Re: Mugwump Mondaily
omgwtfbbqpwned said:
RL: Picked up a copy of Dawkin's The Selfish Gene. I've been meaning to read it.
I just read 'The God Delusion' recently. It had some interesting stuff in there, and some of the stuff is mind-boggling. I've been an atheist as long as I can remember, and was well-aware there was some whacked-out stuff in the Bible, but I did not know Jesus apparently only would accept disciples who hated themselves, their parents, their wives (it doesn't say husbands), and their siblings. Of course, the fundie response to this is that it is taken out of context, and 'hate' means 'hate by comparison, because you love Jesus so much more than anyone/anything else'. Yeeaah, okay. Seems to me that a divinely-authored work would be a little less ambiguous, no? The
Skeptic's Annotated Bible has plenty of other such gems. I found the site while googling to see if this was indeed in the Bible, since I don't own one.
Another point that Dawkins makes is that religion gets preferential treatment. Some of the things that are in the Bible and other 'holy works' would be considered hate speech or incitement to violence if they were not shielded by 'religious freedom'. If someone thinks that religious doctrine can't be used to incite violence, just take a look at Fred Phelps and his 'church' (whose sole mission is to campaign against homosexuals, and cheer on *** bashings, the more violent, the better) and Islam's rules on apostasy (you deserve death if you renounce Islam). Religious freedom
is the freedom to choose your religion, if any, rather than having one forced upon you. It is
not the freedom to violate the laws of the land in the name of your religion, nor freedom from the criticisms of others, but so many people get this wrong.
On a lighter note, in mockery of Phelps and his hatemongering (not going to post links to any of the innumerable Phelps sites; they're hate speech and highly against forum rules, but you can google them if you're interested) is the site
God Hates Shrimp. It uses obscure Biblical prohibitions against shellfish (because they don't have scales like regular fish) to lampoon parallel attitudes that a Phelps fundie holds towards other groups.
Anyways, sorry about the rant. Back on topic:
RL: Nothing much. Probably going to go watch some Heroes back episodes in a bit.
D2: Not for about a week or so now, mainly because I picked up Torchlight about then. The graphics are pretty nice, albeit a tad cartoony, and the machanics are rather lackluster. Still, for $20-ish, it's hard to go wrong, and it is an enjoyable, mindless romp. The only thing that annoys me is the fact it runs pretty poorly on my netbook, considering that a major factor in my getting the game was this:
Torchlight FAQ said:
The requirements are so low, we are even able to play Torchlight on the netbooks around the office!
Ahh well, as pointed out, it's cheap.
D1: Maybe. Trying to decide if I should enter the Fresh Meat tourney. I'm torn between a monk and a sorcerer.
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