Top Ten Signs You’re a Fundamentalist Christian

This was too good not to post - it's funny because it's true:

Top Ten Signs You're a Fundamentalist Christian

10. You vigorously deny the existence of thousands of gods claimed by other religions, but feel outraged when someone denies the existence of yours.

9. You feel insulted and "dehumanized" when scientists say that people evolved from other life forms, but you have no problem with the Biblical claim that we were created from dirt.

8. You laugh at polytheists, but you have no problem believing in a Triune God.

7. Your face turns purple when you hear of the "atrocities" attributed to Allah, but you don't even flinch when hearing about how God/Jehovah slaughtered all the babies of Egypt in "Exodus" and ordered the elimination of entire ethnic groups in "Joshua" including women, children, and trees!

6. You laugh at Hindu beliefs that deify humans, and Greek claims about gods sleeping with women, but you have no problem believing that the Holy Spirit impregnated Mary, who then gave birth to a man-god who got killed, came back to life and then ascended into the sky.

5. You are willing to spend your life looking for little loopholes in the scientifically established age of Earth (few billion years), but you find nothing wrong with believing dates recorded by Bronze Age tribesmen sitting in their tents and guessing that Earth is a few generations old.

4. You believe that the entire population of this planet with the exception of those who share your beliefs -- though excluding those in all rival sects - will spend Eternity in an infinite Hell of Suffering. And yet consider your religion the most "tolerant" and "loving."

3. While modern science, history, geology, biology, and physics have failed to convince you otherwise, some idiot rolling around on the floor speaking in "tongues" may be all the evidence you need to "prove" Christianity.

2. You define 0.01% as a "high success rate" when it comes to answered prayers. You consider that to be evidence that prayer works. And you think that the remaining 99.99% FAILURE was simply the will of God.

1. You actually know a lot less than many atheists and agnostics do about the Bible, Christianity, and church history - but still call yourself a Christian.

I found this on Evil Bible.com site is designed to spread the vicious truth about the Bible that have been completely ignored for far too long by priests and preachers.

August 22nd - The Beginning of the End?

Bernard Lewis (aka. Bush's Historian) the man who coined the term "clash of civilizations" is predicting that Iran will initiate a third world war or some sort of end of times conflict. You can read his absurdly bigoted, hypocritical and fanatical article on the Wall Street Journal op-ed site, August 22: Does Iran have something in store?.

As an extremely cogent counter balance I present this article by Brian Whitaker of The Guardian, World to End August 22nd.

Unsurprisingly, Bernard Lewis, brings religion into it. He demonizes the Muslim world making the bigoted claim that the Iranian President would happily allow his country and people to be destroyed because for him it's a win-win situation. This is complete bullshit. It's not in Iran's best interest to allow a war of the magnitude suggested to start. It might be in the best interest of a certain few people here in the U.S. but I don't think it's in Iran's. It certainly isn't in the interest of the common man anywhere in the world.

None of the governments involved in Middle Eastern politics have my sympathy - this includes the United States. I don't know about you but I'm tired of these power hungry lunatics trying to manipulate us through scare tactics, fundamentalism, and black/white world views. Screw it - don't believe it, don't buy it, don't play it, don't choose it!

It's always the common man who suffers - the common man is who has my sympathy - not our taskmasters. And those who align themselves with the antiquated ideals of these nation states have my pity that they cannot see beyond the carrot being strung out in front of them. It's up the common man to make sure we don't get screwed over. No right, no left, no middle, just human.

Frankly we should all (and I mean everyone in the world) get over it (our differences, our greed, our violence, etc.) There are more than enough resources in the world for everyone to live quite happily - see Critical Path by Buckminster Fuller.

Enlightened interdependence* is what we should strive for - anything else is just fucking stupid (in which case we, as a species, probably deserve to wipe ourselves out.) It is also, in fact, much easier to achieve enlightened interdependence, than to maintain an endless struggle. Hell whether we want to or not we are all already interdependent.

"The western hemisphere
And all inside
We learn
Who is murdering the innocent
They are children playing with guns
They are children playing with countries
Mining harbors, creating contras
The games they play
The lives they take
They bank their money in the country
They steal from the innocent
A colonial trait
That's much too old
The banks, the lives
The profits, the lies
The banks, the profits
The lives, the lies
I would call it genocide
Any other word would be a lie"

-- Minutemen, From Double Nickels on the Dime

Apocalypse Now!

There are some seriously crazy people in the world. Unfortunately a great many people of influence are counted among them. What we have here are power mad lunatics who want to push the world to the brink of war to facilitate the second coming of Christ. Sounds very Christian doesn't it - actively condoning the murder of innocents. These people disgust me with their hypocrisy of claiming to be Christian while going so far against the basic teachings of Christ. I may not be a Christian but I know enough to know that this is just plain wrong. Link

Basic Role Playing Chapter Preview

Here's a preview of the chapters of Basic Role Playing - the Deluxe has been dropped from the title.

As it stands now here are the current chapters. They are almost certainly subject to change before publication.

Chapter 1: Introduction - this chapter primarily serves as an introduction to role playing games. It discusses what a role playing game is and the responsibilities of the players and game masters. It also defines various RPG terms.

Chapter 2: Characters - this chapter contains methods for character creation (including primary, secondary, and optional characteristics). Primary characteristics are Strength, Specific professions (over forty in all) and the appropriate campaign setting for their use along with associated skills are listed. There are also extensive optional rules for sanity.

Chapter 3: Skills - this chapter talks about skills, their general use, skill categories and over fifty specific skills with their base chance of success and examples of fumbles, failures, successes, special and critical successes.

Chapter 4: Powers - the powers chapter discusses the different types of powers: magical, psychic and super. Information about how to get characters gain powers and lists over sixty powers along with details about chance of success, range, duration, descriptions and the cost for characters to buy and use.

Chapter 5: System - this chapter explains the game system, actions, resistance, and using skills. Time scales and movement rate are also discussed in relation to game play. Additionally there are optional rules for opposed skill rolls, high skill chances and high difficulty.

Chapter 6: Combat - the combat chapter talks about the order of combat, magic and power use, actions and resolution. There are rules for using armor, shields, and missile weapons. Additionally there are extensive details on damage and healing. Optional rules for eliminating or reversing statements of intent, initiative, strike ranks, miniatures and maps and more. There are additional spot rules for combat that are not yet integrated into the chapter.

The latest rumors I have heard regarding BRP is that Chaosium may take the powers chapter out of the main BRP book since trying to balancing it has delayed completion of development by several month. At this point Chaosium is pushing to have it out by the end of the year.

With any luck I'll be able to preview a bit more details at some point but right now this is all I can do.

New RuneQuest Released by Mongoose Publishing!

Well Mongoose Publishing has released the new version of RuneQuest. I have yet to see a copy of it. I doubt it's available in my local hobby stores (King's Hobby or Dragon's Lair) as yet.

The discussion on the RQ-Rules list has been pretty fractious at this point. Some folks say it diverges too much from the old RuneQuest some say it's still a Basic Role Playing variant. I'm sure it's both. To me it presents an alterative to the d20 system that is open (at least to some degree.) In the meantime you can find all the previews available here.

I plan on getting a copy of the rules as soon as possible and seeing if I can get a group together. We do plan on publishing free adventures and resources for RuneQuest online here soon.

Here's a list of the current previews that Mongoose has available on their site. The Open SRD for RuneQuest should be available very soon from Mongoose and we will keep you posted.

RuneQuest - Main Rulebook

Introduction Preview ? This contains pages 1-3 of the rules including credits and introduction plus Open Game License statement. (rqpreview1.pdf / 447 Kb)

Characters and Combat ? The second preview is of character creation, a weapons list and combat. It comprises and the second preview of the new RuneQuest! (rqpreview2.pdf / 638 Kb)

Magic Preview ? This is a preview of the magic chapter. The preview contains four pages, 58-59, 61, 66. It gives a hint of what the rune magic is like has a few spells listed. (rqpreview3.pdf / 613 Kb)

Cults and Adventuring ? The fourth preview comprises pages 73, 80-81, and 93. has a bit of info on cults, adventuring and a smidgen on what looks like legendary abilities (rqpreview4.pdf / 642 Kb)

Improvement and Creatures ? The final preview is pages 97, 99, and 104-105. There is a brief bit on experience and few pages on creatures including dragons, ducks and dwarves as well as a bit about adventuring creatures. Also has a scary picture of a duck. (rqpreview5.pdf / 592 Kb)

Character Sheet ? This is the Official Character Sheet for RuneQuest. Not particularly pleasing to the eye but you can tell a fair amount about how characters are created by looking at it. (rqcharsheet.pdf / 190 Kb)

Rune Sheet ? A reference sheets for Rune users including powers gained from runes when integrated (not sure what that entails exactly as yet.) (rqpreview6.pdf / 105 Kb)

RuneQuest Companion

Introduction, Characters & Magic ? This is first preview of the RuneQuest companion. It shows pages 2-3 which are an introduction and expansion of character creation, 9 and introduction to divine magic, and 23 and introduction to sorcery. (rqcomppre1.pdf / 604 Kb)

More Magic and Adventuring ? This is preview two of the RQ Companion. It has information on enchantments, spirit combat and downtime between adventures. This preview is comprised of pages 38, 45, 50, and 67. (rqcomppre2.pdf / 607 Kb)

Travel and Temples ? RQ Companion preview three has some info on travel by water an introduction to temples and a partial sample of the features of a minor temple of a storm king. (rqcomppre3.pdf / 628 Kb)

Glorantha - The Second Age

Glorantha Map ? A pretty decent map of Glorantha in the Second Age (rqgloranthamap.jpg282 Kb)

Introduction Preview ? the introductory preview for Glorantha - The Second Age. This is mostly an introduction, table of contents and background for the book. It has pages 1-3 and 15. (glorpre1.pdf / 944 Kb)

History, Cultures and Races ? This preview is of pages 22, 32, 65, and 67 and has some additional background information, as well as some brief information on cultures and races in the second age. (glorpre2.pdf / 874 Kb)

Gazetteer ? this third preview of Glorantha is comprised of pages 84, 86, and 92 and has bits about Jrustela, Seshnela, and Fronela. (glorpre3.pdf / 904 Kb)