Yeah, all those high and mighty a-holes who call me out for saying fuck the police on the Sift, none of your BS propaganda about America the fuck-tiful can answer for the constant abuse and violation of our rights as humans. Not that I'm happy an elderly man had bones in his neck broken, but fuck America's sense of justice. It's pathetic.

And we somehow see ourselves as a moral, Christian nation? I highly doubt any vocal Christians today even understand the true nature of the message of Christ. No, you know what, I can't say fuck the police anymore -- fuck EVERY one of you xenophobic, fear driven assholes that calls the corrupt police when they see a man walking down the street.

Walking. Hello? Walking isn't a crime...

Now is about the time where I relate a recent police violation I experienced in the past 3 months, but who gives a shit, I'm white and rarely in trouble. I only get in trouble because I'm a night owl that walks around at 3 in the morning, occasionally being subjected to an unlawful search.

Police training needs an overhaul and they need to have their authority stripped. They should answer directly to a higher authority, because police are made up on common citizens that I DO NOT TRUST.

I would test it, if I could. By “God”, I’m assuming you’re still talking about Yahweh specifically, and not just any random god-type entity. If that’s the case, then I’ve already falsified the claim that the Bible is perfect, so that argument is gone.

You haven't falsified it. If you have, show me where. If you're referring to Matthews lineage using Chiastic structure, that isn't an imperfection. Chaistic structure is a literary device, so Matthews genealogy is not giving us the entire line, but rather like an artistic summation of it. To say it is wrong would be like telling a painter his painting is wrong.

If you’re merely making a deist claim, then I can’t argue with you. I take no position on deism other than if some deity created the universe and set it in motion, I have no reason to believe it cares about humans, and it certainly has made no edicts that I perceive as to how I should live my life.

Since you have no argument against a potential God, and couldn't tell whether you were living in His Universe or not, then how would you know if this God cares about humans or if it has laid down any edicts about how you should live your life?

You’re not listening to me. Seriously. I do have ways of determining which story is more likely. Occam’s razor is the best for this problem. The complexities introduced by faith in Yahweh and the Bible are necessarily more complex than the problems they solve. They are also blind faith (I'm talking about the vast majority of the faithful, and about what you're recommending I do), which is willful self-delusion. The theories that physicists and biologists have come up with are quite convincing, especially if you understand how science works.

I have been listening to you and what I have found is that if you can find some kind of excuse to dismiss something that seems even potentially legitimate, then you run with it. You only seem interested in trying to falsify the question, because you apparently have already decided it isn't true. You don't have any real evidence to prove it, but in previous conversations you have said you see no reason to bother thinking about it. In short, you don't care.

You say I'm talking about blind faith, and I'm not. I believe what I believe because God convinced me of its truth. I had no reason to believe it otherwise, and I wouldn't. I am telling you that if you draw near to God, He will draw near to you. He loves you and wants you to know Him. You just don't want to know Him and that is the problem.

Neither do you understand the law of parsimony. The law states that in explaining a given phenomenon, we should make as few assumptions as possible. Therefore, if we have two theories which are equal in explanatory power, but one has fewer assumptions, we should choose the one with fewer assumptions. However, a more complex theory with better explanatory power should be chosen over a more simplistic theory with weaker explanatory power. I think John Lennox kind of sums this all up at 3:00



Agreed. I find myself in an environment in which my species was capable of evolving. It says nothing of how statistically improbable it is.

You were created in your parents womb; this says nothing about evolution. It only says that you have some way to come into existence, personally. It says nothing about the particulars of how that came to be.

Disagree. I’m lucky that of all the possible combinations of molecules that could have come together to create our terrestrial environment, the right ones came together to create life, then the right DNA strands combined to eventually create me. I’m lucky, sure, but given the length of time we’ve had, there’s no reason I should be surprised, especially when there's no reason to assert that this is the only universe.

There is no reason to assert it isn't, either. In a finely tuned Universe, it is more plausible to believe it was designed rather than it just happened to be one Universe out of trillions that implausibly just looks like it was designed because if you have enough Universes eventually one will form that appears that way. Remember Occams Razor?

You ask why multiple universes are more likely than a deity? Because you and I both know for sure there is at least one universe, so positing some more of them is less of a stretch than asserting a self-contradictory entity, alien to our objective experience, defying any consistent and meaningful description, so vastly complex that it cannot be properly understood, and so full of human failings that it looks man-made.

That would be true if God were any of those things. I can agree with you though that your understanding of God is self-contradictory, alien to your experience, etc. You believe you have God figured out, when you don't know Him at all. You would actually do anything to know God, but you are rejecting Him out of ignorance.

In the scenario between multiple universes or God as a theory to describe a finely tuned Universe, God wins every time. It doesn't matter how complex God might be; the explanatory power afforded by the theory is by far superior.

I’m sceptical of all your claims because that’s how I roll. I’m sceptical of everything, especially big claims. It’s the smartest way to avoid being duped.

You're skeptical of everything that doesn't agree with your presuppositions about reality. Those I have rarely if ever seen you seriously question in all the time I have spoken to you. Regarding knowledge that agrees with those presuppositions, you feel free to speculate about that all day long and will say that virtually any of it is more plausible with no evidence. The thing is, I used to be on your side of the fence, and I know what a search for the truth looks like. This isn't it.

The smartest way to avoid being duped is to understand that you might be duped at this moment and not realize it. That's the trouble with being deceived; you think you're right when you are really wrong.

You have been telling me that I must believe in the one true thing that is true that is Yahweh and the Bible and creation because it’s true because it’s true because it’s true because it’s the only possibility.

What I've been telling you is that God is not hiding from you. You are hiding from Him. It's not that you don't know there is a God so much as you don't want to know that there is. You simply want to do whatever you think is right and you automatically reject any possibility that says this is wrong and you are in fact accountable to a higher authority. In short, your attitude towards God is not skeptical but rebellious.

Now, I conceive of another possibility: my 10^trillion universes. You agree it’s possible, so there’s no reason for me to believe yours is necessarily true. If I have to choose between them, the one that doesn’t require the further explanation of a sentient deity more complex than 10^trillion universes is simpler. And even then, I DON’T HAVE TO CHOOSE one or the other. I can remain sceptical. To me, it’s foolish not to.

I concede its possible that God could have created other Universes, but I don't concede the idea that Universes just happen by themselves. This is really a very foolish idea. It's like coming across a coke can and believing wind and erosion created it. It only seems plausible to you because you must have a naturalistic explanation for your existence to make sense of your reality.

I don't expect you to believe in God unless He gives you some kind of revelation. I frequently pray that you will receive this revelation, both for you and the sake of your family.

Since I already pointed out this flawed understand of the law of parsimony, I won't reiterate that argument here.

While we’re talking about being honest with ourselves, I’d like to hear it from you that the following things are *at least technically possible*: that Yahweh doesn’t exist; that your relationship with Yahweh is an illusion created by you inside your head because you are human and human minds are prone to occasional spectacular mistakes; that the Bible was created by deluded humans; that the universe is around 14 billion years old; that the Earth is around 4.5 billion years old; that life on Earth started 1-2 billion years ago; and that all species evolved from primitive life forms. To be clear, I’m not asking you to accept them as true or even probable, just state whether this collection of statements is possible or impossible.

This is what Paul said:

1 Corinthians 15:17,19

And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins.

If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.

I wasn't there at the resurrection; I take it on faith. My faith has been borne out by the evidence, such as being born again, witnessing miracles, and experiencing the presence of God in my daily life. I don't admit any of those things; I have most definitely received revelation from God, and there is no other plausible explanation for the evidence. If you can concede that God can give you certain knowledge then you can understand why I don't doubt that knowledge.

Notice what George Wald said?

I notice that you only quote scientists out of context, or when they’re speaking poetically. I guarantee he never said that in a scientific paper. Life may be a wonder, not a miracle.

I *only* do? That's a false generalization. This quote is right on target, and I challenge you to show me where I have taken George out of context. This is what scientists believe, that time + chance makes just about anything possible. Has life ever been observed coming entirely from non living matter? That's a miracle, and that's what you must believe happened either here or somewhere in the Universe.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/physics/blog/2012/03/is-the-universe-fine-tuned-for-life/

Near the end, you’ll find this gem: “The history of physics has had that a lot, … Certain quantities have seemed inexplicable and fine-tuned, and once we understand them, they don’t seem to [be] so fine-tuned. We have to have some historical perspective.”

If you haven't done so already, watch the first 10-20 minutes of this: http://videosift.com/video/The-God-of-the-Gaps-Neil-deGrasse-Tyson. It's "creationism/intelligent design" laid bare as a position of weakness. Your "fine tuning" trope is part of "intelligent design" and has the same historical flaw.

It's the God of the gaps argument which is flawed. It's not a God of the gaps argument when the theory is a better explanation for the evidence.

It's just a bare fact that there is a number of physical constants in an extremely narrow range which conspire to create a life permitting Universe. It's even admitted on the wikipedia page:

Physicist Paul Davies has asserted that "There is now broad agreement among physicists and cosmologists that the Universe is in several respects ‘fine-tuned' for life".[2] However he continues "...the conclusion is not so much that the Universe is fine-tuned for life; rather it is fine-tuned for the building blocks and environments that life requires

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fine-tuned_Universe

What do you mean, “they hate that possibility”? Why should a scientist hate any possibility? If there were science that pointed to the real existence of God, that’s exactly the way their investigations would go. That’s what motivated early modern scientists – they believed unravelling the laws of the universe by experiment would reveal God’s nature. It was only when the scientific path of experimentation split conclusively away from the biblical account that anybody considered that religious faith and scientific endeavour might become separate enterprises.

The roost of the scientific establishment today is ruled by atheistic naturalists, and they very much hate the idea of God polluting their purely naturalistic theories. They consider science to be liberated from religion and they vigorously patrol the borders, expelling anyone who dares to question the established paradigm. A biologist today who questions the fundamentals of evolutionary theory commits professional suicide. It is now conventional wisdom and you either have to get with the program or be completely shut out of the community.

Here are some other interesting quotes for you:

Richard Lewontin “does acknowledge that scientists inescapably rely on ‘rhetorical’ proofs (authority, tradition) for most of what they care about; they depend on theoretical assumptions unprovable by hard science, and their promises are often absurdly overblown … Only the most simple-minded and philosophically naive scientist, of whom there are many, thinks that science is characterized entirely by hard inference and mathematical proofs based on indisputable data

Astrophysicist George F. R. Ellis explains: "People need to be aware that there is a range of models that could explain the observations….For instance, I can construct you a spherically symmetrical universe with Earth at its center, and you cannot disprove it based on observations….You can only exclude it on philosophical grounds. In my view there is absolutely nothing wrong in that. What I want to bring into the open is the fact that we are using philosophical criteria in choosing our models. A lot of cosmology tries to hide that.

As for the “much” stronger evidence, as stated in the article, every time scientists solve a mystery of something they thought was “finely tuned”, they realized that there is a much simpler explanation than God. Evolution, for instance, eliminates the question of "fine tuning" in life. “God” is a metaphor for “things outside my understanding”. Once they move within our understanding, nobody claims that they’re God anymore. And FWIW, some of the most famous scientists ever came to the same "Because God" conclusion, which held until someone else got past it and solved what they couldn't.

I'm glad you understand that the whole enterprise of science was initially driven by the Christian idea that God created an orderly Universe based on laws, and thus we could reason out what was going on by investigating secondary causes. Yet God wasn't a metaphor for something we didn't understand; God was the reason we were interested in trying to understand in the first place, or even thought that we could.

You say there is this "because God" brick wall that we break down by determining the operations of the Universe. We can then see that it was never God at all, but X Y Z, yet what does that prove? Genesis 1 says "God created", and that He controls everything. What you're confusing is mechanism with agency. Can you rule out a clockmaker by explaining how the clock works? That's exactly what you're saying here, and it is an invalid argument.

You also act as if evolution has been indisputably proven. Let me ask you this question, since you claim to understand science so well. What is the proof and evidence that evolution is a fact? Be specific. What clinches it?

So to your conclusion, how do you figure that the appearance of fine tuning—which seems to go away when you look close enough—is stronger evidence?

It only goes away when you come to a series of false conclusions as you have above. The evidence is there, even the scientists admit it. To avoid the conclusion multiple universes are postulated. However, this is even more implausible for this reason; the multiple universe generator would be even more fine tuned than this Universe. Therefore, you are pointing right back at a fine tuner once more.

Eh??? But in your last nine paragraphs, YOU yourself, a limited temporal creature, have been trying to prove God’s existence with your “fine tuning” argument (corrupt reasoning, like you say), even after you've repeatedly asserted in the other threads that the only possible evidence for God is that he’ll answer our prayers. Why are you bothering? It is laughable how inconsistent you’re being here.

I wouldn't know the truth on my own; only God can reveal what the truth is. There are two routes to the truth. One is that you're omnipotent. Another is that an omnipotent being tells you what the truth is. Can you think of any others?

Keep fishing. Either the patient being prayed for recovers or doesn't recover. If not, the sincere prayers weren't answered. Unless you’re suggesting God secretly removed the free will of the scientists and the people praying so that the tests would come back negative? Gimme a break.

You seem to believe that free will means God doesn't interfere in the Creation, and this isn't the case. Free will means, you have the choice to obey or disobey God. It doesn't mean you are free from Gods influences. That's the whole idea of prayer, that God is going to exert His influence on creation to change something. God is directly involved in the affairs of men, He sets up Kingdoms, He takes them away. He put you where He wanted you and He will take you out when He has sovereignly planned to do it.

Even if the prayers are sincere, God isn't going to heal everyone. Yes, either way the patient recovers or doesn't recover, and either way, God isn't going to reveal His existence outside of what He has ordained; faith in His Son Jesus Christ. Anyone trying to prove Gods existence any other way will always come away disappointed.

And all of this was written only after the prophesy was fulfilled. A little too convenient.

Actually it was written hundreds of years before hand.

The 70 weeks are not concurrent, first of all.

I know. I'm assuming they were consecutive. How could 70 weeks be concurrent? That makes no sense at all. Even if you meant to say “not consecutive”, what does it mean to declare a time limit of 70 weeks if they're not consecutive? It means nothing. That time limit could extend to today. What's your source for saying they're not concurrent/consecutive/whatever?

This is why I suggested you become more familiar with theology. Yes, you're right, I meant to say consecutive. You would know they were not consecutive if you read the scripture. The prophecy identifies they are not consecutive. Please see this:

http://www.khouse.org/articles/2004/552/

Again, conveniently, this “prediction” doesn't appear in writing until after the fall of Jerusalem.

Jerusalem fell in 70 AD. The gospels were written beforehand. If they were written afterwards, there would have been a mention of the fall of the city, if only to confirm the prophecy, but there is no mention of it in any of the gospels.

I'll rephrase this by saying, that Jesus fulfilled dozens of prophecies about the coming of the Messiah. Clearly, the impact of that Jesus has had on the world matches His claims about who He is.

Which clearly defined prophecies did he fulfil, not including ones that he knew about and could choose to do (like riding on a donkey)?

http://www.godonthe.net/evidence/messiah.htm

Except for all the religions that aren't Christian. They don’t belong to him, and they have surely had enough time to hear his voice.

The world belongs to Christ. The difference between the Lord and the other religions is this:

1 Chronicles 16:26

For all the gods of the nations are idols, but the LORD made the heavens

You really think that’s unique to Christianity? Do you know much about Islam? And I don't mean Western stereotypes of it. I mean, really know how normal Muslim people live their lives.

Muslims don't have a personal relationship with God. Allah keeps them at arms length, and they mostly serve him out of fear. They also have no idea whether they are going to heaven or not. They only hope that at the end of time their good works will add up more than their bad ones. The reason Muslims choose martyrdom is because under Islam it is the only guaranteed way to go to Heaven.

I get it. It’s a test of sincerity. For whom? Who is going to read and understand the results? To whom is the sincerity proven that didn't know it before, requiring a test? I think you’re avoiding admitting it’s God because that would mean there’s something God doesn't know.

Why do metalworkers purify gold? To remove the dross. That's exactly what God is doing when He tests us:

1 Peter 1:6

In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.

These have come so that your faith--of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire--may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.

>> ^messenger:

stuff

1) You have decided that there must be a god, that it is inconceivable that there is not one. That there is no other possibility but there is some omnipotent being that runs everything. You give no logical reasoning for this, you have just decided, for yourself, that it MUST be and so there is no arguing the point. Well, on that point you are wrong. Not that there isn't, necessarily a god, but just that there must be one. There is nothing at all that says there must be a god. Go nuts believing that there is one, but don't think that you have come up with some endgame argument that there must be a god, because you haven't.

What I said is that if God isn't in charge it is someone else. Earth answers to a higher authority, one way or another. Stephan Hawking recently said that this power is almost certainly hostile to our interests.

I will say though that it is obvious there is a God. Anyone who believes that something like the Universe comes about by happenstance is in massive denial.

2) You then go on to this weird reasoning that because there must be a god, that it's better if said god is the one in your bible, because, well, he's tip top and damn super, and that he has a personal interest in every one of the 7 billion lives on this planet. Even, apparently, the billions that are condemned to poverty, starvation, murder and death. (And the far worse alternative is that there's some super being somewhere that doesn't give two rat's arses about us... I'm not sure how that's worse at all. What would I care if there's some overlord who is quite happy for this planet to just 'be' and do whatever we want, sounds great to me)

If you want to pin suffering and death anywhere, it rests squarely on mans shoulders. We could feed, clothe and vaccinate the entire world for what Europe spends on ice cream every year.

The worse alternative is being ruled over by something that doesn't care about us, which means that, at any moment we are completely expendible, or a resource to be used and abused as it sees fit. Look at what we do to the animals and then imagine what a higher being might do with us. Could be that we're being fattened for the slaughter.

&

3) You again make the assumption (with nothing to back it up) that this reality is created by your god, and so we must play by his rules... when

a) You've convinced no one that it is his reality, and
b) even if it were his reality, I don't think that ridiculous book written by a swathe of people across a vast amount of time, and rewritten by whoever happened to be in power at the time says anything like what he actually believes or wants.

Your conscience tells you that you've offended a holy God. And I will go out on a limb here and say I doubt you have ever read the bible, let alone understand what is in it.


>> ^spoco2:
@shinyblurry:

"Someone has to be God, this what you don't understand."
and
"If God isnt in charge, you should be scared of who is. It is a far better thing to have someone who loves us personally and cares about our lives. The alternative is far worse, and something that should worry any thoughtful person. Because if God isn't in charge, and it isn't you and it isn't me; it is going to be someone else. You might not think God is perfect, but again, you love His reality, you just don't want to play by His rules. What you're unwilling to do is take a long hard look at yourself and see that if you are going to be honest about it, the problem is with you and not with Him. You most certainly have some terrific sounding excuses for how you justify rebellion against God, but none of them will match up to your conscience."

She's probably of the pick and chose ideology, which I'd argue everyone is. Bill never lets her finish what she's saying and she never really completes the thought, but it sounds like she's trying to say something along the lines of, 'If you look at all religions they have some objectionable beliefs but they also have many good virtues.'

Which I'm sure is true, however how can a person justify picking and choosing what the word of God is and what isn't? I'm sure they make some sort of logical or emotional decision about what rules are good and which aren't, but they're making a groundless assumption that somethings written in their holy books are God's words and other things aren't.

As soon as someone starts making judgements about what statements are right or wrong in their religion, i.g. a holy book condemns both black people and gay people and a person decides blacks aren't evil but gays are, they undermine the authority afforded to them by their holy book. They can no longer say, it's right because it is in the bible. The rightness or wrongness of a statement of morality must then stand on its own merits. And if you have to do that, what is the use of relying on a holy book as evidence and authority?

I understand why its done, in a sense it's intellectually lazy in another its to protect their emotional well being. If a person holds something as a core belief that is suddenly challenged it is very upsetting, if they don't or are unable to defend that belief on a rational logical basis, one way is to appeal to a higher authority, i.e. God. They are saved the trouble of dealing with the dissonance created by their views being successfully challenged.

Unfortunately laws are made this way. Laws that can not withstand the scrutiny of logic and reason, or do not have a clear logically obtained stance. So an appeal is made to people's cultural views using God as an authority. And the consequence is that those people who do not hold those culturally derived values suffer, through incarceration, their inability to live their lives in a manner that makes them happy, or because those who hold counter cultural values doggedly harass those that do not hold their values.

And that I think is my biggest problem with religion as a whole, it isn't just a moral guide for those who choose to follow, but often becomes a tool to supress those that don't.

At the risk of coming off as a horribly condescending know-it-all prick, let me bring you up to speed. The main Sift Talk page is reserved for posts about VideoSift itself, be they bug reports, feature requests, public humiliation of annoying members (actually, we don't do that anymore), specific video posts that contain content that pushes the envelope of VideoSift's posting guidelines, etc. The channel talk pages are where posts such as this belong, and they are quite visible in "Latest Channel Talk Posts" sidebar. Click the "modify post" link, and uncheck the box to include this post in the main sift talk area. (In a bit of historical irony, blankfist once got mad at me for telling him to remove his own politically oriented talk posts to the appropriate channel pages. He will, of course, deny this.)

As for taxes being theft, you are near the mark, but missing it slightly. That miss is exactly the kind of opening that libertarians are looking for. Whether one is born into citizenship, or emigrates to it to escape worse conditions, is irrelevant. The simple fact of the matter is that the overwhelming majority of people cannot afford to simply pick up and move to another country (never mind the fact that unless you plan on moving to someplace like Antartica, taxes are collected by all nations). There are also cultural and familial ties to be considered. Also, the political power that the average citizen wields is miniscule, and if exercised at all, is incredibly unlikely to change the fundamental structure of the society in which they live. The notion that an individual can so dramatically change the social structure in which they live is absurd.

A libertarian (or anarcho-capitalist, in netrunner's lingo) will tell you that a citizen should not be required to make such drastic changes in their life to change which services they consume, and from whom they purchase them. A libertarian would say that all such transactions should be voluntary. What the libertarian will not tell you is by what mechanism you can intelligently decide for which services you want to pay, nor the mechanism by which service providers may sell them. The natural consequence of such a situation is something like feudalism. The strongest and best security services will locally dominate their markets until every competitor is driven out. At that point, local security forces will either align with or come into conflict with neighboring forces. Ultimately, you would be in exactly the same situation the libertarians decry now - you are de facto forced into an agreement with the local authority to purchase protection, and any other "services" they deem requisite for all citizens. Only, in the voluntary society situation, you have no legal recourse to a higher authority like the Supreme Court and its interpretation of the U.S. Constitution. No doubt, interpretation of a 235 year old legal document is plagued with problems, but at least it does give a reasonable foundation from which to work.

I always find it funny that libertarians use the word "theft" to describe the compulsory transactions enforced by government. One can argue the legitimacy of the transactions, but they are transactions. As you note, taxes pay for roads, common defense and security, schools, hospitals, etc. It's not like the government simply takes the money and pockets it (except in cases of illegal corruption, which is correctable). They may not spend it wisely or efficiently, but they do spend it in the interest of the people. The word the libertarians should be using is "extortion", which is of course exactly what taxes are. Pay me some money for your protection, or something bad might happen to you. Libertarians, though, seem incapable of distinguishing between extortion for criminal profit, and extortion for the common good. All they can see is extortion, and to them that is bad, independent of ideology.

>> ^bmacs27:

@<a rel="nofollow" href="http://videosift.com/member/Yogi" title="member since May 15th, 2009" class="profilelink">Yogi Rehab doesn't work. Neither does jail, I know. Still if you persist in posing a risk to your fellow citizens, it's simply a practical matter of upping the consequences until you listen.
Don't get me wrong, I don't really care if you're big into the indoor skiing or whatever, but don't get behind the wheel. Then, especially then, don't treat yourself like a higher authority than the court.


Actually most evidence suggests that rehab and therapy does actually work. I know I know the media and all that told you it didn't, silly scientists didn't watch that episode though.

@Yogi Rehab doesn't work. Neither does jail, I know. Still if you persist in posing a risk to your fellow citizens, it's simply a practical matter of upping the consequences until you listen.

Don't get me wrong, I don't really care if you're big into the indoor skiing or whatever, but don't get behind the wheel. Then, especially then, don't treat yourself like a higher authority than the court.

>> ^dannym3141:

I didn't sit through the whole video - is this a borderlands mod? It looks like one.
And after reading the first post where fallout 1 and 2 were name dropped (there is no fallout 3, it's not a fallout game, i refute it), it made me think:
Why in the hell don't they forget all the fancy 3d "oblivion with different models/skins" first person real time bullshit and just make a PROPER fallout 3. It can be isometric, it can be turn based, spice it up with some modern graphical tweaks and improvements and slap it on a CD. Because i assure you i would pay £100 for that if it was a REAL fallout game.
Edit:
RE: the console debate. Man you nailed it - why the fuck are they limiting themselves so hard by making console games which they then port to the PC? The pc is the higher authority here, better at everything. Make it for the PC then downgrade it for the console, don't make it for the console and try to swindle PC users by charging the same price for a shit product.
Console gamers are USED to being served shit, and PC gamers are used to the best. So while console gamers lap this up, PC gamers will be left wondering why they just payed £40 for a product that, from a PC perspective, is worth about £20. So over-inflation of low quality PC games either bring down the quality of native PC games or bring up the average price of native PC games.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how piracy becomes prolific. Personally i never have, but i could throw a stone at my university and hit 7 people with the same stone who would tell you "i only do it to try out the game, if it's good i buy it, but i'm sick of being cheated out of my money"


Funny you should say that. I don't accept Oblivion as an Elder Scrolls game. Not after Morrowind.

I didn't sit through the whole video - is this a borderlands mod? It looks like one.

And after reading the first post where fallout 1 and 2 were name dropped (there is no fallout 3, it's not a fallout game, i refute it), it made me think:

Why in the hell don't they forget all the fancy 3d "oblivion with different models/skins" first person real time bullshit and just make a PROPER fallout 3. It can be isometric, it can be turn based, spice it up with some modern graphical tweaks and improvements and slap it on a CD. Because i assure you i would pay £100 for that if it was a REAL fallout game.

Edit:
RE: the console debate. Man you nailed it - why the fuck are they limiting themselves so hard by making console games which they then port to the PC? The pc is the higher authority here, better at everything. Make it for the PC then downgrade it for the console, don't make it for the console and try to swindle PC users by charging the same price for a shit product.

Console gamers are USED to being served shit, and PC gamers are used to the best. So while console gamers lap this up, PC gamers will be left wondering why they just payed £40 for a product that, from a PC perspective, is worth about £20. So over-inflation of low quality PC games either bring down the quality of native PC games or bring up the average price of native PC games.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how piracy becomes prolific. Personally i never have, but i could throw a stone at my university and hit 7 people with the same stone who would tell you "i only do it to try out the game, if it's good i buy it, but i'm sick of being cheated out of my money"

@mgittle:
Not to get into semantics too much, but the word "moral" comes from the latin "mores", meaning the generally accepted customs of a society. Morality is what people fall back on when reasonable argument fails. Reasonable people do disagree on a lot of issues, sometimes quite radically. I believe killing is usually immoral, yet it is quite possible to imagine a person truly believing it is OK to kill others, in a wider variety of circumstances than I might find acceptable. I can, of course, provide any number of rational arguments for my point of view, but so can the other person, and in some cases the conflict is simply irresolvable. Our moral views differ. In some cases, no amount of reason can change that, it is the essence of morals - they are the customs you grow up with, the societal norms you accept from outside, usually coming from some kind of higher authority, whether it is a deity, a strong leader or simply the society itself as a conglomerate.

What makes genocide possible is our ability to dehumanize others. I feel having a strong sense of morality makes this easier, not harder, because morality in general has a strong component of groupthink to it, which combined with the kinds of us-versus-them situations genocides usually rise from can be quite dangerous. If you believe you are right, not just in some rational sense, but also in a moral sense, then is it not your duty to do everything you can to eradicate opposition to your views?

That extreme consequence of the logic of morality is what makes my hair stand on end whenever I hear people proposing some kind of system for determining right or wrong. Mr. Harris, I'm sure, has the very best of intentions, but people en masse tend to latch on to certainties a bit too much. I admit I may be getting caught up too much on semantics here - if we were talking about ethics, a more personal kind of judgment, I would probably largely agree with what is being said. Trying to apply reason to find out for oneself what the best way to live one's life would be is a wonderful idea. Trying to use reason to figure out the best way for others to live theirs, less so. Not because reason is bad, but because you end up telling others what to do, and that is damn hairy business. So I guess I'm arguing for less morals, more ethics.

>> ^ponceleon:
One possibility is to have the code check the dates and make the older post the automatic "winner"
That said, I definitely agree that there is the possibility of abuse, admin "dupof" approval sounds like a good idea, the question is probably more of volume though. I would hate to create a lot of work for someone.
I love that gold stars now get Dupeof though. I love being able to quickly take care of them...

Yes, I like having that power as well, but I just feel that there should be some sort of accountability for using it. At the moment, a malicious user could dupeof virtually any video he want to add votes to his own videos. There is no barrier against that, especially if he targets inactive users, who wouldn't wonder why their sifted video list and vote size keeps shrinking.

Creating the work is unfortunate, but is necessary since we want to have anyone from gold star and up be able to flag videos as possible dupes, but not the power to actually obliterate those videos at a whim. This, to me, suggests some sort of higher authority is required

John Ziegler responds:

. . . there is a lot more to say about this situation, largely because there has been so much misinformation, so many irresponsible accusations, and so much blatant hypocrisy in the general reaction to the remarkable videotape.

Now, one would think that there wouldn’t be much confusion about a situation that was videotaped in its entirety by not one but two cameras who were acting largely independently of the primary actors (we have posted a nearly real-time version of the entire affair at http://www.HowObamaGotElected.com), but unfortunately that is clearly the case. I would like to try to address some of these issues here.

First, one of the ways that those on the left have used to try to avoid having to hold their nose and support the free speech rights of a rabble-rousing “conservative,” is that USC is a “private” school and therefore they had the right to kick me out for no purpose. I even saw one prominent blog with the headline “Ziegler Arrested for Trespassing on Private Property,” which is just laughably false.

While USC is indeed a “private” school, this does not in any way legally make their property like that of a private residence. First, they take federal tax money, and second it has a very “open” campus and the area I was in has direct access from a public street without even a gate blocking the way. At any given moment there are many people walking on the sidewalks where I was arrested who are neither students, faculty nor invited guests of the University. I had every right to be there (outside the building where the award ceremony took place) and I did nothing to provoke or warrant being handcuffed, arrested or removed from the property. It is very clear the only reason that happened was because of my previously expressed political opinion on what was going on that day. In short, I was targeted for different treatment because of my beliefs.

The next tactic many have tried, in order to avoid facing their own politically induced hypocrisy on free speech, is to minimize the incident by saying that I was not “arrested” and that what happened was not a big deal.

While in the end I was not charged (I was told that I would indeed be booked at LAPD headquarters), that was only because higher authorities saw that the campus police “arrest” was clearly problematic if not completely bogus. After I was already “arrested,” they shifted gears and told me that I basically had two choices: leave the premises or be charged along with the two photographers who did not work for me and who in no way bargained for such a situation. Not wanting to put them in jeopardy and seeing that I could not possibly do anything further to achieve my original goal of educating those attending the awards, I decided, under threat of prosecution, to leave the grounds.

But make no mistake, I was arrested. I was handcuffed and detained against my will for an extended period of time with my microphone and blackberry taken from me. The photographers were also told to stop shooting under threat of arrest themselves. And, as the video clearly shows, my wrists were significantly bruised by the handcuffs that I had rightly complained were put on way too tight.

All of this happened obviously not because of my actions but because of my political view on the proceedings. In effect, I was being punished, repressed, and physically harmed as a form of prior restraint because they anticipated that I might do something to disrupt the proceedings based on my prior writings and commentary on the event (in which I never claimed I would do anything more than exactly what I tried to; give away copies of my film as an educational exercise). No matter how hard liberals try to rationalize it, this makes this a very obvious case of a blatant free speech violation.

Another way that commentators (including some on the right) have attempted to ignore the very serious First Amendment implications of this case, is to say that I set this up as some sort of publicity stunt to promote my film.

First of all, this could not be more irrelevant to the constitutional issues involved . . .

the rest:

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=1dd_1240370084

There is a great deal of difference between the offenses of the two..

Thinker is on indefinite hobbling, because he discarded several of his sifted videos (major) and a pornographic avatar (minor) - or that is my understanding). His original hobbling, which I did, was a precaution to prevent further escalation of his and peggedbea's PMS. This was promptly reported to a higher authority, dag, and was lifted after a very short period of time.

Blankfist made a sockpuppet account (one could argue that he could be lying about it, because we only have his word for it, but let's assume it). This in itself is not a huge deal, because the big bad thing is when sockpuppets are used to gain votes or to inflate your own stuff. This was not done.

Slap on the wrist, maybe a day or two as a hobbit. That'll be fine.

^ I think this conversation has gone past the point of, well, being a conversation.

You claim "the best evidence you can offer is a link to the democrats website that makes claim to the party", despite the fact that I have actually given links to Encylopedia Britannica, US History Encylcopedia, the Law Encyclopedia, a transcript from the Democratic National Convention in 1872 where Jefferson's grandson says he's been in the Democratic-Republican party for 80 years, and Martin van Buren's Inquiry Into the Origin and Course of Political Parties in the United States, but apparently you are only able to notice that I also pointed out the Democratic Party itself makes the same claim.

You say that I "keep harping on the logo and platform change" but then say "that's not my argument," yet you've offered nothing else.

I'd never heard someone claim Jackson founded the Democratic party before, so when you first claimed it, I went and checked, because I thought I might be misremembering (they're both J-named Presidents, after all).

Everything I've said came from what I read, and only in my last response did I really try to draw my own inference.

You have yet to provide a source that frames the situation in the terms of "Andrew Jackson founded the Democratic Party" or even "The Democratic party begain in 1828".

For your convenience, I will provide the sole reference I've found that repeats your revisionist claims: Conservapedia. I'd think twice about trying to cite their credibility as being higher than Encyclopedia Britannica, though.

I'm not sure what, if anything, you're reading that backs you up beyond conservapedia, a single dictionary entry that used the word "dissolve" instead of "split", and your strongly held belief that Jefferson and the Democratic party are like oil and water. Sorry, I forgot, you don't like my analogies. I mean that you think Jefferson and the Democratic party can't possibly be combined.

My argument is pretty hard to refute; the people you claim "founded" the Democratic party themselves say they never left the Democratic-Republican party, they just changed the name.

If they say that, who's the supposed higher authority that gets to say "nice try guys, you really founded your own party"? Perhaps Adams or Clay could dispute it, but I've not found any source that says they made any attempt to dispute it. If they didn't, why are you?

christian: reads a book and believes it and tells people about it

atheist: reads loads of books and has no idea what the fuck to believe any more because it all sounds so baseless when you realise there's multiple simultaneous points of view in the world and no higher authority to reveal the right one

you choose, imstellar.