Real-world sensitivities and game names

[MaxWilson]

(Strider said this topic was okay even if the previous thread went in a bad direction.)

Dominions relies heavily on real-world mythology, filtered through a fantasy lens. EA Ermor has clear parallels to the Roman Empire (including the name) around the time of Christianity, the monkey nations are clearly Indian (Rakshasas and Raksharajas), Hinnom draws on Hebrew mythology, Mictlan is the Aztecs and/or associated American tribes, etc. The game being what it is, most of these are not presented in a flattering light, at least with respect to modern sensibilities. (This isn't just stuff like blood sacrifice. Serfs and slaves abound.)

Especially when the historical names of these things are still in use (apparently Jews still call their priests Kohen) there exists the possibility that someone could be offended by the association with the darker aspects of Dominions. My question is twofold: 1.) Should we (as a community) care about this? What would constitute sensitivity? 2.) Is this a pragmatic or a moral principle? If we're just trying to avoid losing potential community members you can just avoid offending large groups who might otherwise play the game. (Large world religions, American rural Southerners, women.) We still might be making potentially offensive mods about Hittites and Aztecs, but the Hittites are all dead. Who do you try to be sensitive to?

My take on it is that you can't avoid offending everyone, and that if your intent is clean (hey! Kabbalistic mythology has cannibalistic giants--let's put them in the game and give them Hebrew names) a reasonable audience has no right to be offended. Some will anyway but that's not your problem unless you're trying to be pragmatic and increase sales, which is less fun than making cool stuff and seeing if anyone else thinks it's cool.

-Max

[DonCorazon]

Isn't this going to just be a repeat of last thread? Why bring it up again? Some people are offended, many won't be. Lots of arguments to defend each position.

Same with Shrapnel's dominions ads.

Same with praising the game vs. highlighting areas for improvement (or complaining, however you want to spin it).

Yada yada yada.

Now lets both go outside and enjoy the weekend.

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Zeldor]

Me, Sombre and probably whole IRC channel think that Ulm should be banned. Namind commander Adolf? Man, that offends not only Hebrews, but whole Eastern Europe. And progressive nation of Germany too!

[Sombre]

Machaka might as well be called "Blaxploitation, Shaft in Africa"

;]

Seriously though I believe there are so few people that would be offended by dom3 (who would normally play fantasy strategy games) that it isn't worth thinking about. I am still surprised how people on these boards find it hard to play blood nations and so on though. And I don't mean for micro reasons.

[JimMorrison]

I'm actually very confused. Is this intended to be a serious discussion of whether or not Dom3 is PC enough? The entire notion of PC seems to just be another layer of American neo-Puritanism struggling to insulate "innocent" minds against the reality of the world. This isn't an indictment of you Max, you seem like a nice guy, and I see where you're coming from personally on this, not as some oppressor of freedoms, but just someone with a thought of how to get the game to appeal more broadly.

But I am going to argue, that while there is embellishment on the part of the devs, that there's nothing wrong with it, and that people who find something wrong with it, are simply finding something wrong with themselves. I mean, the sad part about the whole thing is that MOST of the gritty details that are included, are based directly on the past. Yes, some are exaggerated slightly, and some are simply made to look more sinister for the mood of the game, but it's simple - people did these things.

I know, you're not going to say that maybe history books would sell more if they kind of tidied things up - but there are people who take the concept to that extreme. Political Correctness is drawn directly from people's insecurities, and their denial of human nature, and mankind's past - AND present. And the wacky part is, most of these people are ultimately alright with the worst things that happen today, all they are really demanding is that we not have to see it.

We should refer to cannibalism as "having someone over for dinner".
We should refer to human sacrifice as "sending a messenger to god".
And we should refer to torture as "detaining indefinitely".


Now if they just made up all of these terrible things, I might agree that "maybe" they should just change the names around, so as not to be inflammatory - but all of this has its basis in recorded fact, so fault lies with the offended.

<3

[Tifone]

Actually, I am very active in many religious forums around the net.

I've seen much stranger things than someone going mad because a race of cannibal giants, inspired by the myths of his religion, calls its cannibal "priests" in his own language.
As I've seen people going crazy when you say that glue was proved to be invented 7000 years ago, because earth was created just 6000 years ago for them. And people claiming (2008) the evidence of the earth being flat.

Now, I am agnostic and I respect every religion. For me anyone can believe whatever he/she/it wants, until tries to stomp on my head, put his/her/its "truths" down my troath, violate someone's rights.

So now, if you ask me if the community must let s/o SAY "i got offended because a random name of an ugly Basalt Queen was the name of my gf", or something like that, I say yes, he has this right.

If you ask me, shall the devs change their art and intellectual work because someone can remotely see some improbable and barely offensive resemblance to his belief/society/friends/relatives? Well no way. No censorship, sorry, religious, political or whatever.

(sorry if some parts are kind of banalizing, but i like to put a little bit of sarcasm in almost all my speeches, i hope it transpires through the written words http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smirk.gif hey, i'm italian http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif )

[MaxWilson]

JimMorrison said:
Is this intended to be a serious discussion of whether or not Dom3 is PC enough?



More like a discussion of whether being PC matters. Specifically, since all the posters so far (including myself) think that being PC is a lost cause, I'm curious whether there is anybody that thinks otherwise and didn't speak up on the disappeared thread.

-Max

[Monkeyfinger]

No actual real world group is in Dom3, just a bunch of made up races that are kinda sorta like real world groups that exist or existed at one point. Seems kind of silly to get offended over that.

[TheMenacer]

Maybe my sarcasm detector is malfunctioning, but does anyone seriously get offended because of an ulmish commander named Adolph? Seriously? That's a real actual name that real actual people have in real life, just because the one guy ruined it for everyone doesn't make it less of an actual name that a random guy on the street could have.

[JimMorrison]

Maybe I'd get offended if a Marignon commander were named Liberace. >.>

Or get offended that my people, the innocent cave dwelling Agarthans, are depicted as one eyed freaks in this game. We have two eyes dammit, TWO EYES!

O.O

People who get offended by words, are a bit silly. Maybe if those words describe malicious action or thought, that might be offensive - but that means that Dom3 is either universally offensive in nature, or universally innocent.

I think we all agree there is no malice from the devs. But I think what what this whole thing comes down to, is whether or not we even WANT to bulk up the community here with a bunch of people who would currently consider the game's content to be malicious in nature. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif I'm gonna vote no - please god, don't let those people come and ruin this for everyone! <3


In truth, I think our only hope for those over sensitive neo-Puritans, is that we further saturate the creative media with things that they COULD find offensive. Eventually they will either all fly to the moon and leave us alone, or their children will grow up to see the error of their parents' ways, and we can all be happy and creative together. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[HoneyBadger]

JimMorrison: You're not the only man to ever become sensitive about his big one eyed monster. /threads/images/Graemlins/Cold.gif

I'm also anti-PC. I'm pretty sure it's sucking out the soul of the human race through our eyeballs.

People get offended easily. I think it has something to do with it being illegal to chop at each other with battle axes, without a permit. In centuries past, you tended to let things go, because people hadn't yet perfected the reattachment of limbs and organs that we enjoy today. PC has grown from that, because now we've denied most violent recourses once open to our race, and have replaced them with video games, and you just can't simulate kicking someone in the nuts because he said your mother was fat. So we have to be careful about stepping on others' emotions, lest they blow things up, out of all proportion to the relative plumpness of their dear old mums.

But artistic expression remains artistic expression. You can choose to agree or disagree about art, and argue over how profound or significant or worthy a particular example of it is. You can hate it, and if you have the power to do so, you can even destroy it, but that doesn't change it's nature, or the deepseated desire and indominable demand and right and necessity and drive for humans to express ourselves in ways that go beyond-and yes, even if they also include-the needs of the animal.

[chrispedersen]

Ooooh how about a politically incorrect game...

A game where ALL commanders have to be named liberace (still planning that one, just for you Jim), hitler.

Stick a finger to PC!

[Lingchih]

I wasn't aware that anyone has ever said they were offended by anything in the game. Except for the sexy banner ads.

Why bring this up when it seems to be a non-issue?

[HoneyBadger]

I'd argue that the game is better for including "potentially offensive" material. It's a lot more educational that way, since exactly those sorts of things happened, and worse. Murder, rape, and torture happened. And then racism happened, and slavery, and genocide, and Eurocentrality in fantasy gaming.
Fun things happened, like the privelage of a noble to rape his vassal's bride on their wedding night, and the kidnapping and selling of children who had set out with the intention to free the holy land, in the Children's Cruisade. The Inquisition happened. Honest old women were burned at the stake. Heroes were crucified-and not just Christian ones, either. Entire species of animals were exterminated for purposes of entertainment. People tried their damnest-and I mean that term literally-to summon up demons from the pits of Hell, because they thought it was a good idea, having plum run out of ideas for evil things to do, themselves.

And bad things still do happen, believe it or not.

As far as using "potentially offensive" names in the game-please keep in mind that all publicity is good publicity. How many non Jews here had any idea what a Kohen was? How many non Indians know that the Rakshasas were an actual historical people? A better question might be: How many people here appreciate the works of H. P. Lovecraft, without sympathising with his racist, antisemetic viewpoints?

In the words of Plato, or maybe Socrates: "Knowledge is the only good I know of, ignorance, the only evil." Another good saying is "Beware the man who would keep knowledge from you, for he would be your master". I don't know who said that, off the top of my head, but I do have the power to look it up, and the will to form my own opinions about that saying, and the person who said it, separate the two, and take value from each, individually and as a sum.

[lch]

Zeldor said:
Me, Sombre and probably whole IRC channel think that Ulm should be banned.


Huh? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/confused.gif


Zeldor said:
Namind commander Adolf? Man, that offends not only Hebrews, but whole Eastern Europe. And progressive nation of Germany too!


Boy, we should all be glad that the guy wasn't named "Michael" or "Martin". Or "John", "James", "Robert" etc.

I don't see a reason why the name "Adolf" would incite hysteria. It became largely unpopular, that's true, but I don't think that it causes offense or should be a taboo.

[HoneyBadger]

People with the given name Adolf or Adolph(e), who are unconnected-to the best of my limited knowledge-to the Nazi party.

copied pretty much directly from Wikipedia:

Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, King of Sweden (1594 - 1632)
Adolf Albin, Romanian chess player (1848 - 1920)
Adolf Anderssen, German chess player (1818 - 1879)
Adolf Appellöf, Swedish zoologist (1857 - 1921)
Adolf Bastian, German anthropologist (1826 - 1905)
Adolf Born, Czech artist and filmmaker (born 1930)
Adolf Brand, German journalist (1874 - 1945)
Adolf von Baeyer, German chemist (1835 - 1917)
Adolf Busch, German violinist and composer (1891 - 1952)
Adolphus Busch, American businessman and co-founder of Anheuser-Busch (1839 - 1913)
Adolf Butenandt, German biochemist (1903 - 1995)
Adolf Cluss, German-American architect (1825 - 1905)
Adolphus Cusins, fictional character in "Major Barbara" by George Bernard Shaw
Adolf Daens, Belgian theologian (1839 - 1907)
Adolf Dassler, German entrepreneur and founder of Adidas (1900 - 1978)
Adolf Deucher, Swiss politician (1831 - 1912)
Adolf Dymsza, Polish comedy actor (1900 - 1975)
Adolf Ehrnrooth, Finnish general (1905 - 2004)
Adolf Etolin, Finnish explorer (1799 - 1876)
Adolf Eugen Fick, German inventor (1829 - 1901)
Adolph Fischer, German labor union activist (1858 – 1887)
Adolf Abraham Halevi Fraenkel, German-Israeli mathematician (1891 - 1965)
Adolf Galland, German fighter pilot (1912 - 1996) Although a German pilot in WW2, Galland was critical of his superiors and distanced himself from the Nazi party. Infact, he seems to have pissed them off, to a significant degree, and was almost tried for treason. He later served as technical advisor during the filming of Battle of Britain. I hardly consider him a Nazi.
Adolf Glassbrenner, German humourist (1810 - 1876)
Adolf Grunbaum, philosopher of science (born 1923)
Adolf von Harnack, German theologian (1851 - 1930)
Adolf Hempt, founder of the Pasteur Institute in Novi Sad, Serbia (1874 – 1943)
Adolf Bernhard Christoph Hilgenfeld, German theologian (1823 - 1907)
Adolf Hedin, Swedish newspaper publisher and politician (1834 - 1905)
Adolf von Henselt, German composer (1814 - 1889)
Adolf Hurwitz, German mathematician (1859 - 1919)
Adolf Kneser, German mathematician (1862 - 1930)
Adolph Kolping, German priest (1813 - 1865)
Adolf Lande, drug-control official
Adolf Lindenbaum, Polish mathematician (1904 - 1941)
Adolf Loos, Austrian architect (1870 - 1933)
Adolf Lu Hitler Marak, Indian politician (born 1948)
Adolphe Menjou, American actor and anti-Communist activist (1890 – 1963)
Adolf Meyer (psychiatrist), Swiss-American psychiatrist (1866 - 1950)
Adolf Meyer (architect), German architect (1881 - 1929)
Adolphus Warburton Moore(A. W. Moore) (1841 – 1887), British civil servant and mountaineer.
Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld, Finnish-Swedish explorer (1832 - 1901)
Adolf Oberländer, German characturist (1845 - 1923)
Adolph Ochs, American newspaper publisher (1858 - 1935)
Adolf Ogi, Swiss politician (born 1942)
Adolf Overweg, German scientist (1822 - 1852)
Adolf Pilar von Pilchau, Baltic German politician (1851 - 1925)
Adolf Reinach, German phenomenologist (1883 - 1917)
Adolph Rupp, American college basketball coach (1901 - 1977)
Adolphe Sax, Belgian musician and inventor of the Saxophone (1814 - 1894)
Adolf Friedrich von Schack, German poet (1815 - 1894)
Adolf Schärf, President of Austria (1890 - 1965)
Adolf Schlagintweit, German explorer (1829 - 1857)
Adolf Schmal, Austrian fencer (1872 - 1919)
Adolf Schreyer, German painter (1828 - 1899)
Adolf von Sonnenthal, Austrian actor (1834 - 1909)
Adolf Stieler, German cartographer (1775 - 1836)
Adolf Stoecker, German theologian (1835 - 1909)
Adolph Heinrich Joseph Sutro 24th mayor (& 2nd Jewish mayor) of San Francisco (1830 - 1898)
Adolphe Thiers French Prime Minister, President, and historian (1797 - 1877)
Adolf Tolkachev, Soviet engineer and CIA spy (1927 - 1986)
Adolf "Dado" Topić, Croatian singer (born 1949)
Adolf Wilbrandt, German novelist (1837 - 1911)
Adolf Otto Reinhold Windaus, German chemist (1876 - 1959)
Adolf Wölfli, Swiss artist (1864 - 1930)

[dirtywick]

JimMorrison said:
I'm actually very confused. Is this intended to be a serious discussion of whether or not Dom3 is PC enough? The entire notion of PC seems to just be another layer of American neo-Puritanism struggling to insulate "innocent" minds against the reality of the world.



Perhaps, but in America I also have the right to be as thoroughly offensive as I'd like. Unfortunately, I don't run Wal Mart, GameStop, Hasbro, Nintendo, etc.

Self imposed censorship is actually a pretty big issue in gaming in my opinion. I'm actually sure the original issue that started this discussion would never have been allowed if this was a AAA title. There's likely many things in this series that wouldn't be there if they were counting on certain retailers and a certain rating from a certain committee to be successful...Luckily, it's not and we're not playing a watered down Dominions.

They're in such a rare position both to be doing what they want and being successful without having to worry about PC, and it's not like it's gratioutiously offensive for the sake of it either. But the point is they don't need to cave in to PC pressure or flop, which is nice and I hope they take advantage of that in realizing the vision of the game.

[triqui]

I don't see a reason why the name "Adolf" would incite hysteria. It became largely unpopular, that's true, but I don't think that it causes offense or should be a taboo.


I dont know anyone named "Judas". Some names became *really* unpopular.

[lch]

You'll notice that there seems to be a hard limit on the DoB for names of prominent people given by HoneyBadger above, too. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Strider]

As MaxWilson says, this is a valid topic. Shrapnel and some mods are interested in people's views concerning this. We just aren't interested in people making it personal against one another. Most understand that when it comes to religion and politics, it's difficult, at times, to control tempers...even so, we ask that posters please do so.

[Tyrant]

lch said:
You'll notice that there seems to be a hard limit on the DoB for names of prominent people given by HoneyBadger above, too. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif



Perhaps so Ich, but not long ago there was an black American athlete named Hitler. I alternate goggling and giggling over that guy.

[Tyrant]

I've been amazed and pleased that there has never been a peep about this that i have seen. My guess is that the only people who play fantasy wargames are wargamers and fantasy fans and as such they have gotten over it long ago. Nearly all fantasy fiction draws on stereotypes and plays with supernatural concepts. All wargames per force involve playing at committing vile atrocities. Both escape reasonable moral censure because they are make believe. Beyond that, in an era where GTA is ok Dominions doesn't even rate a raised eyebrow IMO.

[PvK]

I think the game discriminates against undead by making generic holy spells that banish them, and by giving such low stats to soulless... fortunately, the undead can make their own corrective mods.

People thinking that maybe a medieval fantasy game should consider avoiding the random name "Adolf" is hilarious to me. People are so silly.

On the other hand, I can think of at least one parody name that does seem a bit out of place, not because it's so offensive but because it's unthematic and a bit silly. But it's so rare it's sort of an Easter egg.

But uh, this game has virgin hunts and sacrifices and cannibalism and blood orgies and demons and horrors and... etc... and it's all just a game.

People who are offended should just avoid it. It's not like it's getting broadcast on television (unlike adds for male enhancement drugs and dozens of other depraved, nauseating and inappropriate products).

[MaxWilson]

HoneyBadger said:
How many non Indians know that the Rakshasas were an actual historical people?



Huh? At the risk of going back on-topic to Dominions--they were? I knew that Devas and Asuras are swapped in Zoroastrianism--Devas are the bad guys--but are Rakshasas the same way? Or do they come from somewhere else? Wikipedia just says they're demons and I couldn't find anything about historical connections. Do tell.

-Max

[Zeldor]

Lch:

You treated my post seriously? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif That topic is not serious. Some people simply seek things to offend them. And truth is that Jews and Muslim are now best at it, better than Christian fanatics. You can read newspapers or listen to TV and you find a guy like that. Then you send him dominions, ask if it insults him and he will find 50 bad things about it and demand it banned.

[Halancar]

triqui said:

I don't see a reason why the name "Adolf" would incite hysteria. It became largely unpopular, that's true, but I don't think that it causes offense or should be a taboo.


I dont know anyone named "Judas". Some names became *really* unpopular.



Among Christians, certainly. On the other hand, it is also the name of Judas Maccabeus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judas_Maccabeus) , one of the great warriors of Jewish History, and so, I suspect, far less unpopular among Jews.

[dirtywick]

Halancar said:

triqui said:

I don't see a reason why the name "Adolf" would incite hysteria. It became largely unpopular, that's true, but I don't think that it causes offense or should be a taboo.


I dont know anyone named "Judas". Some names became *really* unpopular.



Among Christians, certainly. On the other hand, it is also the name of Judas Maccabeus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judas_Maccabeus) , one of the great warriors of Jewish History, and so, I suspect, far less unpopular among Jews.



Uh, that guy lived ~175 years before the name Judas became infamous.

[MaxWilson]

dirtywick said:
Uh, that guy lived ~175 years before the name Judas became infamous.



It took me a second, but I think he means that someone might name their kid after Judas Maccabeus--not that Judas Maccabeus himself was named after (/despite) Judas Iscariot.

-Max

[Tifone]

Meh. Censorship on an intellectual and art work makes no sense to me, no matter what.

[JimMorrison]

Just watched the documentary "The Yes Men" tonight, good stuff.

It's about a couple of guys who impersonate representatives from the WTO, through a mock website that is remarkably similar to the real WTO website.

Anyway, they got their start by doing the same thing with George Bush's personal website. They obtained a VERY similar URL, and made a replica of the website, with certain subliminally satirical twists.

Anyways, they showed a news clip where GW Bush was asked what he thought about this kind of spoof website, and whether they had "taken things too far", and it yielded this lovely quote-

"Sure, I think there should be limits, limits on freedom."
George W Bush



So maybe there should be, right? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[PvK]

The name that offends me the most at the moment in Dominions is Qos Qon.

(laugh...)

[triqui]

Among Christians, certainly. On the other hand, it is also the name of Judas Maccabeus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judas_Maccabeus) , one of the great warriors of Jewish History, and so, I suspect, far less unpopular among Jews.


There are several famous Judas before the one that betrayed the mesias of christian religion. Including one of them that was a saint apostle (Judas Thaddeus). Even then, few people (if any) will name his son "Judas", becouse everybody will think about Iscariot first. Same goes with "Nero","Herodes" or "Torquemada". No Greek will name his child "Ephialtes" and so on.

Those names aren't taboo, and actually there are very good reasons to use them, as most of them have high tradition (like Judas Thadeus. However, they are underused becouse of unpopularity none the less.

I also would like to point that NONE of the prominent "Adolfs" named previously was born after 1945. Which might be a proof of it's unpopularity as well

[Leif_-]

HoneyBadger said:
Fun things happened, like the privelage of a noble to rape his vassal's bride on their wedding night, and the kidnapping and selling of children who had set out with the intention to free the holy land, in the Children's Cruisade.



Fun things certainly happened, but not those two. Ius primae noctis never existed, and the so-called Children's Crusade didn't consist of children, but of youths, and they didn't end up being sold as slaves.

[HoneyBadger]

While there's no authentic, irrefutable *proof* of Ius Primae Noctis, there's definitely a body of evidence for it. So...you're right that it may possibly not have existed as such. That it definitely never happened, ever, I seriously doubt you could prove. Scopes has a good article on it. I quote Charles Panati, from the end of the article:

"Surely the use of political power to secure sexual favors is ancient and widespread. The droit du seigneir (another term from Ius Primae Noctis) in the broadest sense - political pressure for sexual favors, what we now call sexual harrassment - must have been invoked all the time, but was formalized in the myths as if it were an unofficial right or law. One that was, from the start, intolerable. It may never, or seldom, have been technically legal, but it was not "just another myth"

Ofcourse, arranged marriages did occur, and still occur today. How that's a whole lot different, or a whole lot better, than Ius Primae Noctis escapes me. And it must be remembered that rulers in ages past were often thought of as semi-divine, somewhat supernatural beings, themselves, with direct physical ties to the well-being of their people and the fertility of the lands they lorded over. So it atleast makes some amount of sense to me that some form of fertility ceremony connected to weddings probably did occur at some point in time, where the king (or what have you) got first crack at the bride on her wedding night.

It might not be proven fact, but it atleast makes some amount of sense that people back then would think in those ways.

The Children's Cruisade has been debunked to my satisfaction though, so thanks for that. You're welcome to switch it out and replace it with the Jonestown Massacre-when it comes to children enslaved and murdered, as a result of an innocent spiritual purpose, that's a comparably ugly story, I would say.

[JimMorrison]

I really don't think we have to dig too deeply to find rampant evidence of the iniquity of man, from first record, to present. O.o

Though I do think it's funny that people say "power corrupts", when ultimately most powerful people were corrupt to begin with. Thousands of years of people scratching their heads over things like "gee, the king's eldest son died, everyone loved him, did he have ANY enemies? oh well, his younger brother will suffice I suppose, though he's a bit shady".

Some people do extraordinary things to survive. Others, do extraordinarily awful things in order to survive. And yet others are artificially conditioned to think that their survival depends on attainment of more wealth and power, and continually do extraordinarily awful things to that end.

A critical look at the people wielding great power throughout history, will show a handful of admirable and worthy leaders. It will show another handle of mediocre but just and kind rulers. And it will provide seemingly endless lists of the worst kind of scum the world has seen. Not because they commit atrocious acts in person necessarily, but enact policies and send orders that cause incredible suffering to countless citizens whose voice will never be heard crying out in pain across history. Such is the nature of humanity, and of power. For every wrongdoing we discover, there were 10 that were successfully buried, and many of those were the worst.

At least here it's just pixels. Sometimes I shoot pixels in the groin, and then I laugh. I can't allow myself to feel sympathy, because when I hit Exit, they all die anyways. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[capnq]

HoneyBadger said: Another good saying is "Beware the man who would keep knowledge from you, for he would be your master". I don't know who said that, off the top of my head, but I do have the power to look it up, and the will to form my own opinions about that saying, and the person who said it, separate the two, and take value from each, individually and as a sum.

That's from the computer game Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri.
Commissioner Pravin Lal said: As the Americans learned so painfully in Earth's final century, free flow of information is the only safeguard against tyranny. The once-chained people whose leaders at last lose their grip on information flow will soon burst with freedom and vitality, but the free nation gradually constricting its grip on public discourse has begun its rapid slide into despotism. Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.

[capnq]

JimMorrison said: I do think it's funny that people say "power corrupts", when ultimately most powerful people were corrupt to begin with.


(Somewhere in the Dune books) Frank Herbert said: Power attracts the corruptible, absolute power attracts the absolutely corruptible.

[Aapeli]

Gee this thread is political and full of all kinds of intelligent arguments. Should we care about people being insulted about stuff thats in Dominions? You can call me ignorant if you like but I think all people are equally insane and should just cope with each other no matter what. Everybody respects different things and some things dont mean as much to others than to others. I generally tend to think that its quite hard to exist without insulting someone.

[Edratman]

In my year on this forum there have been 4 or 5 threads from players who say they were insulted/offended by some aspect of the game. I find it amusing that not once has anyone initiated a thread that they have been offended by the blood aspect of the game.

It is disappointing that so many jump in and try to defend the game to the party that claims that they are offended; as if a well written post would change the petty minded fellows opinion and expiate whatever insignificent issue he has chosen to base his indignation.

I know this type of person very well. The one insignificent topic that they have chosen to defend provides some sort of validation to them. Of what, I am not sure, but I suspect it is something big, like their very existance and purpose in life.

The world has bigger and more significent concerns than the terminology in a fantasy game.

[JimMorrison]

capnq said:

HoneyBadger said: Another good saying is "Beware the man who would keep knowledge from you, for he would be your master". I don't know who said that, off the top of my head, but I do have the power to look it up, and the will to form my own opinions about that saying, and the person who said it, separate the two, and take value from each, individually and as a sum.

That's from the computer game Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri.
Commissioner Pravin Lal said: As the Americans learned so painfully in Earth's final century, free flow of information is the only safeguard against tyranny. The once-chained people whose leaders at last lose their grip on information flow will soon burst with freedom and vitality, but the free nation gradually constricting its grip on public discourse has begun its rapid slide into despotism. Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.






I really loved that quote. Well, AC was such an awesome game, so uch better than Civ can ever be at this point, I think. 8 \ Oh where are you Alpha Centauri II??

[HoneyBadger]

Lost somewhere beneath the pile of money Sid Meyer gets for Civilization.

You know, one thing that I find games do, as sequils are made, is to drop, slowly but surely, the fun little boardgamey quirks that made the games stand out. The Total War series, for instance. Shogun played almost like a boardgame that you could get inside of, but as amazing as the sequils have been, each one seems to spend less and less time on everything but the main engine. It's like building a Formula 1 racer-sure it goes incredibly fast, and it does things that no streetcar could ever do, but it's not comfortable, and video games should be comfortable. They should play like boardgames, or be hobbies like Dom3. I really think the problem with a lot of games today is that they're not loved enough. With AC, you can feel a lot of devotion and dedication that was put into the game. I think the people who made it probably enjoyed making it and playing it, a lot more than they did just factorying out yet another Civ.

[Leif_-]

HoneyBadger said:
Lost somewhere beneath the pile of money Sid Meyer gets for Civilization.



Then again, they are working on Colonization II right now, so it's not like they've completely forgotten their old games.

[JimMorrison]

This is true, Sid remade his railroad game, and Pirates, and now Colonization..... Perhaps AC II is not too big a stretch of the imagination for a few years from now.

Pray with me. I don't care if you're religious - I'm not - just pray, please. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

I do agree Badger, a second will probably lose a bit of the "endearingly flawed" qualities of the first. Ironic how the flaws of the sequels are never so lovable. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif But a second iteration would be awfully nice - more so if it is more just a UI and engine upgrade than anything else. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

And yes, I feel in love with Shogun, and introduced several of my friends to Total War because of it. I think it's funny, because they keep adding depth to the strategic layer, and making it play much less like a board game (which I don't mind in theory, but do you see the new one has tech trees?!), but all of the stuff that they keep piling onto the tactical combat just keeps breaking it, and I fear you won't be able to enjoy a tactical land combat at all in Total War: Empires. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif


Oh how the mighty have fallen OT. >.>

[sector24]

Slighty off topic (or maybe back on topic)

webuser: Kohen are offensive
sternest: Knave of fine heroes.

[Agema]

JimMorrison said:
I'm actually very confused. Is this intended to be a serious discussion of whether or not Dom3 is PC enough? The entire notion of PC seems to just be another layer of American neo-Puritanism struggling to insulate "innocent" minds against the reality of the world.



Political correctness isn't about using nice words for bad things. It's about removing bad terminology from people who don't deserve it.

For instance, I'd expect most people should recognise that it is not okay to call blacks "n*****s", or homosexuals "f*****s". Or that women in the workplace should get called "Honey" and told to make the coffee. The last 50 years particularly, Western society has put a lot of time into fighting prejudice. That's what PC is supposed to be all about.

Where the term "political correctness" comes in is that reactionary bigots objected to having to treat the objects of their contempt with respect and fairness. So they popularised the term "political correctness" (although it existed in some form well before that) as a pejorative. Then they picked on the few particularly extreme or absurd things at the fringe, or just made up their own (such as using euphemisms for bad events) and bundled it all up to smear the whole progressive social movement, and through it their political opponents.

[Zeldor]

Agema:

Why not niggas? They talk to each other with these words.

Political correctness is now just a part of rotten upper classes in Europe that say that extreme PC is necessary part of progressive world.

[GrudgeBringer]

2 cents worth, and only 2 cents worth.

I have a degree in Culturel Anthropology and alot of what is mentioned in this game is semi-correct or at least has a mythological tilt to it.

Gentlemen (and ladies), we are who we are...

We where a barbaric people by our modern standards and a normal people by the Era's they lived in.

Dragons had Virgins had sacrificed to them but I havn't heard One person decry that it is discrimanation agianst the fairer sex.

I suggest that if a nation offends you...don't play it.

If someone is using a Nations like (example) Ulm and is quoting the Baaaaaad Adolph, and it offends you...Quit the game.

Its Role Playing and supposed to ne thematic and somewhat civilised. But we can't contol everyone, we can only do what we do in real life...choose not to be around those that offend us.

Guess that was a nickel's worth!! /threads/images/Graemlins/Peace.gif

[Leif_-]

The way I see it, there's no point in worrying about potential offense. Once we get some actual offense it can be worth discussing, but until then we're just chewing chud.

[Gandalf Parker]

Keep in mind that these conversations impact multiple levels.

There is the question of "why not in the game".
And then there is "why not on these forums".
And then finally "why not in general conversation" (PMs, email to each other, IRC, etc)

Of course the first one would come up against "the devs decide", the second one comes up against "Shrapnel decides", and the last one... well that would vary.

[Tifone]

Mmh don't blame to much the politically correctness. A lot is ridiculous and drives to hypocrisy. Some is an important way to keep conversations polite, diplomatic and not offending people who don't deserve it. If you call someone f*g, you're not only offending him, you're using a word which was used for decades by homophobic morons - people our society is leaving behind, fortunately.

Back to the topic anyway... But if giants coming from the Jewish mythology, and possibly speaking the Jew language, call their priests in their language, which is of course the language of the Jews as those giants where invented by them... it is just thematic. Where is the offense? Really, I don't understand. And if there is something I am NOT is anti-Semite - even Jew people just said in that thread they didn't find it offensive... so it's strange still to be talking about this http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Agema]

I don't think there's anything in the game that transgresses acceptable boundaries. In the forums, I think some people would find the adverts with women offensive, but it's nothing that isn't common in wider society. As for general conversation...

Zeldor: The short, one word answer is "context".

I wrote a long answer, but I've deleted it. Communication and people's feeling are complex things, and I suspect I'm going to be irritated with some of the arguments likely to emerge in debate.

So if you're okay with it, let's just leave it there?

[Gandalf Parker]

As far as context, if it hasnt already been mentioned, part of it might stem from Kristoffers day job which involves teaching this subject. The fact that he is so immersed in religio-mythology would seem to have been at the base of the type of game it became and much of the subject matter. He would have been torn between using his knowledge and trying to avoid anything that anyone might presently be using or might start up a revival on.

[HoneyBadger]

Agema, I disagree that PC is being used to label some sort of conspiratorial plot perpetuated upon the American (or otherwise) conscious as a Liberal bid to somehow take the stuffing out of arguments pro-human rights/human dignity. I agree about the conspiracy, but it's my feeling that it goes a little bit deeper and more insidiously than that.

PC, atleast the term as I use it, has the meaning of morally forcing terms which emulsify and homogenize human experience, detracting from the elements of those experiences which make diversification valuable, and either ignoring everything that goes into being a human, if it's deemed somehow unsuitable for public consumption, or Disney-fying it, and feeding it to the public, as if they're all sweet, elderly spinsters with little or no worldly experience.

It's call *political* correctness for a reason, and that reason is that PC is the idea behind the intentionally limited language used to filter the speeches of politicians, in order that they come out as wholesome as possible, so as to offend the least numbers of their constituents with their choice of wordage-facilitated by the fact that, as I mentioned, it is a limited language.

[Gandalf Parker]

And of course, Political Correctness tends to also apply to Corporate Correctness which does come into play here since this is a corporate forum.

[JimMorrison]

Damn, Badger beat me to it. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

However Agema, I will ask, are you not familiar with George Carlin's rant about the PC phenomena? To illustrate, he relates how:

The term "Shellshock" had the connotation of "WAR IS FRICKIN HORRIFYING!"

.....which was then made politically correct over time, to the more sterile and inoffensive.....

"Post Traumatic Stress Disorder", which simply means, "in some situations human beings may be placed in very stressful situations which can lead to long term emotional disturbances".


This removes the impact intended, or accrued, by the original term. It also removed the connection that an outsider feels for the sufferer. Now other people can say "oh I know what PTSD is like, I fell off my bike in front of a truck once", not realizing that the original use referred to people who spent 3 days in a ditch, getting shot at, and biting their hand to keep from sleeping, for fear if their eyes closed someone would jump down there and slit their throat.


Human existence is quite gritty, and yet colorful and full of vivid experience. I don't give two shakes what the INTENT of the PC movement was, in your eyes. I only care what it does - it bleaches human experience, it sanitizes concepts, and it erodes free speech.

People have really lost sight of what freedom truly is. Instead of embracing their own ability to shape their immediate surroundings the way that they prefer (such as a public website like this having profanity or harassment rules, for example), people get all wound up and gather their influence and power to "democratically" impose their preferences on others.

You know what? I would rather have some measure of individuality under a benevolent dictator, than to have some sort of PC, democratic, right-wing conservative view of freedom limited "for my own good".

[MaxWilson]

JimMorrison said:
You know what? I would rather have some measure of individuality under a benevolent dictator, than to have some sort of PC, democratic, right-wing conservative view of freedom limited "for my own good".



Wow. "PC" and "right-wing" are not two terms I often see associated, let alone "conservative" and "for my own good." I guess all those conservatives in Congress had better get back to pushing their CAFE standards to force me to buy more efficient cars "for my own good" and mandating that I purchase health insurance "for my own good."

I feel like somebody just criticized Hitler for being a "namby pamby touchy-feelie type."

-Max

Edit: Well, maybe not quite so much. More like someone had criticized liberals for their laissez-faire approach to economics.

[Zeldor]

JimMorrison:

You meant left-wing, right? PC is the flag achievement of social-democrats. I don't think I have ever seen right-wing conservative politicians using it much.

[Tifone]

Yep, many rugged conservatives still are /proud/ to call homosexuals "f*gs"... no PC for them I guess. mmh.

[JimMorrison]

Oh my, people do pay attention to my rants. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/redface.gif

Yes yes, I did mean left-wing in fact. I don't believe in any wings really, extremism is ALWAYS BAD. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif I guess it was a Freudian slip, as I do tend to rant about some people more than others. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif Mostly just because as mixed up as they may be, leftist extremists tend to believe there is something to fix, while the right claims everything is peaches and cream.


Can't we all just get along?

Oh oh, I've got a joke! Me, Elvis, JFK, and Hitler are in heaven playing poker.....


http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Zeldor]

Yeah, Elvis is still alive!

[Agema]

Political correctness is about minimising language, ideas and policies offensive, prejudicial and stigmatising to people by race, gender, sexuality, culture, disability, and so on. And I mean minimise: it's not about bending over backwards to the demands of the unreasonable or censoring free speech.

The examples supplied are not political correctness. They are possibly good examples of what has been popularly and erroneously tied into political correctness.

* * *

Shellshock was coined in WWI by doctors who had no idea what the problem was. As psychology developed, they discovered PTSD, and that shellshock was a type of PTSD. Yes, there are differences in scale from being bombed to being hit by a truck. But a one-inch stab wound is a lot less serious than a 6-inch stab wound, and they're still both stab wounds.

Renaming shellshock is actually all about accurate scientific terminology in the field of psychology. In the same way the evocative term "consumption" has been superseded by the "tuberculosis" in medicine, or "baking soda" by "sodium hydrogen carbonate" in chemistry.

* * *

You've brought up business-speak or other jargon. For instance, a company "downsizes" meaning it's losing money and has to fire staff (bad). Then they make a euphemism to the euphemism and make "right-size".

This is really about obfuscation for propaganda purposes, which is as old as the hills. Such jargon can also be about seeming intelligent by using unusual words or phrases. It's got nothing to do with removing prejudice against people.

[Zeldor]

Agema:

Well, that is what it should be. Unfortunetely it got destroyed and twisted by some politicians and some groups [mostly minority rights fanatics] and became some abomination. Evading all difficult subjects and stagmatizing all people that are not 'politicaly correct' and thus denying them to voice their opinions. And that even goes for many obvious truth about european reality.

[Agema]

I don't understand what you are saying about Europe, can you explain?

PC is thoroughly trashed now, yes. But I think its core, mainstream belief of respect was a beneficial one, and so to attack it generally is to throw out a baby with the fanatic, fringe bathwater, when the two can be separated. After all, we don't call Christianity an abomination just because of Waco and witch-burning.

[Zeldor]

What country are you from?

[Agema]

UK.

[Tifone]

God save the (Vampire) Queen! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

(if you don't get the dom3 related joke, don't blame me) http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[JimMorrison]

Agema said:
I don't understand what you are saying about Europe, can you explain?

PC is thoroughly trashed now, yes. But I think its core, mainstream belief of respect was a beneficial one, and so to attack it generally is to throw out a baby with the fanatic, fringe bathwater, when the two can be separated. After all, we don't call Christianity an abomination just because of Waco and witch-burning.



I can list you other reasons..... >.>


The stated reason for inquisitions was to save the souls of the people..... it ended up twisted into, well, I don't think anyone here should need elaboration. O.O By the time anything could be done about it, it just had to be stopped.


Am I saying I don't think we should be respectful of eachother? That's ridiculous. But the fact that so many people have extrapolated "respecting others" to simply not being allowed to say [i]anything[/b] that offends another person - means that really we need to stop the process, and probably just scrap it and start again from a different angle.

If people want to use slurs, then limiting their freedom of expression outright is something that will always be expanded into oppressive areas, and you must understand that with ANY limitation of freedom, there will develop oppression - if you can't understand that, then you are helping cause your own problems.

If however people found themselves somewhat disadvantaged if they behaved in ways that hurt other people - maybe they would learn that living life as a racist bigot just isn't "worth it".

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[Leif_-]

JimMorrison said:
The stated reason for inquisitions was to save the souls of the people..... it ended up twisted into, well, I don't think anyone here should need elaboration.



Chances are, most would. The Inquisition? Not the horror it's commonly believed to have been. Now, the Spanish Inquisition, on the other hand, that's a different story; but then that was an entirely different institution too, directly controlled by the Spanish crown.

[HoneyBadger]

Well, that right there is the main transgression. It's never been purely Christianity that has caused problems. It's always been state-supported Christianity that has been responsible for, or furthered, such niceties as the second class citizenship of women, support of slavery and condemnation of homosexuality, polygamy, burning of "witches"-all of which have been justified by Bible scripture-as well as pleasant policies such as indifference towards the Holocaust, Cruisades, pogroms, the burning of books, the destruction of culture, and hereditary rulership, even if the "rightful heir" is the product of a few hundred years of incest.

I have no problem whatsoever with Christianity, the worst thing that happens when Christians are alone is they get eaten by lions, or start writing excrutiating rock music, and good Christians do actually walk the Earth, actively doing and supporting many, many good deeds-it's when the Church is combined with the State that bad things (as an example, I give you our current administration) seem to happen all too regularly.

[JimMorrison]

Oops, forgot to close an italics mark there.....

And anyway, my point was that even religion (*gasp* even religion!) which is usually entered into with altruistic motives. While there are people with strong religious beliefs who actually live a kind and honest life, then it's insanity to say that religion itself is such a problem as to be abolished altogether. However, I would relate that to the fact that for a long time, some people have tried to extol the virtues of interpersonal respect, and that the PC movement is merely a diseased and rotten offshoot of that, much the same way that the Spanish Inquisition (no need for us to quibble http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif) was the problem rather than the religion itself.

So, I say down with Political Correctness, up with understanding and respect. <3

[Tifone]

I don't wanna partecipate to this thread because I'm a kind of fanatic of religious discussions and I don't wanna bore anybody here. I just wanna say - the "theory" about the "black legend" of the Inquisition (claiming that the Inquisition was much better than people usually think) has been literally destroyed piece by piece by... I think /all/ the serious historians. It was a just one plug of that big historic revisionism which denies clear and horrible things of the past of the mankind by manipulating facts, omitting evidence, considering only certain favourable data. Like if we can make our nature "better" forgetting our crimes, instead of learning from them what we were, and what we must not become again.

Damn, just coming to Italy (which surely wasn't protestant, as many say that only the lutheran christians made victims with the inquisition) you will find many museums filled with thousands of the horrible and incredibly cruel stocks used for torture... surely they weren't made after that period just to accuse the church unjustly, don't you think?

[MaxWilson]

HoneyBadger said:
Well, that right there is the main transgression. It's never been purely Christianity that has caused problems. It's always been state-supported Christianity that has been responsible for, or furthered, such niceties as the second class citizenship of women, support of slavery and condemnation of homosexuality, polygamy, burning of "witches"



Polygamy is the anomaly here. The only instance of Christian polygamy (Mormon polygamists in the 1<font color="red">9</font>th century) I can think of was not only not state-sponsored, but in fact faced intense opposition from Congress and the federal government.

I don't think Christians who supported slavery in the 19th century had state backing for their positions either, although a cynic would observe that it's always convenient when your religious views happen to support the political views that you want to have anyway.

-Max

<font color="red">Edit: fixed typo </font>

[thejeff]

I'm not sure it makes sense to talk about religion with State
backing as being some kind of anomaly.

Religious leaders have often sought temporal power. Temporal leaders have often sought religious backing to justify whatever it is they want to do anyway.

If all you are saying is that when Christians have no power they're harmless, then that's almost a tautology.

Was the Catholic Church throughout most of it's history "state supported"? Or were the states given legitimacy by the Church?

[HoneyBadger]

Well, I happen to live in Utah, and admittedly, it wasn't sanctioned by the Mormon church for very long or particularly well, but it did happen, and it was the church founders who were the ones doing it, even as they were publically condemning it. And they had significant, if not ultimate, governmental and political power-more local than federal, but the difference probably didn't mean a whole lot to their various wives.

[HoneyBadger]

It's the combination of the two, thejeff. The Roman Empire supported the early Christian church, and the Catholic church then went on to legitimize the states that followed.

And anything is harmless, if it has no power-the most evil-minded dandelion in the world isn't much of a threat, except to my lawn-it's what's done with whatever power a thing has, that makes a difference.

And the fact remains that in many unfortunate circumstances, Christianity was wielded like a "terrible, swift sword" for reasons political, but in the name of the spiritual.

[thejeff]

Which is my point. Saying "It's never been purely Christianity that has caused problems. It's always been state-supported Christianity", is really just saying Christianity has only caused problems when it's had the power to do so. It's white-washing religion's role in those problems.

Not to blame all problems on Christianity or other religions, or to say they've done no good.

[JimMorrison]

thejeff said:
Which is my point. Saying "It's never been purely Christianity that has caused problems. It's always been state-supported Christianity", is really just saying Christianity has only caused problems when it's had the power to do so. It's white-washing religion's role in those problems.

Not to blame all problems on Christianity or other religions, or to say they've done no good.




Somehow this just sounds like "Religion is a powerful weapon, let us pray it does not fall into the wrong hands.". http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[HoneyBadger]

I think Christianity has done quite a lot of good things, either as a force-the Salvation Army, for example-or as individuals (Martin Luther King). But religion can be a dangerous tool that can be used to exploit people and their faith. Whether it's tv evangelists taking money from people who can't afford to live, or anti-semitics who used Christianity as an excuse to persecute Jews.

Religion-and by this I mean the People of the Book (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) is like a virus of ideas and ideals. It occupies a host, changing the host to suit it's needs, and then it spreads itself by various means, infecting people more or less strongly, depending on their ability/willingness to fight the infection (or catch the "Spirit"). It's not necessarily a disease-as in, harmful, because the ways in which it seeks to change it's host are often very beneficial-but it often operates with the methods of one, and Christianity is especially virulent, predisposing it's hosts (Missionaries) to seeking out, and then converting, any segments of the population that haven't built up a tolerance for it yet. It mutates, taking on more exotic forms: Mormons, born-again Christians, Rastafarians, Voodoo, even exotic strains, like the deadly Ebola cults of David Coresh and Jonestown, etc.

Viruses by themselves aren't evil. We may think of them superstitiously in those terms, from time to time, but we don't really attach sentience and will to do harm to microscopic (or thought) organisms. They're out to perpetuate themselves, just like we are. And at times, they can be harmful to other life-forms, just like we can. That also doesn't mean they can't do a lot of good too-some have speculated that some form of virus is what caused us to evolve in such a way as to develope speech and language-but if they're introduced into an unprotected, susceptible host, then they can potentially do damage.

They can also mutate over time into more benevolent forms, which are more compatable-more symbiotic and less parasitic-with their hosts than the original form. And I think that's what's happening with religion today. It can still be a force for harm and destruction at times, if the infection is extreme and uncontrolled, but it can also benefit, and take advantage from, peaceful co-existence with the people who actually live by it's ideals, and the people those come into contact with.

[Tifone]

Guys I wanna warn you all. We are starting to think too smartly. They will make us all disappear in some new, elegant, smiling way.

[MaxWilson]

Ah, so when you say "religion" you really mean "the Abrahamic religions." Interesting, but a potentially confusing choice of words because inevitably someone is going to counter a generalization about "religion" with an example from a weird little religion practiced in 16th-century New Guineau (to paraphrase Steven Pinker) and that won't have been what you were trying to talk about at all.

By the way, I think you've just reinvented the concept of "meme". Heh. Now the meme meme has multiple origins.

-Max

[JimMorrison]

So there is potentially a religion in New Guinea that not seek to spread itself to willing minds to survive? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif That would rock my entire concept of what the term religion actually means, as opposed to philosophy or just plain reasoning. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

I think in a nutshell Badger was simply stating that people are people, and religion didn't change anything intrinsic about our properties as organisms.

I have to admit though, I've been having trouble seeing a difference in the rate at which the vector manifests itself in the darker desires of humanity - but this could just be because of the sheer volume of the population who carry it.


That's why I prefer philosophies and reasonings though, they don't pull guilt trips on you when you grow past them. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Saxon]

When you talk about religion and state, it is good to look at how Christianity is different than other religions. The “render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and unto god what is god’s,” is fairly unique. It flavors the thinking of most people who grew up in predominantly Christian areas and makes them think that the separation of church and state is normal or at least desirable. In most of the world, that is not the case.

Many other religions either carry an explicit or implicit idea that “our religion is good and we should do what we need to do to make sure society follows the moral ideals of our religion.” This means the state should and even must implement religion. Why would you leave out a very powerful tool when you are trying to change the world?

This is a gap in understanding that I frequently see in Christian/Muslim discussions and it is all the worse because the two sides don’t realize it is there. One side is saying “How can you pass a law like that?” They then argue about the right and the wrong of the law. The other side is “How can you let such things happen in your society?” They then argue about the right and the wrong of the act. Both miss that the actual issue is about how church and state should interact and how a faithful member of the religion should try to make the world a better place.

Also, for those in the West who did not understand why the word “Crusade” caused such a furor in some parts of the world, this is why. If the hearer thinks that all governments reflect the main religion of that nation, they will hear “Crusade” and expect a holy war with all the might of that state behind it. If the hearer is a “separation of church and state” kind of person, they do not expect that at all.

[MaxWilson]

JimMorrison said:
So there is potentially a religion in New Guinea that not seek to spread itself to willing minds to survive? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif That would rock my entire concept of what the term religion actually means, as opposed to philosophy or just plain reasoning. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

I think in a nutshell Badger was simply stating that people are people, and religion didn't change anything intrinsic about our properties as organisms.



HoneyBadger said explicitly, "Religion-and by this I mean the People of the Book (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) is like a virus of ideas and ideals." It's explicitly not applicable to our hypothetical weird little religion (it is not, hypothetically, that of the People of the Book).

Anyway, if you equate "religion" = "meme" you are missing out IMHO on some of the richer meaning of the word. I'd probably define it differently, something like: "Religion is that which a person implicitly or explicitly holds to be true independent of social consensus of its truthfulness." From this standpoint, "Jesus was divine" and "humans have a responsibility to conserve resources for other animals" are both religious beliefs for certain people because they are not (easily) subject to disproof or argument from other people. They're simply fundamental to that person's worldview. Note that this definition diverges starkly from the traditional view that "religion is any belief which has something to do with God," but I think it's a nicer, more fundamental definition.

-Max

[thejeff]

JimMorrison said:
So there is potentially a religion in New Guinea that not seek to spread itself to willing minds to survive? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif That would rock my entire concept of what the term religion actually means, as opposed to philosophy or just plain reasoning. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif




I don't know about New Guinea, but as a larger example: For most of it's history Judaism has been the religion of the Jewish people. Children were raised in the religion, but outside converts were not sought and depending on the time and particular variant of the religion may not have been allowed.

There are other examples...

[thejeff]

Saxon said:
When you talk about religion and state, it is good to look at how Christianity is different than other religions. The “render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and unto god what is god’s,” is fairly unique. It flavors the thinking of most people who grew up in predominantly Christian areas and makes them think that the separation of church and state is normal or at least desirable. In most of the world, that is not the case.

Many other religions either carry an explicit or implicit idea that “our religion is good and we should do what we need to do to make sure society follows the moral ideals of our religion.” This means the state should and even must implement religion. Why would you leave out a very powerful tool when you are trying to change the world.



While the quote is certainly Biblical it really doesn't reflect the history of Christianity at all. Separation of church and state is a very modern, post-Enlightenment, thing. Consider the "divine right of kings" and similar concepts throughout most of European history. Church and State were very closely intertwined. The separation of church and state is a product of Western secularism and largely of the abuses of state churches.

It's also a concept not particularly accepted by certainly extremely vocal Christians in the US these days.

[thejeff]

MaxWilson said:
Anyway, if you equate "religion" = "meme" you are missing out IMHO on some of the richer meaning of the word. I'd probably define it differently, something like: "Religion is that which a person implicitly or explicitly holds to be true independent of social consensus of its truthfulness." From this standpoint, "Jesus was divine" and "humans have a responsibility to conserve resources for other animals" are both religious beliefs for certain people because they are not (easily) subject to disproof or argument from other people. They're simply fundamental to that person's worldview. Note that this definition diverges starkly from the traditional view that "religion is any belief which has something to do with God," but I think it's a nicer, more fundamental definition.



It's also a very nice definition for theists who don't want to actually deal with other's arguments. "The basic tenets of science have to be taken on faith, so that's just your religion." "Atheism is just another religious belief." etc, etc.
(I'm not saying that's your intent, but I've run into it often enough that I'm wary.)
It's more useful to leave religion dealing with God and have other words for other types of philosophical worldviews.

[Tifone]

thejeff said:

[...]It's also a concept not particularly accepted by certainly extremely vocal Christians in the US these days.



...And you don't live in Italy, my dear friend... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

On an historical basis, you can even just think about the excommunications to the kings, which were used by the church to forbid non-controllable kings to ruling their countries; the Papal States (which fighted not to be annexed in the Italian territory, and excommunicated whoever wanted to partecipate to Italian political life after being annexed); the Opus Dei; and many other things... even now in Italy certain priests from the hierarchy of the Church, say on a daily basis to politics that a country cannot be ruled without their God and that they are ready to "fight" (!) to defend their (expecially economical) advantages (many of which are plain absurd)

Just to show you that certainly that quote from 3 of the 4 gospels, surely didn't, and don't, interest at all the ideas of many Christians, about the separation between church and State.

[HoneyBadger]

I guess I'd better clarify that statement I made about the Abrahamic religions. Just to further muddy these waters. First of all, these talks have seemed, atleast to me, to revolve around the Abrahamic religions. Nobody has said a whole lot about Shinto, Buddhism, the various Shamanistic traditions that are still around, Scientology, etc.

And from my perspective, it's the Abrahamic religions, and what's taken from their traditions, that seem to be concerning people, as offensive in such a way that might expose the game to reaction. Nobody's suggested anything negative about how the Buddhists might feel about the portrayal of Asian or Indian-flavoured nations, or about how modern citizens of Greece or Egypt might be bothered by the direct exploitation of their revered ancestors' religions, atleast past the first thread. There have been nationalistic issues-and by these I mean that people don't seem to like the name "Adolf", and feel that Machaka lumps most of Africa together (which I tend to sympathise with, since Africa's an awfully big, old place).

Personally, I'm of the opinion that there's not a whole lot of difference between religion and mythology. All mythologies were once religions, and probably will be again, someday. So it wasn't said to mean that the Abrahamic religions were exclusive, only that they applied and were familiar both to me, and to the rest of the posters, as a major form of religion. So I limited my statement to Judaism and it's offspring, for the sake of the useability and pertinance of the statement.

But I don't really think the Abrahamic religions even apply. Why? Because they're not actually present, anywhere in the game. There's nations based on the Bible, but no Jewish nation, no Islam-themed nation, and no Christian themed nation. What? No Christian nation? well surely Marignon or Ermor or even...let me restate, there are no Christian nations in the game. They're all religions that might resemble something you'd attach to Christianity, like something out of the Bible, or the Inquisition, or whatever, but in every case, they're still worshipping Pretenders, and in no case are they worshipping Allah or the Trinity or YHWH. Anything beyond that is an offense do-it-yourself-kit.

[MaxWilson]

thejeff said:
It's also a concept not particularly accepted by certainly extremely vocal Christians in the US these days.



I dunno, I think the most vocal Christians do accept the concept, which is why they're being vocal. Look at the Intelligent Design debates. Most ID apologists are fools (Niven's Law guarantees that--and of course most Darwinian apologists are fools too) but the key issue is that they're afraid the state is trying to shove atheistic ideas into their kids' heads. Most of them wouldn't care if YOUR school doesn't point out flaws in Darwinian theories as long as THEIR school can. It's about freedom from government interference, which is very much an issue of separating church and state.

The issue is muddied by the fact that public schools are now funded by the state, so arguably the ID folks are wrong, but that's where they're coming from. I personally don't care if ID is allowed in schools (it's not going to get taught anyway) but I would rather see the scientific method being taught rather than science as fait accompli. That's not a religious concern though and so a bit OT.

-Max

[quantum_mechani]

MaxWilson said:

thejeff said:
It's also a concept not particularly accepted by certainly extremely vocal Christians in the US these days.



I dunno, I think the most vocal Christians are concerned about the issue. Look at the Intelligent Design debates. Most ID apologists are fools (Niven's Law guarantees that--and of course most Darwinian apologists are fools too) but the key issue is that they're afraid the state is trying to shove atheistic ideas into their kids' heads. Most of them wouldn't care if YOUR school doesn't point out flaws in Darwinian theories as long as THEIR school can. It's about freedom from government interference, which is very much an issue of separating church and state.

-Max

The thing is, freedom from the government, if you take that idea all the way, means no meaningful government. Since any aspect of the government conceivable could fall under someone's religion, you are left with nothing.

[MaxWilson]

thejeff said:

MaxWilson said:
I'd probably define it differently, something like: "Religion is that which a person implicitly or explicitly holds to be true independent of social consensus of its truthfulness."



It's also a very nice definition for theists who don't want to actually deal with other's arguments. "The basic tenets of science have to be taken on faith, so that's just your religion." "Atheism is just another religious belief." etc, etc.
(I'm not saying that's your intent, but I've run into it often enough that I'm wary.)
It's more useful to leave religion dealing with God and have other words for other types of philosophical worldviews.



Isn't the above definition what people are trying to say, though, when they say that science is "just another religious belief"? If you actually engaged their arguments you would acknowledge that science is based on certain assumptions, lay out the fundamental premises upon which science is based (empirical, repeatable experiment is the best way of reaching conclusions; the universe is basically reductionist, you can make conclusions about universal phenomena from local observations) and ask if they bought into those premises. You might then be able to have a reasonable discussion. Instead you dismiss their argument because to you "religion == God" and so "science is a religious belief" is simply gibberish to you. I think this is missing the point...

-Max

[MaxWilson]

quantum_mechani said:
The thing is, freedom from the government, if you take that idea all the way, means no meaningful government. Since any aspect of the government conceivable could fall under someone's religion, you are left with nothing.



Right. If you take it all the other way, though, and the government has a right to trump religious freedom whenever it feels like it, what was the point of the 1st amendment? The ID folks are wrong in my book, but I think they have a right to be heard even if I wouldn't vote for teaching their ideas in my school.

(Well, I might teach Fred Hoyle's version of ID as an exercise or something, to make a point about the scientific method and Bayesian priors.)

-Max

[quantum_mechani]

MaxWilson said:

quantum_mechani said:
The thing is, freedom from the government, if you take that idea all the way, means no meaningful government. Since any aspect of the government conceivable could fall under someone's religion, you are left with nothing.



Right. If you take it all the other way, though, and the government has a right to trump religious freedom whenever it feels like it, what was the point of the 1st amendment? The ID folks are wrong in my book, but I think they have a right to be heard even if I wouldn't vote for teaching their ideas in my school.

(Well, I might teach Fred Hoyle's version of ID as an exercise or something, to make a point about the scientific method and Bayesian priors.)

-Max

Oh, I agree they have right to be heard. I'm just saying there is something of a fundamental flaw in the way freedom of religion is layed out. It is built on the inherent assumption some religions are more valid than others, because if they are not, anyone can have their own relegion and be totally free from government control.

[JimMorrison]

HoneyBadger said:
Anything beyond that is an offense do-it-yourself-kit.



!!

I am SO offended by your insinuation that my own imagination is offensive..... to me. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/redface.gif


You are very right Max, I'd almost simplify it to just "religion is a belief not substantiated by solid evidence".

On the arguments of science as a religion or not, I think it's a matter of the angle of approach. You can claim that the "basis" of modern science is unsubstantiated, but that is not entirely true. While we do indeed lose clarity when we look too far inward, or outward, that does not mean that inward/smallness/universality is the foundation of modern science. In fact, science starts at the middle, in the scope of direct human action. If you called human proportionate existence to be 0, then everything smaller is negative numbers, and everything larger is positive numbers. But our belief in science is not religious in basis, the basis is Newtonian physics, and other very mundane actions/reactions that we can observe, and repeat to observe again ad infinitum. We may not yet know exactly why everything works the way that it does, but we can prove that it does indeed work the way that it does, because that is reality - or at least our communal perception thereof.

This is separate from the concepts that are considered to not be scientific, but are purely religious. Christian Scientists will steal a page, and simply state "observe the world, there is the proof that it was made by god"..... What? That isn't an experiment, and certainly not one that is repeatable. Unless the claim is that pure observation of the wonder of reality, is scientific experiment, observation, and proof, all rolled into one. However, without the human aspect - the self as scientist, defining the rules of the experiment, and narrowing the focus to something that is caused to happen, or is believed to reoccur in a specific and predictable way - there is no actual experiment, and there is no scientific observation. Predicting Halley's Comet returning every 72 years is scientific, pointing a butterfly and saying "God did that", is religious. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[Tifone]

Me very agrees with Jim

[thejeff]

MaxWilson said:

thejeff said:
It's also a concept not particularly accepted by certainly extremely vocal Christians in the US these days.



I dunno, I think the most vocal Christians do accept the concept, which is why they're being vocal. Look at the Intelligent Design debates. Most ID apologists are fools (Niven's Law guarantees that--and of course most Darwinian apologists are fools too) but the key issue is that they're afraid the state is trying to shove atheistic ideas into their kids' heads. Most of them wouldn't care if YOUR school doesn't point out flaws in Darwinian theories as long as THEIR school can. It's about freedom from government interference, which is very much an issue of separating church and state.

The issue is muddied by the fact that public schools are now funded by the state, so arguably the ID folks are wrong, but that's where they're coming from. I personally don't care if ID is allowed in schools (it's not going to get taught anyway) but I would rather see the scientific method being taught rather than science as fait accompli. That's not a religious concern though and so a bit OT.

-Max



We may have to agree to disagree on this. My view is that they are trying to force the government to shove their nonsense into everyone's heads. If you want to keep your child from being taught science, home school or start a religious school of your own. If you're trying to change the larger school system to teach your religious beliefs (and if you look at the writings of the people and institutions pushing ID, it is an open secret it's nothing but a cover for religious creationism) then you're not fighting for the separation of church and state, but trying to use the state to push religious beliefs.

And the only reason ID isn't being taught in schools is that every time creationists have stacked school boards and forced it in, judges have struck it down, so I don't quite follow your comment "I personally don't care if ID is allowed in schools (it's not going to get taught anyway)". It's not taught because it's not allowed.

On a larger scale, the religious right has been openly allied with the Republican party since at least the Reagan years. Blatantly pushing candidates as well as the "values" issues that have come to define the modern "conservative" viewpoint.

[Aezeal]

Yeah which is odd since democrats are clearly much "better" pplz than republicans... they seem to want more equality, work more for nature etc etc as opposed to those who just want to let the world, their neighbours and especially the poor or those in other countires go to hell as long as they get their cash. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

[Tifone]

RAmen, brothers, RAmen (who got that one? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif )

[thejeff]

MaxWilson said:

Isn't the above definition what people are trying to say, though, when they say that science is "just another religious belief"? If you actually engaged their arguments you would acknowledge that science is based on certain assumptions, lay out the fundamental premises upon which science is based (empirical, repeatable experiment is the best way of reaching conclusions; the universe is basically reductionist, you can make conclusions about universal phenomena from local observations) and ask if they bought into those premises. You might then be able to have a reasonable discussion. Instead you dismiss their argument because to you "religion == God" and so "science is a religious belief" is simply gibberish to you. I think this is missing the point...



It isn't missing the point. It's a tactic for avoiding the argument. It's not productive to have to try to define and teach the entire philosophy of science and the scientific method to a hostile audience in every discussion. You can have a reasonable discussion about the philosophy of science that starts there, but if this is brought up in any of the hot button science/religion issues, it's brought up as a means of dismissing science.
Every time I've seen it used in such a context it's been used to mean, "I have my religious belief, you have yours, therefore I don't have to pay any attention to your arguments." Scientific arguments are logically unprovable, since they rest on unprovable assumptions, therefore, despite mountains of evidence, they are no more reliable than any crackpot idea.

"Science is a religious belief" is not gibberish to me. I simply don't find it a useful categorization.

On the deepest level, science isn't a belief at all. It's a method of making models based on existing data, using them to make predictions and seeing whether those predictions work. If so the model is useful, if not it must be rejected, replaced or improved. Whether a working models actually corresponds to "Truth" or "Reality" is not important. What is important is that it can be used to make accurate predictions.
Scientists being human, they often do believe in their models, but that's not a characteristic of science. It's also often a convenient shorthand to speak of the models, especially solid, long established ones, as reality.

On another note, looking back at your definition, I'd quibble on other grounds as well. Throughout much of history, religions have been believed precisely because of social consensus. This is much less true in the West today, but if you consider medieval Europe or any pre-modern society, when the social consensus was deeply religious, how could it make sense to talk about religion being independent of the social consensus.

[thejeff]

Aezeal said:
Yeah which is odd since democrats are clearly much "better" pplz than republicans... they seem to want more equality, work more for nature etc etc as opposed to those who just want to let the world, their neighbours and especially the poor or those in other countires go to hell as long as they get their cash. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif



It's one of the great mysteries of modern American politics, to me anyway, how "values" became only about sex - abortion, gays, abstinence-only education, etc, while people who care about the environment, poverty, civil rights, social justice, etc. apparently don't have values?

[Aezeal]

nicely put thejeff, just what I meant to say http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

hypocrytes *****in about minor issues while they let the world crumble to dust as long as all gays are cured http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

/me not understanding this

[HoneyBadger]

The problem with science becoming more of a religion and less of a tool, is that we can all be scientists, by using the scientific method(s), but not enough of us have a deep enough understanding of the myriad scientific disciplines, or can (which are becoming more and more specialized, constantly), to be able to separate out what is a scientific, proven fact, and what's a theory based on bad evidence by some crackpot with a degree, that happens to have been accepted by the scientific community for a hundred years. Take dinosaurs-how many times, in just the past 30 years, have our accepted cultural views of dinosaurs changed?

[Aezeal]

well that is a bit of a problem maybe... but since nothing about faith can be proven I think the same problem is bigger there http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif, let's accept science as the lesser of 2 evils (ow this is nice religion as the greater evil.. how ironic http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif)

[Aezeal]

And on your last line... maybe the problem with religion is that the tend to have views that hardly change at all... maybe better to change for the better than stay behind an out dated concept http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif (and IMHO even old views of dino's are more accurate than the views of most religions)

[HoneyBadger]

I never understood, other than the actual historical reasons for it, namely Constantine getting fed up, why they didn't continue writing the Bible. Maybe not edited it, but continued adding to it, as each generation came and went and left their mark. The Bible as it is, although admittedly one of the literary cornerstones of Western Civilization, is in it's current form a handicap to Christianity. So much is ambiguous or taken out of context, or just plain unfriendly to modern eyes. In a way (along with the "Render unto Caesar...") it's a real credit to the Abrahamic religions that they've kept their books as close to the original text as they have.

[Tifone]

? HoneyBadger, the Bible is believed by the Christians to having been *directly* inspired by God - the Word of God itself. The Holy Spirit or anyway some kind of Divine Inspiration descending on the Evangelists and the Old Testament writers and guiding their hands into writing the Bible the way that God wants. While opening a lot of problems (like the fact that God is supposed to be perfect and so not self-contradictory but still goes through a massive change of personality from the Old Testament to the New, and Him being some kind of a all-hating all-forbidding slavery-supporting genocidal giving death penalty to everybody, in the Old Testament), this also implies that you cannot wake up one day and say "Hey, I want to leave a track of my society in the Bible too". Writing what? The only way to do a similar thing are the Papal bull and Encyclicals, both prerogative of the Pope. And none of them have ever been very "modern society's values" inspired yet http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smirk.gif

[JimMorrison]

It amuses me terribly that there seems to be some sort of a Christian moratorium on prophets. I mean, there used to be a whole lot of prophets running around, some false, and some true - how did we tell the difference then?

You would think it would be a big wake up call for people to think how "easy" it is to tell a false prophet now. I mean, gee, if the people 2000 years ago were a bit more educated, would they have believed even half of that stuff? "God" is supposed to be all powerful, yes, but is supposedly fighting this war with the Devil, who spreads lies and deceit. It seems not only silly, but incredibly foolish, IF you believe in these myths, to pick up a book that plainly says "The Word of God", and not wonder if maybe it's a trick!!

Really, we just need to lower our criteria for prophets. Just lower the bar until we can agree to bestow the title on John Lennon, and we can refine it from there. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[HoneyBadger]

I don't think it's because of Christian Prophets that much of the concern lies, but rather because of Muslim sensitivities, as concerns the Prophet Muhammed, and the restriction against displaying images thereof.

I won't bother pointing out that this restriction is only against Muslims creating or displaying images of the Prophet, according to Islam, because it still seems to become a sensitive issue, even when it's non-Muslims doing it.

[JimMorrison]

Well it just seems to me that there hasn't really been a religion that has had a recognized prophet in over 1000 years. And no, I don't count Joseph Smith. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

I'm actually a bit partial to the portrayal of the concept in The Life of Brian - where it was illustrated that at one time there were an awful lot of people vying for the title, most of whom were ignored if they were lucky, or otherwise stoned to death. Only a few managed to get anyone to listen to them, and I hardly can bring myself to imagine that by virtue of their ability to convince some ragged and uneducated peasants that they are somehow indisputably trustworthy. I mean, most of them arose before there even was "Christianity", so the people who adopted them were unhindered by a faith and value system that was built to protect them from impure influences. Oh but wait, you say that after they adopted that faith system we call "Christianity", there were virtually no more actual prophets, ever? Isn't that unexpected..... I wonder what it means? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[HoneyBadger]

I dunno, living in Utah has given me a certain amount of respect, atleast for modern day Mormons. I've never personally had any problems with them, and overall, they seem like nice people. Living in Utah has actually been a very good experience for me, much better than living in some other areas-that's not to say the Mormon church is totally or necessarily responsible for that, but the Mormons haven't done anything too dramatic, to make matters worse for me. They've also got all the other trappings of a fairly major religion, everything from some very pretty temples, to customs that definitely do affect their lives on a day-to-day basis, and I think in generally good ways, from what I've seen. So while it's not a religion I would personally subscribe to (but neither is Christianity), I am willing to grant them legitimacy, in my own head (if that counts for anything, anywhere).

[Saxon]

The point about the “render unto Caesar” is not that any of the various Christian splinters followed it before the Enlightenment. The point is that the idea gives an intellectual space for some Christians to accept a separation of church and state. As Tifone points out, it is not universally accepted by all Christians, but it is accepted by many. More important for this discussion, such a separation is accepted as a real possibility by many liberal believers and non-believers.

Many other faiths do not have this concept and some explicitly state the contrary. This does lead to a communications gap for many Westerners trying to understand politics and religion in other parts of the world.

It also explains why some people may be offended by various things in the game while others shake their heads. Some people don’t or can’t separate religion and the rest of their life and may be offended. Others see a massive separation and can not comprehend how another could be offended.

[Tifone]

"Accepted by many" you say, and I read "accepted by the surely many reasonable Christians, which understand that not everybody can be forced to follow their 2000 years old values, even if they personally have the right to do so".

In that, we can agree.
But just think about the many religious leaders crying out and blasting against "the secularism" (which is nothing more than "rendering unto Caesar") and the "cultural relativism" (which is a MODERN RECOGNISED VALUE to every lay State, as they don't accept /one/ religious culture to impose itself on the others).
You see every day on TV what I mean. Those preachers drive masses of millions, which vote what their beloved priest wants, often imposing at the present time, religious values on lay States and to people which have the right not to share them.

So maybe "rendering unto Caesar" isn't something the Christian religion is so good doing in the present. Not that the other main religions are better in this. I just think about Christianity because many see it as "the reasonable religion", while in fact it possesses unnumbered brainwashing and "past-adjusting" media and often fights to deprive the people of the "Gift of Reason" ( http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif ) the Enlightenment bequeathed to us.

Peace

[JimMorrison]

Tifone said:
...vote what their beloved priest wants, often imposing at the present time, religious values on lay States and to people which have the right not to share them...



Quite possibly the single greatest failure of universal Democracy.....

[Tifone]

Yes Jim I agree it is. Expecially because democracy, as all the modern Constituions and the many Charters of Fundamental Rights say, doesn't absolutely mean that "the majority wins". This is "dictatorship of the majority", an abjection of the democracy known even by the ancient Greeks, and is the way some modern countrys work, mine often included.
The real democracy safeguards the minorities and doesn't impose -by violence or by aggressive creation of laws- the values of one culture on the others, expecially on the "grey areas of morality".
So yes, it is a great failure of democracy that the referendums and the "public opinion" are used by the aggressive religious majority to impose its will and culture on everybody in a nation.

[Agema]

No more prophets are needed for Christianity. The prophets foretold stuff relating to the return of the messiah. The messiah arrived, which means the next stop is Armageddon, and the ticket to travel is already printed.

* * *

In a real democracy, the people rule. Whether the majority wish to be tyrannical is neither here nor there. Arguably, states which safeguard against such behaviour are less democratic than those that don't.

What separation of church and state means is that there is no direct interference by the government on the church or by the church on the government. It does not mean that those with religious authority can't indirectly influence government by persuading adherents to do certain things.

If a religious majority wishes to impose it's will, in a general sense it should be allowed. After all, a capitalist majority can impose low taxation on a socialist minority. A punitive majority can keep the death penalty. A prudish majority can impose strict censorship of pornography or bad language on a permissive minority. There's no justification under democracy per se to second-guess the motivation of people just because it is religious.

[Tifone]

Sure. "If a religious majority wishes to impose it's will, in a general sense it should be allowed"! Yeah,! If a woman is raped in a Muslim fundamentalist country, SHE is condemned to death! But they have the right to do so! It's right! The majority decides, not the human rights!

"A punitive majority can keep the death penalty". If the majority approves torture, here we go! And if the death penalty is applied to girls which lose their virginity before marriage, or to "heretics", or "witches"? Oh, that's true, a punitive majority has the right to do so!

"A prudish majority can impose strict censorship of pornography or bad language on a permissive minority" The best one! Next step: censorship on art, on intellectual thinking, because just the "prudish" bigot majority has the right to decide what you can say or show!

This kind of fascist way of thinking made all my young brown hair, totally white. Oh but wait, you wait for Armageddon, so that all Christians go to Heaven and all the others, good people even non-believing, burn in hell for eternity... yeah, that pretty much explains everything

P.S. If you think this way, don't live in a free country. you would be deluded. Learn what a democracy is, please, before living into one.

[JimMorrison]

I find it very disturbing to think that Agema is in fact a Christian. All this time spent being cautious, and polite, avoiding stereotypes, and making comments about how many good people out there are highly religous.

And then, one nice big slap in the face, "It's okay for me to do whatever I want to you, because I am going to heaven, and you are not!".

If that is truly your belief, I have nothing but sorrow. For you. And for this world that is being torn to pieces by people who hold similar beliefs.

Your comments only serve to illustrate my point (especially with Tifone's masterful clarifications), that Democracy is failed by the masses.

[thejeff]

I didn't get that out of his post at all. The "no more prophets" stuff could just as easily be an outside description of Christian belief as his own opinion.

Nor did he comment on your own state of salvation or his, for that matter, much less "It's okay for me to do whatever I want to you"?
So, unless that's your opinion of all Christians, I can't see why you think it applies to Agema.

[Kristoffer O]

&gt; Well it just seems to me that there hasn't really been a religion that has had a recognized prophet in over 1000 years.

There are plenty, and lots more than that. What do you mean by recognized BTW? Recognized by the movements own followers, or by at least one other religion or by an encyclopedia ? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

BTW, religion is a western concept. In other cultures there are rarely words for the concept we call religion. It is so closely connected to society and the world at whole that it is not meaningful to talk about.

[JimMorrison]

Because Jeff, of all of the Americans that I know (which is a lot! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif), the only ones who think there is absolutely no problem with Democracy allowing Christians to run roughshod over the beliefs and ideals of the rest of the population - are Christians themselves.

To everyone else it amounts to nothing short of government facilitated conversion.


I will admit, I got a bit ahead of myself, as I feel very passionate about humankind plotting a course that is unfettered and unhindered by superstition and mythology. Do I believe that is all that religion is? Of course not, but it's the only part that gets forced upon others. You can't enforce true faith, you can't enforce virtue and harmony - you can only enforce dogmatic behavior.


And again, I will stop to clarify. I don't have a problem with religious people in general, and I think the majority of people who live their lives according to the tenets of a religious teaching, are decent people.

What I do have a problem with, a growing problem, probably because of the US involvement in the Middle East - is the people who think there really is some sort of war for souls going on in the world - who think that they are following the one true faith, and that all others are being misled by satanic forces. These people may be in the minority, but they are the problem, and they have enough sway in the world to still make terrible things happen, even in this modern age.

[Agema]

I am not a Christian, and did not say I was.

What I dispute is Jimi and Tifone talking about things like "real democracy" in terms of actually restricting or denying popular mandate, as to do so is patently anti-democratic. I'm not saying it's a bad idea, far from it.

Modern Western democracies can impose cultural values. The French and Turkish constitutions for instance are aggressively secular and restrict aspects of religious observance in ways the UK and US certainly don't. But you wouldn't call them less democratic countries (although Turkey is politically unstable and has periodic blips). A nation may wish to have an overarching *religious* constitution, rather than one based on secular views as is generally the case in the West. But why should that make them less democratic, if they use a free and fair system of voting just like the US or UK?

I'm just saying that frequently people in the West erroneously conflate a lot of our general secular Enlightenment values into "democracy", which actually have little or nothing to with democracy itself.

[llamabeast]

I think Agema was just talking about the concept of true democracy, i.e. a state where everything is decided by a majority. Obviously in such a state, distasteful things can happen. I think that was his point.

[dirtywick]

Even in a democracy there are a are recognized rights that all members of the society have that can't be violated by the majority.

A good counter example is if the majority wanted to dictate that the minority had no right to vote, well, denying that popular mandate certainly would be a lot more pro-democratic than allowing it to pass, wouldn't it?

If there are no restrictions on the power of the majority it's an ochlocracy not a democracy.

However, I think Agema is right in that you can still be a democratic state and mix religion and government.

[llamabeast]

Er, imagine my post came before Agema's. We must have been typing at the same time.

[Sombre]

Don't tell me what to imagine, thought police!

[llamabeast]

Imagine this, punk!

*clubs Sombre with baton*

[JimMorrison]

llamabeast said:
Er, imagine my post came before Agema's. We must have been typing at the same time.



And it took you over 2 hours to type yours? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif


I only made the guess that I did, because generally people tend to be more profuse with their examples in a case where they are illustrating their own point of view.


Now just to clarify further, I never said that the form of Democracy that we practice in America is -not- true, but rather the opposite, that in developing a form of true universal Democracy in this country, we are bringing to the forefront the failure of such a system.

That failure being that ultimately, the course of the nation (and the world to some extent, we are quite influential and all that) is being decided largely by uninformed and unqualified people. Not only that, but we are illustrating a certain constant, that "the larger the government gets, the less it should do". That is to say, while it may be perfectly alright for a town or community to mandate that there be no strip clubs in that community, it is a failing of modern universal Democracy that they can have ANY say one way or the other about whether or not strip clubs can exist in another town 3000 miles away.

Not that I am a huge fan of strip clubs. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif I am just saying, people should not have a vote on the restriction of other people's freedoms. Obviously if I say if one community votes against certain behaviors, a non-universal system allows people who disagree to move to another community - someone can argue that if under this system, 51% outlaw certain things, I can just move to another country if I disagree. However, one of the concepts that this nation was founded on, was that we all live differently, think differently, and believe differently - and impeding liberty and the pursuit of happiness is unacceptable.

So we need to retrace our steps, and define "liberty" in clear terms. Then we can determine what laws are even constitutional or feasible. I think most people on the right, and the left, would like a smaller government, especially if the fundamentalists realized that as large as they are, they are still another minority, and so if they create an environment of censure and oppression, they can prepare for that to come around to them eventually as well.

[Agema]

Largely I agree with you with a couple of caveats.

The trade-off made for decentralisation is one of cohesion. If too much room is left within a political entity for localised people to apply differing laws, it can cause atomisation, people start to wonder about the relevance of the whole and increasingly fail to identify with others. To me, the US seems to have a pretty good balance of the federal state imposing several standards from the top, but leaving decent room for individual states to manoeuver under that.

It can be beneficial to restrict liberty. I agree it is appropriate to define liberty in order to make appropriate judgements. But society as a whole may have the rights to choose on something that affects all, like gun ownership/control, whereas something based around the individuals concerned like pornography can be better left to individual control.

[Kuritza]

I think Dominions developers wont have any serious problems with raging mobs until they finally make a muslim-inspired nation http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[johan osterman]

Someone a while back took offense at the glyph pretender. The glyph is based on the Muslim declaration of faith, and he found it's inclusion in the game offensive and possiblt blasphemous. But it was huge no deal and he dropped the subject after a few emails, there certainly were no mobs involved. And a Hindu gentlemen was concerned about the Deva, since he found it disrespectful that people would be hitting and killing an image of a divinity. To the best of our knowledge no one rioted because of that either.

Most people are reasonable even when offended.

[Leif_-]

johan osterman said:
To the best of our knowledge no one rioted because of that either.



Well, no, but that's primarily because you still haven't added peasant infantry armed with torches and pitchforks to the game.

[Kristoffer O]

But there are!

Thralls! Vampire Counts generate them. Armed with pitchforks and all.

[JimMorrison]

Agema said:
It can be beneficial to restrict liberty.




I'm going to have to disagree entirely on you there.

Gun control is a great subject for you to bring up, because it is such a hard issue. The best answer that I can offer you, is that twice as many people die in motor vehicle accidents, as die from violence in all forms (in the US itself). We do not ban motor vehicles, because we believe we can teach people to be better drivers, and regulate where and how they drive in ways to keep them from becoming dangerous. The same can apply to the use and ownership of firearms. A wise man once stated "laws don't keep guns away from criminals". Which is true, and can be extrapolated to the point of prohibition - as illustrated with our prohibition of alcohol in the last century, as well as the current "war on drugs" which is about as effective as our "war on terror" - we see that much misery comes from the oppression of people.

As long as populations continue to develop and exploit interconnectivity through the internet, and other forms of interactive media, we will continue to only grow closer to other people, not farther apart. Implementing superfluous or detrimental laws which restrict personal freedoms, will in fact be what continues to drive people apart, this schism between those who willingly follow unjust laws, and those who refuse to and thus are forced to live as criminals in "the land of the free".

&lt;3

[Atreides]

Zeldor said:
Lch:

You treated my post seriously? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif That topic is not serious. Some people simply seek things to offend them. And truth is that Jews and Muslim are now best at it, better than Christian fanatics. You can read newspapers or listen to TV and you find a guy like that. Then you send him dominions, ask if it insults him and he will find 50 bad things about it and demand it banned.



Zeldor, I just wanted to take a moment to respond to this statement because I found it pretty confusing. To contextualize my opinions for everyone reading this, I was brought up as a reform Jew, and as the joke goes, that means in practice I'm an atheist http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smirk.gif In any case, the statement that Jews and Muslims are most easily offended by trivial things is just a little ridiculous. I'm certainly in no way offended by the name Adolph, or the fact that you said people from my religion are apparently petty and offended by absolutely nothing.

In any case, I don't think there is anyone involved in this discussion who doesn't realize that people on television are generally completely insane. Political commentators are frequently drawn from the extreme left and the extreme right with little regard for any middle ground. Similarly, when individuals are on television railing about insults to their religion, those people are quite simply religious fanatics who represent the smallest portion of the smallest constituencies of any major religion. In specifically addressing your comment, maybe its my tendency to ignore the irrational arguments and sensitivities of religious zealots, but I don't think I have ever seen a Jew on television screaming about being offended over nothing in particular. Likewise, the only Muslims I've ever seen ranting on television are the clips the American mainstream media loves to play of bin Laden and other Al-Qaeda operatives in an effort to convince people that Muslim's are irrational and want to kill us because of cartoons. When you consider that an estimated 1.8 billion people in the world are Muslims from a world population of approximately six and a half billion and less than one percent of those 1.8 billion are considered "radical adherents of Islam," what probably pisses off and offends Muslims most is 99.9% of them being lumped together with radicals because the media in the United States and throughout the "developed world" has a completely one-sided portrayal of Muslims that fails to mention anything about the constant denunciations of extremist Islamic groups by the majority of Islamic countries, groups, and people throughout the world. And as for Jews, we are by far the most liberal demographic in the United States, and being liberals, Jews generally are not very offended when someone makes either a profoundly uninformed or just outright incorrect statement.

Being as I am from the United States, if you want to talk about religious nutcases on television getting easily offended about absolutely nothing, you might want to pay a little more attention to evangelical Christians and the Republican party who somehow think that homosexuals existing and living in this country, where tolerance and freedom of expression is a right, is offensive to G-d. The American media is crammed full of hate-mongers who bask in finding offense in everything and nothing and speak for and represent millions of like-minded fundamentalist Christians, like George Bush "No, I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots.", James Dobson "Homosexuals are not monogamous. They want to destroy the institution of marriage. It will destroy marriage. It will destroy the Earth," Jerry Falwell (currently in Hell learning that hating people probably wasn't what Jesus wanted him to spend his life teaching people) "If you're not a born-again Christian, you're a failure as a human being," and Pat Robertson "The Constitution of the United States, for instance, is a marvelous document for self-government by the Christian people. But the minute you turn the document into the hands of non-Christian people and atheistic people they can use it to destroy the very foundation of our society. And that's what's been happening." So I hope I'm not offending you Zeldor, but these are the guys with millions of followers in the US and they are on TV, or organizing politically, or running the government, and they are on TV everyday spouting their hate and bigotry and when it comes down to it, these are the groups who can't stop *****ing about violence in video games, violence and profanity in movies, pornography, and a host of other issues that would honestly not be offensive if not for the fact that these people want to impose their social views, their religious beliefs, or their bigoted judgment and puritanical standards on people who think differently.

Since it is almost inevitable that someone will say that I am bashing Christianity (because they are easily offended and won't actually read my arguments or my justification for my statements) I'm not suggesting that only Christians do that, but in the United States Christian fundamentalist groups are by far the largest radical religious groups in the country. To argue the other side, there are certainly Jews and Muslims that are also offended by violence and whatnot, Senator Lieberman is a prominent example of hating the video game industry and getting outraged and offended for political purposes, and he is quite frankly ridiculous and a douche bag who is in no way representative of any Jew that I know. Anyways, the possibility certainly exists that I'm wrong and maybe there is some satellite television channel of Jews and Muslims giving "I'm offended by X" diatribes that I'm not aware of, please feel free to inform and correct me.

Oh and aside from responding to Zeldor's comment, if it wasn't clear from the previous paragraph, I'm obviously coming down on the side of PC not really needing to be an issue for dominions. PC is a strange concept, and I generally believe that it really shouldn't exist because its the thought and attitude behind words that matters rather than the actual words themselves. Dominions 3 is a video game. It is meant for entertainment purposes only. There is honestly nothing as petty and wasteful as getting angry and offended over something that does not have any impact or importance to issues that exist in the real world. As people have already said in this thread, people who get offended by something from a video game should probably examine more closely what it is about themselves that is causing their reaction rather than what it is about the video game that 99.9% of people have no problem with whatsoever.

[JimMorrison]

I'm impressed, that was quite well expressed. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif I was a little daunted by the general lack of breaks in the text. A couple of paragraphs would do wonders for getting people to read what you have to say. &lt;3

[Atreides]

Haha, Yeah I tend to write in pretty solid blocks. I need to work on that. Thanks for the comment though, I'll see if I can find some logical places to break that first paragraph up...

[HoneyBadger]

Don't feel bad-they yelled at me about that too.

[Leif_-]

JimMorrison said:
Gun control is a great subject for you to bring up,



But perhaps not on the Dominions 3 forums? Nothing good ever comes of gun control debates, I've found. (Now, if only Illwinter would add rabid, demon-possessed wilderbeest to the game, and the spells to control them, we could have on-topic debates about gnu control.)

[Leif_-]

Atreides said:
Zeldor, I just wanted to take a moment to respond to this statement because I found it pretty confusing.[...]



Personally, I'm deeply and griveously offended by your hatred for paragraph breaks.

[Atreides]

Leif_- said:

Personally, I'm deeply and griveously offended by your hatred for paragraph breaks.



To borrow from Family Guy, I can't help it. Paragraph breaks killed my father... and raped my mother.

[Agema]

I would prefer not to debate gun control.

However, if I can continue it's use in relation to liberty. To take your car example, you need a licence to drive, because cars are dangerous. In that sense, you do not have liberty to just drive a car, it is restricted by the state. If you apply similar principles of adequate training to own and use guns, you are supporting a form of gun control.

When liberty potentially endangers others or denies them their own liberty, it is reasonable to restrict it to some degree. There is a balance that needs to be found.

[thejeff]

Great rant, Atreides.

I'd like to suggest that most of those ranting on TV aren't really insane. They're actually canny politicians. They may or may not actually be offended by whatever they're ranting about, but they know they'll gain audience and thus money or votes and thus power by ranting about.

There are people who are offended by trivial things, but I'd look closely at anyone who's getting paid or holds any kind of public position or is pushing an agenda. Are they really offended or is this just another chance to boost their standing or shut down debate.

One example of this from the Jewish side, since you seem to have covered the Christian side, would be the political groups that scream Antisemitism at any suggestion that Israel is anything but an innocent victim in it's dealings with Palestine. Another can of worms, like gun control, probably better not dug into here, so I'll just note that there's more open debate in Israel itself than in the mainstream US media.

[lch]

JimMorrison said:
Gun control is a great subject for you to bring up, because it is such a hard issue. The best answer that I can offer you, is that twice as many people die in motor vehicle accidents, as die from violence in all forms (in the US itself).


That's a total bull**** comparison, IMHO. Car accidents are an unwanted byproduct of public transportation. "Violence in all forms" sounds like a very active act compared to that. People aren't shooting bullets just to kill time or say hello to each other, or are they? To get a fair comparison you'd have to compare fatal car accidents with fatal accidents involving firearms, where the death toll from car accidents are probably a lot higher because of its continuous use unless maybe you factor in the total amount of time that people are driving versus aiming and firing, too, but to be able to be really comparable lots of people would have to be facing each other and shoot at the same time. Or you'd have to compare the death toll from people consciously running over / crashing into people with a car to kill them versus shooting them with a gun, where the guns will trump the stats by far, with the utmost probability.

[thejeff]

Ich, you're a moderator. You might want to avoid calling people's arguments bull****. And possibly just avoid the incipient gun control flame war entirely? Until it's time to shut it down.

Gun control has been brought up. A flame war is probably inevitable, but I'd think the moderators should avoiding fanning the flames.

To All: Going further down this path is a bad idea. We've all been through it before. There are places far more appropriate and it'll just get shut down here.

[lch]

thejeff said:
Ich, you're a moderator. You might want to avoid calling people's arguments bull****. And possibly just avoid the incipient gun control flame war entirely? Until it's time to shut it down.


So maybe "bad comparison" would have been more politically correct. That's just syntax, but not semantics.

I certainly don't plan to discuss gun control here and my post didn't mean to encourage that. As far as I'm concerned, I haven't been discussing it so far, anyway, what I did was point out a nonsense comparison of apples and oranges. That's what was really itching me, not the actual subject.

[JimMorrison]

lch said:
Car accidents are an unwanted byproduct of public transportation. "Violence in all forms" sounds like a very active act compared to that.



Well this is a fair assertion, sir. But I was Googling around for a comparison of "death rates", and the first well compiled list that I found did not go to the extreme detail of listing "fatal gunshot wounds", whether accidental or not. I actually thought it was useful to show the relationship in numbers that I found, to illustrate how big a "menace" cars are to innocent people. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif




Agema said:
I would prefer not to debate gun control.

However, if I can continue it's use in relation to liberty. To take your car example, you need a licence to drive, because cars are dangerous. In that sense, you do not have liberty to just drive a car, it is restricted by the state. If you apply similar principles of adequate training to own and use guns, you are supporting a form of gun control.

When liberty potentially endangers others or denies them their own liberty, it is reasonable to restrict it to some degree. There is a balance that needs to be found.




To be honest, my intent was not to derail this train onto a a Gun Control debate. It was brought up, and I do think it is a perfect example for the larger discussion of civil liberty.

I hardly think that education and licensing are considered by many to be a form of "car control". When the US government uses the word "control" in relation to anything, it implies severe limitation, or partial or total banning. For example, drugs in general are referred to as "controlled substances".

It is becoming increasingly obvious as time passes, that government intervention in personal lives, on the level of "control", is a failure to the common good, and causes more strife on many levels, than a lack of control would cause.

Imagine this: if we maintained the same level of police protection that we "enjoy" now, but decriminalized most things that are difficult to enforce at best - then those police could focus on the one thing that everyone should agree is the worst problem of society - violent crime.

Perhaps if we directed our resources towards making sure that all of our citizens were safe, then we would find that peripheral concepts like gun control would become much more manageable. Chasing after guns, or drugs, or pornography - these are all emotionally charged persecutions that are heavy-handedly executed, causing untold amounts of misery among the people, many of whom are basically innocent - and would remain "more innocent" were they not persecuted unfairly.

To um all of this up, my point was that if you want to live in a 100% gun free neighborhood, for example - then you should be able to mandate that if you and all of your neghbors wish it to be so. However, you and your neighbors should not have any say whatsoever about whether the people in my neighborhood own guns, or what kind of guns, or how we regulate them - that should be for us to decide. The only impact that has on someone from this community, would be if they were traveling, but what kind of idiot travels with a gun without checking on the appropriate local laws? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

I hardly doubt that Oregon, as a separate entity, would ever get designs on "invading" one of its neighboring states. I'm reasonably certain that if we focus on making ourselves better people, rather than telling other people how to live their lives, that it won't come to that, either. &lt;3

[chrispedersen]

JimMorrison said:
To um all of this up, my point was that if you want to live in a 100% gun free neighborhood, for example - then you should be able to mandate that if you and all of your neghbors wish it to be so. &lt;3



"Power flows from the mouth of a gun". Mao

Part of the responsibility in a democracy, are the acts required to maintain that democracy.

Our forefathers, having experienced restrictions to the right to bear arms under the Sedition Acts [?], and knowing the problems in overthrowing the british, decided that one of those reponsibilities was that the right to bear arms.

So, no, while you may elect to be gun free, and live with like minded individuals, you cannot mandate that none bear arms.

[thejeff]

But that "100% gun free neighborhood" argument breaks down. If it can be mandated only if everyone agrees, then that's no mandate, that's just no one living there owning a gun. If one person wants to move in and have a gun then suddenly all the neighbors don't agree and it's no longer 100% gun free.
From a more legal point of view, nothing in US law (or any other country I know of) requires 100% approval. So every law imposes on someone.

And it doesn't scale. Neighborhood is vaguely defined. If you define a large enough area then you'll never find one where everyone wants to be gun-free. If you use a small enough scale everyone who wants to lives in a gun-free area, even if it's just their own house.
And easy access to guns in one area, makes it easier for criminals to get weapons for use in the gun-free area.

More largely, you can't divorce gun control from violent crime. Those pro-control will say violent crime often uses guns and thus reducing access is a way to reduce violent crime. Those opposed to gun control often say armed citizens reduce violent crime.

[JimMorrison]

thejeff said:
But that "100% gun free neighborhood" argument breaks down. If it can be mandated only if everyone agrees, then that's no mandate, that's just no one living there owning a gun. If one person wants to move in and have a gun then suddenly all the neighbors don't agree and it's no longer 100% gun free.
From a more legal point of view, nothing in US law (or any other country I know of) requires 100% approval. So every law imposes on someone.



I'm not talking about 100% agreement per se - but jurisdiction. Very few things should be regulated beyond city limits - even fewer across state lines.

If your city decides to be firearm free, then so be it, I won't try to stop you. If I owned a gun (and I likely never will, personally), then obviously I wouldn't want to live there, and if I DID choose to live there, I'd willingly give up my weapon, or I'd be moving to a jail cell instead of that nice condo I had my eye on.


As it stands, since we try to homogenize freedom, we instead dilute and adulterate it with conflicting points of view. If we truly want to prosper, then we need to let people grow up, on their own terms, and make their own rules. As long as they aren't hurting people, then what is the problem? What they do is not the business of someone 1000 miles away, so long as no one's liberties are threatened. That's the thing, any form of overarching "control" on a national level, is merely a pre-emptive restriction of civil liberty. And unfortunately, bringing it back to the gun control point (since Chris went there http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif), quite possibly an attempt to control people, more than any little thing that is made the issue.

[chrispedersen]

Atreides said:

Being as I am from the United States, if you want to talk about religious nutcases on television getting easily offended about absolutely nothing, you might want to pay a little more attention to evangelical Christians and the Republican party who somehow think that homosexuals existing and living in this country, where tolerance and freedom of expression is a right, is offensive to G-d. The American media is crammed full of hate-mongers who bask in finding offense in everything and nothing and speak for and represent millions of like-minded fundamentalist Christians, like George Bush "No, I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots.", James Dobson "Homosexuals are not monogamous. They want to destroy the institution of marriage. It will destroy marriage. It will destroy the Earth," Jerry Falwell (currently in Hell learning that hating people probably wasn't what Jesus wanted him to spend his life teaching people) "If you're not a born-again Christian, you're a failure as a human being," and Pat Robertson "The Constitution of the United States, for instance, is a marvelous document for self-government by the Christian people. But the minute you turn the document into the hands of non-Christian people and atheistic people they can use it to destroy the very foundation of our society. And that's what's been happening." So I hope I'm not offending you Zeldor, but these are the guys with millions of followers in the US and they are on TV, or organizing politically, or running the government, and they are on TV everyday spouting their hate and bigotry and when it comes down to it, these are the groups who can't stop *****ing about violence in video games, violence and profanity in movies, pornography, and a host of other issues that would honestly not be offensive if not for the fact that these people want to impose their social views, their religious beliefs, or their bigoted judgment and puritanical standards on people who think differently.

Since it is almost inevitable that someone will say that I am bashing Christianity (because they are easily offended and won't actually read my arguments or my justification for my statements) I'm not suggesting that only Christians do that, but in the United States Christian fundamentalist groups are by far the largest radical religious groups in the country. To argue the other side, there are certainly Jews and Muslims that are also offended by violence and whatnot, Senator Lieberman is a prominent example of hating the video game industry and getting outraged and offended for political purposes, and he is quite frankly ridiculous and a douche bag who is in no way representative of any Jew that I know. Anyways, the possibility certainly exists that I'm wrong and maybe there is some satellite television channel of Jews and Muslims giving "I'm offended by X" diatribes that I'm not aware of, please feel free to inform and correct me.




Well, by quoting you, I illustrate that I have read your statements; and I am not easily offended. Having done that, I will now opine that you *are* bashing Christianity.
Your biases - while politically correct in the circles you probably run in, are none-the-less fairly strong.

For example - calling Christian fundamental groups 'radical' in the same vein as muslim terrorists. Or calling Lieberman a douche bag - because he holds beliefs contrary to yours.

It may be my misreading, yet I would opine that when the original poster was commenting about jews and muslims being the most easily offended that there is enough evidence to support the utterance of the statement, if not support or prove it.

I believe he was referring to the world wide muslim response to things like - the danish cartoon, the film in the netherlands where muslims responded by killing the producer, or even the reactions to 9-11.

On the jewish side, I think the case much less strong, although the actions of the israeli state, the constant tit for tat middle east violence; and perhaps even the actions of the antidefamation league might support his case.

Regardless; I don't support his position. In this area I happen to believe that all peoples are to greater or lesser extents capable of violence. And to argue who is most qualified is bootless.

But your whole rant about hate-mongering, gay hating christians right wingers etc etc. is exactly that. Bashing

[thejeff]

Interesting to use Lieberman as an example of bashing Christianity. He is Jewish, you know. He's my Senator and I would have to agree with Atreides assessment of him, though I'd try to phrase it more politely.

Besides that I'd agree with most of the rest of Atreides rant. I don't actually see any comparison between most US radical Christian groups and Muslim terrorists. Though some of the, overwhelmingly Christian, extreme anti-abortion groups have advocated or carried out terrorist attacks.

And the public statements by some mainstream right wing Christian leaders about Katrina and/or 9/11 being God's judgement on the US are easily as bad as the world-wide Muslim response to 9-11, which was, largely horrified sympathy. There were exceptions, but they were far rarer than some now claim.

In general, I'd agree with your assessment that all people are capable of violence. Who responds to offenses with violence, with laughter, or with rants or legal action, probably depends more on the options available to them than on their religion.

Finally, his entire rant was in response to a claim that Muslims and Jews were more likely to find things to take offense at than Christians, so it only seems reasonable to respond with examples of Christians doing so. The "hate-mongering, gay hating christians right wingers" are a very visible face of Christianity in the US, mostly due to their own efforts. Pointing this out is hardly Christian bashing. Claiming Christianity is all like that would be.

[JimMorrison]

thejeff said:
And the public statements by some mainstream right wing Christian leaders about Katrina ... being God's judgement ...



“New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God,” John Hagee said, because “there was to be a homosexual parade there on the Monday that the Katrina came.”


Then there is this article, which just has too many choice quotes - you have to read it yourself to believe that people think these things. http://www.beliefnet.com/story/174/story_17439_1.html



Intolerance is a plague of the human heart. You can quote ME on that one.

[lch]

JimMorrison said:
Then there is this article, which just has too many choice quotes - you have to read it yourself to believe that people think these things. http://www.beliefnet.com/story/174/story_17439_1.html


I'm probably a heretic or heathen, but I find it hilarious when people start quoting holy books and scriptures and want to apply them to the real world. The whole site and equivalent ones speak "comedy" to me. Is there some comedian who actually parodies this like Stephen Colbert parodies right-wing TV hosts?

[Gregstrom]

chrispedersen said:

Well, by quoting you, I illustrate that I have read your statements; and I am not easily offended. Having done that, I will now opine that you *are* bashing Christianity.
Your biases - while politically correct in the circles you probably run in, are none-the-less fairly strong.




I disagree, in that I think Atreides is just bashing a vocal sub-section of Christianity. He didn't say anything about the Christian centre or left that I could see.

Speaking of visible bias, you yourself capitalise Christian in your post, but not Jew or Muslim.


chrispedersen said:

For example - calling Christian fundamental groups 'radical' in the same vein as muslim terrorists. Or calling Lieberman a douche bag - because he holds beliefs contrary to yours.





Some (but not all) fundamentalist Christian groups could I think be regarded in the same light as Muslim terrorists - in much the same way, some Muslim fundamentalists are not terrorists. For that matter, some Christian terrorist groups are AFAIK not fundamentalists. (btw, use of the term 'radical' may be a difficult issue, as I understand it has a different meaning within Christian circles)


chrispedersen said:

It may be my misreading, yet I would opine that when the original poster was commenting about jews and muslims being the most easily offended that there is enough evidence to support the utterance of the statement, if not support or prove it.






chrispedersen said:

I believe he was referring to the world wide muslim response to things like - the danish cartoon, the film in the netherlands where muslims responded by killing the producer, or even the reactions to 9-11.

On the jewish side, I think the case much less strong, although the actions of the israeli state, the constant tit for tat middle east violence; and perhaps even the actions of the antidefamation league might support his case.






chrispedersen said:

Regardless; I don't support his position. In this area I happen to believe that all peoples are to greater or lesser extents capable of violence. And to argue who is most qualified is bootless.





I agree completely - I often think people use religion as an excuse to hate, rather than a cause. In the secular world, similar hatred and violence occur in the name of animal liberation or nationalism.


chrispedersen said:

But your whole rant about hate-mongering, gay hating christians right wingers etc etc. is exactly that. Bashing



Yes, but surely focussed on a subset of Christians rather than the whole. If I choose to bash a particular politician, I'm not bashing their whole party. If I bash a committee of politicians, I'm not bashing the Government.

[chrispedersen]

JimMorrison said:
[quote]
thejeff said:
If your city decides to be firearm free, then so be it, I won't try to stop you. If I owned a gun (and I likely never will, personally), then obviously I wouldn't want to live there, and if I DID choose to live there, I'd willingly give up my weapon, or I'd be moving to a jail cell instead of that nice condo I had my eye on.




But thats the whole point Jim. The desire to live in a gun free environment does NOT trump the right to bear arms.

And no city has the right to remove a right that was enshrined in the bill of rights.

[chrispedersen]

Gregstrom said:
{quote]
But your whole rant about hate-mongering, gay hating christians right wingers etc etc. is exactly that. Bashing



Yes, but surely focussed on a subset of Christians rather than the whole. If I choose to bash a particular politician, I'm not bashing their whole party. If I bash a committee of politicians, I'm not bashing the Government.

[/quote]

Sure - but I don't mind bashing.
I just don't like bashing when mind bashing when its accompanied by a logical disconnect, or masked, or denied that it is a bash.

My whole point had nothing to do about jews, muslims, Christians (smile) or other. It was rather focussed on the logical disconnect of saying "I'm not bashing that douche bag Lieberman". I actually found the disconnect funny, even if the sentiment were offensive. (I happen to believe that Lieberman is one of the most upstanding politicians in congress, willing to say what he thinks regardless of political cost).

*it is bashing, even when you don't see it (which I believe is what occured) or when its cloaked in political correctness.

"why, that can't be rascist. Some of my best friends ae human."

"I'm not bashing - its because... (fill in reason..)

[Gregstrom]

chrispedersen said:
Sure - but I don't mind bashing.
I just don't like bashing when mind bashing when its accompanied by a logical disconnect, or masked, or denied that it is a bash.

My whole point had nothing to do about jews, muslims, Christians (smile) or other. It was rather focussed on the logical disconnect of saying "I'm not bashing that douche bag Lieberman". I actually found the disconnect funny, even if the sentiment were offensive. (I happen to believe that Lieberman is one of the most upstanding politicians in congress, willing to say what he thinks regardless of political cost).



Ahh, politics. One man's 'one of the most upstanding politicians in congress, willing to say what he thinks regardless of political cost' is another man's 'douche bag who espouses petty, narrow-minded causes in order to get the votes of one sub-section of the electorate'.


chrispedersen said:
*it is bashing, even when you don't see it (which I believe is what occured) or when its cloaked in political correctness.

"why, that can't be rascist. Some of my best friends ae human."

"I'm not bashing - its because... (fill in reason..)



Just to define: I see bashing (in this context) as a condemnation of a group (of whatever kind), where a specific (and possibly non-representative) flaw is used to justify a wide range of criticisms.

For example: "Anyone who plays Caelum is a cheater, because once I got [MoD+retreat]ed by an Eagle King. I bet they all have sex with chickens too, the bird-loving freaks"

My point was that Atreides' rant wasn't a bash on Christianity as a whole - he was very clear on which group of Christians he was attacking: right-wing fundamentalists (the 'funda' being optional perhaps http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif).

He even went so far as to name people he felt particularly angry at and supply quotes that angered him, explaining what he believed their motives were and therefore why he was angered. The bit where he said "speak for and represent millions of like-minded fundamentalist Christians" I think is a bash, as it's assuming that fundamentalist Christians think the way he assumes they do based on the behaviour of politicians.

[HoneyBadger]

I just want to come out in support of Ich's use of the word "bull****". It's an opinion, and it doesn't reflect on the person, just the argument.

I think we're all adults enough to know what the word bull**** means, and I would hope we'd all be mature enough to deal with it's use as a critcism, instead of taking it as a direct, inflammatory insult, when it's not meant to be.

[lch]

HoneyBadger said:
I just want to come out in support of Ich's use of the word "bull****". It's an opinion, and it doesn't reflect on the person, just the argument.


Oh yeah, that's exactly right, this subtlety might have slipped my mind. I'm not one to attack another person, only his arguments or his beliefs. Stop being such girls! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[JimMorrison]

I &lt;3 Lch. I think it's funny that other people would be offended that he called my argument bull****, when it didn't offend me. That right there speaks volumes on the subject that we're currently discussing. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif


And Chris, yes you are right that the 2nd amendment is very important, and should not be allowed to ever be taken away by a third party. However, any individual, and by extrapolation, any community of like-minded individuals may abandon their own freedoms if they feel it enhances their quality of life. By forbidding firearms in a community, it would be assumed that they are making a pacifist statement - and that they simply won't rise up in violent protest of anything, so wouldn't gain anything by retaining that freedom that they wanted to give up in the first place. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

As long as there are people (like most of my friends, actually) who believe that the government is rather tyrannical and untrustworthy - there will be millions of people with guns, sitting around waiting for that day when we collectively cry "bull****", and demand reformation of our governmental system that was once revolutionary, but is now compromised, and corrupt.

[Sombre]

Right on! Wolverines! Wolverines! Wolverines!

[HoneyBadger]

Of all the constitutional "rights", freedom of speech is the one I'd be most willing and likely to give up my life for. I'm truly sorry for people who are scared of big bad scary words, but the alternative is a world not worth living in.

Honestly, it's not.

[Omnirizon]

lch said:

HoneyBadger said:
I just want to come out in support of Ich's use of the word "bull****". It's an opinion, and it doesn't reflect on the person, just the argument.


Oh yeah, that's exactly right, this subtlety might have slipped my mind. I'm not one to attack another person, only his arguments or his beliefs. Stop being such girls! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif



this brings up an unusual philosophical question. can you actually attack a person's arguments and beliefs without attacking them?

can you actually attack a person without attacking their arguments and beliefs?

if we are our ideals, then no.
if we are our actions, then no.

so what are we then?

now, in light of this, is an attack on our personality (whatever that may be) or an attack on our arguments or beliefs actually any violence to us at all?

given the performative quality of our existence, isn't limiting our freedom to act the only real way to attack us?

[HoneyBadger]

I think you can attack a person's actions and ideals both, without attacking the person-but it takes a bit of a leap of faith. It's counter-intuitive, since we're not designed to do so-we make snap judgements, it's a survival instinct-but people change constantly, in little or big ways. Maybe not the core person, but their real world experiences, and how they adapt themselves to them. We're just primed for attacking a person for their immediate actions, rather than taking a person as a whole entity, from birth to death. We're a short-sighted lot, without enough insight into other people. It's how nature made us.

Hard to go against Mother Nature, but it's the only way to see the big picture.

[Omnirizon]

how do attack a person without attacking some action of there's then? every attack on a person is a de-facto attack on something they believe, did, or said. Even non-action is an action, just as apolitical is a politic.

WE ARE PERFORMATIVE. can't get around it. so any attack on something we performed (something said or done) is an attack on who we are. We can't attack a belief or essence that does not have performative aspect. If a person believes something, then we can't attack that belief unless it influences their actions in someway. Similarly, a belief cannot exist without affecting action.

Given this, and the need to constantly discourse, is an attack on a person, or a personal attack, actually an attack?

Isn't the only real attack an attack on a person's freedom to act?

[HoneyBadger]

Or not to act. To merely exist is ofcourse a potentially desireable state of being. As in, merely "to be".

[Omnirizon]

yummmy.

tastes like zen.

[HoneyBadger]

But the point is, I can argue something, and the argument I'm trying to make can be criticised, and I can take that impersonally enough to deal with it, rather than feeling that it is a personal attack on myself and my integrity. I can be judged "wrong" without my integrity as a person called into question. In other words, an argument can be debated, even heatedly, without resorting to gunfire, if we maintain our cool.

[Omnirizon]

There's but one flaw in the premise of your argument,
and that, sir, is that you are a(n)...

aww, forget it. I already got in trouble once for that line.


so you are mature, stable, and confident enough for that. but other people blow their lid when you attack them/their arguments. I don't really think their is a difference between people and their arguments, and there's not a difference between a person and what that person does; I guess that's my only point.

I would say that the only ad hominem (a _personal_ attack) that is possible is relating a person's beliefs to some unrelated action; and from my experience that's pretty accepted in most academic debates (not that they are for any reason a great standard, just saying). There are words in science that are more accepted than others for using as insults, but in the end saying so and so is incompetent is no different than saying that he is an idiot, or a stupidhead, or whatever. And dealing with these types of insults and oppositions are just life. The only ad hominem is when people say such and such's ideas are worthless because they like to sleep around, or are gay, or something. Certainly promiscuity or sexuality can influence a person's ideas, but you're attacking the idea on the basis of an insignificant relationship to that person's ability to create contextually sound ideas.

the other type of ad hominem is limiting peoples freedom to act, my other point. How would you like it if someone locked this thread in the middle of our conversation?

[JimMorrison]

If someone locks this thread, I'm gonna end up banned from these forums..... WHO'S COMIN WITH ME?! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif


Anyway - the predilection for the average person to get offended in an argument, speaks to the overall general immaturity of the human race. The fact that people invest so much emotion into things barely understood, or improperly digested, is a somewhat childish act.

When someone is intellectually evolved enough to properly see the separation between themselves, and the thoughts that drift through their heads - then they can debate honestly and fairly. Part of it is based on a simple assumption - that by the time you hear or read my words - I am no longer the same person who spoke or wrote them. Granted, I may not have changed much, but that is irrelevant, as my actual being is not defined by those impulses that your brain is receiving.

It is the lack of understanding of this basic fact, that makes people get so bent out of shape about "flip-flopping". They'll criticize a politician (for example, they just get more intense long-term scrutiny than other people) for endorsing a position that is opposite of something that they said, or did, or voted for 10 or more years ago. I'm sorry, but really that goes back to the failing of Democracy at large - people who are unable to comprehend that someone might actually grow as a person, and change their mind on an issue in the span of an entire decade, then they really shouldn't have the same influence on the "big picture" that more rational people have.

Everyone should have a voice, but until we resolve the issues of widespread ignorance and incompetence, we're not just suffering from the "blind leading the blind", we're stuck with the "blind leading the 20/20" - and that's not a positive situation for anyone. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[HoneyBadger]

I'm mad as a hatter, Omnirizon, but I do try to separate criticism from insult.

[Agema]

It's important to remember that people are not perfect and that shades of grey exist. A person can make a hypocritical argument, but not be a hypocrite, a person can make a stupid or bull**** argument without being stupid or a bull****ter. It is is fair to call an argument what it is, without extending the description of the argument to the author. Some more immature people will instantly transmute a criticism such as "That's a stupid opinion..." with "You are stupid". However, if on the receiving end, most of us I think could just take that for what it is - a comment on what we said, not ourselves.

However, an author could defuse even the possibility two ways, a nice idea with people he/she don't know. Firstly he can use non-inflammatory language in the first place, say maybe "I think there's an error in your logic". The second would be to remove the possibility of personal criticism or to compliment first, such as "I don't think you're an idiot, but that opinion is stupid" or "You've made some good points, but opinion X is stupid."

A final note is tone. If you call someone's opinion stupid in what is mostly a calm and balanced comment, they don't generally get bad feeling from the whole and are less likely think it is an attack. If you call someone's opinion stupid in a comment that's polemical, sarcastic, or mocking, it is likely to *feel* like an attack.

Some people can be flagrantly disrespectful of others in that sort of way, and I find such excuses as "I didn't call you stupid, just your argument" and "if you're offended that's your problem" just bull****. Tone and context are as vital to communication as the literal meaning of words themselves. People who don't seem to realise that can be split into two camps: those who are genuinely unaware, thus socially inept and need to learn; and those who are aware and want to troll with disingenuous claims of innocence.

[johan osterman]

This thread could provide the lift for a medium sized blimp.

[Ballbarian]

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[MaxWilson]

As the OP, do I have the right to say, "Okay, we're OT so let's shut it down please"? We settled it on the very first page that nobody actually thinks using real names in the game is worth worrying about, and I regret that the thread failed to gracefully die after that.

-Max

[JimMorrison]

Does it upset you Max? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/redface.gif I thought the thread had "degenerated" into a rather interesting discussion that is actually somewhat OT, as far as staying true to the original question, but extrapolated out beyond the scope of just the game community itself. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

&lt;3

[Agema]

If you strike this discussion down, it will become more powerful than you could possibly imagine!

[JaghataiKhan]

Commissioner Pravin Lal said: As the Americans learned so painfully in Earth's final century, free flow of information is the only safeguard against tyranny. The once-chained people whose leaders at last lose their grip on information flow will soon burst with freedom and vitality, but the free nation gradually constricting its grip on public discourse has begun its rapid slide into despotism. Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.

Best quote ever. Also, I am offended by seeing blood slaves drugged! THEY ARE PROMOTING DRUG USAGE! OH NOES!

;)

[Agema]

Quick, get an H3 priest to cast banish, this thread has risen from the dead!

[Humakty]

I would gladly banish it, but I can't cast for the moment, people are arguing about pagan priests being able to call divine power. And we don't drug our slaves, we allow them to reach a state of beatitude so that they don't complain all the time.(a robe is not much, especially in winter)

[Adept]

I've always been glad that Kristoffer and Johan aren't being PC with Dominions. From the start it has had blood slaves (virgin children whose minds have been destroyed, or in later versions who are constantly drugged), demonology, mass murder...

Dominions is refreshingly honest about what is going on. It's definitely an asset and not a flaw.

This is a game for adults. Fundamentalists who insist on being insulted by everything should feel free not to play.

[JaghataiKhan]

I've always been glad that Kristoffer and Johan aren't being PC with Dominions. From the start it has had blood slaves (virgin children whose minds have been destroyed, or in later versions who are constantly drugged), demonology, mass murder...

Dominions is refreshingly honest about what is going on. It's definitely an asset and not a flaw.

This is a game for adults. Fundamentalists who insist on being insulted by everything should feel free not to play.

Make this a prologue in the game. QFT as internet saying goes.

[Kristoffer O]

Quick, get an H3 priest to cast banish, this thread has risen from the dead!

Seems to be an all undead forum. Reanimation works fine, but only the moderators have the ability to banish :)

[Ballbarian]

Whenever I try to banish, the undead only seem to get stronger. Could it be that I still have the Unholy tag from Dom2? That would explain my black robes and unhealthy obsession with using heaps of skulls in all of my projects...

:)

[Poopsi]

I've always been glad that Kristoffer and Johan aren't being PC with Dominions. From the start it has had blood slaves (virgin children whose minds have been destroyed, or in later versions who are constantly drugged), demonology, mass murder...

Dominions is refreshingly honest about what is going on. It's definitely an asset and not a flaw.

This is a game for adults. Fundamentalists who insist on being insulted by everything should feel free not to play.


Agreed. I like, for once, being able to choose between being reasonably decent, or having my Raphaelite troopers eat the conçuered populations as snacks.