The entire context is either, god's way, or an eternity of torture.
So your opinion is that God should take away people's free will, and force them to live with him forever in heaven? Any person who wants to get to heaven can do so just by accepting Christ. You can't buy your way there, nor can you ever be good enough to get there. But you can get there by just wanting to be there. Every person has that choice. But every person has another option. If they really don't want to be with God for eternity, they can choose the pit. Now you'll be sharing it with a few ex-Angels who got kicked out of heaven and hate your guts because you're more important than they are, but hey? What's a little hatred in a place of exile?
Or is your point that God should create a place where those who don't want to live in heaven can stay for eternity performing whatever acts they feel like? A place that isn't hell that is. And God should protect this place against those same ex-angels from getting there to torment you. Despite the fact that you just told him you want nothing to do with him?
I'm sorry, what was your point again?
But the conservative B.S. especially Paul's teachings, are just plain wrong.
You're going to have to be more concrete than that. What exactly is your problem with Paul? Perhaps it was the whole celibacy thing? "But if they cannot contain, let them marry: for it is better to marry than to burn" --1 Corinthians 7:9
Once again Murder and Torture are not okay. Ever.
Interesting. So war is not okay? Ever? Should you accept death rather than take up arms against an attacker? It's okay for someone else to kill you, but if you kill them to prevent your own death, you are in the wrong? Should David had not killed Goliath? Perhaps the United States shouldn't have defended itself against Japan? The world would be a much better place now, right?
You think it's not okay that God (who I will remind you was the very one who gave the commandment, "Thou shalt not kill" to the Jews) to be the Judge of what is right and just? I would remind you that God states "Revenge is mine." Or in other words, it is not the place of Christians to decide who lives and who dies, regardless of your problems with actions taken by a power higher than us.
I also would remind you that no man lifted a single hand against the Egyptian children. So in saying that Christianity is about promoting murder and torture, you are in effect saying that you believe that it was perfectly okay that the Egyptians took the lives of Jewish children, but it was not okay when Egyptian children died from no fault of ANY Jew present at the event?
You must be very wise to accuse innocent people of murder and torture.
You're just saying "The Bible isn't condoning violence, it's the people in the Bible who are condoning violence".
Actually, I'm saying nothing of the sort. I'm saying that the example you gave is an example of someone venting their frustrations. Have you ever gotten angry at a sibling or friend and yelled, "If I catch you, I'm gonna kill you?" Were you really going to kill them? Perhaps you felt like smashing a few kneecaps, but did you do so?
That argument is worthless, because you can used for video games, movies, books and anything else. It's not the movie that condones violence. It's the characters in it!
Really? So let's interpret classic literature, shall we? According to your logic, the "Scarlet Letter" promotes both wedlock and cruel and unusual punishments, Robin Hood promtes oppression of the people and extreme taxation, the House of Seven Gables promotes cheating old men out of their lifetime homes, Hamlet promotes sucide, and To Kill a Mockingbird promotes domestic violence and rape. Is that the point you're attempting to make? Because that is where your logic leads.
The problem is that you're confusing literary devices with the real world. Protagonism and Antagonism (the so-called good-guys and bad-guys) are devices used by an author to help the reader understand the situation without going into long histories that explain how everyone ended up in their current position. You have the good guy on one side (who usually can do no wrong) and the bad guy on the other (who usually does nothing *but* wrong). They duke it out, and you root for the good guy the whole time.
Unfortunately, life doesn't always work that way. We're talking about a book that documents 3000-4000 years of very real history. Just because a few jews in captivity wanted to see the Babylonians burn doesn't mean that all their decendents do. I'm sure quite a few Americans wanted to see Russia nuked at one point, but wouldn't dream of it in this day in age. The point is that the events happened, and denying them does nothing but harm everyone. For example, Peter could have helpfully ommitted his cowardice in the face of Jesus' death (i.e. You shall deny me three times) when he wrote his book of the Bible. He didn't. Why do you think that is?
But if you really can't handle the complexities of real life as presented in book form, then may I suggest that you either improve yourself by attending a few Literary classes? Otherwise you might want to stick to the pre-chewed versions.
Did the director choose to remove the "Witch is dead" song in the DVD version of OZ?
Are you sure that's what they're referring to? I think the summary is actually referring to the changes made after the first screenings of the Wizard of Oz in the theaters. Based on those screenings, the director chopped a LOT of footage, including a SECOND reprisal of "Ding-Dong the Witch is Dead" after the second witch melts.
Looking at Amazon and the like, I can find no evidence that the first reprisal has been removed on the DVD.
What a perfect example of taking things out of context!
*taps pointer on desk*
Pay attention class, because you are about to learn the importance of understanding context.
The verse that k98sven has chosen certainly sounds horrible. Why would God wish such a thing for the very people he created? The answer is that he doesn't, and the verse is not intended to be interpreted that way. The song (and it is a song) is the Jewish captives lamenting their imprisionment by their Babylonian captives. They are extremely angry over their treatment, and are wishing for the complete destruction of the Babylonians, which means their entire lineage. They want the Babylonians wiped off the face of the Earth for what they had done.
This page goes into some detail about songs such as this, explaining that the Bible makes us privy to many private conversations and feelings that the anscestors of Jesus felt. (Make no mistake, the primary purpose of the Bible is to document the lineage of Jesus Christ.) But just because these people felt this way doesn't make it the word of God when taken out of context.
For example, 2nd Samuel Chapter 13 describes Amnon's act of raping his half-sister. Does that make it God's word to rape your half-sister? HELL NO! In context one would understand that David was very angry about his son's deeds, because it was wrong. This spurned his other son to kill Amnon. But then he had to flee because he also had done something horrible, even if it was for the right reasons. (I'll stop here because the analysis would get extremely long and end up going all the way back to the events with Bathsheba.)
This comes back to my point about literature being extremely complex and allowing for an analysis of humanity. Video games in their current incarnation don't do that. They simply glorify one thing or another.
But if such private moments and complexities are too difficult for you to deal with, you may want to avoid the book of the Bible entitled "Solomon's Song". Such sexual innuendo as comparing his lover's breasts to a pair of fawns or her husband to a stag on a mountain is not for the faint of heart!;-)
But the fact is, you cannot justify an infinite punishment for a finite crime. It's INFINITELY cruel and unjust (infinite because hell is for an eternity).
You're right. And the Bible agrees with you. Under the Old Testament, the law stated you should received eternal damnation. However, the New Testament said, "Whosoever believeth in Me (Jesus) shall have ever lasting life." Then Jesus went and preached to those who had died before he came and gave them a chance. Now the only question is, when Judgement Day comes do you chose Jesus or not? That's the only critera for getting to heaven. Or as the Brother Jesse Duplantis likes to say, "You'd be amazed at the people you'll meet in heaven!":-)
God's "crimes"? According to whom? Are you so all-powerful that you think that you can judge the almighty? Just a little big headed there, aren't we?
There are really only two interpretations here: Either you don't believe in God - in which case the deaths were most likey caused by disease and merely attributed to a mythical figure - or, you do believe in God in which case you should be looking to understand his actions, not judging them. After all, you didn't create the entire Universe, nor did you send your Son to die a painful death so that others may reach heaven.
Two rights don't make a wrong.
Well, that's good to know. I'd hate to think that spreading good deads would lead to crime.
who under gods laws at the time would be destined to spend eternity in Sheol.
I'm sorry, were these children guilty of something that would warrant their banishment to Sheol? The sins of the fathers (talked about extensively in the Old Testament) may have been the cause for their worldly death, but they hardly reached an age to make their own decisions. Even if we assume that they were still deserving of eternal condemnation, I would like to point you to the following part of Peter:
1 Pet 3:18 For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit: 1 Pet 3:19 By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison; 1 Pet 3:20 Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water.
What that means (if you'll forgive the KJV translation, it's a bit confusing in modern English) is that Jesus spent time preaching to all those who deserved hell under the law, but were now given the opportunity for grace.
So what you are saying is that this makes it OK to murder innocent children . premeditated slaughter of countless children
You really don't understand how the law worked in those times, do you? Well, I won't bore you with a 10,000 word theological lesson that I doubt you'd read anyway. Suffice it to say, that the concepts of innocence we think of today came through the grace of Jesus Christ. (Or Emmanuel if you prefer.) The law was extremely strict in passing shame until atonement could be produced. (I'd invite you to read the part of Genesis where God nearly killed Moses. His wife circumcised their son and in throwing the foreskin at Moses feet yelled, "What a bloody husband have I!") Under grace, however, no one deserves to die. Especially not children. And if you can't see the love in changing the law to grace, well, I'm afraid that there's nothing I can do to change your mind.
1: The destruction of cities that don't do what they are told (Sodom and Gomorra )
Never mind that you just sugarcoated a bunch of rapists and murderers. 10 good people was all that Abram had to find to spare the cities. He didn't even find one.
2: Torturing someone to prove their faith (Jobe)
You think poverty is torture? Warp things much?
3: Murdering children (Egypt)
As opposed to those friendly Egyptians who couldn't have possibly murdered every newborn Jewish boy in cold blood as a method of population control. (The Egyptians and the Jews had been *friends* up to that point. Talk about betrayal) Not to mention the variety of plauges and warnings sent prior to the infant deaths as a warning to release the Jewish people from this slaughter.
4: Sending your son down to be executed , just to prove a point (Je[s]us)
Oh, well excuse him for voluntarily accepting punishment for your sins. Hello? McFly?! Under the law you're supposed to go to hell for your sins. Now if you believe that God did such a thing as send his Son to the chopping block, then you should also believe that he did it so that all people who wish to do so can go to heaven. i.e. Note that the New Testament states, "Whosoever believeth in me shall have eternal life." It doesn't say you have to be perfect, nor does it say that you have to balance your life with good to offet the bad you've done. It just says that you have to believe in Jesus and thus by extension, want to go to heaven.
Besides, HE AROSE FROM THE DEAD! (Break into song and dance here.)
5: Threatening anyone who doesn't follow the belief
Um, yeah. That's the most vague statement you've made yet. What is it with you trolls? Don't connect with reality much, do you?
Let me throw something else back at you. "The Allied Powers killed millions of Germans in WWII." Those EVIL people! What kind of asshole would ever support such thugs and murders! </sarcasm>
Let me ask you this: Do you actually want to know the answers to your rantings, or are you just looking to fight? The difference does matter. If it's the former, then we're it's a discussion, albeit offtopic. If it's the latter, then you're just trolling and should be ignored.
By the fact that you can do no better than insult others, I have a feeling that it's the latter rather than the former. Which would prove the AC correct, your theology is based on some foaming at the mouth, anti-christian questionnaire. I was there when people here first starting using that nonsense as an argument here on Slashdot, and I did help debunk it. Thoroughly. So if you're *really* curious, I can explain. Otherwise, expect to be ignored.
Because the Bible glorifies "sinful" acts? Ok, whatever.
I already addressed your "point" here. I have to say that it's rather disturbing that so many people can equate containing certain themes to glorifying those same themes.
Taking the Bible as an example, what happened when David slept with Bathsheba, then bumped off her husband? The profits certainly didn't show up and start yelling, "You da' MAN! Those moves are the shizzle!" Try opening the Old Testiment sometime. It shouldn't take you long to find something along the lines of, "Yet XYZ did not turn from their sinful ways, and God's wrath poured out upon them." (The New Testament is a heck of a lot more lenient due to the coming "grace" talked about in Galatians, but it still didn't glorify ugly behavior.)
Or moving onto more complex literature. Was the point of "Gone with the Wind" that Rhett Butler was such a great lady's man? He was manuvering Scarlett O'Hara toward the bed the entire book, but when she finally consented he merely said, "Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn." Why do you think that was, hmmm?
Is there any part in GTA where your character suddenly realizes the toll his lifestyle is taking and wants out? No? Why not? After all, isn't GTA like fine literature, chock full of lessons to be learned and humanities to analyze? Or perhaps it's just one big, antisocial, utterly meaningless, and depraved wankfest? "Look! I slept with the chick and bumped off her boyfriend! I'm the shizzle!" Great.
Contain != Condone or even Revel. What makes much literature interesting is taking the time to analyze the human condition, and see how people handle complex situations, often with no clearly defined "right" or "wrong". Inperfection is what makes us human, and it is of great interest to unravel it.
To compare GTA to a book, I think you'd be hard pressed to find a book that glorifies lawlessness in the same fashion as GTA. Nearly any book worth reading on the topic would not only look at the attraction to the lifestyle, but the shear cost of it as well. How many friends will you lose in gang wars? How many young women's lives will you destroy in pimping? How much does that drug dealing cost you personally in comparison to the monetary gains? If you shut it all out, are you even human any more? What continues to drive you after you shut out your emotions? Is there a way out? Can you see it?
Books make an ideal vehicle for looking at these situations. Video Games, on the other hand, cannot be expected to show the same amount of depth. (At least not until VR becomes a reality.) When you go around killing people, stealing cars, selling drugs, and pimping women in the game, the only things worth concerning yourself with are the scoreboard and a game over sign. There are no lives destroyed, no personal costs, nothing. Therein lies its appeal, but does that really build you up as a person? What 'fun' exactly are you deriving from role playing such a destructive character? Or are you playing it because it's "cool" and "everyone else is doing it"? (Insert mother's scolding about everyone jumping over a cliff |here|.)
Personally, I can find far better reasons for playing a game. For example, the battle of wits and piloting skills in Wing Commander, the precision and speed of SF: Rush, the engaging humor of Space Quest, the friendly duels of Quake III, the chance to be a hero of the future in Elite Force, the fast-strategy of C&C, the hand-eye puzzles of Mario 64, and the on your feet thinking of Tetris.
Hate to tell you this dude, my dad has a whole shelf full of his grandparents books from the 1890s and thenabouts. Most of them: crappy, commercial, and pretty trashy.
See? There you go. You had to get me started.;-)
Seriously, there's always been a lot of trashy literature throughout history. The "pulp fiction" of the early 20th century is a perfect example of this. (So named because it was considered so bad that no one would bother printing it on anything but the cheapest pulp paper.) The tradition of such pulp fiction lives on today in googleplexes of trashy romance novels and lousy sci-fi. But that's not actually my complaint.
My complaint is about publishers who once held a high standard, but have slowly let such standards slip over the years. A perfect example of this is the PocketBook franchises. Hardy Boys, for example, used to be 300 or so page long books that were printed in regular type. The newer books that were introduced later were 150 page, oversized softcover books, printed in huge type and plenty of whitespace. The result was that thorough mysteries became slightly lengthened short stories. Now move onto the Star Trek franchise. The same sort of watering down with filler has become commonplace. Whereas I once enjoyed such novels as "Strangers in the Sky", "Enterprise: The First Mission", "The Final Reflection", "Q-in-Law", and "Imzadi", I now am forced to chose between purchasing 10 books to read a complete serial (which could have far better fit in one novel, with the filling removed for better pacing) or single "episode" books like the latest in the StarGazer series. Allow me to ruin the entire book for you in 4 short sentences:
Okay, bad guys attack. No one knows why. Ule acts strange. Turns out bad guys actually want their spy who's disguised as Ule back. The End.
WTF? Where's the depth, the plot twists, the cliffhangers, the character development, the parallel events, THE ATTEMPT AT REALISM? My 10 year old brother (if I had a ten year old brother) could do better than that! I mean, would it kill Simon and Schuster to reimplement a few quality standards, like they used to have? Apparently so.
Unfortunately, such lousy books have become the bread and butter of mainstream publishers. So much so, that the *only* books I can find worth reading are by a small time publisher like Baen. And if I'm being perfectly honest, Baen's books aren't exactly the highest quality, soon to be studied by the next generation, prose ever written. In fact, a lot of it is very much "pulp" Sci-Fi. (Sorry, Weber! Still a fan, but I gotta be honest, here.) Which says a lot about the mainstream publishers when pulp is being rated higher than the supposed "quality" stuff.:-/
the appeal of anti-social games is simple: Catharsis.
The problem is that most players don't realize how it affects their day to day outlook on life. i.e. If you get a lot of negativity out of your environment, you can expect to become a very negative person. Real life offers more than enough difficulties in this area. Why would you want to add more of it?
The unfortunate answer is that most people have a streak of masochistic curiousity. Unchecked, this curiousity can get you into all kinds of trouble. A common example of this is how people will often watch a television show or movie that they don't want watch and are not entertained by, but "nothing else is on". The idea that playing a board game with others, going out somewhere, or even curling up with a book would be a more productive use of that time simply isn't enough to outweigh the desire to stay glued to the television. It takes a rather large helping of self-determination to turn the TV off, pull your butt off the couch, and go do something better.
The part that is frightening about something like GTA is that people are actually parting with hard cash rather than exerting sufficient self-control to say, "No, I'll go do something better with my time." As I said in my original post, that's their choice. I may disagree with it, but I can't force others to agree with my viewpoint. Personal responsibility and all that. But when it comes to changing the very way the industry works, why oh why must the entire world be subjected to the whims of the Lowest Common Denominator?
It's just like Reality Television. It's crap, and everyone knows it's crap. But enough people watch it that TV Stations would rather make a quick buck off of the LCD than a hard earned mint off of engaging shows for the much larger and more intelligent populace.:-(
Let's see, the game(s) glorify pimping hookers, killing cops, stealing cars, and just about every other lawless act imaginable.
It's a long, bumpy ride, but at the end, Grand Theft Auto stands tall as the game that changed everything.
This is a good thing? Sorry, but I'd rather see a fresh new installment of Mario 64 (where art thou?) than another GTA. I realize a lot of people disagree with me, and that's fine. But I don't see anything so great about pushing games that promote ugly and disgusting behavior, regardless of whether or not the players can tell the difference.
Or to put it another way, if it's not okay in the real world, why waste your time immersing yourself in it? Go read a book or something. (Argh! Must... resist... temptation... to... complain... about... crappy... commercialization... of... books...)
Indeed. Turbo-boxen protected by intuitive use of TCPA copy protetion would make for an innovative new FLOSS cyber-platform. Just think of the synergy that could be harnessed through such strategic mergers of technology!:-P
Seriously, it's all about context. My humorous post was intended to point out the outright abuse of the term "innovation". It's fine when someone uses it as, "innovations like the new O(1) search method are changing the face of database technology." It's not okay when every yahoo (especially Microsoft) begins decrying, "You're stifling my innovation!" My only response to such nonsense is, "First you tell me *what* innovation you're speaking of, and then we'll find a way not to stifle it."
The privacy groups made their case saying taps would seriously hinder innovation on the web.
Can we STOP using that word? This is getting worse than "Synergy"! If you have a point, try to quantify it in a reasonable manner. For example, "Tapping VOIP would drive up costs, thus resulting in slower adoption in an otherwise emerging market."
"Innovation" is nothing more than a weasel word that get bandied about everytime someone wants to argue against something, but has no argument prepared.
So, for the sake of the Children, everything Holy, and the nerves of all of us in the tech industry, please STOP USING THAT WORD as a defense. Thank you, have a nice day.
Perhaps it is because more people are familiar with C++ than Python, and by writing the AI and other game rules in C++ the Civ 4 team has made modders job easier.
While that reason has been used by many a person, I don't think it's a particularly good one. The problem with doing something like AI in C/C++ is that all the memory management issues cloud the actual logic, thus making it more difficult than necessary to understand. Using a higher level language like Python, Java, or (God forbid) JavaScript tends to simplify the code and make it far more readable.
That being said, the poster above me may be correct. It was probably done in C/C++ for reasons of tweaking the performance. (In which case you REALLY don't want to mess with the code.);-)
Wow, what a mess. So Hartland Trefoil gets acquired by Avalon Hill who licenses the name to Microprose, but then Sid Meier breaks off to do his own Civ, but Activision gets its own permission to do Civ, thus causing Hasbro (who wants to get in on the game) to acquire AH and Microprose, then allowing Eagle Games to do a board game that's a spinoff of the computer game which is a spinoff of the board game. Whew. Am I missing anything?
Mods, if you could, please give the parent (and the other fine and helpful posters in this thread) a few mod points for being informative? Thanks.:-)
Ah hah! Rfunches post below mine spurred me to do a smidge more research, and I found this link where you can purchase the board game from Eagle Games. Which would figure. The list I linked to in the parent post didn't link to the Eagle Games website.
The Eagle Games site makes it sound like the board game was based on the video game, not the other way around. This may have its pluses and minuses. On the plus side, you'll probably get an experience closer to the video game, on the minus side the rules may be overly complex due to numbers that a computer can crunch easily whereas a human must keep track of paperwork.
If you've never played a Wargame before, I probably wouldn't recommend starting with the Civilisation board game. Wargames are *tough* if you've never played them before, and tend to require a mentor. Since you might have trouble finding one in this day in age of Computer Games, I highly recommend starting with the free Battle For Moscow board game. It's fairly easy to pick up, and should help you get down the basics of wargaming.
The Civilization games seem like a prime candidate for breaking into the family-game-playing field.
Isn't Civilization loosely based on a Wargame of a similar name? i.e. Thus the use of a hex grid and all? Maybe I'm wrong on this, but I could have sworn I saw it in a list of board games a few days ago. (I'm currently learning to play Starfire, for those of you who know what that is.)
Ah, here we are. It's under 'C' on this page. The link to the website seems to be defunct (along with the company?), so I really have no way of verifying this. Anyone?
It's probably because Sun screwed up the focus. Instead of selling to anyone who will buy, Sun usually sells to only large companies that wave MegaBucks around. What they don't realize is if they got a large number of "small" companies on the N1 system, they may be able to convince the big boys to jump on the bandwagon.
Personally, I see this as being particularly helpful for rendering houses. The cost of running renderings is simply astounding, with many small companies having to purchase grid time from larger rendering houses. If Sun's computing grid is as cost effective as they make it out to be, it could be a boon for these small time 3D shops. At the very least, they'd add more "little guys" to the mix to help Sun sell the N1 to the big guys.
Slashdot Mirror
The entire context is either, god's way, or an eternity of torture.
So your opinion is that God should take away people's free will, and force them to live with him forever in heaven? Any person who wants to get to heaven can do so just by accepting Christ. You can't buy your way there, nor can you ever be good enough to get there. But you can get there by just wanting to be there. Every person has that choice. But every person has another option. If they really don't want to be with God for eternity, they can choose the pit. Now you'll be sharing it with a few ex-Angels who got kicked out of heaven and hate your guts because you're more important than they are, but hey? What's a little hatred in a place of exile?
Or is your point that God should create a place where those who don't want to live in heaven can stay for eternity performing whatever acts they feel like? A place that isn't hell that is. And God should protect this place against those same ex-angels from getting there to torment you. Despite the fact that you just told him you want nothing to do with him?
I'm sorry, what was your point again?
But the conservative B.S. especially Paul's teachings, are just plain wrong.
You're going to have to be more concrete than that. What exactly is your problem with Paul? Perhaps it was the whole celibacy thing? "But if they cannot contain, let them marry: for it is better to marry than to burn" --1 Corinthians 7:9
Once again Murder and Torture are not okay. Ever.
Interesting. So war is not okay? Ever? Should you accept death rather than take up arms against an attacker? It's okay for someone else to kill you, but if you kill them to prevent your own death, you are in the wrong? Should David had not killed Goliath? Perhaps the United States shouldn't have defended itself against Japan? The world would be a much better place now, right?
You think it's not okay that God (who I will remind you was the very one who gave the commandment, "Thou shalt not kill" to the Jews) to be the Judge of what is right and just? I would remind you that God states "Revenge is mine." Or in other words, it is not the place of Christians to decide who lives and who dies, regardless of your problems with actions taken by a power higher than us.
I also would remind you that no man lifted a single hand against the Egyptian children. So in saying that Christianity is about promoting murder and torture, you are in effect saying that you believe that it was perfectly okay that the Egyptians took the lives of Jewish children, but it was not okay when Egyptian children died from no fault of ANY Jew present at the event?
You must be very wise to accuse innocent people of murder and torture.
You're just saying "The Bible isn't condoning violence, it's the people in the Bible who are condoning violence".
Actually, I'm saying nothing of the sort. I'm saying that the example you gave is an example of someone venting their frustrations. Have you ever gotten angry at a sibling or friend and yelled, "If I catch you, I'm gonna kill you?" Were you really going to kill them? Perhaps you felt like smashing a few kneecaps, but did you do so?
That argument is worthless, because you can used for video games, movies, books and anything else. It's not the movie that condones violence. It's the characters in it!
Really? So let's interpret classic literature, shall we? According to your logic, the "Scarlet Letter" promotes both wedlock and cruel and unusual punishments, Robin Hood promtes oppression of the people and extreme taxation, the House of Seven Gables promotes cheating old men out of their lifetime homes, Hamlet promotes sucide, and To Kill a Mockingbird promotes domestic violence and rape. Is that the point you're attempting to make? Because that is where your logic leads.
The problem is that you're confusing literary devices with the real world. Protagonism and Antagonism (the so-called good-guys and bad-guys) are devices used by an author to help the reader understand the situation without going into long histories that explain how everyone ended up in their current position. You have the good guy on one side (who usually can do no wrong) and the bad guy on the other (who usually does nothing *but* wrong). They duke it out, and you root for the good guy the whole time.
Unfortunately, life doesn't always work that way. We're talking about a book that documents 3000-4000 years of very real history. Just because a few jews in captivity wanted to see the Babylonians burn doesn't mean that all their decendents do. I'm sure quite a few Americans wanted to see Russia nuked at one point, but wouldn't dream of it in this day in age. The point is that the events happened, and denying them does nothing but harm everyone. For example, Peter could have helpfully ommitted his cowardice in the face of Jesus' death (i.e. You shall deny me three times) when he wrote his book of the Bible. He didn't. Why do you think that is?
But if you really can't handle the complexities of real life as presented in book form, then may I suggest that you either improve yourself by attending a few Literary classes? Otherwise you might want to stick to the pre-chewed versions.
$%@#$! :-/
s/Babylonian captives/Babylonian captors/g
Did the director choose to remove the "Witch is dead" song in the DVD version of OZ?
Are you sure that's what they're referring to? I think the summary is actually referring to the changes made after the first screenings of the Wizard of Oz in the theaters. Based on those screenings, the director chopped a LOT of footage, including a SECOND reprisal of "Ding-Dong the Witch is Dead" after the second witch melts.
Looking at Amazon and the like, I can find no evidence that the first reprisal has been removed on the DVD.
s/spurned/spurred/g
What a perfect example of taking things out of context!
;-)
*taps pointer on desk*
Pay attention class, because you are about to learn the importance of understanding context.
The verse that k98sven has chosen certainly sounds horrible. Why would God wish such a thing for the very people he created? The answer is that he doesn't, and the verse is not intended to be interpreted that way. The song (and it is a song) is the Jewish captives lamenting their imprisionment by their Babylonian captives. They are extremely angry over their treatment, and are wishing for the complete destruction of the Babylonians, which means their entire lineage. They want the Babylonians wiped off the face of the Earth for what they had done.
This page goes into some detail about songs such as this, explaining that the Bible makes us privy to many private conversations and feelings that the anscestors of Jesus felt. (Make no mistake, the primary purpose of the Bible is to document the lineage of Jesus Christ.) But just because these people felt this way doesn't make it the word of God when taken out of context.
For example, 2nd Samuel Chapter 13 describes Amnon's act of raping his half-sister. Does that make it God's word to rape your half-sister? HELL NO! In context one would understand that David was very angry about his son's deeds, because it was wrong. This spurned his other son to kill Amnon. But then he had to flee because he also had done something horrible, even if it was for the right reasons. (I'll stop here because the analysis would get extremely long and end up going all the way back to the events with Bathsheba.)
This comes back to my point about literature being extremely complex and allowing for an analysis of humanity. Video games in their current incarnation don't do that. They simply glorify one thing or another.
But if such private moments and complexities are too difficult for you to deal with, you may want to avoid the book of the Bible entitled "Solomon's Song". Such sexual innuendo as comparing his lover's breasts to a pair of fawns or her husband to a stag on a mountain is not for the faint of heart!
But the fact is, you cannot justify an infinite punishment for a finite crime. It's INFINITELY cruel and unjust (infinite because hell is for an eternity).
:-)
You're right. And the Bible agrees with you. Under the Old Testament, the law stated you should received eternal damnation. However, the New Testament said, "Whosoever believeth in Me (Jesus) shall have ever lasting life." Then Jesus went and preached to those who had died before he came and gave them a chance. Now the only question is, when Judgement Day comes do you chose Jesus or not? That's the only critera for getting to heaven. Or as the Brother Jesse Duplantis likes to say, "You'd be amazed at the people you'll meet in heaven!"
There are really only two interpretations here: Either you don't believe in God - in which case the deaths were most likey caused by disease and merely attributed to a mythical figure - or, you do believe in God in which case you should be looking to understand his actions, not judging them. After all, you didn't create the entire Universe, nor did you send your Son to die a painful death so that others may reach heaven.
Two rights don't make a wrong.
Well, that's good to know. I'd hate to think that spreading good deads would lead to crime.
who under gods laws at the time would be destined to spend eternity in Sheol
I'm sorry, were these children guilty of something that would warrant their banishment to Sheol? The sins of the fathers (talked about extensively in the Old Testament) may have been the cause for their worldly death, but they hardly reached an age to make their own decisions. Even if we assume that they were still deserving of eternal condemnation, I would like to point you to the following part of Peter:
What that means (if you'll forgive the KJV translation, it's a bit confusing in modern English) is that Jesus spent time preaching to all those who deserved hell under the law, but were now given the opportunity for grace.
So what you are saying is that this makes it OK to murder innocent children . premeditated slaughter of countless children
You really don't understand how the law worked in those times, do you? Well, I won't bore you with a 10,000 word theological lesson that I doubt you'd read anyway. Suffice it to say, that the concepts of innocence we think of today came through the grace of Jesus Christ. (Or Emmanuel if you prefer.) The law was extremely strict in passing shame until atonement could be produced. (I'd invite you to read the part of Genesis where God nearly killed Moses. His wife circumcised their son and in throwing the foreskin at Moses feet yelled, "What a bloody husband have I!") Under grace, however, no one deserves to die. Especially not children. And if you can't see the love in changing the law to grace, well, I'm afraid that there's nothing I can do to change your mind.
1: The destruction of cities that don't do what they are told (Sodom and Gomorra )
Never mind that you just sugarcoated a bunch of rapists and murderers. 10 good people was all that Abram had to find to spare the cities. He didn't even find one.
2: Torturing someone to prove their faith (Jobe)
You think poverty is torture? Warp things much?
3: Murdering children (Egypt)
As opposed to those friendly Egyptians who couldn't have possibly murdered every newborn Jewish boy in cold blood as a method of population control. (The Egyptians and the Jews had been *friends* up to that point. Talk about betrayal) Not to mention the variety of plauges and warnings sent prior to the infant deaths as a warning to release the Jewish people from this slaughter.
4: Sending your son down to be executed , just to prove a point (Je[s]us)
Oh, well excuse him for voluntarily accepting punishment for your sins. Hello? McFly?! Under the law you're supposed to go to hell for your sins. Now if you believe that God did such a thing as send his Son to the chopping block, then you should also believe that he did it so that all people who wish to do so can go to heaven. i.e. Note that the New Testament states, "Whosoever believeth in me shall have eternal life." It doesn't say you have to be perfect, nor does it say that you have to balance your life with good to offet the bad you've done. It just says that you have to believe in Jesus and thus by extension, want to go to heaven.
Besides, HE AROSE FROM THE DEAD! (Break into song and dance here.)
5: Threatening anyone who doesn't follow the belief
Um, yeah. That's the most vague statement you've made yet. What is it with you trolls? Don't connect with reality much, do you?
Let me throw something else back at you. "The Allied Powers killed millions of Germans in WWII." Those EVIL people! What kind of asshole would ever support such thugs and murders! </sarcasm>
Let me ask you this: Do you actually want to know the answers to your rantings, or are you just looking to fight? The difference does matter. If it's the former, then we're it's a discussion, albeit offtopic. If it's the latter, then you're just trolling and should be ignored.
By the fact that you can do no better than insult others, I have a feeling that it's the latter rather than the former. Which would prove the AC correct, your theology is based on some foaming at the mouth, anti-christian questionnaire. I was there when people here first starting using that nonsense as an argument here on Slashdot, and I did help debunk it. Thoroughly. So if you're *really* curious, I can explain. Otherwise, expect to be ignored.
s/profits/prophets/g
It's late, so there's probably more typos. That one just stuck out at me, though. Good night.
Because the Bible glorifies "sinful" acts? Ok, whatever.
I already addressed your "point" here. I have to say that it's rather disturbing that so many people can equate containing certain themes to glorifying those same themes.
Taking the Bible as an example, what happened when David slept with Bathsheba, then bumped off her husband? The profits certainly didn't show up and start yelling, "You da' MAN! Those moves are the shizzle!" Try opening the Old Testiment sometime. It shouldn't take you long to find something along the lines of, "Yet XYZ did not turn from their sinful ways, and God's wrath poured out upon them." (The New Testament is a heck of a lot more lenient due to the coming "grace" talked about in Galatians, but it still didn't glorify ugly behavior.)
Or moving onto more complex literature. Was the point of "Gone with the Wind" that Rhett Butler was such a great lady's man? He was manuvering Scarlett O'Hara toward the bed the entire book, but when she finally consented he merely said, "Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn." Why do you think that was, hmmm?
Is there any part in GTA where your character suddenly realizes the toll his lifestyle is taking and wants out? No? Why not? After all, isn't GTA like fine literature, chock full of lessons to be learned and humanities to analyze? Or perhaps it's just one big, antisocial, utterly meaningless, and depraved wankfest? "Look! I slept with the chick and bumped off her boyfriend! I'm the shizzle!" Great.
Contain != Condone or even Revel. What makes much literature interesting is taking the time to analyze the human condition, and see how people handle complex situations, often with no clearly defined "right" or "wrong". Inperfection is what makes us human, and it is of great interest to unravel it.
To compare GTA to a book, I think you'd be hard pressed to find a book that glorifies lawlessness in the same fashion as GTA. Nearly any book worth reading on the topic would not only look at the attraction to the lifestyle, but the shear cost of it as well. How many friends will you lose in gang wars? How many young women's lives will you destroy in pimping? How much does that drug dealing cost you personally in comparison to the monetary gains? If you shut it all out, are you even human any more? What continues to drive you after you shut out your emotions? Is there a way out? Can you see it?
Books make an ideal vehicle for looking at these situations. Video Games, on the other hand, cannot be expected to show the same amount of depth. (At least not until VR becomes a reality.) When you go around killing people, stealing cars, selling drugs, and pimping women in the game, the only things worth concerning yourself with are the scoreboard and a game over sign. There are no lives destroyed, no personal costs, nothing. Therein lies its appeal, but does that really build you up as a person? What 'fun' exactly are you deriving from role playing such a destructive character? Or are you playing it because it's "cool" and "everyone else is doing it"? (Insert mother's scolding about everyone jumping over a cliff |here|.)
Personally, I can find far better reasons for playing a game. For example, the battle of wits and piloting skills in Wing Commander, the precision and speed of SF: Rush, the engaging humor of Space Quest, the friendly duels of Quake III, the chance to be a hero of the future in Elite Force, the fast-strategy of C&C, the hand-eye puzzles of Mario 64, and the on your feet thinking of Tetris.
Hate to tell you this dude, my dad has a whole shelf full of his grandparents books from the 1890s and thenabouts. Most of them: crappy, commercial, and pretty trashy.
;-)
:-/
See? There you go. You had to get me started.
Seriously, there's always been a lot of trashy literature throughout history. The "pulp fiction" of the early 20th century is a perfect example of this. (So named because it was considered so bad that no one would bother printing it on anything but the cheapest pulp paper.) The tradition of such pulp fiction lives on today in googleplexes of trashy romance novels and lousy sci-fi. But that's not actually my complaint.
My complaint is about publishers who once held a high standard, but have slowly let such standards slip over the years. A perfect example of this is the PocketBook franchises. Hardy Boys, for example, used to be 300 or so page long books that were printed in regular type. The newer books that were introduced later were 150 page, oversized softcover books, printed in huge type and plenty of whitespace. The result was that thorough mysteries became slightly lengthened short stories. Now move onto the Star Trek franchise. The same sort of watering down with filler has become commonplace. Whereas I once enjoyed such novels as "Strangers in the Sky", "Enterprise: The First Mission", "The Final Reflection", "Q-in-Law", and "Imzadi", I now am forced to chose between purchasing 10 books to read a complete serial (which could have far better fit in one novel, with the filling removed for better pacing) or single "episode" books like the latest in the StarGazer series. Allow me to ruin the entire book for you in 4 short sentences:
Okay, bad guys attack. No one knows why. Ule acts strange. Turns out bad guys actually want their spy who's disguised as Ule back. The End.
WTF? Where's the depth, the plot twists, the cliffhangers, the character development, the parallel events, THE ATTEMPT AT REALISM? My 10 year old brother (if I had a ten year old brother) could do better than that! I mean, would it kill Simon and Schuster to reimplement a few quality standards, like they used to have? Apparently so.
Unfortunately, such lousy books have become the bread and butter of mainstream publishers. So much so, that the *only* books I can find worth reading are by a small time publisher like Baen. And if I'm being perfectly honest, Baen's books aren't exactly the highest quality, soon to be studied by the next generation, prose ever written. In fact, a lot of it is very much "pulp" Sci-Fi. (Sorry, Weber! Still a fan, but I gotta be honest, here.) Which says a lot about the mainstream publishers when pulp is being rated higher than the supposed "quality" stuff.
the appeal of anti-social games is simple: Catharsis.
:-(
The problem is that most players don't realize how it affects their day to day outlook on life. i.e. If you get a lot of negativity out of your environment, you can expect to become a very negative person. Real life offers more than enough difficulties in this area. Why would you want to add more of it?
The unfortunate answer is that most people have a streak of masochistic curiousity. Unchecked, this curiousity can get you into all kinds of trouble. A common example of this is how people will often watch a television show or movie that they don't want watch and are not entertained by, but "nothing else is on". The idea that playing a board game with others, going out somewhere, or even curling up with a book would be a more productive use of that time simply isn't enough to outweigh the desire to stay glued to the television. It takes a rather large helping of self-determination to turn the TV off, pull your butt off the couch, and go do something better.
The part that is frightening about something like GTA is that people are actually parting with hard cash rather than exerting sufficient self-control to say, "No, I'll go do something better with my time." As I said in my original post, that's their choice. I may disagree with it, but I can't force others to agree with my viewpoint. Personal responsibility and all that. But when it comes to changing the very way the industry works, why oh why must the entire world be subjected to the whims of the Lowest Common Denominator?
It's just like Reality Television. It's crap, and everyone knows it's crap. But enough people watch it that TV Stations would rather make a quick buck off of the LCD than a hard earned mint off of engaging shows for the much larger and more intelligent populace.
Let's see, the game(s) glorify pimping hookers, killing cops, stealing cars, and just about every other lawless act imaginable.
It's a long, bumpy ride, but at the end, Grand Theft Auto stands tall as the game that changed everything.
This is a good thing? Sorry, but I'd rather see a fresh new installment of Mario 64 (where art thou?) than another GTA. I realize a lot of people disagree with me, and that's fine. But I don't see anything so great about pushing games that promote ugly and disgusting behavior, regardless of whether or not the players can tell the difference.
Or to put it another way, if it's not okay in the real world, why waste your time immersing yourself in it? Go read a book or something. (Argh! Must... resist... temptation... to... complain... about... crappy... commercialization... of... books...)
Indeed. Turbo-boxen protected by intuitive use of TCPA copy protetion would make for an innovative new FLOSS cyber-platform. Just think of the synergy that could be harnessed through such strategic mergers of technology! :-P
Seriously, it's all about context. My humorous post was intended to point out the outright abuse of the term "innovation". It's fine when someone uses it as, "innovations like the new O(1) search method are changing the face of database technology." It's not okay when every yahoo (especially Microsoft) begins decrying, "You're stifling my innovation!" My only response to such nonsense is, "First you tell me *what* innovation you're speaking of, and then we'll find a way not to stifle it."
Ah, ok. Thanks for the correction. It's been a long time since I've seen Civ in action, and I couldn't remember if it was a hex grid or an Iso map.
The privacy groups made their case saying taps would seriously hinder innovation on the web.
Can we STOP using that word? This is getting worse than "Synergy"! If you have a point, try to quantify it in a reasonable manner. For example, "Tapping VOIP would drive up costs, thus resulting in slower adoption in an otherwise emerging market."
"Innovation" is nothing more than a weasel word that get bandied about everytime someone wants to argue against something, but has no argument prepared.
So, for the sake of the Children, everything Holy, and the nerves of all of us in the tech industry, please STOP USING THAT WORD as a defense. Thank you, have a nice day.
Microsoft Takes Aim at Google
:-P
Google: Like a poor marksman, Microsoft, you keep missing the target! Why don't you come down here and take of me yourself?
Microsoft: Perhaps I no longer need to try. I'll leave you as you left me. BURIED ALIVE, Buried Alive, buried alive...
Google: MIIIIIICCCCRRRROOOOSSOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOFFFFFTTTT!
(With apologies to Star Trek.)
Perhaps it is because more people are familiar with C++ than Python, and by writing the AI and other game rules in C++ the Civ 4 team has made modders job easier.
;-)
While that reason has been used by many a person, I don't think it's a particularly good one. The problem with doing something like AI in C/C++ is that all the memory management issues cloud the actual logic, thus making it more difficult than necessary to understand. Using a higher level language like Python, Java, or (God forbid) JavaScript tends to simplify the code and make it far more readable.
That being said, the poster above me may be correct. It was probably done in C/C++ for reasons of tweaking the performance. (In which case you REALLY don't want to mess with the code.)
Wow, what a mess. So Hartland Trefoil gets acquired by Avalon Hill who licenses the name to Microprose, but then Sid Meier breaks off to do his own Civ, but Activision gets its own permission to do Civ, thus causing Hasbro (who wants to get in on the game) to acquire AH and Microprose, then allowing Eagle Games to do a board game that's a spinoff of the computer game which is a spinoff of the board game. Whew. Am I missing anything?
:-)
Mods, if you could, please give the parent (and the other fine and helpful posters in this thread) a few mod points for being informative? Thanks.
Ah hah! Rfunches post below mine spurred me to do a smidge more research, and I found this link where you can purchase the board game from Eagle Games. Which would figure. The list I linked to in the parent post didn't link to the Eagle Games website.
The Eagle Games site makes it sound like the board game was based on the video game, not the other way around. This may have its pluses and minuses. On the plus side, you'll probably get an experience closer to the video game, on the minus side the rules may be overly complex due to numbers that a computer can crunch easily whereas a human must keep track of paperwork.
If you've never played a Wargame before, I probably wouldn't recommend starting with the Civilisation board game. Wargames are *tough* if you've never played them before, and tend to require a mentor. Since you might have trouble finding one in this day in age of Computer Games, I highly recommend starting with the free Battle For Moscow board game. It's fairly easy to pick up, and should help you get down the basics of wargaming.
The Civilization games seem like a prime candidate for breaking into the family-game-playing field.
Isn't Civilization loosely based on a Wargame of a similar name? i.e. Thus the use of a hex grid and all? Maybe I'm wrong on this, but I could have sworn I saw it in a list of board games a few days ago. (I'm currently learning to play Starfire, for those of you who know what that is.)
Ah, here we are. It's under 'C' on this page. The link to the website seems to be defunct (along with the company?), so I really have no way of verifying this. Anyone?
It's probably because Sun screwed up the focus. Instead of selling to anyone who will buy, Sun usually sells to only large companies that wave MegaBucks around. What they don't realize is if they got a large number of "small" companies on the N1 system, they may be able to convince the big boys to jump on the bandwagon.
Personally, I see this as being particularly helpful for rendering houses. The cost of running renderings is simply astounding, with many small companies having to purchase grid time from larger rendering houses. If Sun's computing grid is as cost effective as they make it out to be, it could be a boon for these small time 3D shops. At the very least, they'd add more "little guys" to the mix to help Sun sell the N1 to the big guys.