The probability of him being religious is insanely high Hell no, it isn't. Anyone who doubts evolution because the way it was taught to them is crap isn't religious, they're smart. No theory, no matter how many people believe it, should be accepted without proper evidence. It seems as if that man wasn't presented with any real evidence, so again, I applaud his skepticism. You should too, because if he accepted the theory just because lots of other people did, he might as well be a creationist.
There's actually quite a lot of evidence there if you think about it. But I'm going to doubt you did that... Ironically, you'd be right. I have no informed opinion on evolution, because I simply don't care. We're here, I don't give a damn how we got here. Whether we evolved from a single-celled organism, were lovingly created by a higher being, or are the result of a divine sneeze (a la Douglas Adams), it simply doesn't matter to me... so I see no reason to become informed.
...on the evidence that you seem to think that the validity of truth is subjective to the thinking of an uneducated mind. You completely misunderstood me. I don't think that the validity of the truth is subject to the thinking of any one mind, if something is true, it is true completely independently of whether anyone recognizes it. I think that when one is not presented with proper evidence that something is true, one should be skeptical about it (if they care about the truth, of course, they may just go about their way, uncaring). It truly sounds to me, in this case, that someone was just given some glossed-over teaching about evolution and told to accept it at that, which is no proof of truth at all. Should he have been motivated to educate himself about it? Perhaps. However, assuming that he was taught as poorly as I've interpreted from his post, he is quite correct to be skeptical about what he was told, because at no point was he given proof.
There is no extra cost in removing "In God We Trust" from US currency. Take a look at some US money, both coins and bills have the year it was printed or coined, so the plates and molds used are changed yearly anyway. Also every bill has a serial number printed on it, a different one for each bill. Touche. I hadn't thought of that.
Perhaps you didn't see or experience yourself but I experienced as well as saw other children having a ruler forcibly applied to my and their hands in a public school because we refused to say the pledge with "under god". That's abominable, but that isn't really a problem with the pledge, but with the zealots who feel the need to force their own way on people.
There's a problem if those getting the money require those they help to have the same faith the organization has or if it is used to try to convert people to that faith. Again, yes, this is a problem, but as I understand it, that's a violation of what the money is supposed to be used for, and should be dealt with accordingly. If the rules for getting the money don't say you can't do that stuff, then by God (pardon the expression), they should. I just want money for charity to be used as efficiently as possible, and don't have much faith in the bureaucracy to do it right, so any private organization getting the money is something I back.
It makes perfect sense. Either you decide that the available evidence is sufficient to prove evolution, or it's insufficient. In other words, either you think evolution occurred, or didn't occur. The threshold of evidence necessary for proof often differs from person to person.
Actually, if someone is presented with an education in a scientific theory like the GP described, until such time as someone educates them more properly, that DOES make it less valid, and no more to be believed than religion's explanation, or any other theory on the origin of the world as we know it.
Also, I didn't get the impression that the GP didn't understand the material, I got the impression that the material itself was piss-poor, as well as his instruction in it. Furthermore, you do the man a disservice by accusing him of being religious, when he has offered no evidence for that accusation. Nothing in the GP's post indicates that he's religious. Skeptical of evolution, perhaps (and I find it hard to blame him, given his description of how it was "taught" to him), but that's far from equivalent to religous.
I'm not particularly educated on the scientific basis for evolution, and for that matter, wouldn't be quite sure where to begin, to get the answer to my question. However, it seems to me that the real kicker would be: can you prove that the fossils at different stages are related to each other? Just because you have fossil A, B, and C, and they're all steps in a logical progression, doesn't mean you can take it for granted that the fossils are the same species over time. They could be different species entirely, whether at the same time or different times. How has this difficulty been dealt with? It's obviously one which needs to be, or else evolution is on rather shaky ground.
I'm not religious, but not all of your reasons cited for hating religion are very valid. For example, the "In God We Trust" printed on our money. It's just a slogan, dude, why is it so important? Seriously, my money could say "I have a small penis!" and I wouldn't care, it's just something printed on my money, ultimately entirely inconsequential to anyone's life. There's no reason for it to be on there, but there's also no reason to take it off, since that would incur extra expense as the plates they use to print money were re-done. Similarly, why care about the pledge of allegiance? It's one small line, and you can omit it if you wish.
I also don't have a problem with faith-based initiatives, simply because the idea is that the money is for charitable works. It doesn't matter in the least to me who's doing these charitable works, just as long as they're getting done (and reasonably efficiently).
Now, shopping laws, that we can agree is ridiculous. I purchase liquor once in a blue moon, but it's none of anyone's business when I should choose to do that.
Finally, although you don't seem like a particularly intolerant person in general, I agree with what the quoted text in your post says. We should all be tolerant of each others' beliefs, and strive to refrain from mocking them. Disagree, debate, certainly. But the relentless mocking and hatred I've seen religion get at times makes me very sad indeed, because it's something people should be above.
Windows, in spite of its name, has no concept of windows management. Basically each application is supposed to manage its own windows. That's why there are all those weird multiple document interfaces on Windows, like the braindead but common design where an application has one large window and every document creates a small window inside it. Hey now. I like that design. Some apps (Office, for example) let you display every document in a new window, and that really makes the desktop clutter fast. Limiting an app to one window and giving it sub-windows is one of the best decisions made in UI design, imho.
I quite honestly fail to see what makes any of these stories invalid, except possibly the one about the hate-speech groups. Care to elaborate? I personally think three out of those four are very interesting, newsworthy stories.
I'm not counting games which are available on other systems. In that light, I really shouldn't count Zelda, to be fair, but I can't exactly go back and edit the post.
Well... Zelda and Metroid Prime are already on the Wii. A Dragon Quest spinoff is coming to the Wii, and DQ9 is coming to the DS (closely related to the Wii). Those are all games on your list which are already on the Wii, or en route to the Wii. Heck, Resident Evil 4 and Far Cry fit in with your list pretty well, and they're on the Wii too.
Hey now. All those companies are capable of producing good games, they just don't do it that often. Sony made God of War, for example. EA made C&C 3. Microsoft made Halo (yes, I'm bringing Halo into this). Whether any of these games are your thing or not isn't really the point, the point is that these are games commonly held to be excellent, even though the mass of games produced by their parent companies are mediocre.
Don't get me wrong, I love Super Paper Mario as well. I just have even more love for NSMB, because it's the first proper Mario game since Super Mario World. (By proper, I mean: 2D, the way God intended, and none of this "you're playing as Yoshi, not Mario, but we still call it a Mario game" nonsense... although Yoshi's Island was good in its own right.)
games don't sell systems But one of the factors that determines what console you buy IS what games are available. No matter how much consideration you give to price, looks, online play, advertising, game library is truly a factor. You wouldn't buy a console with no good games for it, no matter how cheap it is. Your original point was that people are buying a Wii despite its abysmal game library, so games don't matter. The thing is, no one else, as far as I see here, thinks the game library is truly poor. The 360 has a few truly excellent games, as does the Wii, as does the PS3 (well... it has Heavenly Sword at any rate). The Wii is not doing well in spite of a poor library, it's doing well because it has a great price, a new twist, AND a solid library.
And the PS3 is doing dismally because of price, in addition to a poor game library. It's screwed because it has two huge strikes against it.
I can agree with you that games are not the sole factor, but the point of your OP, that the Wii has no real good games, yet is doing well, thus games are irrelevant to system sales, is really off, imho.
I'm not discrediting Wii Sports. I like it, I play it, and I think it's something truly unique and different. I hadn't been aware that people are buying Wiis just to play Wii Sports, but my post was not meant in any way to belittle the game.
Aha, but Oblivion and Bioshock are on the PC (and the PS3 in Oblivion's case), so they don't count. Mind you, Zelda doesn't count either, properly speaking, although it's true that the aiming is far better on the Wii. And whether Oblivion/Bioshock are a million times better than anything on the Wii is debateable. Bioshock I haven't played yet, but I certainly liked Oblivion less than all the games I listed as points in the Wii's favor.
its game library is, all things considered, horribly outmatched I disagree here. The 360 has two games, as far as I'm aware, that are system sellers (Gears of War and Forza 2), with a third (Halo 3) coming out shortly. The 360 is the first game console of this generation, but as far as I'm concerned, ALL the consoles have a lackluster library. The Wii actually has the best library at the moment, with Super Paper Mario, Zelda (sort of, it's available on the Cube too), Metroid Prime 3, and Wii Sports (even if it is only a pack-in).
I wouldn't say they destroyed the MechWarrior franchise. I quite liked MechWarrior 4, and was hoping for MechWarrior 5 to emerge someday. Sadly, I guess that will never happen now.:(
Now if you're referring to stuff like MechAssault, then yeah, that wasn't very good, but I don't consider them part of the MechWarrior series in any way, except that they happen to include mechs.
This argument is used a lot by open-source proponents, and it's complete bullshit. We can all agree that the actions of Microsoft in this case are wrong. That does not mean, however, that those actions are taken because they make proprietary software, that means that Microsoft has questionable practices (something we've known for ages). Most makers of proprietary software are trustworthy enough to not be breaking into people's boxes at night and installing stuff. So take your "proprietary software is teh evil" argument out of here, it's completely irrelevant. What matters is the character of the company in question, not the open-ness of their software.
Opinion is one thing, but claiming that something has a plot when it clearly doesn't, claiming that a game that has survived for years is overrated is a load of bullshit. No, what you just said is bullshit. See, I'm entitled to think whatever I want to think, and I assure you (although I obviously can't prove it) that this IS my honest opinion. No fanboyism, nothing else. You want to call it bullshit, fine, that's your right. But in the end, you can't prove it. Hell, you can't even prove that Half-Life is good, or that Halo is bad. There is no such thing as an objective definition of quality.
Halflife is one of the most popular games of all times for good reasons... mods... That's not a valid reason at all. Judge the game, not stuff the game is modded to do.
Fair enough, but it's interesting you should bring that up. Halo has actually provoked an emotional response which no game really has (games which provoke emotional responses besides "fun" are rare enough as it is): in the most recent Halo 3 trailer, it shows Cortana being (apparently) tormented by some unseen adversary. Watching that, I felt actual concern for Cortana, and her fate, and sadness that she was enduring such a thing. Now, "step away from the game" comments aside (and possibly justified, heh), it's remarkable to me that she's such a lifelike, endearing character that I actually care about her fate. No other game has managed to do this, not even games which affect me in some other way.
Anyways, I just thought that it was interesting that you found the games so emotion-less, and I found them to be the most emotionally compelling games I've played (in their own way).
If you say vehicles... I will say Unreal Tournament. The vehicles in UT (in UT2k4 at least) are ok, but not as good as the ones in Halo. The tank is about the same, the flying vehicle is ok in either game (although I don't use Banshees, ever), the Manta is probably slightly better than the Ghost, but the Warthog equivalent is a hell of a lot worse. Every time I play that game, I want to shoot the guy who came up with the idea that steering should be separate from look, it's aggravating... especially considering no other vehicles in UT do it that way.
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...on the evidence that you seem to think that the validity of truth is subjective to the thinking of an uneducated mind. You completely misunderstood me. I don't think that the validity of the truth is subject to the thinking of any one mind, if something is true, it is true completely independently of whether anyone recognizes it. I think that when one is not presented with proper evidence that something is true, one should be skeptical about it (if they care about the truth, of course, they may just go about their way, uncaring). It truly sounds to me, in this case, that someone was just given some glossed-over teaching about evolution and told to accept it at that, which is no proof of truth at all. Should he have been motivated to educate himself about it? Perhaps. However, assuming that he was taught as poorly as I've interpreted from his post, he is quite correct to be skeptical about what he was told, because at no point was he given proof.It makes perfect sense. Either you decide that the available evidence is sufficient to prove evolution, or it's insufficient. In other words, either you think evolution occurred, or didn't occur. The threshold of evidence necessary for proof often differs from person to person.
Also, I didn't get the impression that the GP didn't understand the material, I got the impression that the material itself was piss-poor, as well as his instruction in it. Furthermore, you do the man a disservice by accusing him of being religious, when he has offered no evidence for that accusation. Nothing in the GP's post indicates that he's religious. Skeptical of evolution, perhaps (and I find it hard to blame him, given his description of how it was "taught" to him), but that's far from equivalent to religous.
I'm not particularly educated on the scientific basis for evolution, and for that matter, wouldn't be quite sure where to begin, to get the answer to my question. However, it seems to me that the real kicker would be: can you prove that the fossils at different stages are related to each other? Just because you have fossil A, B, and C, and they're all steps in a logical progression, doesn't mean you can take it for granted that the fossils are the same species over time. They could be different species entirely, whether at the same time or different times. How has this difficulty been dealt with? It's obviously one which needs to be, or else evolution is on rather shaky ground.
I also don't have a problem with faith-based initiatives, simply because the idea is that the money is for charitable works. It doesn't matter in the least to me who's doing these charitable works, just as long as they're getting done (and reasonably efficiently).
Now, shopping laws, that we can agree is ridiculous. I purchase liquor once in a blue moon, but it's none of anyone's business when I should choose to do that.
Finally, although you don't seem like a particularly intolerant person in general, I agree with what the quoted text in your post says. We should all be tolerant of each others' beliefs, and strive to refrain from mocking them. Disagree, debate, certainly. But the relentless mocking and hatred I've seen religion get at times makes me very sad indeed, because it's something people should be above.
I've been hitting refresh for like 24 hours, man, it's still there! What am I doing wrong?
I quite honestly fail to see what makes any of these stories invalid, except possibly the one about the hate-speech groups. Care to elaborate? I personally think three out of those four are very interesting, newsworthy stories.
Random guy: "I've got a degree in homeopathic medicine!" Truck: "You've got a degree in baloney!" *knocks guy down with water from a hose*
I'm not counting games which are available on other systems. In that light, I really shouldn't count Zelda, to be fair, but I can't exactly go back and edit the post.
Well... Zelda and Metroid Prime are already on the Wii. A Dragon Quest spinoff is coming to the Wii, and DQ9 is coming to the DS (closely related to the Wii). Those are all games on your list which are already on the Wii, or en route to the Wii. Heck, Resident Evil 4 and Far Cry fit in with your list pretty well, and they're on the Wii too.
Hey now. All those companies are capable of producing good games, they just don't do it that often. Sony made God of War, for example. EA made C&C 3. Microsoft made Halo (yes, I'm bringing Halo into this). Whether any of these games are your thing or not isn't really the point, the point is that these are games commonly held to be excellent, even though the mass of games produced by their parent companies are mediocre.
What the hell is your point? I didn't say a damn thing about Mario 3 in my post.
Don't get me wrong, I love Super Paper Mario as well. I just have even more love for NSMB, because it's the first proper Mario game since Super Mario World. (By proper, I mean: 2D, the way God intended, and none of this "you're playing as Yoshi, not Mario, but we still call it a Mario game" nonsense... although Yoshi's Island was good in its own right.)
And the PS3 is doing dismally because of price, in addition to a poor game library. It's screwed because it has two huge strikes against it.
I can agree with you that games are not the sole factor, but the point of your OP, that the Wii has no real good games, yet is doing well, thus games are irrelevant to system sales, is really off, imho.
I'm not discrediting Wii Sports. I like it, I play it, and I think it's something truly unique and different. I hadn't been aware that people are buying Wiis just to play Wii Sports, but my post was not meant in any way to belittle the game.
Indeed. Although I have to disagree about Super Paper Mario. New Super Mario Bros, on the DS, is better, but now we're quibbling. ;)
Aha, but Oblivion and Bioshock are on the PC (and the PS3 in Oblivion's case), so they don't count. Mind you, Zelda doesn't count either, properly speaking, although it's true that the aiming is far better on the Wii. And whether Oblivion/Bioshock are a million times better than anything on the Wii is debateable. Bioshock I haven't played yet, but I certainly liked Oblivion less than all the games I listed as points in the Wii's favor.
Now if you're referring to stuff like MechAssault, then yeah, that wasn't very good, but I don't consider them part of the MechWarrior series in any way, except that they happen to include mechs.
This argument is used a lot by open-source proponents, and it's complete bullshit. We can all agree that the actions of Microsoft in this case are wrong. That does not mean, however, that those actions are taken because they make proprietary software, that means that Microsoft has questionable practices (something we've known for ages). Most makers of proprietary software are trustworthy enough to not be breaking into people's boxes at night and installing stuff. So take your "proprietary software is teh evil" argument out of here, it's completely irrelevant. What matters is the character of the company in question, not the open-ness of their software.
Anyways, I just thought that it was interesting that you found the games so emotion-less, and I found them to be the most emotionally compelling games I've played (in their own way).