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Not according to the Roman Catholic Church itself. 

But yeah, it's an incredible cesspit of a topic. I suppose we're past the "agree to disagree" stage? 

None I know of, sorry. IIRC, you can't create stuff like objects, characters or GUIs at run-time. You'll have to do a workaround.

Perhaps some people just dislike this sort of unfounded pretentiousness. You know, you sometimes can be angry at something without secretly belonging to that group. For example, I vocally dislike rapists.

There is some bad blood in this thread, agreed. But this sort of thing has a tendency to be emotionally charged, and I can totally understand Khris. I suppose if you're up against "arguments" like these, your fuse eventually shortens a little. For example, I'm sounding like a condescending asshole right now!

Misinformed posts of the not even wrong variety have a tendency to leave people a little aggravated. It's a human thing.

Belief is "holding something true without evidence". I don't do it. It's as simple as that.

There's always gotta be at least some evidence. The difference is how much credibility a person gives to it.

I am a sentient obelisk from Alpha Centauri, which is made of green cheese and also marble. I started travelling in the year 3050, which is why I didn't arrive until 2012. I invented Calculus back in elementary school, shortly before George W. Bush's twin sister came up with the rest of mathematics. 

I'll leave the details to Khris, but lemme just throw this out there... you haven't exactly studied the field of Formal Logic, have you?

I saw this a while ago and posted here:

http://ags-ssh.blogspot.com/2009/08/forums-just-wont-go-down-biatch.html

Oh. Hmm, maybe I should read one of those blaghs once... 

1.) Jumping in jet turbine, so as to earn a first place at a cracked list of "goriest deaths ever".
2.) "Joke's on you, motherfuckers! I discovered <something important>, but the plans are encrypted! Hah hah hah!" *pthrrrrrrbt*

Or, alternatively, something pseudo-religious to mess with the conspiracy nuts...

"Watch what happens next... now there is nobody left to strangle the Avatars, humanity is going to suffer an equally gruesome fate... DOWN WITH THE LIZARDS! *shrrrlbt*"

Not bad, thread. Not bad at all. (And yes I realize the number of opened topics went up as well, but it's still rather disproportional).

Oh boy. I still don't believe this.

This.

Akatosh, when you claim that sceptics reason to be is to attack the beliefs of others then in no way I will ever give you any credit. If you think about it, you have just made anti-sceptics job easier.
If that is not the case then please rephrase yourself and I will retract myself if needed. I don't want to start a personal war with you or anybody.
My friend, this days you don't have someone forcing you to believe in anything, you are free. Meaning your view of the world is like the old guys from the Muppet's show.

Yeah, it's entirely possible we fell victim to a misunderstand here, so first, lemme throw some definitions around. The term "skepticism" comes from the old Greek word skeptomai (or 'σκέπτομαι'), which means to look about, to consider. It's a method of inquiry, of obtaining knowledge through systematic doubt and continual testing (as Wikipedia eloquently puts it), and I consider myself a skeptic in exactly that sense. If you don't bring forwards arguments against a belief or theory, how could you check out its consistency and/or validity? If you don't try to poke holes in theories, analyze implications and possible consequences, show contradictions and so on... how could you find out if there is a rebuttal, if the faith or theory can be defended? The best way to find out if a theory could be valid or not still is to try and disprove it. Similar things go for philosophy.

I apologise if my usage of the term "attack" implied something I didn't mean it to. I meant that critical thought should be applied to religion as well as other philosophies and theories. And of course, doubting involves bringing forward arguments against something. That is the basis of critical thinking. I hope we have just fallen victim to a misunderstanding here, as "anti-skepticism" would ultimately be the end of rational thought.

And Waldorf and Statler are awesome, although they have no relevance to the debate at hand (as those two are all about personal taste, not organised rational doubting). If those were the only choices available, however, I'd much rather be like them than Douglas Adam's Electrical Monk (which is what true anti-skepticism would be).

That's a great post there, Misj'. Now, would you mind going to play outside while the adults talk?

Seriously. Khris has so far been one of the most level-headed people in this thread, and I daresay his understanding of science is a fair bit better than that of most people who posted here. Also, I seem to have missed the point where he accused believers of having been responsible for National Socialism, or claimed skepticisim was worse than satanism (miguel's post implied that), or has been trying to discredit critical thought and observation. I mean, what the heck?

Simply put, if a belief collapses as soon as it is questioned... why hold it? If it doesn't line up with reality... why pretend it was true? If a concept is not needed to explain the facts... why slap it on? If you were right, you should be able to defend your worldview without resorting to attacks on logic, of all things.

Sure, people help other people. Sometimes the former people are religious, sometimes they aren't. From what I have seen, the distribution sort of reflects that within the general population, so I'm not really sure what your point is. I left church after a lot of agonising soul-searching, and am now donating the money I save that way (Germany has a 'church tax') to charity directly, ensuring that the money goes to the needy, instead of risking it to be sunk into more church pomp. Personally, I'd be much more comfortable if people used their money to further, say, cancer research instead of having it wasted on bigger mosques or better ceremonial wine.

It's nice of religions to use some of their income to help the needy. I'm just not sure why you would need the middle man.

(Also, with all the suffering they have caused and, sometimes, still cause, I think they have a lot to make up for, as well. )

... so rational thought doesn't actually exist? Critical thinking is non-existence? It's better to believe in any old garbage, as long as you believe in something? By gosh, excuse me for thinking about stuff instead of accepting it at face value! I shall believe in anything I'm told from now on.

I don't hate religion, and I haven't been hurt by priests either (although Mr. Himmelmann has a tendency to bore you to tears, despite his awesome name). I think it rather silly, that's all, but as I said... you are free to believe whatever you want. However, your philosophical views will be debated and your falsifiable claims will be examined, just as with every other theory or philosophy on the planet. I quite frankly don't see why we should enforce a double standard for you guys.
I cited the Middle Ages purely because it was the first example that came to mind, that's all. Religious persecution still goes on in the world, to this day. Try saying you're an unbeliever in, say, Saudi Arabia. They're still somewhat polite to the "people of the book", but Atheists or Agnostics? Better have a fast method of transportation near.

Nice claims there. Why should religion be a "pillar of humanity in what we all consider decent laws towards human rights"? The Bible directly denies us Freedom of Thought and Freedom of Religion and basically aims to force us to adhere to a strict set of arbitrary orders (go Book Leviticus!) under threat of extreme torture, without a fair trial. Heck, the system it proclaims is no more and no less than a dictatorship, what with Judicative, Executive and Legislative powers concentrated in the hands of one person, who threatens a fate worse than death upon us if we dare to dissent. Plus, that guys actually violates the laws he himself set up. That... doesn't sound very humane to me.

Not really. The custom function is really just for convenience's sake. All you have to do is to find out you can set the x and y coordinates directly, and that shouldn't be too hard, even for a beginner.

Hm... maybe, maybe not. It probably depends on the education you've gotten in the mean time; it's a rather trivial observation that the more you understand about how stuff works, the less vulnerable you are to "magical thinking" like that. I've been raised a Protestant, and so far the only crystals I have in my room is a geode (which looks neat, but has so far failed to cure my short-sightedness).

Also, you really really don't need religion for a pro-"common good" society like that. Case in point: Kantianism. Plus, the RCC actually enforced a caste-like system during less-than-honorable parts of its history, with a monarch on top (because you are to honor rulers, as they are appointed by god), followed by the clergy (because they alone know how to interpret the sacred word) and assorted nobles (because they, having or being capable of raising soldiers, protect agains the unbelievers), with everybody else being rock bottom (peasants because they're pretty much a consequence of God's curse upon humanity, traders because YHWH hates wealth, ...). To this day, the RCC still has an authoritarian structure. Christianity is not above being interpreted in this way.

And we don't attack other people... just their beliefs. Ultimately, you're free to belief whatever you want, but as soon as you make falsifiable claims, they will be scrutinized like every other theory out there. Why should we treat you guys any different than anybody else?

Mh, not neccessarily. It doesn't really require religion to become a victim of magical thinking. In a worst case scenario, it'd more of a symptom than a cause. Well, unless the church itself does the exploiting (Tetzel ring a bell?)...

Look up "Overlay.CreateTextual" (or something like that) in the manual. It's explained there quite neatly.

How so? The Atheist line of argument goes that there is no conclusive evidence that hints at the presence of gods, so there is no reason why you should believe they are around. I'm not so sure where belief comes in there.

Aye to that. "But <name> said <quote> about <philosophy>, which makes it <true or false>!" is rather silly when dealing with beliefs.

Still, the unbelievers didn't bring up Nazis first, so we win.

While we're at noting stuff, keep in mind that believers are not without their mass-murderers. Take a look at the Crusaders or the Inquisition, for example. I am quite sure they would have been at least as bad the modern dictators, had they had the technology. Once a person believes, truly believes they have found the One Way To Salvation Of Humanity^TM, they become capable of nightmarish atrocities.

Atheism has nothing to do with it. Stalin killed for the dictatorship of the proletariat, to save people from The Capitalist. Hitler killed for the dictatorship of the race, to save people from The Jew. The inquisition killed for the dictatorship of Christianity, to save people from The Satan. The taliban kill for the dictatorship of Islam, to save people from The Sheitan, and also basic human rights. See where I'm going with this?

That can be very easily accomplished via a custom function. Or, if you want to cheat, you could do this:

Code: ags

player.ChangeRoom(player.Room, 25, 50);
player.PlaceOnWalkableAreas();