(OT) Are gamers close minded?

[jdavis]

Whats so wrong with ruffling feathers?
Heaven forbid we should Offend someone, is that it?
no seriously, if the topic got hateful, out of hand, even dangerous,
thats an abberation, not the norm. IF we're not ignorant, and we gamers presume we are not, then we really should not fear the open exchange of ideas including philosophy.. and by extension, religion.

To put the reference in its proper framework, I was talking in the other thread about the nature of reality, how its a mutually agreed upon structure - that nothing exists if we dont all agree it does. In doing so, I happened to mention that the bible can be read from a perspective that supports the idea. That got the thread closed.

Did you read the FAQ? I've only been here for a month or so but I figured out that would get a thread closed here. It's just part of the rules, and that stuff does get people going. It is a D&D board after all, it seems they like there topics to stay pretty close to D&D. Not a open or closed minded thing just part of the rules around here.

 

[RolandOfGilead]

Good one.. *Lol*

Ok look, I'm not saying I believe this, but its a cool esoteric concept:

Imagine the universe before the act of creation, filled with countless spirits.

These spirits are infinite and boundless, omnipotent,omnipresent.
Unfortunately, they are seperated by a void of omnipresence;
they overlap, and therefore cannot point to anything and say "That's me".. in fact, they cannot be sure that the other spirits even exist, because they overlap and are all equal. And being alone in the vast void sucks.

So one day, one of the spirits, decides that instead of living in infinity, he will create a world within himself, and he will send his spirit into that world to live there - but to do so would cut him off from infinity.. the rest of the spirits, seeing this, decided to send themselves into the same reality, so that they could communicate with the first spirit, and say "Hey, I exist! This is me!".. but in order to do so, they would have to limit themselves to exactly the same universe that the first spirit had created. So they agreed to all the rules and laws that the first spirit had put in place, in order to communicate with him.

Essentially, reality serves as a communication device.. a modem. 8 bits, no parity, or you're not talking to the network. Now if we all decide its zmodem, then its zmodem. or xmodem. You can seperately decide its zmodem, and for you it is, but its not connected to the full reality.. does this make sense to anyone but me? hehehehe. anyways, enough for tonight. sleeptime.

 

[RolandOfGilead]

And you dont think this is relevant to a fantasy world?
what about a cosmology that uses this as its creation device?
Each player is actually an incarnation of a god.. but they dont know it. Because they limited themselves to human bodies....
leveling up would bring one closer to divinity, etc etc.
spells are simply expressions of ones own divinity, and clerics actually channel magic by subtly altering the mass - subconscious of the infinite spirits....

 

[jdavis]

And you dont think this is relevant to a fantasy world?
what about a cosmology that uses this as its creation device?
Each player is actually an incarnation of a god.. but they dont know it. Because they limited themselves to human bodies....
leveling up would bring one closer to divinity, etc etc.
spells are simply expressions of ones own divinity, and clerics actually channel magic by subtly altering the mass - subconscious of the infinite spirits....

Not my call if it's relevant or not, of course it was the bible thing that got you shut down not the "if a tree fell in the woods...." bit.

I like a good metaphysical discussion of the world and reality and such as much as the next guy but it does say no politics or real religion, so steer clear of those any you will be ok.

 

[RolandOfGilead]

yes, but fundamentally, The bible is a historical treatrise on the jewish tradition. We dont ban posts quoting Homer's Illiad because they mention the greek gods... nor do we censor posts that talk about the sacrifices to demonic forces from the book of vile darkness..
in fact, you'd have to excise all mention of dieties and demigods, because they speak of real life religion - roman, greek, chinese, babylonian, etc.

 

[The_lone_gunman]

What the hell is Wanger?

TLG

 

[Berk]

was about to say something really bad about that comment on the bible but decided not to =o). Prolly woulda got me banned or something if I did. =op But anyways, ummmmm, yeah, nevermind, too late and so tempted to post what I wanna say but not going to for the sake of sanity, and also so a religious war doesn't get started. =op

 

[LostSoul]

I think that gamers are generally representative of the population, in that we are both closed- and open-minded. However...

Gamers tend to be shy, afraid of the real world, having trouble dealing with feelings and all that. Thus, anything that brings gamers a little bit too close to those "untouchable" subjects (sex, anyone?) makes gamers cringe.

 

[Buttercup]

Edit: Nevermind.

Roland, welcome to EN World! I recommend that you read the FAQ to find out why your previous thread was closed.

And if you want to talk religion with gamers, visit Nutkinland, which is this board's evil twin.

 

[Zappo]

Uh, look Roland it's pretty simple: this is a D&D board, not a philosophy board. People come here to talk about RPGs in general, especially D&D. They don't want - I don't want on-topic threads to be pushed down by heavy OT topics, which by their nature tend to stay on the top of the first page. Some OT discussion is allowed, but not religion or politics, simply because A) threads about religion or politics tend to last forever and B) they tendentially do so by turning into flame wars.

As for suggesting that the closing of such threads, or approving of the closing, is somehow distantly related with "being against free exchange of ideas", that's an old and well-known troll. Noone prevents anyone from talking about religion, the mods just prevent people from doing it here.