Interestingly enough, I entertained this same exact thought. This quote was my coup-de-grace, though. Think about it.
"Let's say that the consensus is that our species, being the higher primates, Homo Sapiens, has been on the planet for at least 100,000 years, maybe more. Francis Collins says maybe 100,000. Richard Dawkins thinks maybe a quarter-of-a-million. I'll take 100,000. In order to be a Christian, you have to believe that for 98,000 years, our species suffered and died, most of its children dying in childbirth, most other people having a life expectancy of about 25 years, dying of their teeth. Famine, struggle, bitterness, war, suffering, misery, all of that for 98,000 years. Heaven watches this with complete indifference. And then 2000 years ago, thinks "That's enough of that. It's time to intervene," and the best way to do this would be by condemning someone to a human sacrifice somewhere in the less literate parts of the Middle East. Don't lets appeal to the Chinese, for example, where people can read and study evidence and have a civilization. Let's go to the desert and have another revelation there. This is nonsense. It can't be believed by a thinking person. Why am I glad this is the case? To get to the point of the wrongness of Christianity, because I think the teachings of Christianity are immoral. The central one is the most immoral of all, and that is the one of vicarious redemption. You can throw your sins onto somebody else, vulgarly known as scapegoating. In fact, originating as scapegoating in the same area, the same desert. I can pay your debt if I love you. I can serve your term in prison if I love you very much. I can volunteer to do that. I can't take your sins away, because I can't abolish your responsibility, and I shouldn't offer to do so. Your responsibility has to stay with you. There's no vicarious redemption. There very probably, in fact, is no redemption at all. It's just a part of wish-thinking, and I don't think wish-thinking is good for people either. It even manages to pollute the central question, the word I just employed, the most important word of all: the word love, by making love compulsory, by saying you MUST love. You must love your neighbour as yourself, something you can't actually do. You'll always fall short, so you can always be found guilty. By saying you must love someone who you also must fear. That's to say a supreme being, an eternal father, someone of whom you must be afraid, but you must love him, too. If you fail in this duty, you're again a wretched sinner. This is not mentally or morally or intellectually healthy. And that brings me to the final objection - I'll condense it, Dr. Orlafsky - which is, this is a totalitarian system. If there was a God who could do these things and demand these things of us, and he was eternal and unchanging, we'd be living under a dictatorship from which there is no appeal, and one that can never change and one that knows our thoughts and can convict us of thought crime, and condemn us to eternal punishment for actions that we are condemned in advance to be taking. All this in the round, and I could say more, it's an excellent thing that we have absolutely no reason to believe any of it to be true" - Christopher Hitchens
I played the WC3 DotA back in the day, but ever since HoN and LoL came about my friends and I have schismed into two camps. We all enjoy DotA like games but some of us prefer HoN for its likeness and capture of the DotA feel, while others prefer LoL for its easier gameplay and less harsh punishments for mistakes.
Perhaps Valve's upcoming DotA like-game could be a game we call can agree to play without getting into HoN vs LoL flamewars.
This is assuming that this game will be DotA-Like, of course.
As someone who grew up in the 90s, I found that playing DnD in late middle school/ early high school is one of the most enjoyable ways to have fun. I was always impressed by the impact the game had on me, especially with the improvements in the sheer number of words I knew as well as reading skills.
Although, I never had to use harbinger or aberration when talking to someone at that age, knowing what these and many more words meant was great when it was time for the SATs.
to believe such a person could do something as complex as create 1 million jobs. Surely it was our intellegent designer in disguise, for he is responsible for all jobs.
i for one am for the race...
of course it will be a long time like the previous posters said...
but hey.... how about a couple solar pannels on cars??
It doesn't have to be fully dependent on solar energy... must like the hybrids of today....once the technology gets better... you get the idea...
Like the idea of solar powered shingles for houses to reduce energy costs... just the little things to reduce overall consumption of fossil fuels...especially if you are every hurricane season paying $3.00+ for gas....not to mention the cost for heating in the winter....
The truth is that we (humans as a whole) haven't grown progressively smarter or dumber, just we have learned how to get information when needed.
just my 2 cents
Slashdot Mirror
Interestingly enough, I entertained this same exact thought. This quote was my coup-de-grace, though. Think about it. "Let's say that the consensus is that our species, being the higher primates, Homo Sapiens, has been on the planet for at least 100,000 years, maybe more. Francis Collins says maybe 100,000. Richard Dawkins thinks maybe a quarter-of-a-million. I'll take 100,000. In order to be a Christian, you have to believe that for 98,000 years, our species suffered and died, most of its children dying in childbirth, most other people having a life expectancy of about 25 years, dying of their teeth. Famine, struggle, bitterness, war, suffering, misery, all of that for 98,000 years. Heaven watches this with complete indifference. And then 2000 years ago, thinks "That's enough of that. It's time to intervene," and the best way to do this would be by condemning someone to a human sacrifice somewhere in the less literate parts of the Middle East. Don't lets appeal to the Chinese, for example, where people can read and study evidence and have a civilization. Let's go to the desert and have another revelation there. This is nonsense. It can't be believed by a thinking person. Why am I glad this is the case? To get to the point of the wrongness of Christianity, because I think the teachings of Christianity are immoral. The central one is the most immoral of all, and that is the one of vicarious redemption. You can throw your sins onto somebody else, vulgarly known as scapegoating. In fact, originating as scapegoating in the same area, the same desert. I can pay your debt if I love you. I can serve your term in prison if I love you very much. I can volunteer to do that. I can't take your sins away, because I can't abolish your responsibility, and I shouldn't offer to do so. Your responsibility has to stay with you. There's no vicarious redemption. There very probably, in fact, is no redemption at all. It's just a part of wish-thinking, and I don't think wish-thinking is good for people either. It even manages to pollute the central question, the word I just employed, the most important word of all: the word love, by making love compulsory, by saying you MUST love. You must love your neighbour as yourself, something you can't actually do. You'll always fall short, so you can always be found guilty. By saying you must love someone who you also must fear. That's to say a supreme being, an eternal father, someone of whom you must be afraid, but you must love him, too. If you fail in this duty, you're again a wretched sinner. This is not mentally or morally or intellectually healthy. And that brings me to the final objection - I'll condense it, Dr. Orlafsky - which is, this is a totalitarian system. If there was a God who could do these things and demand these things of us, and he was eternal and unchanging, we'd be living under a dictatorship from which there is no appeal, and one that can never change and one that knows our thoughts and can convict us of thought crime, and condemn us to eternal punishment for actions that we are condemned in advance to be taking. All this in the round, and I could say more, it's an excellent thing that we have absolutely no reason to believe any of it to be true" - Christopher Hitchens
I played the WC3 DotA back in the day, but ever since HoN and LoL came about my friends and I have schismed into two camps. We all enjoy DotA like games but some of us prefer HoN for its likeness and capture of the DotA feel, while others prefer LoL for its easier gameplay and less harsh punishments for mistakes. Perhaps Valve's upcoming DotA like-game could be a game we call can agree to play without getting into HoN vs LoL flamewars. This is assuming that this game will be DotA-Like, of course.
As someone who grew up in the 90s, I found that playing DnD in late middle school/ early high school is one of the most enjoyable ways to have fun. I was always impressed by the impact the game had on me, especially with the improvements in the sheer number of words I knew as well as reading skills. Although, I never had to use harbinger or aberration when talking to someone at that age, knowing what these and many more words meant was great when it was time for the SATs.
there was an article on slashdot that addresses this by using human hair.
to believe such a person could do something as complex as create 1 million jobs. Surely it was our intellegent designer in disguise, for he is responsible for all jobs.
i for one am for the race... of course it will be a long time like the previous posters said... but hey.... how about a couple solar pannels on cars?? It doesn't have to be fully dependent on solar energy... must like the hybrids of today....once the technology gets better... you get the idea... Like the idea of solar powered shingles for houses to reduce energy costs... just the little things to reduce overall consumption of fossil fuels...especially if you are every hurricane season paying $3.00+ for gas....not to mention the cost for heating in the winter....
The truth is that we (humans as a whole) haven't grown progressively smarter or dumber, just we have learned how to get information when needed. just my 2 cents