Lurker > SolaFide

Turbam posted...

Twilight Princess.
Last time I did my Zelda marathon, it ended up being my second favorite behind Majora's Mask.

Majora's Mask is my favorite too. That game's world building is unlike any game that I've ever played.
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"There is not now, ever was, nor will be, any man in the world "enlightened" but by Jesus Christ."
-Jonathan Edwards

I ordered Twilight Princess HD for the Wii U this weekend for the great price of $35 and I'm really excited to play the game again. I always thought this was my second favorite Zelda game after Majora's Mask, barely edging out Ocarina of Time.

I didn't play Wind Waker until a few years after Twilight Princess came out. I actually liked it, but not anywhere near as much as TP, OOT, or MM. I preferred exploring a whole world, not just sailing around the ruins of one. I also don't recall the dungeons in WW standing out very much. I remember TP's more even though its been waaaaaay more time since I've completed its dungeons. Still, WW was a solid game which I liked.

What do you like more and why?
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"There is not now, ever was, nor will be, any man in the world "enlightened" but by Jesus Christ."
-Jonathan Edwards

I cannot stand John Rawls' Theory of Justice. Not only is the book enormously dry and boring to read, but the ideas are absolutely awful.

TC, have you considered reading Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America? Harvard's professor Harvey Mansfield remarked with justification that it was at once the best work about democracy and the best work about America. It is my favorite work of political philosophy and feels enormously relevant to our own lives because of his constant emphasis on the real, lived experience of democratic people. He offers the antidote to both the radically individualistic conception of government espoused by philosophers such as John Locke and Thomas Hobbes as well as the hyper-collectivist political pantheism of G.W.F. Hegel and Spinoza.

Depressing to see people recommending Spinoza and Nietzsche, who are mostly interesting due to the things that they got wrong and not because their philosophy is really worthwhile in and of itself. Nietzsche in particular, due to his radical reorientation of the entire tradition and discipline of philosophy, is most interesting when compared to thinkers who completely opposed him, such as Plato and Augustine.

If you want a humane and workable political philosophy work, Nietzsche and Spinoza are basically the last people whom you should read IMO.
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"There is not now, ever was, nor will be, any man in the world "enlightened" but by Jesus Christ."
-Jonathan Edwards

Dr. James White, a famous Christian theologian and apologist, took Ehrman and Harris to task for their distortions and ignorant statements that they made in the podcast that you linked. In particular, he showed that they had no command over basic Christian teaching, despite Ehrman's supposedly evangelical background. If he actually believes that the atonement is no different than human sacrifice, then he never had any basic comprehension of the Christian gospel. If you want to hear an intelligent and distinguished Christian respond to the claims spouted by these radical skeptics, watch the Dr. White video.

Howl posted...

I honestly don't know the answer to that question. Bart Ehrman is extremely knowledgeable about the issue though and is definitely worth listening to. He was raised Christian, became a born again Christian, got a PHD in theology and ultimately became an agnostic. I don't believe anyone can make the case for being Christian or for not being Christian better than him honestly.

Please. I can point you to plenty of brilliant Christians who were formerly atheists or pagans (Augustine, John Calvin, C.S. Lewis, etc.). Just because Ehrman got a Ph.D. at a seminary which has as its mission the destruction of Biblical truth (Princeton) does not mean that he is right about his claims.

Dr. R.C. Sproul also got a Ph.D. from an uber-liberal seminary (Free University of Amsterdam) but he was a strongly conservative, evangelical Protestant. He was also an unbeliever for most of his life prior to his studies. Are you going to listen to what someone like him has to say about Christianity?
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Our wisdom, insofar as it ought to be deemed true and solid wisdom, consists almost entirely of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves.
--John Calvin

http://www.relyonhorror.com/in-depth/went-wrong-silent-hill-hd-collection/

Some interesting tidbits of information here which shed some light on why this game limped over the finish line and disappointed so many Silent Hill fans.
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Our wisdom, insofar as it ought to be deemed true and solid wisdom, consists almost entirely of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves.
--John Calvin

California's gun control laws, the most stringent in the nation, sure did do a lot of good today.

Squall28 posted...

utarefson posted...

Another senseless and in my opinion, preventable tragedy.

It has to stop. Left and Right in America need to stop fighting each other on this, your children are dying. Working together is the only way you will prevent more tragic loss of young lives.

Lol no.

Liberals: Let's fix this!
Conservatives: No.

There's no equal fighting. It's conservatives blocking.

You should probably change your signature since you dislike conservatism and Winston Churchill is one of the greatest conservative statesmen of all time.
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Our wisdom, insofar as it ought to be deemed true and solid wisdom, consists almost entirely of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves.
--John Calvin

It really made my day.

Sorry
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Our wisdom, insofar as it ought to be deemed true and solid wisdom, consists almost entirely of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves.
--John Calvin

lilORANG posted...

Augustine was mostly full of shit. Aquinas was a way more #woke Christian thinker.

Funny, I literally have the complete opposite position.

Augustine's keen sense of the gravity of sin, his belief in the complete and total need for God's grace to be saved, and his understanding that government cannot completely eradicate human toil all make him a precursor to the Western tradition of limited government and constitutionalism. My first ever publication, actually, was entitled "Augustine and Limited Government" and dealt with this very question.

Aquinas, conversely, had extraordinary optimism in the capacity of human reason to solve all problems. Rejecting the Platonic-Augustinian tradition and instead borrowing from Aristotle, Aquinas brought the message away from the one supreme Good, God, and instead pointed the medieval church towards a more humanistic, man-centered theology. This is why Martin Luther called Thomas Aquinas "the source and foundation of all heresy, error, and obliteration of the Gospel." Politically, Thomistic politics has tended to be statist, with the most influential Catholic neo-Thomist, Jacques Maritain, arguing in Man and the State that one-world government "perfectly squares with the basic principles of Thomas Aquinas political philosophy."

This essay in Modern Age Journal by the political philosopher and former Senator John P. East does a great job of laying out the considerable differences between the two theologians' political theology:

https://isistatic.org/journal-archive/ma/16_02/east.pdf
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Our wisdom, insofar as it ought to be deemed true and solid wisdom, consists almost entirely of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves.
--John Calvin

Kyuubi4269 posted...

It's compensated volunteering, you weren't employed by them, just given cash to help you campaign for your political group.

That isn't so, though. I was literally employed by the Republican Party to be a field organizer for a whole region of Virginia during the state's gubernatorial race. Anyways, all of this is beside the point and completely irrelevant.

Point is: Don't work as a political field organizer / campaign staffer. Literal nightmare.
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Our wisdom, insofar as it ought to be deemed true and solid wisdom, consists almost entirely of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves.
--John Calvin

Kyuubi4269 posted...

SolaFide posted...

If your 2 week / 1 month stipend was converted into an hourly rate then it wouldn't even be minimum wage.

So it's not a job, so not applicable.

It was definitely a job, it just didn't pay you with an hourly wage. It was a fixed two week wage since you worked a fixed amount of hours every two weeks.

I just say all of this to dissuade anyone from working on a political campaign lol. Goodness that was the worst job in my whole life.
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Our wisdom, insofar as it ought to be deemed true and solid wisdom, consists almost entirely in two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves.
--John Calvin

Kyuubi4269 posted...

SolaFide posted...

and it may all be for absolutely nothing if the guy loses.

Don't you get paid?

Yes, but not very well for the amount of time / effort that you put into it. If your 2 week / 1 month stipend was converted into an hourly rate then it wouldn't even be minimum wage.
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Our wisdom, insofar as it ought to be deemed true and solid wisdom, consists almost entirely in two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves.
--John Calvin

Political campaigning is flat out the worst job ever. Seven days a week, 12-13 hour days, physically arduous work since you walk about 15 miles a day, and it may all be for absolutely nothing if the guy loses. I don't see how anyone would choose that over retail if they had the option.
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Our wisdom, insofar as it ought to be deemed true and solid wisdom, consists almost entirely in two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves.
--John Calvin

sauceje posted...

Says the person whose username is "Thamauturge"

Also, thanks for reminding me how bad my username was. Thanks to you, I looked at the GameFAQs username change eligibility form and found out that I was eligible for a name change =)
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"To God let votive accents rise; With truth, with virtue, live; So all the bliss that Time denies, Eternity shall give."
--John Quincy Adams

Darklit_Minuet posted...

Christians tend to only celebrate horrible people. This isn't a surprise

The one person who all Christians celebrate is Jesus Christ. Do you think that he was a horrible person?
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"To God let votive accents rise; With truth, with virtue, live; So all the bliss that Time denies, Eternity shall give."
--John Quincy Adams

Metro2 posted...

He opposed gay marriage.

That's enough to know that he's not worthy of admiration.

Sounds like you are quite a bigot against Christians, Orthodox Jews, Muslims and every other religious group which has traditionally opposed the practice of homosexuality.
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"To God let votive accents rise; With truth, with virtue, live; So all the bliss that Time denies, Eternity shall give."
--John Quincy Adams

MedeaLysistrata posted...

I like the part where he steals the pears and then feels really bad about it

I think that you are misunderstanding the point of that story. Augustine admitted to being a pretty reprehensible young man in his Confessions. He didn't just steal a pear; in fact, he had lived a life-style of sexual indecency, had physically hurt other people in acts of violence, and had committed all manner of other terrible things. The significance of the pear story was that this was the first time in his life where he realized that he was doing something wrong just to commit evil. Before that, he had rationalized away his wicked deeds, but this time, he could not do so.

I love that story because it shows a truly repentant heart. According to the classical Christianity that Augustine adhered to, there are no sins worse than others. Any sin--as minuscule as it may appear to fallen men--results in eternal perdition aside from a true repentance and heartfelt faith in the promise of God.
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"To God let votive accents rise; With truth, with virtue, live; So all the bliss that Time denies, Eternity shall give."
--John Quincy Adams