Cartoons
Topic: Religion
Okay. Just in case you aren't familiar with the goings-on and doings of other places, you should read this before going any further in this entry.

Back?

Good.

Yes, people are dying because someone made a cartoon that features Mohammed. You can't draw pictures of Mohammed, say the people that worship him, because it promotes idolatry. Disregarding for the moment that this is a slippery slope argument much like saying that living in the desert promotes the building of pyramids, and simultaneously respecting them their right to their own religious beliefs, let's move right on to what the Hells are they thinking?

You don't kill people in an effort to further your religious beliefs, even if what you think they've done is sinful! That's like claiming a religious right to kill your neighbor because he coveted your wife! Like seeing their God's name in text is a sin to The Hebrew, seeing Mohammed's image is a sin to Islam. And whether or not we agree with their belief, we should respect it. However, that's a two-way-street. They should also respect our religious beliefs, as well as their own. In other words, if people outside their faith don't respect Islam's beliefs for whatever reason, Islam has to accept that, and respect their own faith by continuing to follow it, and not commit murder, which is also a sin in Islam. If they fail to follow their own religious beliefs, they are as disrespectful to those beliefs as the cartoonist. More so, because the cartoonist may not have known it wasn't right. Theoretically, Islamists know their faith better than a Danish cartoonist.

The cartoons were originally printed in Denmark, which is not exactly a hotbed of Islamic activity. Islam followers now stand outside the Danish embassy in Tehran throwing rocks and shouting "Death to Denmark!" They're condemning an entire nation for the works and poor judgment of one cartoonist and his editor. Meanwhile, the cartoons have been reprinted in other areas, and those places are no longer appreciated by Islam either, if they ever were.

Personal freedom includes everything you're free to do and believe, and it ends right at the point where another person's personal freedom begins. If what you're going to do denies or affects someone else's personal freedom, don't do it! And if they do it to you, tell them not to do it again, or stop doing it! If they don't stop, either tolerate it or move on, or insist, or whatever you feel is best for the situation. Killing them is extreme, and is the ultimate denial of their personal freedom as well, so it's a bit hypocritical, at the very least.

Here's what should have happened.

The cartoonist should have thought "Damn... why's it so hard to find an image of Mohammed? How am I going to draw Him if I don't know what He looks like?" Then, perhaps, he'd have located a reference to idolatry and how it's a no-no to Islam, and then decided to use some other method of depicting Mohammed, say, as the sun, or a ray coming from the clouds, or something like that. He could have checked to see how some of the modern Islamic publications get away with it. It would have been more of a challenge, but then he'd find out how good a cartoonist he really was.

Failing that, the editor should have ensured that the cartoon wasn't stepping on anyone's beliefs; that is, after all, a big part of the editor's job.

And, since that failed to happen, what Islamic followers should have done is written letters of protest to the editor, stating very clearly what their beliefs were, and demanding both a retraction and an apology. That's kind of hard to expect, since we're not talking about just one image; thousands of papers were printed, each one with the image of Mohammed. This is heresy on a grand scale, to Islam. But it does not justify more sins to retaliate for the heresy (not sins, because the Danish paper is not a part of Islam, so it's heresy) of others.

So much wrong is done in the name of God, and has been all through history. And it's because so many people might believe in their faith, and might follow their faith, and might know their faith. But not enough people really live their faith. And they really should; otherwise, it's not religion. It's just odd behavior.

I Ask You
Topic: Religion
I was asked today by a co-slave from the previous shift, as he was leaving, what a Deist is.

"A Deist is a person that does not necessarily agree with organized religions, and only theistically accepts or believes what they have experienced or can logically determine. They believe because they've developed their own opinion, not because someone told them what to believe."

He then asked if I'd tried a U.U. church, and that I should go to his church's next service.

For those of you that may be unaware, Unitarian Universalist is special. They're basically founded in Christian and Hebrew faiths, but accept anyone to their church, regardless of that person's beliefs. Their literature claims that they do not force a creed upon anyone.

So this individual invited me, and said they're really not an organized religion.

"Do you have a building where people meet and attend regular services?" I asked.

"Well, yes."

"Then you're an organized religion.

"No, no! We're really not." he said. "One week, we'll hold, say, Iroquois services, and maybe next week, Pagan."

"So you're not even worshipping consistently?" I asked. "That seems like worshipping out of convenience, rather than faith."

"I don't think we're really even worshipping." He said.

I was stunned, and tried not to laugh. But I did a little, and had to apologize after I asked him "Then why go?"

I did apologize, because even when I tell someone I disagree with their faith, I don't want them to think I'm trying to convert them. I don't want to be converted, and I don't want to convert anyone else... everyone is free to hold their own religious beliefs, as far as I am concerned. If he wants to attend U.U. then I won't try to stop him.

Personally, though, I think worship should be something you feel compelled to do for your own reasons of faith and belief, and it should be fairly consistent; that is, if you believe in a certain Deity, then by all means, worship that Deity. But it kind of takes the punch out of it if, the next week, you're worshipping another deity in the same church. If I pray to Buddha one week, I probably shouldn't be leaving offerings to Mother Earth and Father Sky the next.

On a completely unrelated note, I saw a white stretched limousine pull into the local grocery store on my way to work today. I guess the limo has run out of Grey Poupon.

To Thine Own Self Be True
Topic: Religion
First, definitions, as they are intended within the context of this entry.
God: the entity or entities that is (are) responsible for the engineering of the universe.
Deist
Faith
Dogma
Religion
Organized
Theism
Heresy

For the purposes of this text, Religion will be defined as the overt and obvious actions of a person or persons as they apply to that person?s beliefs concerning theism.
Faith will be defined as a belief without evidence to support it.
Dogma will be defined as the code of conduct and the historical background of an organized religion.
Note that God, Faith, Religion, and Dogma are not synonymous, and should not be used interchangeably. They are not the same things.

Here?s what I believe.

Everyone should be allowed to believe whatever they want. It?s their life. It?s their after-life. It?s their soul. No person or persons should dictate to any other person what they should or shouldn?t believe? and if you disagree with me, that?s fine with me. I won?t try to tell you what to believe. I?ll just tell you what I believe and why, and if you disagree, I won?t be a hypocrite and tell you you?re wrong. I also won?t tell you you?re right. I may not agree with your belief, but I?ll respect it, in the same manner in which I want my beliefs to be respected by others.

I believe that God exists. I don?t pretend to understand the nature of God (or Gods, should polytheism prove to be accurate), and in this manner, among many other manners, I differ from a priest. For example, I am not a pedophile. (I know? cheap shot. They?re the ones that put up the target.)
I believe that God is benevolent, because an omnipotent entity that was malevolent could make things a lot harder on us than we currently, or in any other part of the history of homo sapiens, have it. If God had it in for us, any number of things could make us more miserable? we could have no opposable thumbs, for instance. Or no spines. We could completely lose our ozone layer and be forced to live underground. Things would be much worse if God was not benevolent, is the point I?m making here.
But because God is benevolent, God cannot interfere with our lives. By helping one person, God might be harming another. Not even God can please everyone. So the best thing God can do is give us Free Will; the ability to decide for ourselves what is best for ourselves, and decide our own beliefs, even if that decision is to refuse to believe in God. The choice is ours to make, and God will not make that choice for us, or we have no Free Will.
God will also not dictate to us our behavior, because, again, it violates the tenet and precept of Free Will. Our belief is just that? ours. Not God?s, not a church?s, not any other entity?s. Ours. Sole proprietorship. You have yours. I have mine. They are not the same, in all likelihood.

I am a Deist. That is, I do not ascribe to any organized religion. I believe in what I believe based on personal experience, logic, evidence, reasoning, and thought. Some of my beliefs coincide with those of one or more organized religions. Some of them don?t. I am therefore not part of any organized religion (although there is an organized church of Deism to which I don?t belong, since I believe that is an oxymoron). That?s why I am a heretic, and proud of it.

Any organization that attempts to dictate to its followers what to believe and how to worship is guilty of denial of free will. It is also guilty of behavior contrary to that of the God they claim to follow. To provide an example, I need look no further than the Ten Commandments in the case of Christianity. The first one is ?Though shalt have no other gods before me.? Aside from the concept that there are other Gods implicit in this statement, it is a direct order to believe first and foremost in the Christian God. It is not an entreaty to Free Will. And there?s nine more after it? not 10 Good Ideas, not 10 Suggestions, but Ten Commandments.

I?m not saying organized religion is completely bad, but it should only be seen as a guide for your own beliefs, and not a strict set of instructions to be obeyed unthinkingly and unquestioningly. To the contrary? think! Question! Get real answers, that really answer the questions and doubts you may experience! I think a person that requires a book to tell them, ironclad and unwaveringly, what is morally right or wrong is so amoral themselves that they are completely antithetical to the religion to which they claim fellowship or followership. Understand that there are no absolutes, and temper your decisions based on reality, and not solely by a black-and-white, no exceptions dictation from a book written 2,000 years ago by fallible men.

In order to evaluate whether or not you agree with the dogma of a religion, you have to have an opinion of your own concerning what?s right or wrong. You need your own set of values, ethics, and morality. And while a religion can provide you with that, it is self-defeating to accept it at face value and adopt it without evaluating it, and deciding whether or not you truly agree with it.

It?s not important what church you go to, or what religion you follow. What matters is that you believe something. Even Atheism is a religious viewpoint; it is believing that there is nothing in which to believe. And whether or not someone agrees with you isn?t important. It?s not supposed to be what they believe. It?s supposed to be what you believe. If God had wanted us to mindlessly follow a behavior and belief, it would be programmed into us. The simple fact we have the power to choose and decide implies Free Will. If an omnipotent entity wanted us to exhibit ten specific behaviors, they would be ingrained into us, and ten commandments would be unnecessary because we?d already behave that way without considering any other behaviors to be an option.

Your parents raised you, and gave you the tools you need in order to become a functional, responsible, self-sufficient adult. And now that you are just that, they no longer tell you what to do and how to behave, because they recognize your free will, like any good parent does. And they know you?re not perfect and that you?ll make mistakes, but they still love you, and take pride in you, and while they may advise you from time to time, they still know the choices are yours to make as you see fit, based on your beliefs and your situations. And I think that God is literally the ultimate parent. And I think God is like all other good parents, who will look on their children from time to time, without interfering. They may be pleased with the successes of their children, or saddened by their children?s failures. They may see that perhaps their children are not perfect, or quite what they?d hoped their children would turn out to be. But they?re still proud.

This is what I believe. Thank you for reading.

Coming Up for Air
Mood:  caffeinated
Now Playing: Yeah, right... like you need to ask.
Topic: Religion
I need help.

Oh, Gods... have mercy on your poor Heretical gamer, for my soul is, as always, mine, and my heart belongs to my wife, but my internet service belongs to Sony. St. Bosco the Gnarly, please don't forsake me. I'll be back, I swear... just as soon as my 'toons are all level 20 or more... both in trade-skills and adventuring... with all their armor quests complete...

Who the Hell am I kidding.

My name is Spidor, and I'm a Questaholic.

Hi, everyone.

I wanted to explain why I've been drooling on my keyboard and unable to post an entry since New Year's. It's because I've been drowning in the EQ2 morass of eye candy and unnecessarily long quests and crafting activities. Oh, sure, some of the quests are quick and easy. But I had a dark elf rogue that needed to be a swashbuckler, and you can't do that in Freeport. So, I had to send her to Qeynos, and betray Freeport to do it.

"How hard could it be?" I thought.

Well, Brothers and Sisters, how does "First, kill 500 gnolls" sound for hard? I became the Ted Bundy of Antonica, as far as dog-men were concerned. And worse, I preyed on the pups... the poor, weakest of them all, because they died quickly and respawned quickly too. And they were in an area that was near town, and considered safe. I invaded their play area and slaughtered them, one by one. And I did it 500 times. And... here's the punch line... I did it because I wanted to be one of the good guys.

I also had to kill 5 gnolls that were named leaders of their community, respected and followed by many. Murdering them was a blow to their society akin to killing Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. And I did it five times.

To become good. The end, says Sony, justifies the means.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

First, I decided to leave my friends and family in Freeport behind to suffer the fate which I wished to escape myself. So I went to a known Qeynosian sympathizer and asked him for a hint. He sent me into the sewers. That's where his contact was.

So I went down there, was killed once or twice because I couldn't sneak past the critters down there, leveled up, made it past the critters, and started talking to the guy. Next thing I know, he says I have to prove my sincerity by murdering a Freeport noble. I agreed, and he transported me to the murder site. I killed a guard that I couldn't sneak past, and went into the Noble's chambers...

...and bad things happened. Spoiler here. I'll let you find out for yourself. Suffice to say, I found myself in the graveyard outside of Freeport, looking for a way to Qeynos before the Freeport guys sniffed me out and had my guts for garters.*

Then I had to run through Nektulos. Brothers and Sisters, if my continued existence had not depended on it, I'd have never gone through there. But there's something you don't understand... if you start the betrayal quest, you can't level past 17 until you finish it. At all. You're done. So I had to go into a zone with things determined to murder me if they got close enough. They did, twice. I managed to make it to Thundering Steppes, though, and things got easier.

Not really.

AFter making it through the steppes, and entering Antonica itself, I talked to some zeeb who said he didn't trust me, so why not go kill a lot of gnolls and we'd discuss it again afterward.

It takes a long time to kill 500 gnolls.

Around about this time, I discovered I wouldn't be able to get an apartment in Qeynos until I'd given up the place I had in Freeport. To do that, I'd have to be inside Freeport. I also, about this time, discovered the same thing about my crafting society; can't join one in Qeynos until you leave the one in Freeport. Which means I had to go back through Nektulos.

I only died once this time. I was getting better.

After a few misunderstandings on my part, I found that it was easy to leave the society; there's a menu window for it, called "Societies." (Duh.) Leaving the apartment was a little harder. I had to sneak into the same sewer again, up through it into the sub-division that had my apartment, past the guards (who can see through sneak no matter what your level), and click on the door to get the apartment maintainance menu up. I had to pay 5 silver for rent just to do that, constantly looking over my shoulder for anything vaguely guard-shaped. I swear, those guards have Superman's eyes or something. And the luck! Twice I stuck my head out of the sewer cover just so a guard could lop it off, "it" being my head and not the sewer cover.

Eventually, I got around it by the simple expedient of creating a 'toon on my wife's account and going through the entire Isle of Refuge bit and bringing her to Freeport. You can ask any guard the location of an NPC. If you mistype the name, or put in a bogus name, the guard shrugs and acts more ignorant than usual, showing that Everquest is a game capable of creating Artificial Stupidity. So the new 'toon went into the sub-division, and waited until the guard was far, far away from where I would enter and where I wanted to be. Then she asked him the location of Gubywupr. The guard didn't know, because there's no such NPC as Gubywupr. Eventually, I got tired of typing names and just put in ppp, and that worked just as well. The guard wasn't going anywhere.

Once the 'toon was keeping the guard busy asking him where ppp was at the moment, I logged on with my account on Sputnik. Two-boxing, I snuck into Longshadow and kept the guard busy on the other computer simultaneously. I made it to the apartment and got the Hell out of there. Mission accomplished.

I didn't get killed at all when I went through Nektulos this time. Go, me!

After that, it was just a matter of camping the named gnolls (which counted toward the 500) and the last of the 500. I got another couple of quests that required killing gnolls (Sony hates gnolls, is my guess), and did those at the same time.

After that, it was a matter of talking to a few people, including fighting another one of them (a "bad guy" posing as a "good guy," go fig). All of these named NPC's, both gnolls and the one human, were too tough to solo, and it's a pain to get enough people together to kill just one of them, much less 6. Not many people Betray. I should have wondered why that was before I started. Because of the way the quest is structured, it's hard to find enough people to help you on it, that also need it. If it weren't for my guild, the Knights of the Old Order, I'd still be trying. Thanks and props go out to Katlanta, Trysten, Quix, Jerahmeel, and anyone else that helped but whom I may have forgotten because I'm a pinhead.

Once that was done, my character had gained citizenship, got the apartment, and is now my highest level 'toon (level 18) and ready to start Swashbuckler training. All in all, a nice wrap-up of a long quest that is a bigger pain in the arse than alcohol and laced suppositories.

And it only took 3 weeks.

Damn you, Sony! Give me back my ISP!



*Ewww.

Ye Gods
Topic: Religion
Ask yourself... how many gods does it take to create a universe?

Most people would say 'One.' I know I would.

Now ask yourself... how many gods does it take to mess it up when the first god isn't looking?

We live in a pretty screwy universe... There has to be a reason. Perhaps a perfect god created it... in perfection... then, while he was further down the continuum admiring the handiwork of others, some other god or gods came along and drew the cosmic equivalent of a moustache on the Mona Lisa which is our universe.

Perhaps the creator intended plants to pollinate on breezes, and a later god came along and decided that was too slow, so little critters needed to buzz from blossom to blossom, but some beasties would want to bite them buffet style, so they needed little barbs on their butts... Brilliant...

Eventually, perhaps, the creator will get back and look at our planet, and be shocked. He might gasp, and ask "Who told those little naked apes they could build anything? This world is ruined!" Then he'll dump the planet into a cosmic waste-basket. Maybe he already did.

Well, if you found a slice of bread covered with mold, obviously gone bad, what would you do?