I was thinking about this for a bit. A lot of reasonable people say that they will stay out of the decisions that their children make about religion, and simply provide information so that they can make a choice. I used to feel this way, but now I'm not so sure. If you try to take a hands off approa...

Av: fantastic, I had never heard that! Fist: In downtown Eugene I guess they have a statue of Ken Kesey, so it can't be all bad. I became an atheist in college and my mother is a devout Catholic. I used to run an evangelical youth group. I left the church with a bitter taste in my mouth and have not...

Lorin: Borderline, admitting it, and working on it?!
Maybe people around these parts don't know how impressive that is. Way to go.

Do people try to build a philosophy out of the Big Bang? I can't imagine how to begin doing that. That has nothing to do with how to deal with my relationships with my family and friends, what career I should pursue, how I should treat others, etcetera.

This was a fundraiser, not a journalist. NPR kept me intellectually stimulated when I didn't have anything else to. If it wasn't for NPR I would never have gone back to college. It's one of the only things I feel good about when I pay my taxes.

Does that mean you respect their opinion, or their right to have one?

When I say 'I respect your ideas' I mean either 'you agree with me' or 'I am going to agree with you, and did all along, and don't remind me of that post I made four pages ago'. When a politician respects their opponent, what they mean is that you should think "That man is respectful" whic...

Yeah I originally thought of posting just to be the usual devil's advocate, but this has been really bugging me.

Av said: Dunno about the "earned respect" one. Maybe in certain senses...there is a kind of respect that we owe each other as human beings, sure. But all other kinds should be earned. --A I am kind of interested in this kind of respect we owe each other as human beings that you posit :) Ac...

Me too, even if I have the emulator for some reason it just isn't the same. Did you ever get to play Lufia 2 for the snes?

Wow, that really shows your gaming pedigree. Terranigma was awesome.

As far as making decisions, yes, I believe we all make decisions constantly. I just believe that we make those decisions based on reasons, beliefs, consequences. Those things being based on predispositions of various kinds, chemical or psychological or what-have-you. As far as whether or not there i...

I had always been a staunch defender of the nonexistence of free will, but recently a friend linked determinism to consequence, and said that without time consequence wouldn't exist, and that I had to solidly back up my idea of the existence of time, or I couldn't talk about determinism without maki...

Wow, death is my way of telling the universe to shut the hell up

Fallout 3 is an evolution for Bethesda. They continually improve, and fallout 3 is a lot more engaging than oblivion was. The best thing they ever did was eliminate that horrid LIST dialogue system that was in morrowind. They definately captured the feel of Fallout, and stuck very closely to the ori...

Aright you Watchers, I'm a comin' for ya.

And by that mean, I'm going to roll a druid on your server. Look for a tell from Jemcheeta

Is this a US or EU server? :)

Listen, I'll admit I didn't read the thread. It's 68 pages long. Is there a consolidated list of KW members and the servers they play on?

See, I don't even need to be on the forum because Av is here and I just end up agreeing with him anyway. I read these books fairly recently, and still haven't read the last one, but for sure I think this is the best. I don't want to step on any toes but I think the Gap series just blows the new chro...

After spending some years observing Fist, I feel like he sort of ebbs and flows... At first, it's all very genial and "Be and let be" but as it goes on he starts getting revved up and throwing down the more direct statements. -It seems impossible for a causeless universe to exist. -It seem...