I see faith and religion confused a lot.

Fair enough, I have been using them interchangeably. I suppose given your position that’s inaccurate. Our positions differ quite a bit, I’m an antitheist and materialist/physicalist.

which - fair, you can make inferences and guesses, but we’re still not able to know for certain what someone else is thinking.

My point here is just the opposite. It isn’t inferences or guesses, we can tell from brain activity that what’s going on falls within a certain range. We have yet to refine this ability to tell detailed specifics but we’re not guessing A * B = G, we can use our modern tools and understanding to determine that G is within the range of D through J. Prior to the development of the current tools and methods we had a wider range and prior to the development of any such tools we were guessing and making inferences.

Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle would be an example I’d agree to of something unknownable: the set of both the precise location and momentum of a particle. However as of yet I am unaware of any reason or mechanism by which this unknowable is impactful to any sapient entity… except those specifically studying it.

As-is I find the unknowables that I am aware of, the Uncertainty Principle, whether or not we’re in a simulation, and so on so be inconsequential on the scale we operate on. We have a perceived reality that behaves according to rules that are determinable and practical utility can be derived from determining them.

my view is that we all act on some degree of faith

I don’t think I can contest this. At least not at the moment after having had a long day. In any case I think this point is where we likely differ quite a lot; I strive to take nothing on faith. To whichever extent that I do I want it to be less or at least driven past the point of functional irrelevance to the operation of my life.

Nothing to do with the faith/spirituality of the individual, a LOT to do with the biases of whatever leadership your in group has.

I suppose the authors of their scripture would count even though they have limited relation to living leaders of their religion.

I don’t think that’s necessarily the case. We can determine to some degree what’s going on in the mind of other people without having faith in their self-report, it’s just impractical to do to everyone or frequently; FMRI can show us their brain activity and we already have a reasonable sense of what the different bits of brain do. Would we be able to get fine specifics of their thoughts from it? No, not yet but given that out ability to detect and measure has a general tendency to improve with time I believe that it is a ‘yet’ and not an ‘if’ barring Extinction Level Events.

Could you elaborate on the second point? I don’t see cause to have faith regarding that subject. We don’t have all the knowledge about the subject but neither would we know, for example, the exact ordering of a deck of cards immediately after a thorough shuffle. We know enough that we’re not going to see an Ace of Fives if we shuffled a standard deck and we’ll be able to determine the order they are in if we pay attention.

Most of the faithful that I know personally aren’t involved with a governing body of their faith. They still use it to be bigots. When pressing them on the issue I’ve yet to get a response as to why they’re bigots other than their faith. They have, or at least are aware of, secular reasons to be good and kind but not when being bigoted in some ways (they have secular reasons for the kinds of bigotry their faith opposes).

• Thanks.
• The differentiation I used wasn’t my own words, I got it from here, I figured I shouldn’t go off just my own take. I suppose I should have specified that from the beginning.
• I suppose there’s a case to be made for that.
• I don’t see how you’ve got that I have an extreme position from ‘Religions are faith-based while philosophies are based in some logical argumentation.’
• Noted. I suppose I could try to find something not abhorrent about faith. I’ve long since stopped being angry about it but I’m still very much an Antitheist.

I don’t intend this to be harsh or negative but I don’t know how to phrase this nicely;

Secular Humanism is a philosophy, not a religion. Religions are faith-based while philosophies are based in some logical argumentation. The muddling of religion with philosophy linguistically serves only to tarnish philosophy and lend undue credence to religion. That language is so flexible can be beneficial but it can equally be detrimental when used like this.

The numbers words, Mason, what to they mean!?

Honestly? I’m probably going to have at-least one bundle on me all the time once this comes out and I start playing again. I think they’re going to be pretty useful… and I never end up playing a world long enough to have an Enderchest full of Shulkers.

Thanks. This is better than what I thought it was… random power would’ve sucked so much.

I’m not sure what I’m looking at in terms of her powers. Is one of hers to copy a random power?

It’s still possible to avoid the worst of it. There’s still good games that don’t do many, or in some great cases any, of the shite shown as negatives for these games. It’s generally Indi games that avoid these practices while the so-called ‘Triple-A’ publishers shovel out shit laced with price-gouging tactics and expect us to be thankful for it.

Well said. Things will improve when the current dystopia is ash and bad memories.

Honestly, argumentation like this is part of my understanding of why the Reich Wing is so opposed to education. Baseless assertion works a hell of a lot better on people who haven’t been trained to look for and expect sources and evidence.

Stories like that of Job is why my position is that if it were to be determined by some means that the God of Abraham actually exists than that should be corrected at the earliest available opportunity. If almost any claimed gods exist than that should be corrected.

Yeah, that’s frustrating. Reminds me of learning my grandfather attributed me being accepted to my collage of choice to the fictitious despot rather than my own ability (at least in spite of being religious he’s kind, this kind of thing with him tends more to be by way of unfortunate implication rather than intent).

Well, not to everyone. At-least they wait for a dissident to have a following then make an example of them. Still submit or else, just with a degree of slack built into it for ease of enforcement.

Thank you. I’m aware it won’t change their minds however for one of them I have been established as a source of correct information (close relative and lifetime of giving them correct info)…

They don’t seem to internalize the information but I still try to provide them with correct information to counter the christofasc programming.

What’s the source for the Jefferson quote? I’d like to show it to a few Christian American Supremacists I know.

Just got the Alternox and I can see what you mean, it’s fun a fun gun with two very nice modes and just enough dynamic action to make skillful shots feel really good.

Limbo can’t cross the beams without being detected. However Ivara can if you get her special augment for her invisibility power. Unfortunately you get Ivara’s pieces from doing Spy missions without the data-destruction timer being activated for any of the three vaults.

Yeah, understanding how mods interact gets progressively more important as you go. I can explain how to make your weapons better, at least, quickly:

Each ‘category’ of damage is multiplicative to other categories while all mods within a category are additive to each-other. The categories are Base (ex Serration), Elemental (ex Stormbringer), Multi-Shot (ex Split Chamber), Critical (ex Point Strike & Vital Sense), and Faction (ex Bane of Grineer).

So, you could get the Arsenal to show you high numbers slapping all your elemental mods on a gun but it won’t be as effective as using 1-2 of each category. So, make the combo element that hurts whichever faction you’re fighting and use the appropriate Bane mod and you should cut through Sedna like you’re back on Earth.

But there’s more; There’s several types of special mods that are only gotten from a few places:

• Nightmare Mods: They give two positive effects. Nightmare mods tend to cost less mod cap and give less of the effect but getting two effects from one mod tends to be worthwhile (so long as both effects are good). They’re only acquired from Nightmare Mode Alerts that show up in places you’ve already unlocked.
• Corrupted Mods: Give a positive effect and a negative effect. The positive effect tends to be larger than you could get on a normal mod when maxxed out and for some weapons or warframes the negative has no or almost no impact (ex less fire rate on a gun with 1 shot magazine, you reload rather than be slowed by fire rate). You get these buy opening the Dragon Vaults on Deimos missions which will require Dragon Keys.
• Galvanized Mods: Give a positive effect and a conditional positive effect (ex more crit chance for a few seconds after getting a headshot) these are extremely powerful mods but you can only get them from the Arbitration shop on relays, which uses Vitus Essence from the Arbitration gamemode as it’s currency. You need to do every node on the star chart to unlock it.

You can use these various special mods to squeeze even more power out of your gear, but you’ll likely need Forma to make best use of it all. And Orokin Catalysts.

Haven’t done them all yet… honestly I haven’t even finished my first K-Drive yet. Really not a fan of hoverboarding about. Still, I’ll see what I can do about the other modulars.