I’ve gone and done it…

Posted on January 5, 2008
Filed Under Games

I’ve defected from EVE to WoW, I’m certain to go back to EVE in future and I’m sure that WoW will only be a passing phase. The main reason I’m defecting is becaus I have RL (thats real life, to those of you not up on the lingo) friends who play WoW and I want to play a game with them that doesn’t involve lugging my PC across town. If anyone has any recommendation’s of a class to go (I’ll be playing Horde, not sure which race as yet) feel free to make suggestions.

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Comments

3 Responses to “I’ve gone and done it…”

  1. no imagemike Janarch (Who am I?) on January 16th, 2008 7:53 am

    Dear keith neilson

    I stumbled across your site quite by accident (chance). The first thing I read was a complaint that the people, ungrateful bastards that they are, were not responding. I had some difficulty finding a response box when I decided to write something. Maybe a more visible response button would help.

    Next I read your statement on religion. I swear, before I write about religion:

    I won’t try to save, convert, defrost, deflect, or defrag you in any way.
    I am not a believer.
    Feel free to believe whatever you like.

    That having been said…

    I used to be a believer. One Sunday at Redeemer Lutheran we were reciting the creed and it suddenly became very clear to me that I didn’t believe any of it, from “I believe in god the father almighty” on down to “world without end. Amen.” I am not a bitter atheist, however. There is a place in god’s world for a few atheists. We have our uses in the divine scheme.

    God is our creation, as is religion, as are all the concepts and practices that go into it. If god had existed, we wouldn’t have had to invent him/it/her/them. Sometimes religion, faith, and its various offspring (like liturgical music) are glorious, and then there are times when our religious creations are rather awful - pretty much what one could say for any human endeavor.

    An aside:

    I grew up in a small town in the midwestern part of the United States - Minnesota. Its where the Mississippi River starts. The people who settled Minnesota (after they got rid of most of the Indians) were Germans and Scandinavians. One tended to be either Roman Catholic or Lutheran. My ancestors were from Northern Ireland and England and had immigrated between 1690 and 1815, roughly. I was raised in a seriously methodist home. Not believing was not an option.

    Lots of people, especially younger people (I’m in my 60s - yes, ancient) avoid organized religion like the plague (which it can be). They try to create new faith from scratch. Great project.

    I you don’t mind, I would like to offer some observations about your faith. You can take it or leave it.

    “Our perception of our universes cannot come from nothing, there must be a cause. This cause is the true Universe. The one that exists independently of us, outside of us, feeding us stimuli which our brain interprets and filters creating our universe. This is my god.”

    While you are correct that I can’t see what you see with your eyes, and visa versa, I wouldn’t push the uniqueness of your perception too far. After all, the only reason we can do anything together in the world (like buy a cup of coffee or design a new video game) is that we do see the same universe, more or less.

    I like your statement that “Our perception of our universes cannot come from nothing, there must be a cause.” Right.

    The first cause is that the universe is real. We live in a real world. If I pick a ripe strawberry, smell its rich aroma, and give it to you to eat, you will (probably) like it. If I hit you on the head with a stick, I know it will hurt, you know that it did hurt, and that says something about how we experience the universe in similar ways.

    We are 100% part and parcel of the real world. We can never separate ourselves from it. We are made out of the stuff of this universe. Strictly material people. Even the thoughts bubbling up in our brains come from this world - because our brains are just more matter which is miraculously able to think.

    There is another piece of the Universe which you might resent, because it limits your freedom to think and do and believe whatever you want. That piece is human culture, without which you wouldn’t recognize yourself. We can’t even start talking about religion and faith without suddenly becoming tangled up in 3000 years of theological and philosophical discussion.

    We learn language, and with it culture, from the moment we start breathing. It’s inescapable, and if we did escape it, we would end up like severely autistic children.

    “I’ll stick with what I know and understand. It may be that there is no purpose to our existence but that smacks of nihilism and I won’t stand for it.”

    I grew up in a god-soaked culture where the whole universe was stuffed with the very specific purposes of a rather particular god. Once I stopped believing, (it took years to accomplish) I was rather happy to have a purposeless universe. It just IS. It isn’t in the process of achieving goals. It has no strategies. The Universe issues no progress reports. There are no plans. Now, the Universe is not nihilistic. It just is. You could be a nihilist, but you already said you wouldn’t stand for it, so that won’t be a problem. Purpose? That’s up to you. That’s what you get for being animated matter with a mind. You get stuck with the task of creating a purpose for yourself. Please, Mr. Neilson, don’t worry about the purpose of the Universe - you will max out your computational resources very soon. Just settle on your own purpose in your own corner of the Universe.

    Love your wife, teach your children well. Reduce your carbon footprint. There’s a purpose. Teach Peace - Study libertarian philosophy - collect stamps - grow your own garden. All kinds of purposes.

    So enough of this now. Feel free to correspond if you want to talk about religion, purpose, defining who you are in a wide open universe. I’m game to try.

    An aside:

    You should know a thing or two about me. Not only am i twice your age (which will probably make me seem so last century) but I am a socialist as well. I like to fan the flames of discontent. I agitate. I comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.

    Write if you feel like it. mikejanarch@yahoo.com

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  2. no imageMaldiveslive (Who am I?) on January 18th, 2008 9:46 am

    Well Done

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    		1.6
  3. no imageLynsey (Who am I?) on January 22nd, 2008 2:27 pm

    Max’s ho hits you with FOF missile wrecking your ship with 8000000000 points of damage.

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