"If a person doesn't think there is a God to be accountable to, then what's the point of trying to modify your behavior to keep it within acceptable ranges?" -Jeffrey Dahmer
This is a most excellent question. If Jeffrey Dahmer was still alive today how would you answer his question?
Would reality be answer enough? If I were to punch a brick wall as hard as I could enough times, I'd probably have a lot of broken bones. So I don't punch brick walls for sport. Morality is a conceptual application of this real cause and response nature of reality; the things we do to ourselves and each other affect one another in a multitude of ways. It makes sense for beings that want to live as long and/or as happily as possible to realize that fighting amongst each other unnecessarily does not have a very good long term payout. It's a combination of our ability to understand and recall logical systems both internally and in application (i.e. analyzing scenarios) and our ability to understand how others feel based on similar experiences and/or social cues that gives us purpose not to run around like a crazed lunatic and kill people on whim.
If I were to believe that God doesn't exist, I'd pretty much immediately adopt a Randian/Objectivist philosophy of morality. That seems to be the most logical way to view a world without God if you ask me. If God does not exist, then selfishness is the ultimate virtue. In a world without the existence of God the idea of making any sort of sacrifice for others is illogical.
Based on what reasoning?
[Edit;] I just realized I replied to a post from the first page and there are 4 pages. Ignore this if it's already been answered.
I don't think a government's express interest should be protecting minorities, but rather protecting their means to exist and function within the context of society.
Who's talking about government? Isn't it possible for private citizens to decide, "Hey, the demonstrators are being xenophobic pricks", or "Hey, the immigrants are being homophobic pricks", or both, or neither, without the government stepping in?
Yes, of course, but citizens have no power to enforce their rights here.
From what I've inferred this is not really a deliberate attack on the immigrants per se. Rather it is forcing the hand of the left to make a decision. Do you support the LGBT community at the expense of the Muslim community? Or do you support the Muslim community at the expense of the LGBT community? Either way one of the minority groups is going to be sacrificed to the altar of social justice, which in turn exposes the gross inconsistency behind trying to defend multiple minority groups that are at odds with each other.
I'm not familiar with Sweden's politics, but I would hope that they would be on the side of freedom of expression. If a Muslim wants to say that LGBT people are black-hearted sinners who will not be granted the fruit of the afterlife, so be it, so long as they aren't doing anything other than expressing their opinion on the matter. I don't think a government's express interest should be protecting minorities, but rather protecting their means to exist and function within the context of society.
What I find useless is the notion that scientific method is the only way to determine origins. Who is to say that God created the universe (and the things in it) in a way that science cannot understand or fathom? It may very well be impossible to completely understand the grand underpinnings of our universe.
Maybe a deity has decided that human comprehension will never be able to truly understand how life on earth came to be and asks you to believe his account of creation as a matter of faith. It is hard for those who worship at science to accept the fact that there god is not all knowing? No scientific evidence does not automatically equate to no evidence.
Then again that may be easy for me to say seeing as I do hold the opinion of agnosticism in regards to origins of life.
The means we would use to reliably get to the conclusion that the truth value of assertion "G" is unknowable would be by using, at least in some part, the scientific method. What exactly do you think we would reference to justify such an assertion? Something other than our tests regarding this matter?
I don't think anyone here plays as much as they used to. I pretty much only play limited and only do constructed when I can find quirky decks (I like the Rally/Collected Company list in standard, but the rest of the format has been very boring, and elves looks like something I could get behind in modern). Good luck in life, bateleur, and perhaps we will hear from you again if you have a change of heart.
In other news, prepping for GP Detroit (team sealed) with my team with mock pools and build phases. We pulled a sick GB elf deck with double Shaman of the Pack, double Gnarlroot Trapper, and double Sylvan Messenger, aaand triple Yeva's Forcemage. In the second pool, we got a sweet UG stall deck with The Great Aurora and Gaea's Revenge with Sphinx's Tutelage as an alternate wincon.
Saffi and Retainers are in play; you sacrifice Saffi targeting Retainers; after Saffi's trigger resolves you sacrifice Retainers targeting Saffi; Saffi's trigger goes on the stack on top of Retainers so that return order is Retainers - Saffi; repeat. As others have noted, this combo doesn't accomplish anything on its own.
I think one of the biggest problems with Huskar is that you have to put him into the middle of the fight without any real escape mechanism, meaning a team with any form of CC and one phys carry will usually shut him down. He also really lacks synergy with a lot of other popular heroes.
Chapin's PT win almost felt like a long service medal to me! I didn't like the gameplay much, though. Thoughtseize really hurts the format, I think. Feels like topdecks matter too much.
The new Conspiracy expansion sounds like fun. I'm assuming it won't come out on Magic Online, though, so I probably won't get to play it. (Or if I do, not for a long time.)
Agreed on both. Even in games without Thoughtseize, it generally came down to the midrange-mirror-topdeck kind of game those decks tend to yield.
My latest draft deck. 2-1, lost to a sweet WB constellation deck in the finals with 2 close games. P1P1 I decided to take Heroes' Bane over Charioteer because the only white left in the pack was Akroan Mastiff, while green had some playables that I thought might table. Ended up with a mostly green deck, picking up a Xenagos and Destructive Revelry P3.
Well is Medusa still the hard carry she was back in Warcraft III? If so, then she'd be harder to be successful with due to the amount of farming you'll need to do.
I still think Vlads is core on him against in most games, and Diffusal and Orb of Venom are probably the two best to get, the Orb you obviously get earlier. I'm not sure how Deso works with his passive.
One thing that's happened this patch: after nearly a decade, I have finally gotten good at Dusa. My very first hero and yet it's been one of the hardest heroes in the game for me to learn.
I'm not sure I'd agree with the notion that she's hard to learn, but relative to the rest of the heroes in the game, being successful with her is pretty hard.
Heroes Downfall may be readable at times, but being an instant certainly makes it worth it. It depends mostly on your curve, but I'd guess that Downfall is better 90% of the time.
Did you guys miss my post? Selesnya Charm solves this problem while also being a live spell for plan A.
It's a good point. Oppressive rays is fine for early tempo type plays and that's where most of your wins will happen. By the time they have a bigger creature, a god or whatever, the selesnya charm should be able to take care of it.
For me the drawback of needing a mountain is pretty serious. I would rather do rays and selesnya charm.
I could see Chained to the Rocks being used as Selesnya Charms 5-8, though I personally wouldn't play more than 2 because of the aforementioned lack of mountains. In theory, I'm not a huge fan of Oppressive Rays; when it's good, it's great, but when it's bad, it's practically a mulligan/skipped draw step. I would honestly rather play Reprisal if we're going that route, as it's more reliable.
Would reality be answer enough? If I were to punch a brick wall as hard as I could enough times, I'd probably have a lot of broken bones. So I don't punch brick walls for sport. Morality is a conceptual application of this real cause and response nature of reality; the things we do to ourselves and each other affect one another in a multitude of ways. It makes sense for beings that want to live as long and/or as happily as possible to realize that fighting amongst each other unnecessarily does not have a very good long term payout. It's a combination of our ability to understand and recall logical systems both internally and in application (i.e. analyzing scenarios) and our ability to understand how others feel based on similar experiences and/or social cues that gives us purpose not to run around like a crazed lunatic and kill people on whim.
Based on what reasoning?
[Edit;] I just realized I replied to a post from the first page and there are 4 pages. Ignore this if it's already been answered.
Yes, of course, but citizens have no power to enforce their rights here.
I'm not familiar with Sweden's politics, but I would hope that they would be on the side of freedom of expression. If a Muslim wants to say that LGBT people are black-hearted sinners who will not be granted the fruit of the afterlife, so be it, so long as they aren't doing anything other than expressing their opinion on the matter. I don't think a government's express interest should be protecting minorities, but rather protecting their means to exist and function within the context of society.
The means we would use to reliably get to the conclusion that the truth value of assertion "G" is unknowable would be by using, at least in some part, the scientific method. What exactly do you think we would reference to justify such an assertion? Something other than our tests regarding this matter?
In other news, prepping for GP Detroit (team sealed) with my team with mock pools and build phases. We pulled a sick GB elf deck with double Shaman of the Pack, double Gnarlroot Trapper, and double Sylvan Messenger, aaand triple Yeva's Forcemage. In the second pool, we got a sweet UG stall deck with The Great Aurora and Gaea's Revenge with Sphinx's Tutelage as an alternate wincon.
Back with a mono white 3-0 cube. Started out with Wurmcoil Tinker, then ended up in white with a very powerful white pool.
Very unexciting, I don't think my deck was well suited for it at all.
Agreed on both. Even in games without Thoughtseize, it generally came down to the midrange-mirror-topdeck kind of game those decks tend to yield.
My latest draft deck. 2-1, lost to a sweet WB constellation deck in the finals with 2 close games. P1P1 I decided to take Heroes' Bane over Charioteer because the only white left in the pack was Akroan Mastiff, while green had some playables that I thought might table. Ended up with a mostly green deck, picking up a Xenagos and Destructive Revelry P3.
I still think Vlads is core on him against in most games, and Diffusal and Orb of Venom are probably the two best to get, the Orb you obviously get earlier. I'm not sure how Deso works with his passive.
I'm not sure I'd agree with the notion that she's hard to learn, but relative to the rest of the heroes in the game, being successful with her is pretty hard.
I could see Chained to the Rocks being used as Selesnya Charms 5-8, though I personally wouldn't play more than 2 because of the aforementioned lack of mountains. In theory, I'm not a huge fan of Oppressive Rays; when it's good, it's great, but when it's bad, it's practically a mulligan/skipped draw step. I would honestly rather play Reprisal if we're going that route, as it's more reliable.