@westy I see where you're coming from, but WoW is genuinely a great game. It does what it does great - it hooks you, and it is FUN. The whole point of wow is to be FUN on a logarithmic scale, first a lot, then less, then less and less. It trains you to work to get the rewards with longer and longer grinds. Everything else is filler. Every little game mechanic is geared towards being yet another hook in the player and it's all predicated on the simple idea of "well, I've gone this far, I can't stop now!" All the little things under the hood, attack tables, stat conversions and yadda yadda are just tools towards the gear grind. PVP combat is also yet another way to get players to grind more gear and also a hook in itself - competition draws out the crowds.

A lot of it depends on what kind of player you are, and the interesting thing is that WoW offers something for just about every type. The only players that are not attracted to the game are the people with a negative attitude before they try it (like I had back in the day) or people who don't like the art direction - they miss the immediate hooks and are usually lost for the game, unless there's social pressure to join with your friends.

Hehe, imagine if L. Ron Hubbard had been a game designer? What a dreadful religion he'd make then.... Zynga, I'm looking at you..

Glenn Beck is even nuttier than L. Ron Hubbard.

Photographs of the original manuscript in L Ron Hubbard's handwriting are easy enough to find on the internet. Lots of former Scientologists have confirmed it. But a lot of those still inside Scientology don't rank highly enough to have seen any of that stuff and might think it's a hoax. OTIII is probably less than the top 10% of them.

It's interesting to see the reaction of Scientologists when they're asked about this. They almost all deny it publicly. Journalists really shouldn't let them get away with it. It's universally reported to exist by ex-scientologists who have reached the training level, it's come up in public court documents, and it's seen in copies of L Ron Hubbard's notes.

In the past, the Scientology celebrity center had a nice african women as a public spokesperson. She would deny all the claims about Xenu whenever she was asked about it. But someone eventually figured out that she was not even at the training level of operating thetan. You only learn about Xenu at operating thetan level 3. So sometimes even their public speakers don't really know anything about the church.

In Tommy Davis's case, I'm pretty sure he knows about Xenu. According to wikipedia, he's both denied it in the past, and also referenced Xenu's existence.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_W._Davis

I found the video I was talking about here.

It is possibly the most disturbing video on the cult I've seen. It follows an anti-religious comedian who approaches the church about documenting the process someone like him would follow on joining. The church refuses to accept him, but he finds a break-away group practicing Scientology called the "Free-Zoners". The fellow doing the documentary frequently worries about going through with it for fear he will end up being brainwashed by the end. By the end of the video he seriously considers continuing in the group, and openly ponders if it's because he's been brainwashed or if he really got something of benefit from his time there. It's upsetting in the extreme to see the near systematic mental breakdown exercises they go through. It's just like a how to of messing with people heads and training them to mess with others heads in the same way.

>> ^chilaxe:
This just in: mediocre guy makes stuff up in a book, becomes rich, and gets called "brave!"


Hey it worked for Mohammed, Joseph Smith, L. Ron Hubbard, and many more.

Some say the end is near.
Some say we'll see armageddon soon.
I certainly hope we will.
I sure could use a vacation from this

Bullshit three ring circus sideshow of
Freaks

Here in this hopeless fucking hole we call LA
The only way to fix it is to flush it all away.
Any fucking time. Any fucking day.
Learn to swim, I'll see you down in Arizona bay.

Fret for your figure and
Fret for your latte and
Fret for your hairpiece and
Fret for your lawsuit and
Fret for your prozac and
Fret for your pilot and
Fret for your contract and
Fret for your car.

It's a
Bullshit three ring circus sideshow of
Freaks

Here in this hopeless fucking hole we call LA
The only way to fix it is to flush it all away.
Any fucking time. Any fucking day.
Learn to swim, I'll see you down in Arizona bay.

Some say a comet will fall from the sky.
Followed by meteor showers and tidal waves.
Followed by faultlines that cannot sit still.
Followed by millions of dumbfounded dipshits.

Some say the end is near.
Some say we'll see armageddon soon.
I certainly hope we will cuz
I sure could use a vacation from this

Silly shit, stupid shit...

One great big festering neon distraction,
I've a suggestion to keep you all occupied.

Learn to swim.

Mom's gonna fix it all soon.
Mom's comin' round to put it back the way it ought to be.

Learn to swim.

Fuck L Ron Hubbard and
Fuck all his clones.
Fuck all those gun-toting
Hip gangster wannabes.

Learn to swim.

Fuck retro anything.
Fuck your tattoos.
Fuck all you junkies and
Fuck your short memory.

Learn to swim.

Fuck smiley glad-hands
With hidden agendas.
Fuck these dysfunctional,
Insecure actresses.

Learn to swim.

Cuz I'm praying for rain
And I'm praying for tidal waves
I wanna see the ground give way.
I wanna watch it all go down.
Mom please flush it all away.
I wanna watch it go right in and down.
I wanna watch it go right in.
Watch you flush it all away.

Time to bring it down again.
Don't just call me pessimist.
Try and read between the lines.

I can't imagine why you wouldn't
Welcome any change, my friend.

I wanna see it all come down.
suck it down.
flush it down.

No need to apologize for great posts! The Sift is all about exchanging ideas and learning about new stuff! Oh, and bacon and getting drunk on a Monday.

Cheers!

In reply to this comment by enoch:
In reply to this comment by ponceleon:
^


well,
there is a bit more to it than that.
"wicca" is an amalgamation of celtic,galic and druidic practices which were considered "pagan" which means (of the village),they were fairly small groups of villagers in northern europe who had to become very secretive with the advent of the papacy and the holy seat,which wielded immense influence and power before the reformation.remember the inquisition went on for centuries,and many pagans were killed for their beliefs and practices.
however it should be interesting to note how much of pagan rituals and practices made it into the christian theosophy:
christmas,easter,st patricks day..there are numerous examples,and all are derived from pagan,even the sacred geomancy you find in churches come from pagan symbols.
now "wicca" on the other hand was revealed by gardenier in 1951 and made its way into the americas via england,and draws almost all of its knowledge and practices from a myriad of celtic,galic and druidic texts and rituals,beliefs.
gardenier was ex-communicated for his revealing of so-called "secrets".
but "wicca" does have a fairly loose set of practices compared to old-world traditional paganism.
now..your definition is more in line with the semetic triad,and how the canonize "holy" text.there is more than one author,but it was by council,325 a.d nicea,and then in 1605 a.d concerning the bible,and its "holy" text.
which to me is a far better attempt than say joeseph smith and his magic hat,or L ron hubbard and his dianetics.
religions,all 4500 of them,range from the sublime,surreal to the absurd.
i..myself..enjoy poking fun sometimes at that absurdity.

just realized you were making a statement,and not asking a question per se'.
my bad..shame to delete this answer tho..
so im not gonna =P
till next time bud.
namaste

In reply to this comment by ponceleon:
^

To me I'm not sure there is any "real" wiccan, like so-called druids, it is composed mostly of hippies wanting to rebel against "established" religions. Their "texts" are just written by self-styled religious "leaders" who basically pick and choose from whatever sounds cool to them.

Then again, isn't all religion like this? When you think about it, some guy (and in rare cases girl) just decides God wants it a certain way, writes a "holy" text and viola! New religion is born.


well,
there is a bit more to it than that.
"wicca" is an amalgamation of celtic,galic and druidic practices which were considered "pagan" which means (of the village),they were fairly small groups of villagers in northern europe who had to become very secretive with the advent of the papacy and the holy seat,which wielded immense influence and power before the reformation.remember the inquisition went on for centuries,and many pagans were killed for their beliefs and practices.
however it should be interesting to note how much of pagan rituals and practices made it into the christian theosophy:
christmas,easter,st patricks day..there are numerous examples,and all are derived from pagan,even the sacred geomancy you find in churches come from pagan symbols.
now "wicca" on the other hand was revealed by gardenier in 1951 and made its way into the americas via england,and draws almost all of its knowledge and practices from a myriad of celtic,galic and druidic texts and rituals,beliefs.
gardenier was ex-communicated for his revealing of so-called "secrets".
but "wicca" does have a fairly loose set of practices compared to old-world traditional paganism.
now..your definition is more in line with the semetic triad,and how the canonize "holy" text.there is more than one author,but it was by council,325 a.d nicea,and then in 1605 a.d concerning the bible,and its "holy" text.
which to me is a far better attempt than say joeseph smith and his magic hat,or L ron hubbard and his dianetics.
religions,all 4500 of them,range from the sublime,surreal to the absurd.
i..myself..enjoy poking fun sometimes at that absurdity.

just realized you were making a statement,and not asking a question per se'.
my bad..shame to delete this answer tho..
so im not gonna =P
till next time bud.
namaste

Very good point Kagenin,

However the problem is that there is a difference between a philosophy and a religion.

If Jesus or Buddah had just written a book telling people to chill out and be nice to each other, that would have been great. The problem lies in that they (or the people who wrote their specific "holy text") took it a step further and said, this is MAGIC! Then, over the centuries that came after, people who had NOTHING to do with Jesus or Buddha came up with an endless chaotic list of random shit that had nothing to do with the original philosophy in order to solidify their own power and greed: gays are evil, priests can't get married, kill the infidels, kung fu is awesome.

The problem is that the so-called "legitimate" religions are just as tainted by imperfect humans who came up with their own bullshit in order to control people, gain wealth, and solidify power. To say that the American Evangelical Right, with all its hate-mongering, torture supporting, assassination endorsing has anything to do with Jesus is ludicrous.

Yes, Jesus, Buddha, Marcus Aurelius, Plato, Aristotle, Siddhartha, etc. all had excellent ideas, not all of them ended up being religions.

I'm not saying that Scientology is somehow legitimate, I'm just saying that the Boston Catholic priests were just as much pederasts as L. Ron Hubbard and their white-bearded god seems fine with an endless cavalcade of sex-abuse victims whose lives have been forever ruined by those who were supposedly "chosen by god" to serve in "his" name...

man, I love my sarcastic quotes and ellipsis!

I'd still say that Scientology is just plain wackier than nearly every other religion.

Jesus had some good stuff to teach, Buddha had some good stuff to teach, so did Confucious, Lao Tze, Muhammad, etc... As an atheist, I can acknowledge that history has a multitude of wise and enlightened people to draw upon for guidance.

L. Ron Hubbard was a failed Sci-Fi writer, and noted pederast. Scientology is bunk. If there's anything redeeming about it, I have yet to see proof.

>> ^Psychologic:
>> ^mauz15:
Please correct me if I am wrong, Scientology is a pseudoscience/religion. Neither of those two is philosophy. There is philosophy OF religion, but it does not follow that religion = a philosophy.
Therefore I am removing this from the philosophy channel.


It depends on which definition you choose to use, but Scientology refers to itself as a "religious philosophy". I think it fits most definitions.

"An applied religious philosophy, Scientology is contained in more than 40 books and over 2,500 tape-recorded lectures... "
http://www.scientology.org/l-ron-hubbard/meet/pg001.html


I'm using the definition that comes from the word itself: Love of wisdom. To pursue the truth for the sake of wisdom. How? through a constant examination of life and reality by the use of rational inquiry. To do this one must use sound arguments and educated debate, instead of reaching a conclusion based on opinions, beliefs, dogmas, feelings, or self labeling ("we are a religious philosophy")

Philosophy as a discipline, not as a 'way of life'. Some people go 'well my sports philosophy is to give always 110%" yeah...that's not philosophy, just a worldview. A worldview that you can rightly philosophize about, but that does not mean it is part of philosophy.

>> ^mauz15:
Please correct me if I am wrong, Scientology is a pseudoscience/religion. Neither of those two is philosophy. There is philosophy OF religion, but it does not follow that religion = a philosophy.
Therefore I am removing this from the philosophy channel.



It depends on which definition you choose to use, but Scientology refers to itself as a "religious philosophy". I think it fits most definitions.


"An applied religious philosophy, Scientology is contained in more than 40 books and over 2,500 tape-recorded lectures... "

http://www.scientology.org/l-ron-hubbard/meet/pg001.html

Maybe the spelling in the video's description was supposed to be a joke, but the founder of Scientology was L. Ron Hubbard, not Elron. If it was a joke, ignore this post, hehe.

I'd like to see Mormon Jesus, Joe Smith, El-o-heem, Xenu, L. Ron Hubbard and Tom Cruise duke it out in the Thunderdome. Two zany religions enter, one human super god being leaves!