focus. Reign gives rules for leading a nation or organization, so that becomes the focus.
At the moment, D&D4 provides lots and lots of cool, unique and special options for combat, and virtually nothing for non-combatants.
Ideally, a game should support that a player comes up with an interesting story, then you build the character to match that.
This is a case where you build the story, to match the rules. Lets say my guy was a blacksmith in a village, then joined the town militia. When his father was murdered he fled and lived in the woods for 5 years, becoming an expert survivalist, before taking up the quest to find the men that murdered his father, and to recover his fathers sword.
Pretty classic "zero to hero" story and propably taken straight from any of a billion fantasy and historical novels.
Looking at my gameshelf, I look at GURPS. Sure, we'll buy up lots of survival type of skills, maybe pick an advantage for an animal empathy thing (for his trusted puma companion).
Then some crafting skills, and advantages to make him very hard to persuade or frighten (his determination). For disadvantages we will give him things that makes it harder for him to interact socially, and of course he has a driving goal and a sworn enemy.
We now have a character that fits the background story, and makes the background story relevant and important
Allright, lets look at Runequest (3rd edition). Runequest isn't big on personality type of traits, but its big on skills.
So we decide our guy is propably about 28 or 30. He became an apprentice at 15, and spent 3 years there, picked up a year of militia experience, before "going native". By picking those professions, we'll get a very specific skill set that reflects that our guy did those things, but he isn't terribly great at them.
Then we add 5 years of experience as a hunter, and watch our guy build up those skills to decent levels.
When he starts play, he'll have a skillset that matches exactly what he did as he grew up, and reflects the sort of experiences he has had. More importantly, as he adventures, his skills will continue to reflect what he is learning at the moment.
Lets move narrative and take Heroquest (by Robin Laws, not the old boardgame, bless its heart).
We pick our profession keyword as "hunter" or something similar, which gives us those basic traits. Then we add traits like "sworn enemy", "callous determination" and "puma companion".
Lo and behold, when our character confronts someone that was involved in his fathers murder, he will fight them better, because he can use those skills to augment his abilities. On the other side, his unflinching focus might work against him, if he has to lay aside his quest for a while.
This gives us a character that is not only reflecting the backstory, but is a concrete extension of it, and drives our characters play.
Lastly, we'll turn our gaze to the game Im running currently, Rolemaster. Sounds like our guy is a rural man, which will give him a basic assortment of skills associated with this sort of upbringing. Our hobby skills will be spent on blacksmithy sort of things, teaching him to craft, evaluate metals, and a bit of spearfighting from the militia drills.
His actual profession and training package will be ranger'y things, and we'll add talents and flaws that further emphasize these skills.
Again, our backstory is supported by the character and mechanics. Our guy has a skill set that reflects his abilities, and he has talents that reflect what we want him to do (be implacable, expert survivor in nature, driven by hatred)
Then we sit down with our brand new D&D4 book and take a crack at it. Standard concept, we're willing to make a few concessions but we have a pretty standard idea that's been used in a quarter billion fantasy novels.
Since nature stuff is the focus, we'll make him a ranger.
Hm. Turns out there's no way to actually know crafting skills. Well there goes our backstory. I guess he just really sucked at it, and learned some acrobatics instead.
Allright, well, lets get on with it. The Hunter Quarry ability is very suitable, but there's no way for us to reflect our characters spear and shield style that the militia taught him.
We can use it of course, but all our abilities are wasted then, and we'll suck compared to a ranger that does use them. So we can't really do the militia thing either.
Looking over the abilities available at level 1, not much more luck either.
There is plain nothing to actually reflect our characters background.
"great" says the DM. You're all done ?"
"Yeah, Im done. I have a background on page 1, and a character sheet on page 2, and nothing connects the two.
"Dont worry" says the DM. "You can actually craft weapons good at level 4, if you find a magic book and learn the ritual"
"but my guy isn't a spell caster ? Well, I guess we can work around that, or make something up. What about how my guy is really driven by his quest, but it sometimes gets so intense that he misses opportunities he'd have had otherwise..that sounds like it'd be really interesting, and its a game about epic stories right?"
"sure" says the DM "but all that background stuff isnt worth anything in game terms. Its just how you roleplay your character. Mechanically, he'll be the exact same as Ranger 2 over there, who's background reads I kill good"
"Give me back my Dorritos, Im going over to those GURPS guys. Their books were cheaper too"
Yeah, I knew ahead of time that this propably wasn't going to be my game, and if its yours, Im glad, and I hope you have lengthy, fantastic campaigns that you'll talk about for a long time. For me though, this is so 80's game design that its painfull.
May 26th, 2008
Only two of the three players, but we had the first tiny session tonight and we had a blast.
They got their mission (rescue farmers taken hostage by a tribe of warlike hillmen.. this is going to be the hook to draw them into something much larger along the way)
The woods are crawling with goblins (there's a war between hte goblins and the hillmen, but the nice, civilized folks dont know this yet) so they encountered a goblin ambush, which they defeated easily.
Second encounter was a hillman scouting party, which ended with the dwarf wounded but the characters victorious (high man paladin and dwarf fighter). They decided to fall back to the town, sell the gear they looted and get some healing before venturing out again, a little more cautiously this time.
Over all, we had an absolute blast with our first session, got to cast a few spells, use a few skills and fight a bit, and even used the book experience system, and it was allright, though it slowed us down a little.
Good times
General rules observations:
Stun removal is very very usefull.
Missile weapons are quite deadly.
Adrenal strength BTB requires a complete success to work. The activity is only 20%, not 40% though.
Adrenal strength expends 1 exhaustion point to activate, and 5 exhaustion points on the turn its used.
Wound penalties are -10 per 25% of your concussion hits you've taken.
Frenzy is damn usefull
General game observations
Gotta make sure to get copies of the charts made.
Spell casters should total up their "standard" modifiers.
The XP system isnt as scary as it looks, as long as you keep track of things.
They got their mission (rescue farmers taken hostage by a tribe of warlike hillmen.. this is going to be the hook to draw them into something much larger along the way)
The woods are crawling with goblins (there's a war between hte goblins and the hillmen, but the nice, civilized folks dont know this yet) so they encountered a goblin ambush, which they defeated easily.
Second encounter was a hillman scouting party, which ended with the dwarf wounded but the characters victorious (high man paladin and dwarf fighter). They decided to fall back to the town, sell the gear they looted and get some healing before venturing out again, a little more cautiously this time.
Over all, we had an absolute blast with our first session, got to cast a few spells, use a few skills and fight a bit, and even used the book experience system, and it was allright, though it slowed us down a little.
Good times
General rules observations:
Stun removal is very very usefull.
Missile weapons are quite deadly.
Adrenal strength BTB requires a complete success to work. The activity is only 20%, not 40% though.
Adrenal strength expends 1 exhaustion point to activate, and 5 exhaustion points on the turn its used.
Wound penalties are -10 per 25% of your concussion hits you've taken.
Frenzy is damn usefull
General game observations
Gotta make sure to get copies of the charts made.
Spell casters should total up their "standard" modifiers.
The XP system isnt as scary as it looks, as long as you keep track of things.
May 13th, 2008
"HARP is the delightful cupcake, to Rolemaster's super triple fudge quadruple layered happy cake in the shape of the kingdom of heaven."
May 8th, 2008
So my wife had her last day at her current job today, and is starting a new job, which will hopefully be less stressfull, as well as paying significantly better.
Strange thing is, we've actually worked at the same company for the past 4 years, so not being able to eat lunch together will be a bit weird. But it'll be a good change in many regards.
Strange thing is, we've actually worked at the same company for the past 4 years, so not being able to eat lunch together will be a bit weird. But it'll be a good change in many regards.
May 6th, 2008
So it looks like the Rolemaster campaign will be about a pair of knights / paladins fighting evil and being smug about it. Epic hero hacking. Good times
Ugh.. so its 4:30 in the morning.. Corum woke up from a coughing fit, so Im sitting with him, rocking him in his chair untill he falls asleep again. Poor little guy. For those that don't know, he's 10 months old. I'll see if I can post some pictures.
Today starts another week at work, which will hopefully be pretty uneventfull. I'll have to contend with the sheer and utter stupidity of one of my employees, who so far have managed to illustrate a complete and utter lack of job skills, despite repeated instruction.
In gaming news, the Runequest game will propably end in 1 or 2 weeks. They have pretty much reached the end of the story line, and after that, the plan is Rolemaster.. setting will be a very traditional fantasy, LOTR'ish thing. Should be a ton of fun, though Id like to find another player.
Lastly since I didnt want to spam your blog Anorexicbrownie (I dont know if its allright to use your real name or not :) ) I'd like to touch upon something else from your last post. You were lambasting atheists for not getting the facts straight when they talk about religion.
So with that in mind, I'd like to review a few things about Nazi Germany.
A: Hitler was a christian. This is abundantly clear from reading Mein Kampf. I dont know what "strong evidence" you have that is better than the mans own words, but I'd like to see it.
B: Germany was a christian nation. Always has been, never changed.
C: Nazi occultism is a load of sensationalist history channel bullshit. A few of the high ranking members of the nazi hierachy experiented with bringing elements of norse myth and whatnot into their rites, but there was no constructed "nazi religion", The Wehrmacht had ordinary priests in its ranks just like any other army.
D: The argument that the nazis didnt build churches is nonsense. Why would they ? I cant think of many countries where churches are built by the government rather than the religious organizations.
So to summarize, yes, Hitler and the Nazis were christians.
And yes, it doesnt have anything to say about christianity, any more than the Imperial Japanese armys conduct says about Buddhism or the Soviet Union says about atheism and/or the orthodox church.
I just hate to see factual errors touted as truth, because at some point, in the minds of the citizen, they become truth
Today starts another week at work, which will hopefully be pretty uneventfull. I'll have to contend with the sheer and utter stupidity of one of my employees, who so far have managed to illustrate a complete and utter lack of job skills, despite repeated instruction.
In gaming news, the Runequest game will propably end in 1 or 2 weeks. They have pretty much reached the end of the story line, and after that, the plan is Rolemaster.. setting will be a very traditional fantasy, LOTR'ish thing. Should be a ton of fun, though Id like to find another player.
Lastly since I didnt want to spam your blog Anorexicbrownie (I dont know if its allright to use your real name or not :) ) I'd like to touch upon something else from your last post. You were lambasting atheists for not getting the facts straight when they talk about religion.
So with that in mind, I'd like to review a few things about Nazi Germany.
A: Hitler was a christian. This is abundantly clear from reading Mein Kampf. I dont know what "strong evidence" you have that is better than the mans own words, but I'd like to see it.
B: Germany was a christian nation. Always has been, never changed.
C: Nazi occultism is a load of sensationalist history channel bullshit. A few of the high ranking members of the nazi hierachy experiented with bringing elements of norse myth and whatnot into their rites, but there was no constructed "nazi religion", The Wehrmacht had ordinary priests in its ranks just like any other army.
D: The argument that the nazis didnt build churches is nonsense. Why would they ? I cant think of many countries where churches are built by the government rather than the religious organizations.
So to summarize, yes, Hitler and the Nazis were christians.
And yes, it doesnt have anything to say about christianity, any more than the Imperial Japanese armys conduct says about Buddhism or the Soviet Union says about atheism and/or the orthodox church.
I just hate to see factual errors touted as truth, because at some point, in the minds of the citizen, they become truth
May 5th, 2008
I have been following the creationism / evolution discussions for a long time now. Im hesitant to use the term "debate" because that would give it the illusion of scientific discouse, which cannot exist without a scientific foundation.
What I am wondering is... why did they pick evolution ? Why not pick something else, like the big bang ?
Yeah, for the biblical literalists, we're supposed to be made of dirt and ribs (for the ladies) but hopefully the people taking things that literal mostly died from small pox in the 1300s.
It seems perfectly reasonable to integrate a world view that there is a god, with evolution. If god created life, why would he not imbue it with the ability to adapt, diversify and prosper ?
The big bang on the other hand presents an excellent place where you can insert your deity of choice. Its the beginning of the universe after all.
Secondly, evidence. Even with the best hypotheses, its hard to formulate a solid theory of the creation of the universe, and while we have pretty good ideas, ultimately we're ging to end up with some level of assumption.
By comparison evolution is there for us to see.. its formed the foundation of our modern understanding of genetics, and has been observed in laboratories as well as nature. Its indisputable.
So why do they pick the fight where its far harder to win, if you dont have any scientific merit to present ?
I think a significant part of it comes down to understanding of the term evolution.
I recently watched a few interviews with Ben Stein, the smug, self-congratulatory cretin that directed the movie Expelled. Among his other moments of brilliance, he declared that evolution couldn't be considered a valid scientific theory because it didn't account for the creation of the universe, the creation of life on earth or gravity.
Ill let that sink in for a moment.
This man, who spent millions of dollars making a movie to attempt to discredit evolution does not understand the theory he is trying to disprove
Evolution is the mechanics by which species adapt, diversify and change in response to the conditions around them.
It has nothing to do with how life was created (I believe the proper term there is abiogenesis), it has nothing to do with how the universe was created (scientists tend to hold to the big bang here) and it has absolutely nothing to do with gravity (which has been understood for hundreds of years)
Stating that evolution is not scientifically sound, because it does not account for these factors is akin to stating that the law making the rape of women illegal should be repealed, because it does not account for speeding tickets and tax fraud.
Another question of interest is.. what happens if they win ? For example, one of the scientifically false arguments often raised is that radiometric dating of rocks and fossils is not entirely accurate. This mostly revolves around ignorance of the process and blindly repeated soundbites, but lets say we decide that having a, lets say, 95% accurate method of dating is inaccurate and we declare that we cannot tell how old the earth is.
Is this a victory for creationism since the earth can no longer be stated with certainty to be 6 billion years old ? Not really. All it would mean is that the age is different. Could be 10 (yeah, I know.. not possible), could be 4 billion. It still doesnt lend any credibility to the idea that its 6000 years old. We still have no evidence of this either.
Pointing to a book written in the bronze age, that can be proven to contain historical inaccuracies, and which has been translated countless times through the ages is hardly scientific proof.
The creationists assume that they just need to find that missing piece of information that will cause science to collapse (assuming of course that any prevailing theory has not already been subjected to ruthless peer review and testing) and then they can sweep in and put God in place instead.
Why is that a guarantee though ? The absence of humanity evolving from a common ancestor we share with great apes does not guarantee that we were created from dirt by an invisible man.
Lastly I'd like to address the nonsense often sprouted that science is somehow evil. Statements like "the last time scientists told anyone to do something, they were getting gassed" fill me with dread. Both for the sheer anti-intellectualism this represents, as well as the sheer, willfull ignorance of the world around us.
Lets set up an experiment: We'll take modern science as we understand it. If my college knowledge isnt too destroyed from beer and American television, the scientific method dates back some 200 years. Even if thats not completely accurate, Im very comfortable picking 1800 as the entry point into the modern age.
We'll give religion since the foundation of Christianity, some 2000 years (give and take).
In those time spans, what sort of advances have we made ?
Once upon a time, children would be permanently crippled and disfigured by things like small pox and polio.
150 years of science fixed what prayer couldnt fix in 2000 years.
Not too long ago, information could be controlled, restricted and parcelled out. Governments could control what their citizens would read.
Science destroyed that boundary.
Throughout much of history the average life expectancy was 30-40 years average. Now we're nearing 80-90 in western, industrialized nations.
Science has ensured that we can watch our children grow up, and enjoy life longer with the people we love.
What accomplishments can we find in scripture ? What diseases have it cured ? What tangible proof can we find that faith has helped us ?
Oh, but its about morality and culture you say.
Allright, lets look at that:
The interesting thing is.. the idea of what is common morality..common good, is fairly similar across cultures. If we take an ancient scandinavian, a native american, a christian, a muslim and an aboriginal, they will have roughly similar ideas about what is right: Honesty, Loyalty, Life, Devotion.
They might disagree on the specifics and they will have things they each consider abhorrent in each other, but largely they will come to common terms.
The same qualities can be observed if we, for example, ask children that has never been raised in a specific religion, or if we asked the peasant workers in soviet Russia.
So there are certain values that are universal. This is the basis for much political philosophy (socialism, liberalism, libertarianism, anarchy etc) and has rather sound biological rationales. If we act in a fairly reasonable manner, we're more likely to survive as a group.
So these values cannot be religious in nature. We can observe them in people that have never been exposed to religion, as well as in people of completely different faiths.
But if we want to avoid idle speculation, and instead look at hard facts, theres plenty of statistics out there. Look up religious distributions in the US prison population, or divorce rates. The ratio of christians in prison is larger than the ratio in the population outside of prison proportionally.
Likewise, born again christians actually have higher rates of divorce than other faiths. Agnostics and atheists have the lowest frequencies.
Interesting.
So it seems the cultural contribution isnt nescesarily a positive. Could we be safer without religion ?
Hm
What I am wondering is... why did they pick evolution ? Why not pick something else, like the big bang ?
Yeah, for the biblical literalists, we're supposed to be made of dirt and ribs (for the ladies) but hopefully the people taking things that literal mostly died from small pox in the 1300s.
It seems perfectly reasonable to integrate a world view that there is a god, with evolution. If god created life, why would he not imbue it with the ability to adapt, diversify and prosper ?
The big bang on the other hand presents an excellent place where you can insert your deity of choice. Its the beginning of the universe after all.
Secondly, evidence. Even with the best hypotheses, its hard to formulate a solid theory of the creation of the universe, and while we have pretty good ideas, ultimately we're ging to end up with some level of assumption.
By comparison evolution is there for us to see.. its formed the foundation of our modern understanding of genetics, and has been observed in laboratories as well as nature. Its indisputable.
So why do they pick the fight where its far harder to win, if you dont have any scientific merit to present ?
I think a significant part of it comes down to understanding of the term evolution.
I recently watched a few interviews with Ben Stein, the smug, self-congratulatory cretin that directed the movie Expelled. Among his other moments of brilliance, he declared that evolution couldn't be considered a valid scientific theory because it didn't account for the creation of the universe, the creation of life on earth or gravity.
Ill let that sink in for a moment.
This man, who spent millions of dollars making a movie to attempt to discredit evolution does not understand the theory he is trying to disprove
Evolution is the mechanics by which species adapt, diversify and change in response to the conditions around them.
It has nothing to do with how life was created (I believe the proper term there is abiogenesis), it has nothing to do with how the universe was created (scientists tend to hold to the big bang here) and it has absolutely nothing to do with gravity (which has been understood for hundreds of years)
Stating that evolution is not scientifically sound, because it does not account for these factors is akin to stating that the law making the rape of women illegal should be repealed, because it does not account for speeding tickets and tax fraud.
Another question of interest is.. what happens if they win ? For example, one of the scientifically false arguments often raised is that radiometric dating of rocks and fossils is not entirely accurate. This mostly revolves around ignorance of the process and blindly repeated soundbites, but lets say we decide that having a, lets say, 95% accurate method of dating is inaccurate and we declare that we cannot tell how old the earth is.
Is this a victory for creationism since the earth can no longer be stated with certainty to be 6 billion years old ? Not really. All it would mean is that the age is different. Could be 10 (yeah, I know.. not possible), could be 4 billion. It still doesnt lend any credibility to the idea that its 6000 years old. We still have no evidence of this either.
Pointing to a book written in the bronze age, that can be proven to contain historical inaccuracies, and which has been translated countless times through the ages is hardly scientific proof.
The creationists assume that they just need to find that missing piece of information that will cause science to collapse (assuming of course that any prevailing theory has not already been subjected to ruthless peer review and testing) and then they can sweep in and put God in place instead.
Why is that a guarantee though ? The absence of humanity evolving from a common ancestor we share with great apes does not guarantee that we were created from dirt by an invisible man.
Lastly I'd like to address the nonsense often sprouted that science is somehow evil. Statements like "the last time scientists told anyone to do something, they were getting gassed" fill me with dread. Both for the sheer anti-intellectualism this represents, as well as the sheer, willfull ignorance of the world around us.
Lets set up an experiment: We'll take modern science as we understand it. If my college knowledge isnt too destroyed from beer and American television, the scientific method dates back some 200 years. Even if thats not completely accurate, Im very comfortable picking 1800 as the entry point into the modern age.
We'll give religion since the foundation of Christianity, some 2000 years (give and take).
In those time spans, what sort of advances have we made ?
Once upon a time, children would be permanently crippled and disfigured by things like small pox and polio.
150 years of science fixed what prayer couldnt fix in 2000 years.
Not too long ago, information could be controlled, restricted and parcelled out. Governments could control what their citizens would read.
Science destroyed that boundary.
Throughout much of history the average life expectancy was 30-40 years average. Now we're nearing 80-90 in western, industrialized nations.
Science has ensured that we can watch our children grow up, and enjoy life longer with the people we love.
What accomplishments can we find in scripture ? What diseases have it cured ? What tangible proof can we find that faith has helped us ?
Oh, but its about morality and culture you say.
Allright, lets look at that:
The interesting thing is.. the idea of what is common morality..common good, is fairly similar across cultures. If we take an ancient scandinavian, a native american, a christian, a muslim and an aboriginal, they will have roughly similar ideas about what is right: Honesty, Loyalty, Life, Devotion.
They might disagree on the specifics and they will have things they each consider abhorrent in each other, but largely they will come to common terms.
The same qualities can be observed if we, for example, ask children that has never been raised in a specific religion, or if we asked the peasant workers in soviet Russia.
So there are certain values that are universal. This is the basis for much political philosophy (socialism, liberalism, libertarianism, anarchy etc) and has rather sound biological rationales. If we act in a fairly reasonable manner, we're more likely to survive as a group.
So these values cannot be religious in nature. We can observe them in people that have never been exposed to religion, as well as in people of completely different faiths.
But if we want to avoid idle speculation, and instead look at hard facts, theres plenty of statistics out there. Look up religious distributions in the US prison population, or divorce rates. The ratio of christians in prison is larger than the ratio in the population outside of prison proportionally.
Likewise, born again christians actually have higher rates of divorce than other faiths. Agnostics and atheists have the lowest frequencies.
Interesting.
So it seems the cultural contribution isnt nescesarily a positive. Could we be safer without religion ?
Hm
so I decided to get into this whole blogging thing again, after a long hiatus.
I guess this will mostly be a place for me to rant and rave about things I rant and rave about..gaming, religion, politics and other things.
I guess this will mostly be a place for me to rant and rave about things I rant and rave about..gaming, religion, politics and other things.