Peronix

Most people who call themselves atheists hold the position that there is insufficient evidence for god, and although there may be a god, the lack of evidence means there is no reason to believe there is. Agnostics usually hold the same position, the only difference being that they tend to be generally apathetic about religion, and see no point in debating it. They may have a point... But then I do love a good argument. :)

I'm surprised they didn't do this earlier. Think of how many bugs could have been prevented by player testing. More importantly, think of how many bugs that made it live wouldn't have been blamed on Jagex QA.

Of course there's no pressure to go to church if you're already a theist. But if you're in a social circle of mostly theists and you come out as an atheist, you better believe there is pressure to conform. I have personal experience with that... I won't get into too much detail here.

I said scrutiny, not enforcement. You're allowed to ignore any and all evidence and arguments presented by the opposition and hold fast to your personal beliefs. That is your choice.

You are perfectly welcome to hold your own beliefs, and I would fight for your right to do so. However... if you want to take your beliefs beyond the personal and into the public forum, be prepared to have your beliefs eviscerated and scrutinized from every possible angle. In other words, subjected to the same level of scrutiny as any hypothesis. If you lack the maturity to remain composed under the fire of peer review, it is not the fault of the atheist.

In other words, your experience and beliefs are more important to you than truth. I find it ironic that theists often accuse atheists of arrogantly relying purely on their own understanding while they base their own worldviews firmly on their own narrow perspectives. I recognize that my experience and beleifs often do not reflect reality, which is why I instead place my trust in the collective body of knowledge amassed by scientists over the centuries.

One should not engage in such a debate if they are not willing to have their belief structure subjected to scrutiny. I will try to avoid personal attacks, but I will not tiptoe respectfully around the issues.

So you believe in hell, and you smile at the prospect of unbelievers burning there. Your god is a moral monster and so are you. If there is a hell, I'd rather go there than be in the presence of such monsters. Suck on that, Pascal.

Ah, the old irreducible complexity argument. It states that complex things require an intelligent designer. The problem is that designers are inherently complex. Thus that argument leads to infinite regression. Who created god? Who created the creator of god? Etc. As for chance, vastly improbable things happen every day. What are the chances that a particular leaf will fall in a particular spot? One in a billion? Does that mean that every leaf is guided to rest by some invisible hand? No, it just happened that way. What are the chances I would be alive today? Assuming very conservatively 1 in a million for my parents to conceive me, then the same for my parents to be conceived back 50 generations is, again very conservatively, 1.0 x 10^300. That's a google cubed. Am I some kind of incredible miracle baby? Of course not. But I am very grateful to be alive.

I say there is no god, just as I can say that there is no bigfoot. It's a statement of confidence, not an assertion that either must be true - but if there is no evidence for it, there is no reason to believe it, period. If god answered prayers, there should be statistical evidence that at least one religious group has an advantage purely on the basis of prayer, but studies have shown no such advantage. If god were protecting his chosen people, at least one religious group should be spared in natural disasters, on average, more than others. Studies have shown that death tolls by religion typically match the religious demographic for affected areas. And if such tests retroactively nullify divine protection, then I say god has gone out of his way to make me an atheist.

Yep I just did a bit of reading on the subject and it's even more trivial than I imagined. Along with using another domain name you can just use a different DNS, like google's. I don't get it. Who do they think they're stopping? Is this some kind of scare tactic or do they really not know how this shit works?

Lol. TPB will just provide a workaround for UK users. It's not hard...

This movie is the pure distilled essence of what a comic book movie is and should be. Things like the dark knight are entertaining in their own way, but this movie is just pure tongue in cheek fun. And let's be honest, it wouldn't have worked any other way. If you're a comic book fan, go see it, you'll nerdgasm, guaranteed. If you don't like comic books, well go see it anyway, it's fun enough for anyone to appreciate.

Counting runes? That sounds an awful lot like work. They respawn literally 3 seconds after they go down anyway.

Oh thanks goodness.

I don't know if I want to spend the time to get rank 1 esteem or not... by the time I'm done I'll have 20+ million RC exp. Seems like a huge waste of time. But apparently you have to do it if you want the completionist cape.

The less SoF I have to endure the better. It's a daily reminder of shit I don't have. Oh, you want that divine? OMG it's going to land on it! It's going to land on it! Nope, last instant it switches to 50 GP. Just to [bleep] with you.

"Tell so and so hi for me. So and so says hi." Every time someone tells me the former, I say ok, and then forget about it. Every time someone says the latter, I say meh, whatever. It's annoying to me because it's a laughably weak attempt to make it seem like you care when you probably don't. If you really do want to reach out to someone, make the effort yourself. It's not very meaningful when you lazily dump the responsibility on someone else and take credit. You don't even have to call. You can text, email, or hell, even write.

Good, the more idiot proof DG is, the better. I might be persuaded to actually train the skill. I'd rather it be soloable at a halfway decent xp per hour like all other skills in the game, but at least some of the frustration will be alleviated.

Only one problem with that idea... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtR2m20C2YM

That's why I just press the button and close my eyes. I don't want to experience the probably fallacious yet natural feeling that I just missed something epic by a small margin.

Not particularly, but I don't think that's a reason to downrate the game. The rest of it was visually stunning, challenging, and entertaining on so many levels: epicness, badassery, unmitigated horror, and even some humor. I actually had to back off on hardcore mode partway through. It gets pretty intense, especially during the final mission. I look forward to being thoroughly trounced on insanity.

Good thing I got 99 summoning on the first weekend. I didn't really plan anything this time around so I got 2 woodcutting levels. Next time if I'm paying attention I should have some magic trees and 2 spirit trees lined up. A few hundred k farming xp would be nice.

Ok, so I just finished Mass Effect 3.