[Does Anyone Think, Their Addiction To Ipbattlepro Killing...]

I've been killing time until my deaths/kills reset by playing the computer at Risk.

Death, destruction and spreading my flag over the globe...as a time killer.

[Is/was There A Female Equivalent Of Chivalry?]

The closest i can imagine would be:

The rules of courtly love:

http://www.astro.umd.edu/~marshall/chivalry.html

(written mostly for a guy, but it takes two to tango...)

And lists of behaviors like those books from the 50's telling women how to be the most effective wives.

Be ready with a martini and a smile,

Have the kids clean and presentable.

Clean house, dinner ready, paper waiting.

All the stuff that made Phyllis Schlaffy all wet inside....

[O_o]

Well, i almost never kill you in a single blow now.

I just screw my eyes shut and hope for the best.

[Religion]

That is an argument ad homenim(sp?) and as such is not valid in any debate.

Exactly where is the insult? Ad hominem is using insult in place of argument.

Since you don’t seem to get how much evidence of God there is (evolution was just to prove that science makes mistakes and big ones) even though you cannot refute any of my other points, I am going to go ahead and show some more evidence that proves my point.

If you're going to keep using not-science to refute science, i don't need to refute your points. You're just off target.

The Anthropic Principles point out that there are over one hundred variables to this Universe, that would have made life as we know it impossible, if they were even slightly different.

Well, the best you can really claim is that life-as-we-know-it may not be possible. But that could only mean that life as we know it evolved to match the universe it developed in.

If a puddle finds itself in a depression that perfectly matches the shape and size of the puddle, it's a bit arrogant for the puddle to claim that the depression was made just perfectly for it.

This is just argument from incredulity.

The Gaia Hypothesis states that all the life forms on Planet Earth work together to keep the planet life-bearing. There is much evidence for this. ...Some kind of biological feedback system must be working to keep all this balanced. As of yet, there is no evidence Gaia is sentient, but She is biological.

Yeah, i'll buy that. It may be that life developed on Earth instead of Venus because the conditions were right for life here while Venus is a burning hell. OR by life developing on Earth, it's come to have the right conditions for life while Venus is the way it is because life never developed there.

Fifty-fifty chances don't really make THIS planet the object of divine intervention.

Medical science has advanced to the point where people can enter a hospital DOA (Dead On Arrival) and leave it alive!

Yep. Well, to a degree. If they're not TOO dead.

According to a recent Gallup poll at least 8 million people in the United States have had Near Death Experiences (NDE's). Most of these people now have an unshakable belief that there is something beyond this earthly life of ours.

And my grandmother has an unshakeable belief that there is nothing beyond this earthly life. Which one is evidence?

There have been some small attempts by scientists to clarify whether these experiences are real or hallucinatory.

Personally, the reports made by a person whose brain is not perfectly functioning, pretty much by definition, are not compelling evidence. Have they managed to determine exactly when these memories are collected? At death, after resuscitation? If the non-corporeal body is having the experience, how are memories transmitted to the corporeal brain for recollection?

ARE YOU BRAVE ENOUGH TO TRY AN EXPERIMENT?

There is one way to know for YOURSELF that God exists and that Christ is God. Suspend disbelief for a few moments, and take a leap of faith and have the courage to SINCERELY pray the following prayer. Now you suspend disbelief for hours at a time to watch a movie, or read a book, you can surely do it for sixty seconds to perform an important experiment!

I was a sincere Christain long before i became an atheist. I prayed the prayers, defended the faith and believed in all my heart.

When i got tired of the church offering platitudes instead of answers, i left the church, looking for the church that had a better grasp of the God i still believed in.

None of them had any better answers. My atheism wasn't a choice, it was the result of years of searching for God. And coming up with bupkes.

QUOTE MINE:

The opinions expressed by experts are fine. I encourage religion, freedom of worship, opinions, freedom of speech. I'm just glad that most of the better ones don't seem to take God to work with them.

There Is a God: How the World's Most Notorious Atheist Changed His MindAntony Flew (Professor of Philosophy, former atheist, author, and debater) "It now seems to me that the findings of more than fifty years of DNA research have provided materials for a new and enormously powerful argument to design."

For the world's most notorious atheist, i find it odd that i never heard of him until after he became a deist. Then again, it's his opinion, he's welcome to it. Maybe when i get to be 80 or so, i'll decide that the same evidence that's been unconvincing for years has become compelling.

[Question For The Men: Misconceptions?]

When i was in about 6th grade, my mother argued in favor of sexual education. She used the phrase: Kids need to know what they're doing or they're going to get hurt.

Hurt?

I had just enough of the basics to be dangerous. I imagined a more direct, dynamic, physical hurt than long-lasting impact-on-life stuff.

Like, there was a sharp ridge in there somewhere that would bend or lacerate a penis if you came in at the wrong angle.

Everyone thought i was a perv when i found that medical poster of the reproductive system and stared at it for days. i was looking for barbed wire or ramparts.

[Mary Sue]

I tried, here: http://www2.adult-fanfiction.org/forum/inde...;mary+sue\

to define a Mary Sue. Not as a litmus test as much as an attempt to capture the feel i get when i think the character is a Mary Sue. Or some of the behaviors that would identify, to me, a less blatant self-insertion.

[Mary Sue]

Okay, what do you call a character who is based off of you but only the flawed parts standout? (And no, am not talking about Phillip in XSFGC, for those that have perused my fanfic).

A character, however based, with flaws is not a Mary Sue (Or Marty Suet).So, it may be a Self Insertion, but not an incompetent example of doing so.

[Things That Annoy]

Well, it COULD be a style. I've seen works where the narration foreshadows, judges, apologizes, reminds the reader... But you have to do it from the very beginning, and you have to be consistent.

I think the movie 'Princess Bride' did a good job with it. When Columbo breaks from the tale to reassure the kid.

But it has to be part of the narration. Has to. And used through the story. If it's done once, it's jarring.

If it's in parentheses, in the manner of the OP, it's not the narrator, it's the author. And i tend to associate it with bragging. They're very pleased with a scene or a character and do one worse than a Mary Sue. They break the fourth wall that a story usually expends more than a little effort to create in the first place. it's not self-insertion but a walk-on.

[O_o]

Hoard?

Oh. Horde!

Uh...not intentionally, but maybe? For all the good it done me?

[O_o]

and I see you're starting to gain more suicides

I have lost against others a time or two, but these days, i only die 'cause of you.

[Why Men Are Happier]

Dun't matter to me. Ten times more intense than what i have would be lethal.

I mean, what a way to go, but still. Lethal.

So, still happy.

And the fun part? If i do anything that's so gender-specific and widespread that it's become a cliche for manly behavior, and my wife mutters 'Men!' under her breath, i can still give her shit.

"What? Gender Stereotyping?! In this day and age! I mean, really! I put one pair of shoes on the dining room table to get the shoe polish kit from the buffet and you act like half the human race has an IQ of three. How would you feel if you were two seconds late for an evening out, and i suggested that all women were incapable of being on time for anything? Huh? What if you made a mistake and referred to our current president as Clinton, and corrected it INSTANTLY, but i still suggested that 'blonde' was your original hair color? Would you think that fair?"

At least, that's the speech i INTENDED to give her. Three seconds into it, she made me eat my shoe and i kinda lost that position of moral superiority from righteous indignation. And an incisor.

[O_o]

*laughs* Well at least SOMEBODY is killing you Keith... But I know it must get tiresome fighting teeta all time. I haven't been killed by you for a whole day... what happened? *grins*

I have learned, through blood, to attack teeta LAST.

I had been starting at the top, and slicing down to wherever the kills run out.

Right now, attax on teeta, i'm only even surviving 60% of the time. So i have to revisit my strategizing.

[O_o]

I just checked my inbox and saw the messages

I am trying, now, to make sure to send messages when i lose. I figure the winner deserves that much.

You're high enough that i can put my back into it, drop my shoulder, swivel my hip and make a solid fucking blow and it STILL doesn't matter a damn. You bounce off the far wall and the last thing i see is the salon owner shaking his head in disgust as my skull goes past him.

Oh. Holy crap, you've got more kills than me!? Last i looked, i was WAY ahead. Good work.

Well, looks like it's time to take another day off of work to efficiently schedule some serious slaughter.

[Religion]

One such implication is that if evolution is true then God is not. By refuting some of the base principles of evolution, I am implying that God is real.

Even if that were true, then refuting things that are not evolution has no bearing on evolution's implications. But it isn't true, since evolution, real evolution, is silent on the existence of God. So refuting evolution has no implications on god's reality.

Behe, who came up with Irreducible Complexity, fully accepted evolution as the source of change in life and the diversity of life on the planet. BUT he felt that some aspects of life were not possible without a God. So, he felt that evolution and God were both true.

A poll showed that 95% of all scientists in the country accept evolution. About 50% of them feel it is a fully natural process, needing no deity. Some 45% feel that it's part of God's plan. Five percent reject evolution. All of them do so for religious reasons.

Your 'implications' of evolution and god being diametrically opposed are strawmen. Nearly half of all American scientists find no problem accepting God and the Theory of Evolution.

Except that it cannot, once you apply any amount of real science and not just what some moldy old professor told you.

It's a common creationist claim, that they're using real science but real scientists aren't. But if your 'real science' is based on something that evolution isn't, not really, then it's rather wrong. As well dismiss evolution because it doesn't explain Bohr's model of the atom.

Again, it is not a straw man argument.

Yes, it is. As long as you paint evolution as being anti-god, or godless, or having any stance whatsoever on God, then what you're arguing is a convenient stand-in for real science. Like electricity, gravity, friction and any other science, it works on observations, not on any view of a deity.

There are so many to choose from. Try actually reading up on evolution. Study it enough and you will see that the conclusion that it leads us to (if it is correct) is that everything comes from nothing.

Fine. Show me one. Just one that actually says it. You can't, because your 'conclusion it leads us to' is wrong.

1) evolution is about changes in life, not the beginning of life.

2) 'everything comes from nothing' is not part of any scientific claim. It is part of non-scientist paraphrases of what they think the Big Bang theory is.

[O_o]

Funny. Thanx for sharing that.

Far less humiliating that my last two suicides, splatted across your face shield like a bug on a window....

[Religion]

According to Darwinism, the following must be true:

* Nothing produces everything.

Not even hardly. Evolution is just the changes in gene pools over time and is silent on the beginning of that life. It is also silent on the existence of any or all deities. Those that try to make it say something it doesn't are building straw men to knock down.

Abiogenesis and evolution work together.

Not really. Life could be created by a committee of gods, by chance, by supervised chance, by alien intervention, by alien negligence, or a host of other possible starts that gave us the first life form or forms on the planet.

Some people do take evolution to be proof there is no God. They're wrong. it's neutral to the nature and existence of the divine. Just as much as electricity doesn't prove or disprove a deity, or any other science.

I use the term evolution as a blanket term to cover both (for the purpose of this debate).

Then for the purpose of this debate, you're using a strawman attack. Maybe what you mean to use is something like: According to the atheist definition of how the universe works... Of course, it's still not accurate, but at least the terms seem to be closer to the true nature of your argument.

The argument is based on actual science…

Not if you're using non-scientific definitions of what evolution is, it isn't.

Tell me, what text book declares, just to start, that everything comes from nothing? Which scientists?

[The Higher Levels Seem To Be Heading For Outer Space....]

Also depends on which weapon you use. Use a weapon that guarantees instant annihilation, you get less XP.

I'm trying to figure out if there's any sort of strength vs. damage correlation on the weapons.

I mean, i just attacked with a freaking Knife, used 2 STR and inflicted 82 hit points of damage.

Is that because of my level? Because i don't recall inflicting 82 freaking points when i was a noob. Of course, way back in the before time, no one HAD 82 HP to bleed out...

It's just weird.

[Lack of reviews.]

"They kissed and they fucked. The End."

I loved that one.

Is there a sequel coming?

[The Higher Levels Seem To Be Heading For Outer Space....]

So, after a certain point in level advance, it becomes pointless to attack those of much lower levels, unless you are looking to spark a reaction and participation. Pique the user's curiosity. THAT is why it was turned into a free for all.

Yeah, there's no real benefit to slamming the first levels that are in the game.

Attacking those that are outside of it may increase the numbers. Sometimes i just go through a thread in the Games section and take out anyone with no EXP.

Hitting up a handful of first level fighters, there's no cash and the EXP isn't worth the cost of the restoratives.

Of course, while i'm dead about once every four times i come to the board, i'm far more likely to find every acceptible target dead.

I would just revive teeta and kill, but it seems unsporting to do that if i do have nine other legal targets that are alive. But they're down in levels 1 through ten.... I think this will be a self-correcting problem over time. Attacking upwards has always been legal (if suicidal), while downwards is so easy it's not worth it.

['evil' Literary Problems]

Ever see 'Constantine?' The entrance of the Devil is a great scene. Immaculate in a comfortable tailored suit, he has bare feet that are covered in slime. Just enough of an 'off' note to let you know this is not a normal person.

Or one of the Dracula movies: Reeves' character cuts himself shaving, Dracula turns and licks the razor clean. We see it, but the character on screen doesn't.

I'd pick a small but incredibly inhuman mannerism that the evil character might display. Imagine a movie where there is an aside for the audience. The characters (except your kid) don't notice, but we see him, i don't know... Pick snails off the grass and eat them. Gets the cat to leave him alone by flashing fiery-red eyes. Everyone hears a traffic accident outside and rushes to the window to see, but this guy just rolls his head back as one having an orgasm.

Maybe every time he passes a computer or TV screen, there's a shot of either the Elder Ones peering into our dimension in anticipation, or condemned souls screaming for release. Every dog he touches runs out into traffic. Birds leave a tree when he leans against it and never, ever come back. The kid hears the hungry chicks screaming for food, and sees the mom on a nearby fence, frantic for her kids but unwilling to touch the tree.

[I Was Wondering Why My Money Kept Going Up...]

I like how you missed!

Thought you'd like that. That's why i made sure to send you the report...

How did I manage to get even 30 health off you? Your soo damned far above me!

My level doesn't matter. If i leave you with any health at all (something that a 'miss' guarantees), you use your strength to grab a weapon and hit back. If THAT doesn't miss, you can't help but do more damage than i.... YOU WINN!

[Free For All?]

No, no. I won't attack anyone in MY guild. Fellow guildies.

Rival guilds are perfectly appropriate targets.

[Free For All?]

Actually, I'm making it a rule that anyone 20 LEVELS LOWER than me, I won't kill... *glares at Keith* ......

Looking over the roster (through a sniper scope)...

Hitting a 1-st level can only get me +1 EXP, and if the weapon misses may cost me EXP.

Hitting the highest level characters is the best place to gain significant EXP, and more levels, thus more power.

I've got 9 attacks at a time right now (with a 40 minute recovery time).

I can't attack myself.

I won't attack guildies.

So, going down the list from the most powerful appropriate target to the least, you're the 6th one down. Assuming everyone above you is in good health.

Nothing personal, it's just strategic.

[Insignia?]

I'd actually give them their first set of rank insignia at 2, then wait until level 5 before increasing it. By then, they should be well and truly hooked, and then rank could advance at, say, every 10 to 15 levels, once you hit a certain point, that would have to increase. In other words, you want insignia with your rank, you gotta WORK for it.

A side thought, what about guild specific rank insignia? that could be done as well.

Well, Ace, Deuce, Trey of Swords and so on, would be a no-brainer for Tarot Targeting.

[Free For All?]

Eh, might drum up some interest, attacking those who've never been in the game yet.

They start the day with blood in their eyes (see above post) and they just might develop a desire to climb up the tree to bop me one in the eye (see above post).

On the other hand, i only get 1 EXP for the slaughter of a zero level player, so it's hardly worth the cost of a restorative.