Things Zaq and Company are no Longer Allowed to do in an RPG: 540-590

541: Not allowed to use explosive bombs while fighting onboard a wooden ship

542: Not allowed to take Favored Enemy: Party Member.

543: Not allowed to accidentally summon a hydra during an alchemy experiment

544: When accidentally summoning a hydra during an alchemy experiment, I am not allowed to shunt the blame onto an innocent bystander.

545: I have not been hired to assassinate another party member

Art

At long last, it’s time for me to blog about the fifth pillar of the fight against religion, art. There are three main aspects to this pillar that I wish to discuss. The first aspect is art about atheism, the second is art by atheists, and the third is art with atheists. There is of course some overlap, but it is where the second two aspects do not overlap with the first that we need improvement.

Community

No, I am not talking about things like TAM, the Secular Student Alliance, or the Rational Response Squad.  This point is not about atheist communities.  The term ‘Community’ here refers to atheists’ interactions with other communities, and the way they are viewed by those communities.  In particular, I’m going to talk about atheist charities and social action campaigns, and the role they serve in improving the image of atheists worldwide.

Liberty

So I have FINALLY gotten back to that long-ago series about how to combat religion (and more importantly irrationality) with the atheist movement.  In case you’ve forgotten, my last post in this series was about atheist increasing their Presence in America.  This post is about making that Presence a force for Liberty in a way that highlights the moral depravity of religious doctrines and demonstrates the ability to separate morality from religion.

Things Zaq and Co. are no Longer Allowed to do in an RPG: 451-490

Hey guys.  I fell a little ill this weekend, so here's some filler.

451: Not allowed to railroad the DM

452: If I find a Gygax module uninteresting, making it interesting should not involve making it harder
453: 22 Orcs is an inappropriate response to powergaming
454: “Tender Loin” is not an appropriate name for my loincloth-wearing barbarian.
455: Monsters do not regularly line their pockets with mousetraps

Presence

Before delving into this topic, I should let you know that much of my information is coming from this publication by the Pew Research Center.  The slated release date was October 9^th of this year, so it is quite current.  I’m going to be pulling various numbers from it, but if you’re interested I strongly recommend reading the article itself.  The Full Report is also available, though it is quite long.  I will also warn you that I may use some of these numbers in other posts in this series.

Integrity

For the past year or so, my mom has been keen to keep reminding me that she doesn’t believe in anything like the classical concept of God.  Of course, this is always a prelude to her spewing out some crap about connectedness, spirituality, or homeopathy.  I point this out because by the way most atheists use the term, my mom is technically an atheist: She doesn’t believe in anything worth calling a god.  However, in terms of our end goal towards a more reasonable tomorrow, my mom does not represent any substantial progress.

The Five Point Plan

As you are undoubtedly aware, the past decade or so has seen a lot of atheists taking a stand against religion.  We’ve seen a proliferation of high-selling anti-theism books like The God Delusion and The End of Faith.  We’ve seen the formation of groups such as the Secular Student Alliance, the Rational Response Squad, and TAM.  We’ve seen an explosion of atheistic internet content, from Facebook and Blogs to Reddit and YouTube.  And the vast majority of this content shares a common theme: Religions don’t make sense, and many of them are quite problematic and need to be eliminated.

Beating Religion: Strengths and Weaknesses

Last week I identified the two wildly different mindsets that frame religious and irreligious thinking.  This week I’m going to highlight some of the strengths and weaknesses of the Guardian mindset.  I am going to skip such an analysis for the Seeker mindset, because it is not terribly pertinent to what I have in mind.  The results of this exercise in analyzing the Guardian mindset will be utilized next week, when I look at the kinds of strategies we need to employ in order to beat religion.

Beating Religion: Seekers and Defenders

In this post, I am going to highlight what I think is a very important difference between skeptics and dogmatics (by which I mean “those who follow a dogma which is not supposed to be questioned”).  The two groups tend to have two very different mindsets when it comes to the concepts of truth, knowledge, and morality.  I am terming these two highly distinct mindsets as the “Defender” mindset and the “Seeker” mindset.

Things Zaq and Co. are no Longer Allowed to do in an RPG: 401-450

401: Our party’s power level is not measured in terms of the number of Elder Dragons required for an effective ambush.

402: Not allowed to include factorials in my skill check DCs
403: Unless the DM explicitly states otherwise, I am to assume that the curvature of the planet we occupy is not substantially different from that of Earth.
404: The Mage template is hereby banned.
405: My superiors’ level is fixed at “Party Level + 10.”

Things Zaq and Co. are no Longer Allowed to do in an RPG: 351-400

351: Not allowed to incorporate sound bites into my campaign
352: “Get mauled by bears” is not a part of my plan
353: Not allowed to pretend my slavemate is my child
354: I have not seen more imposing towers in my pants

355: My minion character is not allowed to get the jump on the Tarrasque

Things Zaq and Co. are no Longer Allowed to do in an RPG: 301-350

Back

301: Kobolds do not reproduce by fission

302: Zombies do not give run time errors during the speak with dead ritual
303: I AM wearing pants
304: Not allowed to use my opponents’ genitalia as a shield
305: Not allowed to sneak phallic imagery onto the overworld map

First Cause Part III

So we’ve finally come to the last of the articles in the First Cause series.  In this post, which is significantly shorter than its predecessors, I will identify one final, damning flaw in the Argument from First Cause (AFC).  The flaw comes from getting stuck in “backdrop” mindset, where time and space are thought as a sort of background, separated from the matter and energy that exists on the main stage.

First Cause: Part I

In my experience, the so-called “Argument from First Cause” (henceforth the AFC) is the most popular “justification” for belief in a God.  As one of my friends put it, he finds it absurd to believe that the whole universe exists “just because.”  Unfortunately he never did answer me when I asked whether he wanted an explanation for the universe’s causal history, or an explanation of its purpose. 

Things Zaq and Co. May No Longer do in an RPG: 251-300

Back

251: There is no such thing as thermite-doped blood

252: Not allowed to devolve the session into a debate over the definition of chemical castration
253: There are no rules for making seduction checks while comatose
254: When I ask if we’ll need to bring weapons and the NPC tells me my weapons will be checked at the door, I am not to take this as advice to bring concealed weapons.
255: Not allowed to ragequit

Special Delivery

Last week we talked about the idea of using religion as a source of morality, which turns out to be about as productive as using religion as a source of technology.  Realizing this, several have taken to promoting yet a different purpose for religion.  It is actually a fairly rare endeavor, but I suppose I’ll address it for the sake of completeness.

Morality From Religion

I think it’s about time I got back onto the topic of religion.  So next under consideration is the idea of religion as serving some moral purpose.

Things Zaq and Co. May No Longer Do in an RPG: 201-250

Back

201. My time mage’s catch phrase is not “Apocalypse 100 years from now!”

202. Not allowed to produce any infinite spell loops
203. Not allowed to create Unlimited Blade Works in-game
204. Not allowed to summon an infinite amount of weaponry, armor, vehicles, and robot soldiers
205. Not allowed to create an infinite pocket dimension to hold my weaponry, armor, vehicles, and robot soldiers

Things Zaq and Co. May No Longer Do in an RPG: 101-150

Back


101.        Bardic Knowledge is not the solution to every problem

102.        Not allowed to own a hat of disguise

103.        Not allowed to index my common disguises using the numbers pi, 1337, and aleph-naught

104.        Not allowed to steal an NPC’s identity

105.        Not allowed to steal a PC’s identity