@arigoldstein88: Yep, exactly. I'm letting my bias for Truth cloud my judgment.
You, on the other hand, are letting your heart cloud your judgment. Judgment should be left for the mind, and only acceptance is for the heart.
If you have something that the mind can accept, feel free to say it. If not, then don't make assumptions about how others reached their conclusions, especially when you have nothing to sell but songs for the heart.
@arigoldstein88: We are living in an upside-down time, where everything is upside-down. The truth is believed to be falsehood, and BS is believed to be the truth. So I'm not surprised that people like you view Trump as a "moderate reformer". I know what a moderate reformer is, and Trump is much more of a comedy-show presenter than a moderate reformer. What's worse ... it's not like Trump is from a different club than all the previous recent American presidents. Democracy is an illusion, but believe what makes you feel good.
@lionheartssj1: What you say in your last comment is fair enough. And I'm grateful you can at least have a civilized exchange online, contrary to countless people out there today who use the cover of anonymity to easily become hostile and rude to others for nothing more than differences in opinion or belief.
One thing I can mention to you is that I've done my fair share of comparative religious studies, and I've invested perhaps hundreds of hours in debating with Jehovah's Witnesses, Christians, atheists, and others. I've also invested a similar number of hours in reading criticisms against various faiths and their scriptures and also reading the responses of those faiths' apologetics to the criticisms.
And one thing I can tell you is that when it came to Christianity specifically, with the dilemma of allegedly being a monotheistic religion that worships a Holy "Trinity", and the many examples used, from water to the cloverleaf, to try to force an explanation for this hopeless dichotomy, and the conundrum of having a half-human half-god hybrid who was supposedly spat on, insulted, tortured then ultimately murdered by some of the lowliest of human filth and scum on the planet ... just to save me from my sins, yet I still need to "repent" and believe and do good for some reason ... and the many other conundrums and dichotomies in the modern Bible and the modern Christian belief system ... with all that, I've come to know it as a fact that to be a modern Christian is to be a person who is forced to muffle the voice of reason in your head, over and over again, to block out all rationality when it comes to certain tenets, and use your heart and only your heart ... to accept some things that no sane, healthy, working mind can ever accept ... to ignore incessant, pressing, vital questions that force themselves upon your rational mind, and call them "too much attention to detail" or legalism ... and just focus, so very hard, on the "big picture" of love and sacrifice. Even if that big picture is built on a huge, worrying pile of nonsense. Nonsense like a trinity-obsessed monotheistic belief system.
Genuinely speaking, no offense intended. I was just being as politely honest with you as I could and sharing my findings. May we, both, be guided to the truth every day, wherever it is.
@lionheartssj1: I fail to understand what context or chapter can ever justify the killing of unarmed women, let alone children. It's funny how we live in a world where most think that the most violent religion in the world is Islam, when its prophet, commonly described as a pedophile -- while people forget that Juliet from Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet was 13-years-old so one can only imagine how it was centuries earlier, ordered his followers to not cut down even a tree in warfare! Muhammad ordered his followers to behave this way in warfare, to not terrorize civilian homes, to leave closed civilian homes as they are, to not kill women or children, to not EVEN cut down a tree! And with all the "violent" verses that skeptics websites will love to quote out of the context of warfare in the Quran, you will never, ever find a single verse about killing women or children, and this agrees perfectly with Muhammad's orders to his followers. On the other hand, we have the so-called "religion of love", Christianity, coming with its lauded holy book, the Bible, and the Bible contains verses with alleged orders from God to not leave a woman or child alive AND to pillage villages. Christians around the world don't even know what their Bible says and just oh-so-love to use their country's state media and propaganda to so self-righteously point fingers at Islam and Muslims, using few extremist examples as excuses. The sad part is, others follow suit, non-Christians also hop on that bandwagon and convince themselves that Islam is the religion of violence, when textual evidence from the religion's real books, not from few human examples, clearly demonstrate that Christianity is actually the justified religion of violence, and it's justified very clearly by its own holy book. Oh, but I forgot ... when you try to study every word from the "Word of God", that's called ... legalism.
Guess what? Muslim scholars are encouraged to practice "legalism" with the Quran. Every single letter, let alone word, in the Quran is important to Muslims and they're encouraged to study and even scrutinize it to "understand". Christians apparently can't do the same, because that would be ... "legalism", and you gotta "look at the big picture". Apparently, they have certain words in the "Word of God" that simply should not be looked at very closely. Let's cover them, never read them, and pretend that they never exist. And while on it, let's watch lots of Fox News and learn more about how "violent" Islam and Muslims are.
Yep, that makes total sense.
And by the way, I know what you said and what you didn't say; save it.
@arigoldstein88: "A moderate reformer little [like?] Trump". HAHAHAHAHA.
Sir, I DO hope you're VERY good at hiding sarcastic jokes because I ACTUALLY thought you're serious. xD
Hahahah. Trump! Little, moderate reformer.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAhahahahahhah.
I'm not even American but if the 50+% that voted for him are dumb enough to think that way, then they deserve him and nothing less than him. Good on you, man, whether what you said is true or not. Today will become history, and history will tell.
@lionheartssj1: The Western propaganda machine would be more than happy to feature religion-related stuff when it comes to extremists linked to Islam, too. I'm not sure if you're suggesting that they aren't but it sounded like it. The problem with doing that is that the most popular Islamic reference is in Arabic, not English, and there are dozens of English translations for that original Arabic text, and not all those translations are liked, accepted, or even recognized by moderate Muslim scholars or leaders. Many of them will outright tell you that this or that translation is misleading and dishonest, when trying to translate verses related to war, for example, intentionally in order to depict the religion as a violent one, rather than to emphasize that it's humans that choose to misinterpret certain texts then also apply them at the wrong times or places to produce the worst results. And perhaps there's some truth there; it's not like no one in history has ever taken text out of its context in order to sell you their devious, misleading propaganda.
On the other hand, the most popular Christian reference today is not in Aramaic unfortunately; it's in English! So it's very easy to get very specific about parts that you quote, or misquote, from the Bible. And a lot of it is well-known anyway, even to non-Christians. Also, let's face it, some parts related to violence in the Bible, especially ones mentioning women and children specifically, are easily used to create fictional, extremist, violent cults. In history, they were apparently used to create real violence, after all, against slaves and enemies of the Crusaders, whether they be Muslims or other peoples, and so on.
By the way, some Christians have read similar words in the past and were apparently surprised and asked me to quote these or those parts. It's easy to Google this stuff. I'm not an atheist but I gotta give it to atheists who label themselves as "skeptics"; they've created quite the databases out there to search for any criticism against your chosen faith. You can check that out, then check out the responses of your apologetics and see if the responses make sense. Then again, some people don't care if their faith makes sense; they just care about it appealing to their hearts. To each their own anyway.
It's funny how many of the comments here are supporting the banning of guns, when this is exactly what these news about the shootings are trying to accomplish: Convince you and everyone that guns should be banned. I'm not even American but I believe that one of the saving graces of the US today is that you are able to arm yourself there or that guns are more accessible than they are in other parts of the world. Reason being: A 100% de-weaponized population is even more of a population of sheep for the powers-to-be. The US is fast-moving toward a militaristic regime ruled by private armies and corporations. What would make it even easier for the powers-to-be to accomplish this than to disarm every single American citizen? And non-Americans who oppose guns so much because they can't get them in their countries? Grow the **** up, please, then wake the **** up and smell the shit, not just your coffee, because the shit is hitting your fans very soon. More and more freedoms are systematically and subtly, gradually being take away from the average Western citizen, and we still have morons calling for the disarming of all citizens, whether in the US or elsewhere, because state media highlights the "shootings" oh-so-plainly for you. Dimwits.
@jwonz: That's fair enough, yet I'm not sure that will be very helpful. Main reason being: As I said, it's not just games but a collective culture that's being propagated across the board for most media that's consumed in today's world. Games are just a part of this collective culture. And what I'm talking about is that we recognize when a specific game is contributing significantly to this negative type of emotional conditioning, and we do not glamorize or support that game.
And I actually don't know who exactly the powers-to-be are, but I'm pretty sure many of the corporation owners around the world are part of whatever body those powers-to-be have created for themselves. Some people call them the Illuminati, and I gotta admit, the Eye of Providence is pretty much everywhere today, whether in movies, music, or games; and they're not even hiding the symbols anymore. They're right in our faces. So maybe there is some sort of organization or group of rich, powerful people and they revere the Eye of Providence for some reason and they do have their agenda.
One thing I'm sure of is that the world is not as it seems, and what's official is not always reality; I also know that war is very good business, and that politicians aren't really the ones moving politics but it's corporations that are doing this in today's world. Whatever culture you see in movies and games, for example, is there because it serves some purpose for someone. I kinda admire these people's genius, because they make money while simultaneously propagating their message and establishing their agenda. When you do all those three things at the same time, you must quite intelligent.
@jwonz: You need a case study to write an academic paper or well-researched book; you don't need a case study to see a few examples of this for yourself. You've never really read a few comments on gaming videos or something where you see examples of gamers who have completely distorted ideas of justice? They don't really understand what is fair, and what is not? Maybe even they buy into the ideology that all is fair in love and war? I've read countless examples of gamers like that. And this isn't just from Rust; it's from Rust and countless other games that emotionally condition the consumer of such media, especially when consumed habitually and on a daily basis.
You say desensitized would be bad for the powers-to-be, yet you don't explain why. I don't even know if I should take your comment seriously, but desensitized toward the mass murder of a certain race or civilization or whatever is most definitely good for the powers-to-be. Desensitization toward violence in general breeds complacency and acceptance of RL war, and a conviction that RL war, especially on foreign soil, is necessary to protect ourselves here, wherever we are at the other end of the world. This is most definitely good for the powers-to-be.
And it isn't just Rust; Rust may not be part of a conspiracy. The conspiracy is universal here and encompasses all types of media, from music, through movies, and to games. Rust, and most other games really, simply just ride the wave, the trend, whatever the hell the wave is today; it doesn't matter for any company that's looking to make money in today's world. And the conspiracy isn't as simple as to condition consumers emotionally toward one direction or another; this is one simple part of it.
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