DiabloFans

Quote from maela

<input type='button' class='bbc_spoiler_show' value='Show = more stuff' />

Quote from Winged

Quote from Azjenco

Also, I don't really think we can all see the image of a god in the same way. That is truly stupid to imagine and the idea of a universal religion is nonsensical. I mean, look at how we have grown as a species, even in the span of only a thousand or even a hundred years. Today we see things in a totally different light that the people who wrote the bible, we don't even speak the same language anymore (and by language I mean our state of minds and how our society understands one another).
That even holds true today. A person who lived his entire life in rural China family man is so different from a rich, bachelor New York businessman, or even Bear Grylls who takes nature by the horns, these three people are practically alien to one another. So how can you expect their spirituality to be the same. They each understand the world and the universe around them in complete unique perspectives, so how can you possibly expect them to experience a god in the same way?

You have a solid point, and this is why I believe in Objectivism form a philosophic stand point, and wish more people knew about it. To spell it out shortly, we have to ask, what it philosophy? Philosophy is the science of the nature of existence. Objectivism is (as any philosophy) a base of basic concepts which guides your life, and gives you the principles to make your own choices. It tells you that the reality you perceive exists, that your understanding of it should be based on knowledge, nothing should be taken on faith, and a man's reason is his most powerful tool.

I think everyone, from any background, has a basic reasoning in which they can pull from if it's not covered up by other peoples' views in which they were taught. That could lead into tradition, which I also think is a foolish thing in most cases. Why should I eat fish during a certain time of the year, what good does that do me if I dislike fish? Different topic X( *pulls hands off keyboard*.

Anyway, I think Objectivism is as close as any one has gotten yet to a clear lens in which ti view the world. I'm sure it will change over time with new philosophies, but that is part of Objectivism, if the change is rational and for the better, than it should happen.

Winged you raise an interesting point with philosophy... want to ask you about 2 points you raised... just to give me some clarity on the philosophy itself.

1. In every situation there is going to be other people's views that influence our own... drawing this backward in time ... where did the first person's views come from? Was that individual truly unique and creative to come up with all the ideas we have today? Where did the basics of thought come from? Why are humans the only ones to have ideas about God/No God? How does objectivism deal with this?

2. Objectivism -- the reality you percieve exists... therefore if I perceive a reality in which there is a God does that mean there must be one? Or does it only deal with physical things? This seems a rather limiting theory if that is the case... what about something that no-one has experienced yet??? does that mean it does not exist? lets take our neutrinos travelling faster than light... they have been doing so since... forever... however objectivism would say that this could not have been until we found a way to test it?? is that correct?

Good questions, but I fear the answer won't be as complete as you'd like.

1. There was no one person who sparked the very first true idea. As we know, people evolved from lesser mammals, who learned things pretty much via a mix of chance and necessity, thus why evolution itself takes so long. So when speaking of the first rational thoughts, you have to realize the progression of intelligence does exist, this is a fact. So in short, the basics of thoughts came from necessity, and chance. Even basic creature knows right from wrong to some degree, they don't run around killing them selfs, that wouldn't help their species. This is very, very basic, and where complex thoughts evolve from over time. We have concepts of Gods because we're at an intellectual level where we have consciousness, we can look in a mirror and comprehend that we exist, and that that's us in the reflection. So with that comes complex problems, like death. We try to find solutions for these problems, Gods and other metaphysical concepts are the only way to create solutions for them, since everything we know so far says that when you die, that's it. People don't want to accept this, so they have to turn to faiths, be it their own rendition of one, or a current concept.

2. No. If something is unproven, it shouldn't be a bases for a choice, that is a better wording. This is a very deep concept, so I'll follow suit with this. Lets say you believed in heaven, and in your religion there was no rule against suicide. So why not just kill yourself to get there? If you believe it, and it's better than here, than why not get there faster? Because it's not reasonable, and deep down you'd know this. There is no proof of it, so risking your life over it isn't logical. This concept can be brought back to topic in that, again, making choices on faith isn't reasonable, but that isn't to say these things don't exist, just that to our knowledge they don't, and should be perceived as such until evidence in presented.

Quote from Sabvre

Thats EXACTLY my point. Even if the universe continually collapses and expands... at some point time, matter, and energy needs an origin because it belongs to a universe governed by relativistic physics. In order for all that we know about science to be true... everything that we know and understand about relativistic phyiscs/ quantum physics needs to hold true under all cases within the universe. If this does not... then science itself is flawed and our entire understanding of the universe is flawed.

As I said earlier. God (which again is not a guy sitting on a throne) does not need to be governed by the laws of physics, and therefore does not need an origin. If god created time... why would he need to exist within it?

PS: Aethiesm is an oxy-moron. Most aethiests truely are not aethiests after all. Science is in and of itself a religion. Just like being unable to prove god, you are unable to prove science. You can never prove a fact 100%, you can only disprove something. This said, science is the fundamental creator for all these aethiests and therefore becomes a god.

Our knowledge, however limited, is the only logical thing to base our decisions on. Yes, it's likely that all of our science will one day be proven wrong, or at least incomplete, this isn't a new concept. This isn't to say we're completely wrong about everything though, if you believe this than you fall within the the philosophical group called Antirealists, where to put it very simply, claim that science itself is isn't worthy of being proclaimed as factual. Not all facts are based off science though, take mathematics, 2+2=4 correct? It takes no reasoning or science to come to that conclusion. If you pinch yourself it hurts, right? Which means your nerves are sending signals to your brain, which responds through a complex system of nano electro static charges and allows you to feel pain, that is science. But in its basic form, the question takes no form of reasoning to answer. Since we can predict these happens, that 2+2=4 and pinching yourself causes pain, and all things of the like, we can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the reality we live in has a constant, and thus can be studied, and learned about, and means that facts do exist. This constant can and will change over time (lots of time), but this again falls under the concept of a solid reality in which we live. Of course there are still near infinite things we know nothing about, but using anything but reason to ponder them is a shame, since reason is the only thing that has guided our race this far.

Even the most profound, out of the box thoughts that can be mentioned, can be classified, and broken down into some branch of philosophy in which it can be reasonably looked at. Your view leads to nothing but dead ends, and doesn't use any of our races' hard earned knowledge to stand on. Metaphysics is indeed a branch in itself, and pretty much where this thread would fall under, so outside thoughts are good, and I'm not condemning you at all, just putting my views in as well.

Also, science is not a religion, in any sense. Science is the tool in which we use to understand happenings in nature, that it all. Philosophy 1 in county college covers this right off the bat.

Quote from Azjenco

Also, I don't really think we can all see the image of a god in the same way. That is truly stupid to imagine and the idea of a universal religion is nonsensical. I mean, look at how we have grown as a species, even in the span of only a thousand or even a hundred years. Today we see things in a totally different light that the people who wrote the bible, we don't even speak the same language anymore (and by language I mean our state of minds and how our society understands one another).
That even holds true today. A person who lived his entire life in rural China family man is so different from a rich, bachelor New York businessman, or even Bear Grylls who takes nature by the horns, these three people are practically alien to one another. So how can you expect their spirituality to be the same. They each understand the world and the universe around them in complete unique perspectives, so how can you possibly expect them to experience a god in the same way?

You have a solid point, and this is why I believe in Objectivism form a philosophic stand point, and wish more people knew about it. To spell it out shortly, we have to ask, what it philosophy? Philosophy is the science of the nature of existence. Objectivism is (as any philosophy) a base of basic concepts which guides your life, and gives you the principles to make your own choices. It tells you that the reality you perceive exists, that your understanding of it should be based on knowledge, nothing should be taken on faith, and a man's reason is his most powerful tool.

I think everyone, from any background, has a basic reasoning in which they can pull from if it's not covered up by other peoples' views in which they were taught. That could lead into tradition, which I also think is a foolish thing in most cases. Why should I eat fish during a certain time of the year, what good does that do me if I dislike fish? Different topic X( *pulls hands off keyboard*.

Anyway, I think Objectivism is as close as any one has gotten yet to a clear lens in which ti view the world. I'm sure it will change over time with new philosophies, but that is part of Objectivism, if the change is rational and for the better, than it should happen.

Quote from Umpa

Why is it whenever an atheist refers to the idea of god, it's always a sweeping generalization that creates these clear lines of division like "no crazy heaven or bearded jesus".

I know personally I just use common examples, like Heaven or Jesus. The concepts in general though are pretty clearly defined I feel, they are either rewards or punishments in which there is no proof of and often lead to terrible happenings among difference religions. Not to mention they change over time as the religion develops, which when speaking of the people who follow the hard copy rules kind of makes no sense.. The simple fact that they change over time should raise a red flag that they're not from anything other than the minds of people.

Why do atheists always seem to attack the fundamental, elementary concepts of god? It's as if the two extremes are always at war. Atheists take their shots at the hardcore religious nutjobs and the hardcore religious folks have the most hatred for the non believer. Why do atheists never seem to want to discuss more abstract ideas rooted in different ideologies? Obviously I'm not referring to you Proletaria. You know even more about this stuff than I do.

Again speaking for myself, I would love to discuss the gray areas. I hope that's there this topic goes.

And because of that, why do people rush to label themselves? Why not just wait and find out? Why take a stance to specifically set yourself apart from others who could be right. But really you have no idea if you're right, if they're right, or if we're ALL wrong. I would rather admit that "I have no clue" than say "Well, given this evidence and this and that, THIS must be the answer...At least thats what I think." At the end of the day all "evidence" is nothing more than reaching.

Well, turns out all my responses are going to be of myself lol, big surprise right? :P. I personally dislike religion as a whole for not only the reasons I listed in my last post, but also because I feel believing in anything that crutches a fear, or is based on nothing more than faith is unhealthy for the furthering of our understanding of those unknown concepts. Accepting reality how we understand it, and not settling for "Well idk, so screw it" is a huge way we push our understanding of reality.

I accept that I have no clue if there is or isn't a God, and have no grounds other than human logic (which could be hugely flawed) to speak of. One thing I'd like to bring up on this though, is you're never forced to prove a negative, only positives. So on this front this concept as a whole of believing in something unproven, and so influential on our world I feel deserves all the attention it can get.

EDIT:

To quote a person more wise than myself, my last point lends itself to Ayn Rand and her short segment in a five part interview on various topics in which she was asked about religion.

Ayn Rand

She touches on better then I why we should't just wait it out and accept that we don't know if anyone is right, when people are committing to things that not only can't be proven, but cause harm to both society and furthering our understanding of the reality around us.

Whether or not you agree with her religious views, one has to admit she is a brilliant philosopher. If anyone who choices to click on that link above hasn't seen that five part interview, or heard or her in general, I urge you to at least watch the who interview. A person that down to Earth should be learned about in order to, again, further your understanding of the reality around you, be it religious or otherwise.

Just to be clear, since I do come across so set in my opinions, I am very open minded. When I am shown something of depth and value, I take it in, I don't push my views out and over anothers' if theirs have legitimate claims. If a point is brought up that knocks a leg from under my chair of reason, I will happily fall.

This is one thread where I have not read any responses before posting this, though I plan to afterword since I feel every viewpoint deserves to be pondered. My reasoning for this switch-up is to preserve my opinion without the influences of frustration, since admittedly some opinions on this matter can easily irk people, thus swaying their view temporarily.

Following the quote in my signature, I'll try to keep my response as short and concise as possible while expressing my views.. No promises on the short, or concise part, since again as the quote suggests, in order to explain something simply you must understand it completely, and I feel no person understands this topic enough to do so.

As for formatting, I'll try to keep it easily readable, since even the most interesting topics can be turned on due to walls of text.

I'll open up with I do not believe in a higher being. I was brought up in an open minded family with many views on the matter. For example my mother is Wiccan. Each had their shots to seed their views in my head as a child, but none stuck with me. Looking back this doesn't surprise me, I was the kid who never believed in Santa, the Easter Bunny, or any other fantasy being, including a God. This isn't to say I didn't have my brief time where other peoples opinions swayed me. During my young teens most of my friends where from very religious families, which sadly were the kind of people who liked to try and push their views on young minds. After so many speeches about God, Heaven, Hell, and the punishments I'd receive if I stay on my path, purely out of fear I picked up the concept for a solid year or so, and started going to Church with family members, praying when I wanted something to change, and fearing that someone was always looking down on me when I did bad, and praising me when I did good, this should have been the reason I wanted to be a good person. This belief didn't last long, I knew it was out of fear, and when I grew strong enough to stand up to that I stopped everything cold turkey.

Enough of my history on the matter, since that's not what this topic is about.

More on point, I don't see any reason to believe in a God if you're wise enough. The concept seems to lend itself to mans fear of death, love of power, and subtle yet primal will to do good. I feel these three core concepts drive the wide spread adoption of a higher being. Mind you I'm putting this together on the fly, I don't have a set thought process on this matter, I just feel these three concepts explain my view well.

There's death, which no man wants to face. The concept of an afterlife puts this fear to ease. Now this leads to some interesting actions on people's behalf. In some, or even most cases, this has a positive influence on society. In most religions people are encouraged to do good in order to receive some wort of reward. Than there are the religions where people are encouraged to cause harm, these thankfully are the minority. Either way it shows that people are so afraid of death and or suffering, that they're willing to live their lives under a set of rules to be rewarded in one way or another. Be it blind faith or not, this has its up side, but also opens people up to being controlled, which brings me to my next point.

There's power, this subject is more complicated, so I'll try to keep it straight forward. There are many ways this manifests when talking about religion, I'll list the negative first. There are corrupt leaders, corrupt systems, and bending of the guidelines of the religion to take advantage of its' people. All of these have been seen very publicly in recent history. There is also I believe some reasoning in this to why parents push their views on children. Be it subconscious or not, I feel some parents do this because they need control in their life. This goes beyond just their kids and religion, but I feel if the parent is lacking control in their life, this is just another way to try and find it. By teaching their kids their views they not only get a sense of satisfaction by passing on their knowledge, but also are hoping their kids follow the religions views throughout their lives, thus making it easier for the parent to give reason behind why things should be done a certain way. This isn't always a bad thing, again most religions encourage good things. It's when this concept is brought too far, or the child doesn't accept their parents views that things can get rough. This is another topic though. I guess I kinda got into the good in there also, so in general I'll just state this concept does have it's pros also.

Then there's the will to do good. This is what I feel holds the world together, be it religion of otherwise. Speaking of religion though, whether it be a side effect of appeasing the God(s) or not, it's one part of religion that I'm glad exists. Most religions have a set of rules, commandments, etc, in which you follow to get a reward. This reward varies from an after life, to powers, among many other things. Thankfully most of these rules are to do good, helping others, not doing bad, general good manners. I won't go into this too far because it's pretty obvious.

Put those three together and I feel you get what one needs to believe, if you're close minded enough to do so.

If you're more open minded and down to Earth, I believe you flip those things around, and see them for how they really are.

Death; it's something worthy to be feared. The concept that you end and that's it is pretty saddening. I feel though this is what makes life so damn beautiful. By accepting this I've spent my life looking at things so much differently than others. Everything, good or bad, is an experience, something can be learned from it, and for no other reason than I know it will improve my life. Not for some God, not to appease any higher being, but just because I love living, and I want to improve the quality in which I do so. Death makes life beautiful, and I think after you accept that it very well could be the very end, life becomes so much more real.

Power; again, even on the flip side of things this topic is complicated. From a non-believers side power has similarities and differences with a believers side of it. It can still corrupt, and often does for the same reason, people want it and when they have it they'll do anything to keep it. Though there's key differences also, which again is a whole other topic. To keep this concise, I'm not going to list these reasons, because I feel they're too far of the topic. One could easily think of some though, the roll of power from an Atheists point of view. Just think selfless thoughts, and they'll come to you.

The will to do good; thankfully this is embedded in most of us. It makes us feel good to do good. In fact many times it feels better to do good for others than it does to do good for only ourselves. I find it saddening though that this isn't enough, it seems there needs to be more incentive for people to act on this. This is a huge reason why even though I don't agree with religion as a whole, I feel it is necessary for humanity right now. We're simply not selfless enough to do good without punishments for not doing so, and rewards for doing so. Maybe we're getting close though, as time moves on we're starting to see people act on nothing more than good nature, with no religious ends. There is also bad things happening in this concept, but there will never be all good or all bad in a species.


On another front all together, I feel religion steals powerful experiences form us, and stamps it with its' ownership. The term "religious experience" itself puts ownership to epiphanies. Every now and then in ones' life through a powerful, and often extremely good, bad, or deep experience we come to a big conclusion. In this moment it all seems clear, the dots line up, and all the sudden you're sure about something. In many cases people call this "finding God", or a "spiritual awakening". I feel these terms steal from the true nature of these beautiful events. To put in personally, I feel it's when you finally get enough pieces of the puzzle to see the picture as a whole, it is your brain saying "Whoa, now that makes sense!".

To draw a quote this video, "When I compare what scientific knowledge has done for me, and what religion tried to do to me, I sometimes literally shiver." I posted that video a while ago here, and I hope you watch it. It's not perfect, it doesn't reflect exactly how I feel, and frankly I don't like his cockiness on the matter, but it's a good watch none the less.

If we as a species could accept science as the only truths we'll ever come across, the fact that science itself is still far, far, so damn far from all knowing, and the fact that furthering it is the only way to move our species forward, I feel there won't be a need for religion. I do believe it will happen one day, when life is accepted to be short, and sweet, that there is near infinite unknown, that living our lives healthily and well shouldn't have to be a rule to happen, and that it doesn't matter if everything will one day end; the fact that you're living well, and helping others in one way or another should be enough to make this life worth it, not for any end means of heaven, or other rewards. Accepting pressing facts like death and the eventual end of everything is the only way to truly live.

When we're ready to see this, it'll happen naturally.

As stated a few times now, I feel the general idea is there, and currently is fun and empowering, but could never the less be improved upon. I would change these few things personally.

1. Increases the speed in which objects move when acted on, mostly when falling.

As a Barbarian player I do enjoy the way powerful attacks send things flying in all directions (up most of the time). However, the rate in which they fall does make the enemies feel less threatening, almost as if your brain assumes they're just blowup dolls. The Unburied don't suffer from this effect, as upon death they nicely (gruesomely) fall apart, and the parts roll around rather heavily. They feel much more solid upon death, and thus appear more threatening over all.

1. Increase the friction in which the environment has on moving objects.

Another point that has been brought up is how objects slide around. What I can bring to this subject is I've noticed objects seem to suffer more from this effect when first acted on. For example a newly slain zombie may slide almost out of sight, but when you strike its' corpse it may only slide 1/5 the way it did the first time. I'd prefer a little less sliding at first.

1. Add more roll to objects

There is very little roll to objects, and even less after they've been acted on the first time. They seem to rather slide across the ground than roll side over side. Considering they are indeed true 3D objects, I'd very much like to see them use this to their advantage and roll rather than slide.

A good thing I can note about this though is objects you'd expect to roll better than others normally do. For example severed heads roll rather nicely, while planks of wood do not. This is a tribute to the true physics engine. I do think, again, that it needs tweaking though, as whole corpses in particular almost never roll, and always slide.

Quote from girthyman

The Gargantuan (3rd group of pictures, last pic) seems pretty happy to be there.

I had to examine the pic for a few seconds before I got it.. lol. It's even outlined in red, so it seems it's some part of him.. Maybe that's a Runed version of him, ;).

O_O... Those are some awesome pics!

Very interesting, I'm really happy with how they are all looking :).

Going by past experience, and by what tests Bliz is looking to use the beta for, I personally would go all in on the chance (likelihood) that there will not be an open beta for D3. Just because Bliz pushed the release window to early 2012 (only a couple months back most likely) doesn't mean they're going to give in and have 20,000 people flood the beta ;).

Gears of War 3 Hoard Mode is the freakin :Pooo!

Idk, I just played Gear of War 3 Horde with my friend, it's pretty amazing how much they've put into Horde.

Quote from Dezi »

Btw - do you guys think that it is still possible for a release date accouncement at blizzcon? - I think it has a fair chance

I'd say after this, it's highly unlikely. The fact that they pushed back their original window means they're even less sure of when they'll be done with certain aspects of the game.

No one can resist the urge to :Poooo!

It saddens us at Diablofans to have to announce this, but bad news is best served fresh. The target release window for Diablo III has officially been pushed into 2012.

UPDATE: As you have likely noticed, the original Blue post has been deleted off of the Official Site. We'll wait for further word on the matter and update this post accordingly.

UPDATE 2: A fellow Diablo follower from another site was able to capture the linked post in its entirety. With this as further evidence, it seems the Blue post itself was in fact legitimate. As it looks, the post was promptly taken down shortly after its publishing.

A special thanks to Soul for bringing the image to my attention.

UPDATE 3: The post is back up on the Official Site.