Back when D & D was evil...

Posts: 342 · Posted: Fri Jul 04, 2008 11:18 pm

benjoshua wrote:

I admire people who give a shit, especially if that means they care about life, the world, and the rest of humanity. It's not that I'm against or look down on those who don't give a shit, but it takes work, and thought, and courage. Of course, some people who give a shit are creepy or evil or annoying or crazy, but that can come with the territory. Plus, caring can get you killed. I try to care but it's difficult. Confused

I apologize for digressing from the original topic.

There's a difference between not giving a shit about big things you can't do anything about like what happens when you die or can a big rock be refuted by a good kick, and not giving a shit about life and people.

There are too many people who care about humanity and not the person living next door.

Some things aren't worth giving a shit about, and those things are creepy evil, annoying and crazy.

Posts: 28 · Posted: Fri Jul 04, 2008 11:34 pm

Luckily my school was more concerned with the evils of Heavy Metal. D&D never even got its own assembly....

Posts: 342 · Posted: Sat Jul 05, 2008 12:05 am

Pennfarms wrote:

Luckily my school was more concerned with the evils of Heavy Metal. D&D never even got its own assembly....

We heard about the evils of D&D but the area I grew up in was pretty groovy funky for New Jersey. The local library even hosted a D&D club we started, lets us run a micro-convention and printed up the module we ran and kept it on the lending shelf along with the 1st edition hardcover rulebook. We gave out module A1 as prizes.

Posts: 81 · Posted: Sat Jul 05, 2008 12:15 am

My dad was (is) a minister and started playing before the scare. He was at a minister conference in Kansas City in the mid 80s (around 1984) when there was a discussion about D&D and how 'Evil' it was. My dad stands up and tells everyone how he PLAYS the game with his sons and their friends and how much everyone enjoyed it and that the game was far from evil. I don't know if anyone there cared, but it always made me proud of him.

Posts: 101 · Posted: Sat Jul 05, 2008 1:05 pm

Deadlord39 wrote:

It's been my experience that the more deeply religious a person is, the more likely he/she is to attempt to cram their beliefs down others' throats, in whatever way possible.

I am an atheist, but lets say that God does exist. If he appeared before me and gave me a message of some sort, and I go to to those same religous throat crammers and tell them that I spoke to God, they would lock me up in a nut house. Or at the very least I would be the town weirdo.

Posts: 2635 · Posted: Sat Jul 05, 2008 1:30 pm

xraygord wrote:

I am an atheist, but lets say that God does exist. If he appeared before me and gave me a message of some sort, and I go to to those same religous throat crammers and tell them that I spoke to God, they would lock me up in a nut house. Or at the very least I would be the town weirdo.

I'm an antitheist.

Don't bother looking that one up. It means if something resembling God were to show up, I'd kick Him in the Holy Nuts. (Fortunately for Him, He doesn't exist.)

Posts: 145 · Posted: Sat Jul 05, 2008 1:31 pm

jasonw1239 wrote:

I was always surprised that D&D was the target during the 1980's and games like Call of Cthulhu was ignored.

You know what? I've never thought of that. Good point!

Posts: 112 · Posted: Sat Jul 05, 2008 4:42 pm

jasonw1239 wrote:

I was always surprised that D&D was the target during the 1980's and games like Call of Cthulhu was ignored.

When I was in college, there was a slightly urban-legendish story going around my college gaming club about some kids who started a gaming club at the local catholic high school. Some parents found out the gaming club was playing D&D and complained to the school. So the kids dropped their D&D campaign and switched to Cthulhu, which of course, nobody complained about.

I take the story with a grain of salt, myself, but there you have it. Parents are stupid.

Posts: 4545 · Posted: Sat Jul 05, 2008 5:54 pm

xraygord wrote:

I am an atheist, but lets say that God does exist. If he appeared before me and gave me a message of some sort, and I go to to those same religous throat crammers and tell them that I spoke to God, they would lock me up in a nut house. Or at the very least I would be the town weirdo.

I like that. Sad but true.

Myself, I think religion should be a personal relationship between you and whatever deity/manifestation you are most comfortable with. If someone asks you about it, tell them. Otherwise keep your mouth shut and don't bother anyone else living their life, unless that person is in such dire need of some sort of spiritual salvation (i.e. a drunken shambling wreck who welcomes death rather than living their life) that you can only make their lives better. Other than that, don't bother anyone with your PERSONAL relationship with a deity. Why does everything in our culture nowadays have to be so damn "in your face"?

Unfortunately in our society we have the "outting" of everyone. Things are discussed on the Dr. Phil show that frankly don't need to be discussed. I always laugh my ass off when they have some married couple on there with "problems", like the woman admits she's been gobbling some other guy's wang for the last year while stealing supplies from work, and the guy admits he's addicted to vicodin and internet porn, and may have made a pass at a neighbor's poodle last week. It's all done up so seriously and dramatic, and all I can think about is these two dumbasses coming back home and trying to have a normal conversation with neighbors or family afterwards: "So, Marjorie and Tim, uh, read any good books lately? Um, how are things going? And, oh yeh, YOU BEEN TAKING ANYONE ELSES SHLONG LATELY? BWAH HA HA HA HAHA HA!!!!" And then slipping naked pictures of 300 lb ladies into the guy's inbox at work. At least, that's the way Mr. Sensitive (myself) would approach it, I mean they've gone on TV like performing clowns, why not treat them like one..

Mike B.

Posts: 4545 · Posted: Sat Jul 05, 2008 6:07 pm

deimos3428 wrote:

I'm an antitheist.

Don't bother looking that one up. It means if something resembling God were to show up, I'd kick Him in the Holy Nuts. (Fortunately for Him, He doesn't exist.)

Yeh, but then he'd zap you with lightning...

"Ray, when someone asks if you are a God, you say YES!"

"All right! This chick is toast!"

Mike B.

Posts: 1200 · Posted: Sat Jul 05, 2008 6:19 pm

Mike,
Personally I don't give a rat's ass what somebody chooses to believe in.
For all I care they can get naked and dance under the full moon as long as the are not hurting anybody or keeping their neighbors awake by screaming at yog-sothoth.
The only thing that bothers me is the way that religion has a tendency to try to extend its tendrils into politics and education to promote an agenda.
There is a reason why most democratic countries have a separation of church and state.
What bothers me are the in-your-face street preachers, and the televangelists that prey on the old and the sick with their "send-us-money-and-we'll-pray-for-you" pitch.
Or the "buy our magic water/handkerchief/amulet/blah-blah-blah."
If hucksters selling "snake-oil" is not legal or ethical, this stuff is no better.

[End Rant] Razz

Posts: 342 · Posted: Sat Jul 05, 2008 6:40 pm

jasonw1239 wrote:

Mike,
Personally I don't give a rat's ass what somebody chooses to believe in.
For all I care they can get naked and dance under the full moon as long as the are not hurting anybody or keeping their neighbors awake by screaming at yog-sothoth.
The only thing that bothers me is the way that religion has a tendency to try to extend its tendrils into politics and education to promote an agenda.
There is a reason why most democratic countries have a separation of church and state.
What bothers me are the in-your-face street preachers, and the televangelists that prey on the old and the sick with their "send-us-money-and-we'll-pray-for-you" pitch.
Or the "buy our magic water/handkerchief/amulet/blah-blah-blah."
If hucksters selling "snake-oil" is not legal or ethical, this stuff is no better.

[End Rant] Razz

Yea, there are some annoying absolutists out there. Add to tele-evangelists the athiests who demand that only they are right and only their viewpoint be taught in schools, sworn to in courts, printed on money.

I find these guys pretty low since their religion is simply no religion allowed and they think that getting their way is fair and right and anyone who doesn't believe what they believe is wrong. Absolutists.

I hear suppossed scientists talking about facts, about the beginning of the universe, about big bang and the age of the earth, about math being 'true'.

Well no one really understands more than a hundred years or so. They imagine what more time than that is like, but they haven't experienced it. There is not even a hint of really understanding 100,000 years, a million, a billion. We can imagine that the light being seen in the sky shows suns and galaxies, but this solar system is still unknown, this planet is still unknown, the force of gravity is unknown, the make-up of matter is unknown.

I find the people who absolutely do not believe in a spiritual world far more annoying, far more underhanded and smarmy than most of those who absolutely believe in a spiritual world. The tendrils of atheists are in politics and public schools far more insidious and deeper than those of the spiritual absolutists and I wish that both would just get the hell out.

Posts: 610 · Posted: Sat Jul 05, 2008 7:05 pm

jasonw1239 wrote:

Mike,
Personally I don't give a rat's ass what somebody chooses to believe in.
For all I care they can get naked and dance under the full moon as long as the are not hurting anybody or keeping their neighbors awake by screaming at yog-sothoth.
The only thing that bothers me is the way that religion has a tendency to try to extend its tendrils into politics and education to promote an agenda.
There is a reason why most democratic countries have a separation of church and state.
What bothers me are the in-your-face street preachers, and the televangelists that prey on the old and the sick with their "send-us-money-and-we'll-pray-for-you" pitch.
Or the "buy our magic water/handkerchief/amulet/blah-blah-blah."
If hucksters selling "snake-oil" is not legal or ethical, this stuff is no better.

[End Rant] Razz

Preach it brother! Twisted Evil

Posts: 145 · Posted: Sat Jul 05, 2008 8:57 pm

jasonw1239 wrote:

Mike,
Personally I don't give a rat's ass what somebody chooses to believe in.
For all I care they can get naked and dance under the full moon as long as the are not hurting anybody or keeping their neighbors awake by screaming at yog-sothoth.

Exactly! Why can't the folks in my neighborhood association be more like you? Laughing

Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!!

Posts: 4545 · Posted: Sat Jul 05, 2008 9:02 pm

JZavoda wrote:

Yea, there are some annoying absolutists out there. Add to tele-evangelists the athiests who demand that only they are right and only their viewpoint be taught in schools, sworn to in courts, printed on money.

I find these guys pretty low since their religion is simply no religion allowed and they think that getting their way is fair and right and anyone who doesn't believe what they believe is wrong. Absolutists.

I hear suppossed scientists talking about facts, about the beginning of the universe, about big bang and the age of the earth, about math being 'true'.

Well no one really understands more than a hundred years or so. They imagine what more time than that is like, but they haven't experienced it. There is not even a hint of really understanding 100,000 years, a million, a billion. We can imagine that the light being seen in the sky shows suns and galaxies, but this solar system is still unknown, this planet is still unknown, the force of gravity is unknown, the make-up of matter is unknown.

I find the people who absolutely do not believe in a spiritual world far more annoying, far more underhanded and smarmy than most of those who absolutely believe in a spiritual world. The tendrils of atheists are in politics and public schools far more insidious and deeper than those of the spiritual absolutists and I wish that both would just get the hell out.

Pity the poor Wiccan or Deist. Called stupid by one side, and told they are going to hell by the other. Nice!

Not a big fan of the in your face smarmy and sneering "intellectual absolutist" any more than the in your face religious nut. Like anyone would enjoy being called a mental midgit anymore than someone would enjoy being told they are going to burn in hell for eternity....

I do find it funny that as many times in the last 2000 years science has been found to be absolutely wrong, the science is God crowd will defend to the death it's absolute truth in all things. There are more things in heaven and earth.....

Mike B.

Posts: 2635 · Posted: Sun Jul 06, 2008 12:27 pm

It's really frusterating when people note that both science and religion have flaws, and then go on attempting to equate them and suggest that both have a place within the school system. That's horrible reasoning.

Both science and religion take some things upon faith, and both lack all the answers. However, while scientific theory requires adjustment in the face of new information, religious theory requires that there is no adjustment in spite of new information.

Both are rooted in belief. Science is what happens when you take belief and allow it to go through an evolutionary process over time. Religion is what happens when you take belief and don't allow it to be changed significantly enough to keep up with observed fact.

Why does that matter? Schools are about learning. Religion has no place in the schools is because it is all about believing what you're told, and doing what you're told, even in spite of observed fact. That's the very opposite of learning; challenging what you're told, and improving upon what you're told based on your own observations.

Theology, the study of religion, might well have a place in school but religion itself does not. Both theology and anthropology (ie. evolutionary theory) are better handled by the university/college system, though.

Posts: 342 · Posted: Sun Jul 06, 2008 1:33 pm

deimos3428 wrote:

It's really frusterating when people note that both science and religion have flaws, and then go on attempting to equate them and suggest that both have a place within the school system. That's horrible reasoning.

Both science and religion take some things upon faith, and both lack all the answers. However, while scientific theory requires adjustment in the face of new information, religious theory requires that there is no adjustment in spite of new information.

Both are rooted in belief. Science is what happens when you take belief and allow it to go through an evolutionary process over time. Religion is what happens when you take belief and don't allow it to be changed significantly enough to keep up with observed fact.

Why does that matter? Schools are about learning. Religion has no place in the schools is because it is all about believing what you're told, and doing what you're told, even in spite of observed fact. That's the very opposite of learning; challenging what you're told, and improving upon what you're told based on your own observations.

Theology, the study of religion, might well have a place in school but religion itself does not. Both theology and anthropology (ie. evolutionary theory) are better handled by the university/college system, though.

It is especially annoying when someone talks about science as if it took things on faith. It can't, science is a method of study, Science, with a big S is a religion. It has absolutes and facts, something that science does not.

There are no facts in science, there are only subjective observations, working hyppthesis, theory, endless questions with no firm footing, no absolutes. Small s science is frightening, it is the unknown, the unsecure, the dark abyss of the infinite.

When children are taught one theory and not another, they are being lied to, they are being dogmatized, whether by creationism or undirected evolution.

science, the method of study, takes nothing on faith, nothing... Science the religion, the floor wax, the desert topping, takes the observable, subjective world, on faith, and a very jealous and fearful faith at that.

Teach science, all the questions, all the possibilities, not just the ones that someone, somewhere has taken on faith.

Posts: 579 · Posted: Sun Jul 06, 2008 2:02 pm

JZavoda wrote:

There are no facts in science

That's a very excessive point of view. There are plenty of facts. If you think of natural science, everything starts from facts, which are then dissected, analyzed, generalized and so on. If you think of artificial and conventional sciences (take math, for example), then facts can be much more difficult to detect, but you can find facts there, also. Especially because, in the end, theoretical sciences exist to explain/reproduce/model facts.

Let's make it easy. Think of history. Are there no facts in history?

Posts: 342 · Posted: Sun Jul 06, 2008 2:47 pm

guerret wrote:

That's a very excessive point of view. There are plenty of facts. If you think of natural science, everything starts from facts, which are then dissected, analyzed, generalized and so on. If you think of artificial and conventional sciences (take math, for example), then facts can be much more difficult to detect, but you can find facts there, also. Especially because, in the end, theoretical sciences exist to explain/reproduce/model facts.

Let's make it easy. Think of history. Are there no facts in history?

In science a fact would require an objective observation, which is impossible. This isn't excessive, this point is fundamental to the scientific method.

That people do not understand this is staggering, it shows how the dogmatized religion of big S Science has swallowed centuries of progress.

When people and especially teachers start believing and teaching scientific facts, they have stepped outside of science and into religion. They have failed, not only themselves, not only the people they teach, but they have failed the future of humanity.

science does not color within the lines, it does not require that the sky is blue, the grass is green. It does not have right or wrong, true or false, facts or the absolute. science is a method of study, a process of eternal questioning. Facts end qustioning, they end discovery, facts end science, they are not part of it.

This needs to be the first thing that is taught. There are no facts, question everything. If you teach a child that there are absolutes you put a wall in front of them, call it a fact, paint it a certain color and they may never, never ever, be able to get over it or through it or even paint it a different color.

History? It is so often said that history is written by the winners and winners choose the facts, but it doesn't make them true.

Posts: 4545 · Posted: Sun Jul 06, 2008 3:44 pm

guerret wrote:

That's a very excessive point of view. There are plenty of facts. If you think of natural science, everything starts from facts, which are then dissected, analyzed, generalized and so on. If you think of artificial and conventional sciences (take math, for example), then facts can be much more difficult to detect, but you can find facts there, also. Especially because, in the end, theoretical sciences exist to explain/reproduce/model facts.

Let's make it easy. Think of history. Are there no facts in history?

Actually, history is subjective. You think the history of World War II is taught the same in the US as in Japan, Russia, Germany, etc? Not at all.

About all the facts you can glean from history are quantifiable dates that every source agrees on. Beyond that, it's up for grabs. But then again, that's why I love history! Very Happy

Again and again throughout history, rock solid theories of how we exist have been proven to be wrong. So I'd like my science with a big glass of skepticism, please. I'm always shockingly amazed how the science absolutist refuses to realize this. Look, how do we know in the next 100 years or so we won't invent something that allows us to speak to dogs? Or sense the emotions of plants? or develop mini wormholes able to teleport objects across vast distances? Or, for that matter, detect a source of energy powering the human body (for want of a better term, a soul?). Hell, maybe "God" lives outside our solar system in a huge spaceship and is waiting until we travel to another planet before he reveals himself. Do we know this? We can't, and anyone who says otherwise isn't being objective and is merely parrotting talking points.

That being said, religion shouldn't be taught in public schools anyway. I don't want teachers trying to teach my kids morals, ethics, or values for that matter. Better to teach religion and the rest at home or through a church you follow than throw such important issues up to Ned the portly english teacher who is a secret furry, enjoys kiddie porn and owns 32 dogs that live in his one bedroom house.... Shocked

Mike B.