I'm sure there are at least PVP gameplay videos on YouTube. That's going to give you just as biased a view as a trailer though; it won't reflect the endless grinding and sheer boredom of the game. I'll grant you that I'm not much of an MMO guy, but I gave it a fair shake. I'll still take an RTS game any day.
I remember the first levels of Fallout being very challenging from a combat perspective, and things becoming much easier as I finally scraped together enough cash to buy a real weapon. Powered armor was just icing on the cake. I hope they preserve the feeling of wandering in the wilderness. One of my favorite things was to just wander off across the map waiting for random encounters (this was before I memorized where everything was of course.)
My main point when I started this was to point out that Fallout was very item and stat dependent. I see that transitioning well. I hope they preserve the viability of the non-combat roles though. I loved playing Fallout as a diplomat and trying to make it through the game without killing any human NPCs. I guess I'm thinking of Fallout 2 here.
As another poster said, Fallout had a plethera of melee weapons. Combined with the appropriate character competencies (Ninja, Brawler, etc), melee weapons were just as viable as ranged weapons, and usually more effective than other end-game weapons like miniguns and automatic shotguns.
I use my phone about 30 minutes a month, so I am absolutely going pay-as-you go when my contract expires. When I got my cell phone originally I was still in school and my usage was a lot higher. Thanks for the info.
And that is quite a healthy feeling. I was interpreting your thoughts with a set of definitions much closer to those found in a dictionary. You can see that denial and disbelief of a god is different than believing the existence to be unknowable. Thus, your views would tend to classify you as an agnostic.
Atheist - a person who denies or disbelieves the existence of a supreme being or beings.
Agnostic - a person who holds that the existence of the ultimate cause, as God, and the essential nature of things are unknown and unknowable, or that human knowledge is limited to experience.
I do not see an absence of a god in the world, I merely have not seen a god.
I certainly acknowledge that I cannot disprove the existance of any god. On the other hand, I would say the exact same thing about Santa Claus or the easter bunny, and I view gods in the same category. An atheist is someone who does not have a belief in any god, and that describes me.
Maybe I jumped to conclusions. It looks to me like there is some inconsistency between the first and second quote. The first is an almost classical definition of an agnostic. The second is an almost classic definition of an atheist. I guess you get to take your pick.
I do not see an absence of a god in the world, I merely have not seen a god.
You are an agnostic, not an atheist. Mere quibbles, as you say.
Internal consistency does not imply reasonableness.
It does to one who has accepted the assertions upon the idea is constructed. If someone believes in a god and believes that god ought to be worshiped, it would be unreasonable for that person not to worship that god. I don't see any way around that.
Let me give another trite and simplistic example. Imagine we are standing in a room, we light a candle, and we leave the room. Much later we return. Presumably you are familiar with candles and expect it to have burnt out. Pretend that I do not share this belief but have a compelling faith that a candle remains burning until blown out. My belief is unreasonable to you because you expect the candle to burn away, and your belief is unreasonable to me because I know that no one has blown the candle out. Until both of us accept the basis from which the other is approaching the candle, we will regard the other as irrational. This example's fault is that we can emperically determine that a candle always burns out, whereas we cannot emperically prove nor disprove the existence of gods. When engaging a religious person, you must be willing and able to see the world through their eyes if you expect to have a decent conversation.
I try to be as rationally selfish as possible, but while I think religion is irrational I do not require religious people to become athiests. They are free to believe irrational things just as I require them to allow me to hold beliefs they disagree with.
There are those on both sides of the debate who are unwilling to do this. This is a portion of the reason that science education is such a politicized issue in some areas. (Mind you, the religious position depends on a logical fallicy, but that's not really relevant to the current topic.)
Once you believe that God exists*, then everything in Christianity follows fairly well. What I'm saying is that if you accept the basis on faith, the rest works rationally. Perhaps we are getting caught up on a defininition. By Christianity in this case, I am refering to the purist, stripped-down version a layperson would construct from reading the Bible. (Sometimes called the niave form.) I wildly disagree with how contemporary Christianity interprets and acts on their religion, but it is important to separate a religion from its followers.
How can you say that a system based on something that cannot be proven is rational?
I am a strick atheist. That means that I believe that no gods exist as opposed to being uncertain or ambivalent or uncaring. Like any intelligent person I accept the possibility of existence, but I find it tremendously unlikely in the same way that I find it unlikely that gravity is the result of tiny invisible elves who like to hold things down. However, this means that I approach atheism from a position of faith that gods do not exist, in the same way that a Christian approaches Christianity from a position of faith that God does exist. Every strict atheist makes this same assumption.
*With all the special trappings that a Christian God demands, i.e. all-knowing, all-powerful, etc.
I think perhaps "prefer" was a poor word choice on my part. The following rewording means the same thing but is hopefully less vague. In a pragmatic sense, religious beliefs exist because believers naturally see God in the world, and atheistic beliefs exist because some people naturally see an absense of God in the world.
Let me give you an example since I'm still not sure I've been entirely clear. As you cross a bridge, your car suddenly skids out of control on ice, and you swerve into oncoming traffic. However you are not hit, nor hurt and manage to recover control. A religious person would undoubtedly thank their god for protecting them and possibly cite it as a miracle; a nonreligious person would attribute the favorable outcome as a combination of coincidence, fast reactions, and possibly luck. This is my main point--The exact same events are interpreted in different ways depending on one's worldview.
Many religious people have good reasons for their belief. Their reasons don't work for me, but that isn't important. Their religion isn't for my benefit, so it only needs to work for them. It would be incredibly selfish for me to demand that a religious person see the world as I see it, just as it would be incredibly selfish for a religious person demand that I require the existence of a god in the world.
Quite frankly, I think this is rubbish. The parent stated that the atheists he or she talked with prided themselves on their supposed rationality. Justifying one's own bad behavior because of another's bad behavior is tremendously irrational. This is the basest sort of tit-for-tat justification that causes the endemic violence fueled by intolerance of all sorts. While your argument may work at an emotional level, it has no place in a rational discourse, and dismissing it as "just a bit of backlash" does not reflect the seriousness of the intellectual dishonesty required for this sort of argument to work.
I'm afraid my tone is somewhat harse in the preceeding paragraph, for which I apologize. However, as both a strict atheist and a secular humanist, I dislike seeing issues like this dismissed with a flippant right-back-at-you remark. I stand by the opinion I've stated above, but I prefer to have it interpreted in the friendliest manner. You can read my response to the parent if you care to know how I regard this issue.
Re:Are we sure it comes from work?
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Understanding Burnout
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· Score: 2, Insightful
As a strict atheist and secular humanist, I'm sorry that that has been your experience. I know people like that too, both religious and irreligious. However, I'd like to assure you that we aren't all intolerant and egotistical. I wholeheartedly embrace the thought expressed in your conclusion.
As I see it, the problem with the mindset of the atheists you've talked with is the idea that atheism is the only rational belief. Such a position is incredibly ignorant; certainly atheism rests on rationality, but so does Christianity (to pick a simple example.) The entire point of faith is belief in something that cannot be proven. If someone believes only in things that can be proven, they are not an atheist.
It is incredibly easy to construct somewhat rational belief systems. Given that most people are at least somewhat rational, this is evidenced by the sheer number, variety, and popularity of religious beliefs. At the same time, it should be recognized that the human mind has a tremendous ability to accept and rationalize internal inconsistencies. When someone wants to believe something, they will believe it regardless of external evidence, however compelling. All the belief systems that I'm familiar with have weak points where they are not self-evidently internally consistent. In the case of religions, this is where dogma is cited; for an atheist, some other rule of sorts is used.
At the end of the day, each belief system, or worldview, or Weltanschauung is the lens through which some person is most comfortable viewing the world. In a pragmatic sense, religious beliefs exist because believers prefer living in a world with a God, and atheistic beliefs exist because some people prefer living in a world without a god. In my opinion, those of strong "faith" in their worldview endure crisis more effectively than one who muddles through life with blinders.
Thus, proselytizing only makes sense because a considered worldview is stronger than an unconsidered worldview, and considering the beliefs of others naturally causes you to address your own beliefs. A rational belief in your own worldview demands that you give others credit for being rational in their own beliefs. You are welcome explore and critique how they engage the world, but you make a critical error when you refuse to accept their belief structure as a legitimate view of the world. Religions cannot be made the only scapegoats of intolerance and zealotry.
My roommate got a wii because he's a huge Nintendo fanboy. One of our friends asked how much it cost, and said, "That's pretty close to an iPod." I'm not sure why she compared it to an iPod that of all things, but I do think that is typical of how nongamers are going to see the price point.
I think Will Wright handled the interview well. He showed that he had a good wit, but still kept on message in promoting his games and didn't wander into irrelevant or boring tangents. Interestingly, he wasn't afraid to commit to the "wrong" answer of Cobert's loaded questions.
I'm afraid that I'm only familiar with Buddhism in a layman's sense. I'm much less concerned with enlightenment or heaven or nirvana than with how the practical, real-world application of related religious beliefs work. In this regard and in my opinion, the Buddhist Eightfold Path is passes with flying colors. It is worth noting that the basic tenets of most major religions pass with flying colors if you restrict yourself to ignoring dogma and look only at easily accessible teaching of the texts. For example, if Christians actually followed the Sermon on the Mount, it doesn't take much to imagine that most criticisms of contemporary Christianity would evaporate.
If I am allowed to put words in your mouth for a moment, I think you are arguing against the practical flaws of moral relevatism. This is a tremendously valid critique of many styles of humanism. The question rapidly becomes how one defines society, which is unfortunately a bit of a wiggle word or loosely defined term. As you point out, it is an obvious fallacy to evaluate someone's actions if their society isn't included in your source society. This is a grey area in which discussions of humanism tend to end up, with a trading of sterile hypothetical or historical scenarios. There are plenty of tricky examples you can work out. Whether humanism resolves these tends to come down to individual opinion and interpretation.
That said, your extreme choice of Pol Pot is easily resolved. If you take the "safe" choice of global society, Pol Pot's actions are terrible. Unfortunately, "global society" doesn't really exist (in my opinion.) Expecting most humanists to be fully engaged with society on a global level is troublesome at best. However, would Pol Pot's actions be considered moral for a humanist of Cambodian society? Clearly not. Pol Pot caused tremendous harm to many people.
Sometimes discussion of "greater good" comes up at this point, since one could pedantically argue that Pol Pot believed he was doing more good than harm by speeding the arrival of Communist utopia. I personally don't think that greater good works as a measure in real life because it requires immediate harm for hypothetical good. For example, in my construction of humanism, I could not justify torturing a terrorist to save a city from a bomb, because there is no guarantee that the terrorist will be truthful or that the city can actually be saved. The only life I am justified in sacrificing to save other lives is my own. Your milage may vary.
A moral system without the power (not always violent power is required) to enforce it is a pretty meaningless sytem.
In my opinion, a moral system should never enforce itself. Morals must be freely adopted or they are meaningless; a moral system should not rely on oppression for relevance. Behaving in a moral manner to avoid punishment is radically different than living morally out of a desire to improve one's environment in a holistic sense. The Buddhist system of the Eightfold Path is a good example of a system that does not rely on enforcement while still codifying certain aspects.
In regards to your point, a humanist living in a society with a moral norm of violence and oppression would tend to oppose those facets of the society as conflicting with the "do not do unto others" touchstone. A humanist won't be hurting people even if society says it is all right. For instance, a humanist in United States culture today is likely to oppose the death penalty, have given serious thought to to both sides of the issue on abortion, and be extremely uncomfortable with portions of U.S. foreign policy.
I do not. Talking with someone can form a relationship, but without the physical feedback that visuality provides, telephone communication is a stunted approach.
Thank you. I grew up in a religious home, so I'm actually more versed in arguments against atheism than for it. Interestingly, it makes "winning" discussions with religious people a hell of a lot easier when you can come at the topic from their point of view and point out the implicit assumptions they are making. I haven't read much of the "new wave" atheists, as I feel that proselyting is a poor way to convert others.
Atheists do not believe in God. Usually this is because they view the existence of God/god/gods/a higher power as tremendously unlikely based on quantifiable physical evidence validated by the scientific method. Similarly, a humanistic approach to morality also relies on quantifiable physical evidence. Humanistic morality is usually a combination of rules that amount to the negative form of Christianity's Golden Rule: Do not do unto others what you would not want them to do to you. (Understanding that the spirit of the rule is important. For example, a masochist can't arbitrarily cause pain just because they like to experience it.) Humanistic morality relies on following the general laws of societal morality--the laws that have kept humanity around.
As such, if society deems it wrong to light children on fire, then it is wrong for a humanist to light children on fire. Those who do not follow society's mores are misfits and rightly considered disfunctional. Contrary to your claim, this standard is not arbitrary, but many Americans don't like it because of our cultures emphasis on individuality. They don't like the idea that they don't get to choose what is right and wrong for themselves. There are variations that give more power to the individual, but from a philosophic standpoint, these variations are more prone to logical attack and personal abuse.
The weakness of this system is that society's values can be hijacked (and example are strewn throughout this thread). An element of pragmatism, intelligence, and personal responsibility is necessary for a practicing humanist.
Interestingly, both religious and nonreligious people behave in largely the same way as is evidenced by the fact that the United States has a single society rather than two parallel societies. Faith forms subcultures, but not new societies. Religious people can readily interact with irreligious.
To validate this point, observe that atheists aren't running rapant in the streets, causing mayhem and chaos everywhere. Most people do whatever they want to do, regardless of religious belief and we seem to be trundling along just fine. Is it nature or nuture?
Even in the United States, there are six states where atheists cannot hold public office or even testify in court.
Can you tell where you found this or where I can find more information on this? I'm an atheist in the U.S., and I've never heard this. It seems like good information for the discussions I get into fairly frequently.
Well I'm only 23, and I've played MMOs for a couple years, but I have trouble thinking of a game as social when I'll never meet the people I'm playing with. This is true across genres by the way. I frequently play RTSs with real-life friends, and I don't regard that as social either. Picnics, poker, and bowling are all social but gaming over a distance is not.
I don't think that most people consider MMOs to be social in a meaningful way. I've discussed this at length with friends and coworkers, all familiar with technology and computers. Some hold that instant messenger, social networking websites, and online gaming are legitimately social. However, most differentiate such pseudo-social interaction from face-to-face encounters.
I think increasingly younger generations will view these scenarios as respectable peers of more traditional interaction. It will be interesting to see if interpersonal communication skills weaken or change in light of new technological environments. For decades, there will be pundits on both sides of the debate, just as there are for "violence and video games" for example.
I myself believe that face-to-face communication is the only truly effective social paradigm. As technology continues to develop and change, beliefs like my own are continually challenged.
Slashdot Mirror
Ha! I didn't know you could destroy the outhouse. I used a rope to climb down...
I'm sure there are at least PVP gameplay videos on YouTube. That's going to give you just as biased a view as a trailer though; it won't reflect the endless grinding and sheer boredom of the game. I'll grant you that I'm not much of an MMO guy, but I gave it a fair shake. I'll still take an RTS game any day.
I remember the first levels of Fallout being very challenging from a combat perspective, and things becoming much easier as I finally scraped together enough cash to buy a real weapon. Powered armor was just icing on the cake. I hope they preserve the feeling of wandering in the wilderness. One of my favorite things was to just wander off across the map waiting for random encounters (this was before I memorized where everything was of course.)
My main point when I started this was to point out that Fallout was very item and stat dependent. I see that transitioning well. I hope they preserve the viability of the non-combat roles though. I loved playing Fallout as a diplomat and trying to make it through the game without killing any human NPCs. I guess I'm thinking of Fallout 2 here.
As another poster said, Fallout had a plethera of melee weapons. Combined with the appropriate character competencies (Ninja, Brawler, etc), melee weapons were just as viable as ranged weapons, and usually more effective than other end-game weapons like miniguns and automatic shotguns.
I use my phone about 30 minutes a month, so I am absolutely going pay-as-you go when my contract expires. When I got my cell phone originally I was still in school and my usage was a lot higher. Thanks for the info.
On the other hand, I got my deposit in the mail last week. And I had forgotten about it. What a nice surprise.
What prepaid plan do you use?
And that is quite a healthy feeling. I was interpreting your thoughts with a set of definitions much closer to those found in a dictionary. You can see that denial and disbelief of a god is different than believing the existence to be unknowable. Thus, your views would tend to classify you as an agnostic.
Atheist - a person who denies or disbelieves the existence of a supreme being or beings.
Agnostic - a person who holds that the existence of the ultimate cause, as God, and the essential nature of things are unknown and unknowable, or that human knowledge is limited to experience.
It does to one who has accepted the assertions upon the idea is constructed. If someone believes in a god and believes that god ought to be worshiped, it would be unreasonable for that person not to worship that god. I don't see any way around that.
Let me give another trite and simplistic example. Imagine we are standing in a room, we light a candle, and we leave the room. Much later we return. Presumably you are familiar with candles and expect it to have burnt out. Pretend that I do not share this belief but have a compelling faith that a candle remains burning until blown out. My belief is unreasonable to you because you expect the candle to burn away, and your belief is unreasonable to me because I know that no one has blown the candle out. Until both of us accept the basis from which the other is approaching the candle, we will regard the other as irrational. This example's fault is that we can emperically determine that a candle always burns out, whereas we cannot emperically prove nor disprove the existence of gods. When engaging a religious person, you must be willing and able to see the world through their eyes if you expect to have a decent conversation.
There are those on both sides of the debate who are unwilling to do this. This is a portion of the reason that science education is such a politicized issue in some areas. (Mind you, the religious position depends on a logical fallicy, but that's not really relevant to the current topic.)
I am a strick atheist. That means that I believe that no gods exist as opposed to being uncertain or ambivalent or uncaring. Like any intelligent person I accept the possibility of existence, but I find it tremendously unlikely in the same way that I find it unlikely that gravity is the result of tiny invisible elves who like to hold things down. However, this means that I approach atheism from a position of faith that gods do not exist, in the same way that a Christian approaches Christianity from a position of faith that God does exist. Every strict atheist makes this same assumption.
*With all the special trappings that a Christian God demands, i.e. all-knowing, all-powerful, etc.
I think perhaps "prefer" was a poor word choice on my part. The following rewording means the same thing but is hopefully less vague. In a pragmatic sense, religious beliefs exist because believers naturally see God in the world, and atheistic beliefs exist because some people naturally see an absense of God in the world.
Let me give you an example since I'm still not sure I've been entirely clear. As you cross a bridge, your car suddenly skids out of control on ice, and you swerve into oncoming traffic. However you are not hit, nor hurt and manage to recover control. A religious person would undoubtedly thank their god for protecting them and possibly cite it as a miracle; a nonreligious person would attribute the favorable outcome as a combination of coincidence, fast reactions, and possibly luck. This is my main point--The exact same events are interpreted in different ways depending on one's worldview.
Many religious people have good reasons for their belief. Their reasons don't work for me, but that isn't important. Their religion isn't for my benefit, so it only needs to work for them. It would be incredibly selfish for me to demand that a religious person see the world as I see it, just as it would be incredibly selfish for a religious person demand that I require the existence of a god in the world.
Quite frankly, I think this is rubbish. The parent stated that the atheists he or she talked with prided themselves on their supposed rationality. Justifying one's own bad behavior because of another's bad behavior is tremendously irrational. This is the basest sort of tit-for-tat justification that causes the endemic violence fueled by intolerance of all sorts. While your argument may work at an emotional level, it has no place in a rational discourse, and dismissing it as "just a bit of backlash" does not reflect the seriousness of the intellectual dishonesty required for this sort of argument to work.
I'm afraid my tone is somewhat harse in the preceeding paragraph, for which I apologize. However, as both a strict atheist and a secular humanist, I dislike seeing issues like this dismissed with a flippant right-back-at-you remark. I stand by the opinion I've stated above, but I prefer to have it interpreted in the friendliest manner. You can read my response to the parent if you care to know how I regard this issue.
As a strict atheist and secular humanist, I'm sorry that that has been your experience. I know people like that too, both religious and irreligious. However, I'd like to assure you that we aren't all intolerant and egotistical. I wholeheartedly embrace the thought expressed in your conclusion.
As I see it, the problem with the mindset of the atheists you've talked with is the idea that atheism is the only rational belief. Such a position is incredibly ignorant; certainly atheism rests on rationality, but so does Christianity (to pick a simple example.) The entire point of faith is belief in something that cannot be proven. If someone believes only in things that can be proven, they are not an atheist.
It is incredibly easy to construct somewhat rational belief systems. Given that most people are at least somewhat rational, this is evidenced by the sheer number, variety, and popularity of religious beliefs. At the same time, it should be recognized that the human mind has a tremendous ability to accept and rationalize internal inconsistencies. When someone wants to believe something, they will believe it regardless of external evidence, however compelling. All the belief systems that I'm familiar with have weak points where they are not self-evidently internally consistent. In the case of religions, this is where dogma is cited; for an atheist, some other rule of sorts is used.
At the end of the day, each belief system, or worldview, or Weltanschauung is the lens through which some person is most comfortable viewing the world. In a pragmatic sense, religious beliefs exist because believers prefer living in a world with a God, and atheistic beliefs exist because some people prefer living in a world without a god. In my opinion, those of strong "faith" in their worldview endure crisis more effectively than one who muddles through life with blinders.
Thus, proselytizing only makes sense because a considered worldview is stronger than an unconsidered worldview, and considering the beliefs of others naturally causes you to address your own beliefs. A rational belief in your own worldview demands that you give others credit for being rational in their own beliefs. You are welcome explore and critique how they engage the world, but you make a critical error when you refuse to accept their belief structure as a legitimate view of the world. Religions cannot be made the only scapegoats of intolerance and zealotry.
My roommate got a wii because he's a huge Nintendo fanboy. One of our friends asked how much it cost, and said, "That's pretty close to an iPod." I'm not sure why she compared it to an iPod that of all things, but I do think that is typical of how nongamers are going to see the price point.
I think Will Wright handled the interview well. He showed that he had a good wit, but still kept on message in promoting his games and didn't wander into irrelevant or boring tangents. Interestingly, he wasn't afraid to commit to the "wrong" answer of Cobert's loaded questions.
I'm afraid that I'm only familiar with Buddhism in a layman's sense. I'm much less concerned with enlightenment or heaven or nirvana than with how the practical, real-world application of related religious beliefs work. In this regard and in my opinion, the Buddhist Eightfold Path is passes with flying colors. It is worth noting that the basic tenets of most major religions pass with flying colors if you restrict yourself to ignoring dogma and look only at easily accessible teaching of the texts. For example, if Christians actually followed the Sermon on the Mount, it doesn't take much to imagine that most criticisms of contemporary Christianity would evaporate.
If I am allowed to put words in your mouth for a moment, I think you are arguing against the practical flaws of moral relevatism. This is a tremendously valid critique of many styles of humanism. The question rapidly becomes how one defines society, which is unfortunately a bit of a wiggle word or loosely defined term. As you point out, it is an obvious fallacy to evaluate someone's actions if their society isn't included in your source society. This is a grey area in which discussions of humanism tend to end up, with a trading of sterile hypothetical or historical scenarios. There are plenty of tricky examples you can work out. Whether humanism resolves these tends to come down to individual opinion and interpretation.
That said, your extreme choice of Pol Pot is easily resolved. If you take the "safe" choice of global society, Pol Pot's actions are terrible. Unfortunately, "global society" doesn't really exist (in my opinion.) Expecting most humanists to be fully engaged with society on a global level is troublesome at best. However, would Pol Pot's actions be considered moral for a humanist of Cambodian society? Clearly not. Pol Pot caused tremendous harm to many people.
Sometimes discussion of "greater good" comes up at this point, since one could pedantically argue that Pol Pot believed he was doing more good than harm by speeding the arrival of Communist utopia. I personally don't think that greater good works as a measure in real life because it requires immediate harm for hypothetical good. For example, in my construction of humanism, I could not justify torturing a terrorist to save a city from a bomb, because there is no guarantee that the terrorist will be truthful or that the city can actually be saved. The only life I am justified in sacrificing to save other lives is my own. Your milage may vary.
In regards to your point, a humanist living in a society with a moral norm of violence and oppression would tend to oppose those facets of the society as conflicting with the "do not do unto others" touchstone. A humanist won't be hurting people even if society says it is all right. For instance, a humanist in United States culture today is likely to oppose the death penalty, have given serious thought to to both sides of the issue on abortion, and be extremely uncomfortable with portions of U.S. foreign policy.
I do not. Talking with someone can form a relationship, but without the physical feedback that visuality provides, telephone communication is a stunted approach.
Thank you. I grew up in a religious home, so I'm actually more versed in arguments against atheism than for it. Interestingly, it makes "winning" discussions with religious people a hell of a lot easier when you can come at the topic from their point of view and point out the implicit assumptions they are making. I haven't read much of the "new wave" atheists, as I feel that proselyting is a poor way to convert others.
Atheists do not believe in God. Usually this is because they view the existence of God/god/gods/a higher power as tremendously unlikely based on quantifiable physical evidence validated by the scientific method. Similarly, a humanistic approach to morality also relies on quantifiable physical evidence. Humanistic morality is usually a combination of rules that amount to the negative form of Christianity's Golden Rule: Do not do unto others what you would not want them to do to you. (Understanding that the spirit of the rule is important. For example, a masochist can't arbitrarily cause pain just because they like to experience it.) Humanistic morality relies on following the general laws of societal morality--the laws that have kept humanity around.
As such, if society deems it wrong to light children on fire, then it is wrong for a humanist to light children on fire. Those who do not follow society's mores are misfits and rightly considered disfunctional. Contrary to your claim, this standard is not arbitrary, but many Americans don't like it because of our cultures emphasis on individuality. They don't like the idea that they don't get to choose what is right and wrong for themselves. There are variations that give more power to the individual, but from a philosophic standpoint, these variations are more prone to logical attack and personal abuse.
The weakness of this system is that society's values can be hijacked (and example are strewn throughout this thread). An element of pragmatism, intelligence, and personal responsibility is necessary for a practicing humanist.
Interestingly, both religious and nonreligious people behave in largely the same way as is evidenced by the fact that the United States has a single society rather than two parallel societies. Faith forms subcultures, but not new societies. Religious people can readily interact with irreligious.
To validate this point, observe that atheists aren't running rapant in the streets, causing mayhem and chaos everywhere. Most people do whatever they want to do, regardless of religious belief and we seem to be trundling along just fine. Is it nature or nuture?
Well I'm only 23, and I've played MMOs for a couple years, but I have trouble thinking of a game as social when I'll never meet the people I'm playing with. This is true across genres by the way. I frequently play RTSs with real-life friends, and I don't regard that as social either. Picnics, poker, and bowling are all social but gaming over a distance is not.
I don't think that most people consider MMOs to be social in a meaningful way. I've discussed this at length with friends and coworkers, all familiar with technology and computers. Some hold that instant messenger, social networking websites, and online gaming are legitimately social. However, most differentiate such pseudo-social interaction from face-to-face encounters.
I think increasingly younger generations will view these scenarios as respectable peers of more traditional interaction. It will be interesting to see if interpersonal communication skills weaken or change in light of new technological environments. For decades, there will be pundits on both sides of the debate, just as there are for "violence and video games" for example.
I myself believe that face-to-face communication is the only truly effective social paradigm. As technology continues to develop and change, beliefs like my own are continually challenged.