CobraA1

Reply to How can we all be athiests in Off-Topic GalCiv2 Forums

that's my problem with syllogistic logic, it always relies on premises, and all premises are a priori at some point Yeah, my knowledge of logic comes from some informal logic and a little bit of formal logic at the Christian college, and later when I pursued Computer Science at another college I took a lot of propositional logic. Rarely have I seen syllogistic logic. And yeah, pretty much everything boils down to axioms and premises at som

Reply to How can we all be athiests in Off-Topic GalCiv2 Forums

from The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce: LOGIC, n. The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of human misunderstanding. The basis of logic is the syllogism, consisting of a major and a minor premise and a conclusion -- thus: Major Premise: Sixty men can do a piece of work sixty times as quickly as one man. Minor Premise: One man can dig a posthole in sixty seconds; therefore --

Reply to How can we all be athiests in Off-Topic GalCiv2 Forums

SORRY to reply to a post 2 pages old, but apparently this thread has gotten long pretty quickly, and I've been off doing other stuff for a while. Even a cursory examination of the Bible reveals several inconsistencies. Several books are provably altered (you can tell just by looking at the verse structure or continuity), and there are others where at least two authors were behind the book, and didn't necessarily agree with each other. First of a

Reply to How can we all be athiests in Off-Topic GalCiv2 Forums

It was mankind's fear and scientific ignorance that led them to fabricate Gods and religion in the first place. A nice story with no basis in facts, statistics, or any other sort of scientific methodology. This is a prime example of abusing science to make it into a religion. Religious stories were then passed on from generation to generation by word of mouth. Writing was established long before Chr

Reply to How can we all be athiests in Off-Topic GalCiv2 Forums

Actually, the age of the Earth is well known via radiometric dating. Now, before you mention that radiometric dating isn't a fact I'll remind you that the same theories that are used in radiometric dating are also the underpinnings for nuclear power reactors and nuclear weapons. It's not the theories about radiometric dating that are in question; it's the initial starting conditions that are in question (ie, the initial mother/daughter ratio), as well as

Reply to How can we all be athiests in Off-Topic GalCiv2 Forums

Actually, there is a great deal of evidence for the mutation and self glorification of religion since religious doctrine was originally a manifestation its oral history Well, I can't speak for other religions, but I would disagree in the case of Christianity. There are plenty of reasons to believe that much was written about Christianity for the authors of the gospels to not rely on oral tradition. http://www.christian-thinktank.com/stil21.html<

Reply to How can we all be athiests in Off-Topic GalCiv2 Forums

I guess the problem is that that style of talking about religions often assumes that they were purely man-made inventions and doesn't acknowledge that many religions believe that their scriptures were inspired. This style of talking about religion often assumes a purely naturalistic explanation for religions that most people would disagree with. It's a style of speaking that appears purposefully euphemistic in order to avoid talking about controversial issues such as the inspiration of scripture

Reply to How can we all be athiests in Off-Topic GalCiv2 Forums

Religion would be functionally irrelevant if so many folks weren't so compelled by their faith to indoctrinate others, by force if need be. Actually, if you want to be more specific, what many people call "atheism" is really naturalism - that is, the denial of the existence any sort of spiritual or supernatural. I would say this argument is the same for naturalists - I have met many who think religion is a horrible thing that should be gotten ri

Reply to Galactic Civilizations II: Dark Avatar 1.6 Change Log in GalCiv Journals GalCiv2 Forums

+ NEW: Computer AI updated to be better in diplomacy I have so many questions about what was actually changed. Any chance on a developer diary? Or was it more of a minor fix just tweaking a few values? Totally agree! Especially after the discussion in this journal entry! I'd love to know what decisions they made, and how much has changed <img src="http:

Reply to Sunny days and game development in GalCiv Journals GalCiv2 Forums

The bottom floor is empty right now as we prepare for expanion in the next year or two (we're always hiring). Where do I send in my resume? I've got a bit of programming experience, and I love playing the game! Only problem is, I live in Colorado, so I'd have to move to a new place to live .

Reply to The most dangerous people alive. in Off-Topic GalCiv2 Forums

My main reasons for not jumping right into school again is because I REALLY don't know what the hell to take that would be a 'profitable' career choice. Hmm, well even with a basic "arts" degree, you should be able to pull in at least $10/hour. I recently graduated from college, and I've already got such a job. I initially thought that maybe programming would interest me, but some devs and users on here have pret

Reply to The most dangerous people alive. in Off-Topic GalCiv2 Forums

On top of that, I believe that a civil war was 'instigated' to a degree by military planners. Some people believe the civil war has been going on for thousands of years. put Bush, Cheney and the other Neocon whacko's on trial for crimes against humanity (at the least!) While I have my doubts about the war, I hardly think it's a crime against humanity. Again, money tha

Reply to Game Play Example: Epic War! in GalCiv Journals GalCiv2 Forums

One question: as the Thalans fell and you lost trade revenues, I noticed your income was -236bc, but you were also maxing out your espionage at 1108bc, why not lower your spending to gain revenue for a military build up? Agreed. Espionage is important, but not enough to risk bankruptcy over. I'd lower espionage with the reduced trade. Interesting economic tactic - pushing the social rate up, allowing you to increase taxes while keeping the popul

After playing for a while, I just don't like the new spy system anymore in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

After playing for a bit, I've come to the conclusion that I really don't like the new spy system anymore. While I have nothing against the concept, the implementation makes the game one sided. It all essentially boils down to this: Can you afford to make more spies than your opponents? If you can, you have a quick and easy way to cripple your opponents' economy. And with their economy crippled, they don't have the resources to nullify your spies, so you can send them i

Reply to DA 1.6 Beta 2 Here in Beta Reports GalCiv2 Forums

Added some spaces. The issue is that IE expands the page to contain it (it's not actually supposed to do that, and in FF you can see that the text just runs right on off the side of the page and the rest is completely unaffected). Ugh. I've played around with a bit of web design myself, and it can be a pain. IE6 is the worst offender, and I recommend everybody upgrades to IE7 or Firefox. Also, using Standards mode would work better than Quirks (

Reply to The most dangerous people alive. in Off-Topic GalCiv2 Forums

Why not just sending over a squad of elite soliders to elinimate the terrorists then? Becouse demolishing the building using Tanks and Artillery is more PROVOKING as it most certainly also kills many civilizans. Umm, I dunno what planet you live on, but sending soldiers into a foreign country is called an "invasion" and most countries I know of would certainly take it as being more provoking, not less. In addition, I think Israel's n

Reply to DA 1.6 Beta 2 Here in Beta Reports GalCiv2 Forums

Very nice! Very noticeably faster, and a lot more playable . Odd, though, that 2D graphics could cause so much pain - even without GPU acceleration, I wouldn't think that 2D would cause so many problems. + NEW: The popup for adding money to negotiations on the trade screen will now open with the value needed to make the AI accept the offer (or the total amount i

Reply to Game keeps crashing in Bug Reports GalCiv2 Forums

*DEBUG ERROR: ***Ship graphics for fleet unit (Galactic Empire Fleet 353) could not be created: Ship 0:Drath Heavy Fighter M3-11 2463 Ship1:Drath Defender M3-11 1977 Ship2:Drath Heavy Fighter M4-4 4558 *** Hmm, unable to create graphics? Perhaps running out of some form of memory? Try turning down the screen resolution and/or texture quality. If you have antialiasing on, try turning it down or off. Then again, maybe it's just because it

Reply to The most dangerous people alive. in Off-Topic GalCiv2 Forums

However, I have some serious doubts whether Iran would actually use nukes if they had them, because I think the Iranian government and military would be scared of the retaliation. I think it more likely they would only utilize their bombs as political leverage against the USA and Israel, in the same deterrent purpose as Pakistan (also a muslimic country btw) uses theirs While I tend to agree with you, it's still a big chance - I'd rather not find out the

Reply to The most dangerous people alive. in Off-Topic GalCiv2 Forums

Nowadays we all know that the world wasn't created in seven days Correction: We hypothesize that the world isn't created in seven days. Unfortunately, our distant past is one of those things that cannot be directly examined, so what we have are all kinds of guesses as to what really happened. If everyone, or even a small majority, would just stop acting like ignorant, greedy, selfish peasants and do the same, we can ha

How to kill the campaign in Bug Reports GalCiv2 Forums

I found a bug in the campaign mode! When you finish a mission, you can view all of the scores. Now hit "Done" to start the next mission. Now hit "Back" to go back to the campaign screen. Now tell the campaign to continue. Whoops! Since there's no savegame corresponding to the current mission, things act weird and can crash! You can fix this by reloading the last savegame and winning the mission again.

Reply to The most dangerous people alive. in Off-Topic GalCiv2 Forums

Do not underestimate the power of human technology when we make a total commitment. Agreed. Now all we need is for people to regain the backbone that made our nation great and pour all of our resources into accomplishing it. If we can create railroads and roads that crisscross the country, we can change our cars. And IMHO, we shouldn't just go part of the way with hybrids - no, I say we go all the way with electrics. <div clas

Reply to The most dangerous people alive. in Off-Topic GalCiv2 Forums

Ouch ... please don't burn me at the stake! I promise I'll be good from now on. Here's 50 bucks for the offering plate. Do you like my sister? ... I'm not sure what you're getting at - the Bible doesn't teach burning at the stake, so this is just another example of how our religion was corrupted. I am not condemming anyone to Hell. I am just trying to show how silly present day "traditional" (aka believe in Jesus and r

Reply to The most dangerous people alive. in Off-Topic GalCiv2 Forums

Yes, like Shiva, Destroyer of Worlds, from India. You are an intelligent person, obviously. You would probably benefit tremendously from reading the books by Joseph Campbell I mentioned in my earlier post ("The Hero With a Thousand Faces", "Myths To Live By"). As I remember, perhaps not perfectly, Joseph Campbell touched on Shiva and thats how I learned Shiva destroyed worlds when it was time for them to go (every few hundred million years or so), not to be a "boogey-m

Reply to The most dangerous people alive. in Off-Topic GalCiv2 Forums

For example the myth that, sooner or later, we all have to kill each other in some kind of ultimate orgy of violence called Armaggeddon. Very interesting. From what I can tell, most older religions have some sort of deity destroying the world - the idea that man does it to himself seems pretty recent. It seems that the new Armageddon is global climate change. The wrath of the most depraved seriel killer is nothing comp