One Map Mappack (SWBF2 Mod)

Needed to post this image somewhere.

I posted this elsewhere, but got censor-wishes everywhere I went.

My question is this:
By what authority is it determined that everyone’s opinion has equal validity?

The answer: by the authority of the doctrine of Relativism.

my second question:
Why should we all be required to hold Relativism as our belief system?

my second answer:
It is imposed on us to keep us pacified, because by Relativism nobody’s beliefs ultimately have any authority, and therefore the holders of those beliefs have nothing to fight about, because they (ought to) know that no matter how much they argue they will be able to prove themselves neither right nor wrong to those with whom they are arguing.

my third question:
Is everyone then a Relativist, and if so, what point is there in arguing about anything?

my third answer:
No. Not everyone is a relativist. Nor should anyone be forced to be one. Some people (like me) ascribe to one or more of a number of existing belief systems that they truly believe transcend human opinion, and see fit to make arguments based on that assumption (much to the chagrin of relativists)…but as to the second part of the question…from my understanding relativists have nothing to gain by arguing. That is part of the problem here; Relativism cannot effectively state that piracy is wrong, let alone convince those who partake of it that it isn’t right for them.
Time for a non-relativist declaration:
God **** relativism.
Now, if you’re offended by that, may I ask why? And if you’re a Relativist and are offended by that, may I ask how you can justify being offended by it, to the point of forcing me to take it back? After all, the declaration was right for me.

Censored, more or less...but it was in the rules, I now see.

This is from elsewhere, for those of you who are wondering what it's doing here.

blue CM/Nailog = avatar? Much could be said about this...about bodies and souls...
The movie "Avatar" got me thinking about this stuff more, and this story got me thinking about it again, so I thought I'd share my thoughts on it:

I'll just point out the movie "Avatar" foolishly assumed that it was the brain which could be transferred to a new body. GmMkr's conclusion, though allegorical and alluding to the potential for multiple accounts in an online forum environment, is a much more accurate assessment...that without a mind, the soul cannot think, and, might I add, without a soul, the mind lacks a "controller", as does the rest of the body. Those who believe in reincarnation say the soul always occupies a new earthly body after death. This seems a bit odd to me, since the number of living things on earth is not constant...if the earth's population decreases, what do all the "left out" souls do? And if it increases, where do the new souls come from to occupy the increased number of bodies? But, eastern religion and philosophy doesn't hold the only opinion on souls and bodies. Christianity has it's own explanation. That being, that after death, some are given new bodies upon entering heaven...the controllers are given new avatars, so to speak. As for those who go to hell...it is described as a place of torment and fire, but what if it was simply a matter of souls not being given a new body...or being destroyed? This would mean that Athiests would get what they're expecting, at any rate, that being nothingness at death. But I'd like to go back to the point about souls without minds and bodies not being able to think...or at least not be aware...it apparently is this way before birth, otherwise we would remember emotion from before we had a body to inhabit...the word "remember" is telling, since it would seem thatremembering is a function of the mind and not the soul. And I don't know about you, but I have never remembered anything from before birth. And who knows when souls are, or were, created. And a final point about Christianity along these lines: Christianity's belief is that God placed his own soul into the body of a man, who was known by mankind as Yeshua. If there was ever an Avatar in this world, by the true definition of the word, it was him-- a deity's soul in a man's body. God Incarnate, as he is more officially known by the Catholic church and such. And mankind killed him as a criminal, when he had done no wrong. And so he became a sacrifice for the sins of all mankind...which would be more meaningful to me if I better understood the value of sacrifice, and of that sacrifice in particular...what do I know about it? Just that anything and everything that we do that God doesn't want us to do is what is known as "sin" (an invention of God, not an intrinsic value, so far as I can tell...except that it is said that God cannot sin) and God has determined that the automatic penalty for sin is death, ie, no heaven, while the reward for going out of one's way to obey him and find out what he wants from and for us is life, ie new bodies in heaven after death on this earth, and that the death and resurrection of God as a sacrifice somehow wiped the record of all our sins from God's memory, for all practical purposes, should we choose to swear fealty to Him and Him alone. I don't understand it, I don't know that anyone does. But I think it's here that belief is more important than understanding, and that's what makes it faith.
*steps down from soap box*

What? an update??? It's been a while...

dang, blogger ate my post.

let me sum up.

-working at pizza place
-looking for "real job"...having trouble finding one...
-have an apartment
-still modding Star Wars Battlefront 2, working on Mustafar map...taking a while 'cause it's all curstom models and textures, hooray for Blender and Photoshop.
-going to work at 5:00
-so bye.

Ancient Battlegrounds is now a featured game on yoyogames.com!

here's the link again:

http://www.yoyogames.com/games/show/69359

Response to "N.H. pastor houses child killer, riles town"

Is it not true that people form lynch mobs to take the focus off of their own legal and moral insufficiencies? Well, among other reasons, but that's always a hidden motive for it.

Also, not to say that the crime was ok or anything, but it seems to me that it's being a bit overblown. The boy was killed by the guy...and in the same moment some other kid across town died of an unknown heart defect, and 6 women had abortions, and two people committed suicides, and one guy got hit by a bus... Death happens, people, and it happens sooner or later to everyone. The crime of killing is not in ending a life, but in determining when to end it. If someone is old enough, we call it assisted suicide. If they are young enough, we call it abortion. Yes, hypocracy is a central theme to this discussion, in more ways than one.

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I'm reminded of the Old Testament system involving "cities of refuge" to hold criminals...to keep them away from "decent" and "innocent" society while allowing them to remain human. Of course, that seems too logical and easy to be implemented in a modern context.

response to: "Recession F-bombs: Why swearing feels great"

You are teaching anger to your children when you do this. They don't care what word it happens to be. They just care that they've seen you being angry so that means that they can be angry too. If I recall correctly, when I was young, younger than 5, my dad still swore. I picked this up until they told me not to do it. I did the typical monkey see, monkey do: My dad got angry fixing the car. I heard him say something, and it sounded impressive: Gaaaahdammit! So I started saying it whenever I was frustrated for a short time until I was suppressively corrected. Now, at that age I knew about God. However, I made absolutely no connection whatsoever between that strange new phrase I had learned and the name of God. What my dad had said sounded like one distinct word. But I did understand that the strange new phrase was to be used against something when I was frustrated with it. So, don't ask the shrinks how swearing affects children, ask those who can actually remember what it was like being a child.

Really, it isn't about what word is being used. It's about the emotion behind the word. And chances are that you don't know what emotion really is. Emotion is our true language. It is what we process directly from inputting stimuli before we translate it automatically into our artificial learned language (e.g., English.) Since information tends to get lost in translation, deliberately or otherwise, your emotional state will always be a truer assesment of your stance on an issue, your values, your hangups, your frustrations, your misgivings, your beliefs, and so on than what you tell yourself in your learned language. The benefit of a learned language is that it can solidify the knowledge held in emotional language so that it can be more easily studied, understood, and, especially, discussed with others.

An interesting side note to this: do animals think in a form of this "emotional" language? I find it apparent that they do. You may draw your own conclusions from this revelation.

But back to the anger thing, since that's what a lot of this swearing is about. We see more swearing than in the past because we have become a different people than we were in the past. What, may I ask, has become of the dignity of being a unique person? Who of us loves others not because they can do stuff for us, but because they need love? We are all empty, and feel worthless, because all we can do to attain satisfactory worth in this age is be perfect. And that is something no one can do. Our families are spread out and separated and everyone works in an emotionally isolated bubble, with business relationships that are focused on ignoring and working around emotional needs rather than meeting them, because they interfere with the task on hand. What we lack in self-worth from acceptance we try to make up for with financial security. Now that that has been removed from us, our frustration is becoming more pronounced.

News article title: "Study: 1 in 31 U.S. adults in prison system"

The title says all...absolutely incredible. And completely unacceptable. The newsvine comments included many, many murmurings of "police state," "prison nation," and "because of the failed war on drugs." Fortunately there is hope for all this. Someone suggested googling "restorative justice." Really, that seems to be what we need instead of lock-ups in most situations. And it looks like there's quite a few places taking that approach--(google it yourself)

Also someone provided a link to this interesting site:
www.leap.cc/

Response to: "Dobson resigns as chair of Focus on the Family"

Chuck_454
With this much love it is clear he quit too soon or realizes there is no hope for some people.
John Ball
Huh?
Jason Anthony Gieske
I detect intense sarcasm from one who hasn't been brainwashed by the forces that brainwashed the strong majority here...if we must refer to upbringing as such...

Response to: "Vick OK'd for home confinement, official says"

This article is about the football player arrested because of his dogfighting ring.

Jail for life for killing animals is somewhat equal to jail for life for lying, in my opinion...so just because we don't eat what we kill it's a crime? Cruel, yes, and would I recommend it, no, but legal penalties? Come on, dogs aren't anywhere near being an endangered species...pets are actually overpopulating right now. Hence all the "have your pet spayed or neutered" campaigning...which I would think PETA ought to see as animal torture anyway...
Now, making lots of cash off an operation like that is a bit dirty, yes, but unlike so many people who always cry "there ought to be a law..." about just about everything that isn't perfect with the world according to their point of view, I am more in favor of limiting the power of government so that if it goes corrupt it won't do as much damage.

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But really, all the gloating over his downfall going around on this forum is equally inhumane and rather hypocritical as well, don't you think? Surely you don't think the rest of us are perfect...and those of you who are "basically good," know that you'd keep telling yourself that if you ever got involved in anything illegal, because you'd still be able to rationalize your actions.

...And what good does it do anyone for you to take up a judgemental position against a fellow man for the sake of heaping guilt and shame upon his head? A bad person can only get worse with such input. If you used such self-appointed authority, while still acknowledging the severity of whatever crime was commited, to try to improve his position through rehabilitation in the interest of improving humanity, perhaps such self-appointment would be tolerable. I was under the impression that the notion of simply removing bad people from society without trying to make them good first was supposed to be left in the Dark Ages...I guess I was wrong.

...And no, actually dogs don't need to depend on humans. There are plenty of wild dogs out there. And they do a pretty good job of doing what they are designed to do--kill stuff to stay alive. Just like everything else.

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The following is an excerpt from the debate, with my response...it highlights the prevailing tone of the debate quite well actually. Scary, isn't it? People are awful.

bopdaddytoo
I have owned several dogs from rabbit dogs to house pets and have had to put several down. I didn't go to a vet but used a 12 gage shot gun a lot cheaper and the dogs never complained.

Stella, Tucson
I wish you the same exact fate. Today.

SkiCO267
Well, I certainly wouldn't feel bad for you if your head got blown off with a shotgun. I can only assume that you A) don't give a crap about animals, or B) are a cheap [vulgarity removed]who won't go pay to have an animal humanely put down. Get a life, hilljack!

Jason Anthony Gieske
Watch out, bopdaddytoo, it's getting a lot less safe to admit that sort of thing in this wonderful, free country of ours...everything in the justice system is now decided by whether it offends someone, and someone is sure to be offended by pretty much everything, so we all should be losing all of our freedoms in 3...2...1...
The only thing slowing down the process is the government's inefficiency and failure to communicate effectively with itself.

This is awesome!

Do you know what this is? A lightsaber in Flash! This is going to be awesome...

Response to: "Owner of New York Post apologizes for cartoon"

"People making dumb comparisons like Bush depicted as a monkey are clueless and have no comprehension whatsover of what racism is all about. The comparison between Bush and a monkey was his level of intelligence- not something that he was born with and has no control over." -DSVet

You need to take another look at what you just said there, in relation to the context. This cartoon was clearly discussing the very qualification you just said is legitimate--intelligence. It says nothing about race, and nothing about Obama.The cartoon is mocking the people who wrote the stimulus bill...that's a sizeable group, definitely not a black majority, and all that Obama did with it was sign it. I highly doubt that he read even a tenth of it...the whole thing took a book cart to move it was so huge.

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Ok, America, you must choose one of two options. Which will it be? Cultural pride and seperate but equal or melting pot culture where all are just human? The reason there is so much chaos and confusion regarding racism is that the black community identifies themselves as just that--a specific community of humans that supports each other in dealings with dissimilar humans, thereby implementing the first mindset, while white (or whatever color the rest of us are...and most black people aren't black either...) people have been thouroughly indoctrinated to go with the flow in whatever group of people we find ourselves being a part of, thereby being more consistent with the second mindset.
So, to all the people of African origin, know this...you can't have it both ways. You can't be a distinct group while being truly on the same level as everyone else (whatever level that is...) because even if your intent of supporting one another is good, doing so still causes division, and that division is based soley on race. To identify by race is in fact to be racist, for the only way to not be racist would be to ignore race entirely and judge not by color of skin, but by content of character. The U.S. Government would be equally wise to know this. ENOUGH! Enough of the race surveys! Enough of the categorization according to race! Enough of the statistics comparing the livelihoods of various people by RACE! I know they often lame-duck it by saying it's "culture" instead, but that is equally foolish. I thought we were supposed to be done with seperate but equal in the '50s. All I know that it was not my generation's idea to make these distinctions (gen Y). It's all the black establishment and the US government keeping the chaos going. And holidays? Having a black holiday is just asking to have every race wanting thier peice of the pie, which requires that they realize that being a distinct race matters, which creates racism. Racism, as in the belief that race matters when distinguishing between people, not as in "ooohhh she said something mean about me because of my race." But, if no one cares about distinguishing by race, then no one will insult according to race. It's about time everyone figures this out.

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Oh, yeah, and the Media needs to shut up about race too.

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Wow, MLIL, that's an excellent angle you just brought up. I feel I have become much, much more racist due to what I've learned about race in the public school system--not less, as is their intent. Before public school, black people were just humans with darker skin to me. Now, they are black people. The schools keep rubbing salt into the sores of the past by bringing it up again and again, saying how awful it is to behave that way towards each other...don't they know that humans are always tempted to behave in whatever way is forbidden to them? And that in informing people of a sin previously unknown, they have given new life to an otherwise eradicated illness? Kids will experience certain groups' disdain for each other in their own social interactions. Teachers would be much, much better off working out the basic solutions to this kind of thing using the situations at hand as examples. Building good character in that way would prevent strife between factions later in life rather than emphasize it.

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The "doomed to repeat it" line is a popular one...but from what I've seen, bad things repeat themselves in history whether we know about them or not, because they always take a slightly different form which people don't recognize. It is core values that must be changed; more education does NOT automatically solve the world's problems, contrary to VERY popular belief.

Response to "9-year-old pleads guilty in shooting death"

"He is completely rehabilitatable..."

Well, this brings up some interesting thoughts. In reality there is no way to know if that is true or not without trying rehabilitation. His crime seems to be like many crimes...I really don't care if it's adult crimes or kid crimes, by the way, since I prefer to view kids as younger humans and adults as older humans...the mandatory division between kids and adults seems unhealthy in some ways...as does the division between generations...but anyway, this was apparently a crime with a reason behind it. As opposed to a crime for the sake of crime. Was it a legitimate reason? Well, in the eyes of the murderer, yes. In the eyes of the law, no, since vigilante justice is only legal in the movies, and for good reason, since a reasonable-to-the-perpetrator excuse can be made for doing literally any crime. Even, "'cause it felt right." In this case, the criminal apparently sought to solve whatever problem he was having by removing it's source... apparently without thinking about the implications of doing so much...or maybe he realized that since he wasn't legally human yet (18, 21), he could get away with it without getting punished severely, and going to juvie seemed like a better option than his current situation anyway. It's interesting, our society's take on murder and the value of human life. We are extreme on both ends simultaniously. On the one hand, we see the ending of a life as a terribly shocking occurance that must be dealt with with the greatest possible degree of care, fear, and media hype. On the other, we kill foreign enemies of the government without remorse, as they do to us, we throw the lives of the accused and convicted in the trash and forget about them forever, and we could care less about how many people are dying in Africa at any given moment. Also our entertainment industry has a mysterious fascination with death. So much death and negligence that I don't even need to mention abortion (oops, I just did.) It seems we only value about the lives of humans we care about (our good, upstanding citizenry, I guess) and could care less about the rest. The plight of our prison occupants leads us back to the original comment that I am responding to. Rehabilitable? Surely this does not apply only to children. Unrehabilitable? Surely this does not apply only to adults. Rehabilitation simply is the process of getting the criminal to view things as the justice system views them...a justice system which tends to change it's mind on things over the years, I might add...since it's judgement is not anchored in anything greater than human reason. So some criminals will see the "error of their ways" and become conformist to society (if we give them a chance, anyway), while others will not. Also I feel that our society doesn't realize the importance of authority and the responsibility and accountability that ought to be attached inseperably to it...that is, regarding the placing of one human's will over another's or others', when all are legally created equal. So basically, to those who work in the justice system, please observe the golden rule above all else, especially to those who obviously don't deserve such treatment, for they are the the hardest to do so with but also the most in need of such treatment, and to those who believe it, keep in mind that you will be held accountable to God for your influence in the lives of others when your time to die comes. That's another interesting twist on the topic of death...everybody dies sooner or later.

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Born with a clean slate? Ok, it's time to ignore the old dead philosophers who did more thinking than was good for them and the airheads who don't take any time to think at all and use our own powers of observation to figure out the obvious:
a) humans are born with the "programming" necessary to recieve and interpret stimuli from all available sensory organs.
b) humans have a completely self-centered outlook on life upon entering the world, and therefore are inherently selfish until trained to be otherwise.
c) selfish ambition typically translates neither as "clean slate" nor "basically good."

(ah, it felt good to finally have an excuse to release that tidbit of wisdom into the thought pool)

Ancient Battlegrounds has good ratings on YoYo games.

Currently rated 4.0/5 with 16 votes, Ancient Battlegrounds is ranked 5th by rating out of all strategy games, and is near the top of page 5 when ranked by rating in all genres. Each page has 20 games on it...and there's now 1533 pages of games on the site. I have yet to accquire the elusive "featured" recognition and have only 63 total plays.

I went bowling.

I went bowling with people from my hall (it was a different floor's activity and they didn't have enough people)

The first game I got a 64.
The second game I got a turkey (3 strikes in a row) and a 146. Oh, and I almost got four strikes in a row but the center pin stayed up :(.

I have released the completed version of Ancient Battlegrounds!

This is the link to Ancient Battlegrounds.

See the screenshots and ad in posts below...

Basic gist of the game: command the Caananites or Cushites and conquer the Mesopotamia war map in a series of battlefront-esque battles.

It's a game created by me using Game Maker 7.0, a free but upgradable program available here.

Response to: "Katrina 'divine retribution' pastor promoted"

"All this article shows me is that no matter what you believe, people think you're intolerant if it's a different point of view from their own."

Very true...and on that tangent if there is ever a law made that disallows "hate speech" a very large percentage of the populace will lose a very large percentage of their freedom of speech. Think about it... a law against intolerance and hate speech in a relativist society...justice would become, even moreso than it is now, nothing but a power grab. The intolerant label is nothing more than a tool to shut up opposing viewpoints.