Reverend_UshankaCat_

Well to be fair, churches are built for the communities, and a lot of the money is also used for charity. And they're all donations anyway, so nobody is really expected to give money. But of course I understand what you mean. Religion is an easy target for people who only care about their own financial gain, and I don't doubt that often it is used just for that. I also understand where you see people being "controlled on a moral level". I still think the word "controlled" is a bit too strong, but if you really consider the morals that the Bible wants to teach- would that even be such a bad thing? I think you'd have to agree that "Do not kill, do not lie, be polite, help those who need help, do not pursue revenge, but instead learn to forgive, etc." already are, or at least should be, society's most basic morals!

Well, we Protestants don't really have a clergy, and in a way we don't really fear that "ultimate authority", since our God is a God of forgiveness who loves all people as long as they do good things. And that is our ideology- Be a good person and you'll be rewarded. I really don't understand why you sound so pessimistic about religion since its purpose (unless it is abused) is to give people a way to improve themselves, to learn stories of love, friendship and forgiveness (even if only fictional) and figure out how to imitate them to make themselves better people. Sounds like you've had some bad experience with religion, because it is really not about anyone conrolling other people, it is about you controlling yourself.

Wasn't there some big controversy about Origin stealing a lot of private information from computers or something? Well if you have Windows 10 it's not like it matters anymore, but still...

Looks like our views are pretty similar Jeb, although I'm maybe a bit more "extreme" in my casual-ness. As a Reverend of the Church of the UshankaCat, I believe that... okay, just kidding. I believe that everything in the Bible is metaphorical. So the earth wasn't made in literally six days, it just means that to God, billions of years are like just one day. Even the Pope seems to agree! So the Bible is not a history book, but my interpretation even goes further than that: Is God himself maybe just a metaphor? A metaphor for fate? This is where I imagine people will think I'm going a bit too far, but I call myself Agnostic Christian. To me, not the question whether God exists or not is what is important about religion, but the morals that the Bible is trying to teach you through its metaphors, like "learn to forgive your enemies" (which I think is one of the most important morals of the Bible). Fyodor Dostoyewski (my favourite author!) famously said "If anyone could prove to me that Christ is outside the truth, and if the truth really did exclude Christ, I should prefer to stay with Christ and not with truth" and I think that is going in the right direction. So if you want to honour God, just do what he says and be nice to other people.

Oh God, no pressure then! Fuckin' hell! OT: Even I'm scared now! Worried about Rarity.

I'm not good at making new threads... So this is where, with a respect for each other's beliefs (or lack of beliefs), discuss the huge topic of Religion! So what do you believe? What makes you religious or non-religious? What do you think about other religions? What are some of your good or bad experiences with religious people? Again, please be respectful, I already feel like I'm opening Pandora's box.

Potatoes with cheese. And waaay too much salt.

Grand Theft Auto IV. I'm a complete sucker for scenery porn, so I installed a first-person mod, put on a Podcast (Barshens) and just walked around Liberty City, taking in the atmosphere. I'm weird like that.

Sounds like this is going a bit off-topic, I'm going to suggest making a new thread for this or taking it to the "Discuss your Opinion" thread, since I too have a few things I'd like to add to that conversation! OT: I think your view depends on your personality. An optimist (like me!) is always going to see things a bit more optimistic than a pessimist, who will see things more pessimistic. That is also the reason I haven't said anything here before. As an optimist I see everything through rose-tinted glasses, so I'm afraid when I say that I think the fuckedness of humanity is still in the manageable area, my view could just be completely distorted. I would think the same if I were a pessimist though. So I think humanity has always been a bit on the fucked side, but hey- even the Cold War (mostly) ended.

Wow, sounds like historical accuracy is quite important to you! I always saw the Wolfenstein series as a kind of alternate history-version of WWII, but you're right, with so much stuff based on real people, groups and places, it really jumps the shark when none of them are depicted correctly. As for the acccents, I find them hilarious. Especially the guy at 13:23: "Vat in ze vorld cud ze nazis be bilting at ze church?". I live in Germany and I can't say I haven't heard some Germans speak with stereotypical accent before, but they definitely didn't sound like that. I'm a native German speaker too, but last time I met some native English speakers from America they were surprised that I have a British accent. To be fair, I'm a linguist, so my English might be a bit better then the average Hans', but it still shows that we don't all talk like zat. I also don't remember the posters in the game, but if they really say "Befolgen Sie!" then that's proof that not a single person on the entire team had any knowledge of German and they just Google-translated it. They apparently did the same thing in Call Of Duty: World At War ("Geisteskrankes Asyl von Deutschland" - "insane asylum of Germany". Not an asylum for the insane, but an asylum that is insane). Shows again that it is a much better idea to hire someone who knows what they're doing instead of just embarassing yourself. One last thing though: Could you change the colour of the text? It is a bit hard to read!

Happy Birthday, Alyxx!

Just as things were starting to look better for me they suddenly take a really really dark turn really quickly.

Because the text is size 100. And here's a funny video.

9/10

Sam.

Waiting

An orange.

You can write this annoying term paper for me. That's what I'm trying to do right now. (It's about fucking militant football nazis)

Freaking out, just realised I'm writing an exam today and I'm totally unprepared. WHY DOES THIS KEEP HAPPENING TO ME

He sees.

Me *cries*

Oh yes, I have have a few. I have an obsession with 007: Agent Under Fire to the point where I even started painstakingly recreating its maps in Source's Hammer Editor. Every time I play this game I discover something new, the attention to detail is just amazing. Another game I can't get enough of is The Getaway. The story, the setting, the writing, the characters and the music. Oh man, the sweet sweet music. There are a few more, but these two are my favourites.

Watching Star Trek. I started watching it yesterday and I'm surprised at how much I like it.

Monkey/Penguin Seriously, what is that? It's scaring me

I haven't played it yet, but my reason for not wanting to play it is the graphics. And I know that makes me sound like a graphics snob (which, being a lover of PS1-era graphics, I'm not. I know games don't need to look good to be good). Still, somehow the graphics of the new Doom are a huge turn-off for me, and I think it would distract me to the point where I couldn't really enjoy the game anymore. Maybe it's the shaders, but somehow everything just looks like plastic to me. Look at Sniper Elite 2, that game did it right and looks really immersive. You can almost feel the texture of every texture there.