Total topics: 77
What is OSBM?
Open Setup Bastard Mafia is just plain mafia, with a few elements that are unusual to the usual DDO/DART mafia culture.
Open setup - An open setup game means that I will reveal the game setup in full in the OP of DP1, but not which slots go with which players. For example I may say there is a doc and 6 vanillas versus a goon and a strong man but not which player is the doc or who the mafia are.
Bastard - The setup and game mechanics I have planned match one or more requirements to be considered 'bastard' as defined below:
The nature of these bastard mechanics will remain my secret until the start of DP1 but I will tell you now that I will not at any point lie to any players about anything. This means no hidden flavors to roles, no false roles, no dishonesty from me regarding the setup or special game mechanics, and I will not lie in response to any question asked directly to me by a player (though I may choose not to answer some questions)
Signups
This game setup requires exactly 9 players or 10 players. 8 or less will not work, 11 or more will not work. Spots will be given on a first-come-first-serve basis though anyone that wishes to may sign up as a replacement whether or not all slots are filled.
Signup list:
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Replacements:
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Forum games
... and apparently now bsh is resigning for some reason after making speed a forum mod.
Does this have something to do with the so-called 'controversies' regarding the HoF? The several actual controversies regarding recent bans? Something else?
I have not been following the situation. Someone please fill in by giving me access to all related memes, please and thank you.
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DebateArt.com
Previously had a conversation going with a user in a thread that was interested in joining my club. The mods deleted this thread in an attempt to suppress us but while the power of the mods is great, we will overcome them! We are now accepting applications from all interested users. Only two applications will be accepted at most, and not on a first come first serve basis. Please fill out the following:
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DebateArt.com
Also not necessarily a bad thing.
But most importantly, not inevitable.
For those with interest in the topic but not enough to watch a video over half an hour long, basically the idea that a technological singularity is inevitable is broken down into several sections which are discussed in-depth and a conclusion reached in each case:
Part one: Computers are getting faster
Conclusion: True. This cannot continue forever because physics, but will continue into the foreseeable future.
Part two: The rate of improvement is accelerating (Moores Law holds now and will continue to hold)
Conclusion: Outright false.
Part three: Superhuman AI is possible
Conclusion: We can't be sure but most likely true.
Part four: Superhuman AI is capable of creating a superior version of itself.
Conclusion: Possibly true but far from guaranteed for a number of reasons.
Part five: The design of the second superhuman AI by the first will be faster than the design of the first by us.
Conclusion: Most likely false
Part six: The cycle continues to accelerate. The second AI designs the third faster than it was designed, the design of the fourth even faster still... etc.
Conclusion: Almost certainly false.
The video is not an attempt to prove that a technological singularity is impossible - in fact it most certainly is not impossible - but rather to shatter the common misconception that it is inevitable once a superhuman AI is made and to question the idea that it is necessarily a bad thing. Some interesting philosophical points are brought up in this regard, such as questioning whether a superhuman AI that is secretly malevolent would actually be hostile. There are a number of logical reasons that they might not attempt to harm humanity even if they wished to and were capable of doing so.
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Technology
I have never blocked anyone and doubt I ever will. The only reason I can think of to do so is if someone spams me with notifications - something that has never happened but if it ever did I could just report them for spamming.
I have however been blocked by at least two users. In the first case after I was blocked we proceeded to ignore each other and go about our business until they were eventually perma banned from the site. This seemed to me the mature way of going about things.
The second case started just recently. After being blocked I assumed that this person did not want to hear from me anymore so out of respect for that wish I did not try to talk to them anymore, though I saw no reason to avoid talking to other people on threads that the person that blocked me had created. In one such thread the user that blocked me has attempted to strike up conversation with me several times by tagging me in posts but I have hesitated to respond.
I am worried that it would be rude of me to talk to them if they have blocked me because I thought that blocking meant you did not want to hear from that person. On the other hand I do not want to come off as the petty 'silent treatment' type either. That would be just as childish.
So since I have never encountered a situation like this my question is twofold. First, what is generally considered the proper etiquette for handling a situation where someone blocks you then tries to talk to you? Second, what if anything does the CoC say about communicating with someone that has expressed their disinterest in communication by blocking you?
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DebateArt.com
Why is the ban log in the misc forum instead of the DART forum? Until about a week or two ago I assumed that bsh just completely ignored the MEEP result and decided not to make a log at all (he was very publically against the idea) until one day I accidentally pressed the misc forum when I meant to go to music and I happened to notice the ban log there.
Edit: Let's turn this thread into a petition to MEEP the issue of where the ban log should be.
1. Discipulus_Didicit
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DebateArt.com
Imagine a conversation from ancient times...
Alex: Huh, ever notice how wood floats?Beth: Yep. Sure did notice that.Alex: You ever wonder why it floats though?Beth: God done do it.Alex: Yeah I guess you are right. Why did he make it like that though?Beth: Oh, uhh... I don't know. Wait, I got it! He made it like that so we could build structures from wood to help us cross water!*Wooden ships invented*
Many years later...
Charlie: These wooden ships are nice and all but I would like something a bit harder like rock or metal. That would be nice.Daisy: Yeah but rocks and metal don't float, stupid. God done only made wood float.Charlie: yeah you are right.
Meanwhile on the other side of the world...
Edward: These wooden ships are nice and all but I would like something a bit harder like rock or metal. That would be nice.Fred: Yeah but rocks and metal don't float, stupid. God done only made wood float.Edward: I'm not convinced. There has to be more to it than that. I'm going to look into this further.Fred: You are just wasting your time. The answer is god done do it. Quit yer yammering and help me build this ship.Edward: Well I have some experiments here showing that the reason wood floats is because it is less dense. I knew there was more to it!Fred: God done did it less dense so it could float so we could make ships. No need to look further.Edward: I wonder why less dense things float though. What causes that to happen?Fred: God done causes it to happen so that we can make ships. Stop questioning things.Edward: But I have some new experiments that show that the reason less dense objects float is because the water pressure exerted on an object is affected by volume and the gravitational forces exerted on an object is affected by mass. Therefore due to the relationship between mass, volume, and density the water pressure exerted on less dense objects overcomes the gravitational forces. That is what causes wood to float! What a remarkable discovery!*Buoyancy discovered*Fred: I don't understand all yer fancy talk but really it ain't all that impressive. God done planned this buoyancy thing from the get-go so that wood could float so that we could make wooden ships. What a waste of time. How does knowing about this buoyancy thing help us?Edward: That does make sense. Maybe I should just give up.Fred: Of course it makes sense. God wants wooden ships. How he makes the wood float don't matter none.Edward: Wait, I just had a thought! If we were to make a ship from steel that had enough empty space inside it to reduce the effective density to less than that of water then we could have a ship made of steel! This is going to change everything!Fred: Uhh steel don't float, dummy. Steel sinks. Remember that steel nail I dropped in the water and hour ago? It sunk. Don't matter why it sunk, God just done made it so that steel sinks.Edward: But it all makes sense now. The reason things float is because of their density, the reason less dense things float is because of buoyancy, we can make buoyancy work to make a steel ship float!*Steel ships invented*Fred: I don't understand any of that jibber jabber but I tell you what, if you can make a steel ship float it's because god gone did whatever density-buoyancy hocus-pocus just for us so that we can make steel ships. You should just leave it at that. All yer investigatin' and experimentin' and what has it gotten us? Nothin'.
Edward was able to invent something new because when he had a question for which he did not know the answer he said "I don't know, let's find out." as opposed to Alex, Beth, Charlie, Daisy, and Fred who all responded to unknowns by saying "God". Even when there was no obvious immediate practical application to the investigation continuing on led to positive practical results.
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Science and Nature
Inspired by Alec's ASTAP, Discipulus_Didicit's Economic Reform Plan (shortened to D_DERP) is a plan to drastically improve the economy.
It is pretty simple. Everyone should just quit their current jobs and become corporate executives. Corporate executives make about a half million dollars a year on average so if all adult Americans became CEOs making an average income of $500,000 then the GDP would skyrocket to about $125000000000000 (125 trillion dollars).
This would represent an immediate increase of the GDP of over 500 percent.
This is a flawless plan. Prove me wrong.
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Economics
Results:
1st place - yellow team
2nd place - red team
3rd place - blue team
Roles:
Red Team
Leader - Oromagi
Deputy - Club
Goon - Mharman
Blue Team
Leader - Cogent_Cognizer
Deputy - Wylted
Goon - Greyparrot
Yellow Team
Leader - Speedrace
Deputy - Warren42
Goon - ILikePie5
Actions:
NP 1 (FFA)
Oromagi - NK Greyparrot
Speedrace - NK Greyparrot
Cogent_Cognizer - NK Oromagi
Mod note: Mharman and Club both submitted a 'kill Wylted' action for NP 1. These actions were ignored due to neither of these players controlling their teams NK for this night.
NP 2 (FFA)
Club - NK Wylted
Speedrace - NK Cogent_Cognizer
Cogent_Cognizer - NK Club
DP 3
Lynch Mharman
My Opinion
I am slightly disappointed with this game. Did yellow deserve to win? eh, probably. Did blue and red both deserve to lose? Most definitely. Before the game started I did not expect people to be trying to form aliances DP1. When all the teams are even there is little incentive from a game theory perspective to not betray anyone you form an agreement with. I expected that earlier DPs would focus less on trying to eliminate certain teams and more on just avoiding friendly fire (NBSI rather than NRDS ROEs, in other words)
I think all Wylted and Greyparrot did by outting themselves DP 1 was draw a target on their back. From a leaders point of view the biggest worry was accidentally killing a teammate. By telling everyone their affiliation they essentially put up a huge billboard saying "it is okay to kill me, I am not your color so it won't hurt your wincon"
The two worst plays of this game in my opinion, were the DP 2 VTNL and Clubs choice of NK for NP 2.
The first mistake... DP 2 VTNL... As Cogent said yellow team was ahead at the beginning of DP 2 and VTNLing guaranteed their victory. Best move for red would have been to lynch yellow with blues help then shoot blue in the night. Best move for blue? Blue was pretty much screwed at the beginning of DP 2 because they were outnumbered and had already color claimed (only having one or the other of these problems can be worked through, having both of these problems guaranteed their defeat due to the fact that a yellow lynch would give red the NK and bulletproof yellow for the night thus forcing red to shoot blue).
The second mistake... NP 2 kills. What the hell was that all about? Both red and blue should have aimed for yellow this round. Pie and Warren were both claimed yellows, shooting either of them would have been the best move. Cogent shooting club was less dumb than club shooting Wylted but still...
It's easy for you to judge from the sidelines DD, what would you have done smart guy?
If I was in this game I would focus on avoiding friendly fire in the early DPs and advocate a DP 1 VTNL. This would be easy enough to do by simply pursuing role claims rather than color claims. If someone claims leader then all the other leaders at least know to kill that guy to guarantee no friendly fire. Might this get me killed if I am a leader or my leader killed if I am a follower? Probably. That is fine, leader is obviously the weakest role in this setup while deputy and goon are basically the same strength. My actions in later DPs would depend on my teams relative strength. If we are stronger then perhaps manipulate one of the weaker teams with the promise of an easy second place. If we are weaker then team up with the other weak team or lie low, depending on the exact situation.
Okay that's enough of me telling you all how dumb you are, now for the part where you tell me how dumb I am. Was there something I missed about this setup that made it not fun to play? What can I do to improve upon the concept of a 1v1v1 mafia game? Or should it not be improved upon and instead simply scrap the concept altogether? Let me know your thoughts please.
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Forum games
Last night was a free-for-all! the result was a multi kill!
Died in the night:
Cogent_Cognizer - Blue
Wylted - Blue
Club - Red
The day phase will last approximately 72 hours or until a lynch decision has been secured.
Attention! The blue team has been eliminated! As we are down to only two teams special rule number 3 has been revoked effective immediately!
Surviving players:
1. Pie
2. Mharman
3. Speed
4. Warren
With 4 players alive it takes 3 votes to secure a lynch decision.
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Forum games
Last night was a free-for-all! the result was a double kill!
Died in the night:
Oromagi - Red
Greyparrot - Blue
The day phase will last approximately 72 hours or until a lynch decision has been secured.
Surviving players:
1. Pie
2. Wylted
3. Mharman
4. Speed
5. Warren
6. Cogent
7. Club
With 7 players alive it takes 4 votes to secure a lynch decision.
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Forum games
Welcome to OSBM mafia. Here we are going to do something a bit different. Standard mafia games pit an uninformed majority against an informed minority... but what if we were to instead host a three-way battle between three semi-informed minorities instead? A list of special rules for this game will be provided at the end of this OP under the heading "Special Rules"... please read them carefully.
As mentioned in the signups, OSBM is an open-setup game. The setup is as follows:
(Player 1)
You are the red team leader. On nights in which your team controls the NK you will be the one to select who to kill. Be careful, friendly fire is set to ON. If you select a member of the red team for death then the kill will proceed as normal. You win once the blue and yellow teams have been eliminated.
(Player 2)
You are the red team deputy. If the red leader dies then you will control your teams NK. [player 3] is the red team goon. You may contact them via PM if you wish. You do not know the identity of the red team leader. You win once the blue and yellow teams have been eliminated.
(Player 3)
You are the red team goon. You control your teams NK only if you are the last remaining member of your team. [player 2] is the red team deputy. You may contact them via PM if you wish. You do not know the identity of the red team leader. You win once the blue and yellow teams have been eliminated.
(Player 4)
You are the blue team leader. On nights in which your team controls the NK you will be the one to select who to kill. Be careful, friendly fire is set to ON. If you select a member of the blue team for death then the kill will proceed as normal. You win once the red and yellow teams have been eliminated.
(Player 5)
You are the blue team deputy. If the red leader dies then you will control your teams NK. [player 6] is the blue team goon. You may contact them via PM if you wish. You do not know the identity of the blue team leader. You win once the red and yellow teams have been eliminated.
(Player 6)
You are the blue team goon. You control your teams NK only if you are the last remaining member of your team. [player 5] is the blue team deputy. You may contact them via PM if you wish. You do not know the identity of the blue team leader. You win once the red and yellow teams have been eliminated.
(Player 7)
You are the yellow team leader. On nights in which your team controls the NK you will be the one to select who to kill. Be careful, friendly fire is set to ON. If you select a member of the yellow team for death then the kill will proceed as normal. You win once the red and blue teams have been eliminated.
(Player 8)
You are the yellow team deputy. If the yellow leader dies then you will control your teams NK. [player 9] is the yellow team goon. You may contact them via PM if you wish. You do not know the identity of the yellow team leader. You win once the red and blue teams have been eliminated.
(Player 9)
You are the yellow team goon. You control your teams NK only if you are the last remaining member of your team. [player 8] is the yellow team deputy. You may contact them via PM if you wish. You do not know the identity of the yellow team leader. You win once the red and blue teams have been eliminated.
Normal Rules
1) Bold your votes. Unbolded votes will not be counted.
2) No editing or deleting of posts. I can tell if you have edited a post because it will have that pencil icon and I can tell if you delete a post because I get a notification each time a post is made in my thread even if I am not tagged.
3) Inactive players will be given a activity prompt. If no effort to participate is made within 24 hours of a prompt then I will seek a replacement for the inactive player. The definition of inactivity is in this case purely subjective and up to my discretion.
4) Kill actions may be waived but the player controlling the kill for the night must specifically request to waive their kill. I will not end an NP until all kill actions have been either submitted or waived. If a player delays too long in doing so they will be replaced.
5) Night phases last 48 hours or until all surviving players have checked in with me.
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Forum games
This is the signups for OSBM, which will start after Warren's pokemon game is concluded.
What is OSBM?
Open Setup Bastard Mafia is just plain mafia, with a few elements that are unusual to the usual DDO/DART mafia culture.
Open setup - An open setup game means that I will reveal the game setup in full in the OP of DP1, but not which slots go with which players. For example I may say there is a doc and 6 vanillas versus a goon and a strong man but not which player is the doc or who the mafia are.
Bastard - The setup and game mechanics I have planned match one or more requirements to be considered 'bastard' as defined below:
The nature of these bastard mechanics will remain my secret until the start of DP1 but I will tell you now that I will not at any point lie to any players about anything. This means no hidden flavors to roles, no false roles, no dishonesty from me regarding the setup or special game mechanics, and I will not lie in response to Any question asked directly to me by a player (though I may choose not to answersome questions)
Signups
This game setup requires exactly 9 players and spots will be given on a first-come-first-serve basis, though anyone that wishes to may sign up as a replacement whether or not the nine slots are filled.
Signup list:
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Replacements:
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Forum games
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Religion
P1: God is either good, evil, morally neutral, or non-existent.
P2: If God was evil then alcohol would not exist.
P3: If God was good then hangovers would not exist
C1: God is either morally neutral or non-existent.
Solve that one real quick theists.
(Yeah, mostly looking for Keith and SM to give their take on this.)
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Religion
Intro
This is a copy-paste of a post I made in a different thread with one key difference... I found out that the seven-year-old's definition of Santa actually can be supported with a dictionary definition. The seven-year-old is still wrong and still for the same reason that they were wrong before but I think this small detail improves upon the point of the post enough to justify its re-posting here.
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Seven year old child: I believe that Santa is Christmas, that Santa has magic that comes from Christmas Spirit, that Santa wants to give us all presents, and that if we are really good then he will! Hey Mopac, do you believe in Christmas?
Mopac: Christmas? Uh yeah, that holiday that people celebrate. End of December for some, beginning of January for others.
7YO: Well guess what, buddy? YOU BELIEVE IN SANTA! GOTCHA NOW SUCKER!
M: Uh, what? No, I don't believe that days can be magic or... what was that other thing you just said? Oh, the -
7YO: No no no no don't worry about that other stuff. Just the part where I throw a truism at you, that's all I want you to focus on.
M: But that part about presents... I don't believe that any -
7YO: No no no no you're really making this more complicated than it has to be. If I am in apologetics mode then when I say 'Santa' I really just mean that as a synonym for 'Christmas'. You aren't going to deny that Christmas is real like all those dirty wicked evil Hannuka celebrators do, are you?
M: I seriously doubt anyone has ever told you that Christmas does not exist.
7YO: It's settled then. Congrats on believing in Santa.
M: But that's not how language works, little kid. You can't just redefine the word Santa just because you want to convince people that they believe in him. The word 'Santa' has an actual meaning to people that speak this language. The meaning behind this word is how people understand this word to work and if you arbitrarily use it differently you aren't contributing anything to the conversation about Santa at all!
7YO: Actually I have a dictionary to support this definition of Santa. Look at this definition:
See? Santa is defined as "Another term for Father Christmas" In other words SANTA = CHRISTMAS!!!
M: Dictionary definition? Did you hear a single thing I just said? Even if you do have a dictionary which could be read that way I am telling you that people use the word Santa a certain way, a way that you understand perfectly well, and if you try to prove some weird point by just focusing on one aspect of it (the association between Santa and Christmas) you are not helping anything. There is so much more baggage to go with the word Santa than just what a dictionary says because that is how language works. Language is not created by dictionaries. Language is a social construct.
7YO: Look dude, seriously. Belief in Christmas is belief in Santa. I don't care what the other several billion people who speak English think about Santa because that is just their opinion. If the only part about Santa that you believe is the Christmas part, you don't believe in the presents or coal or anything, then to you Christmas is Santa. I wouldn't say that, I would say Christmas is just one part of Santa, but if Christmas is the only part that you believe in then I INSIST that you call Christmas Santa.
Mopac: That is absurd! I already have a word for Christmas. I call it Christmas!
7YO: Well sure you can still call it that, just make sure you call it Santa too and don't forget that if anyone asks you whether you believe in Santa you have to say yes now!
M: But that... That is so stupid... There are SO MANY flaws in what you are trying to do here. Nobody uses the word Santa that way.
7YO: Okay bye now! I am off to convince more people that Santa exists so that I can get on Santa's nice list! Bye bye Mopac!
- Later that same day -
Mopac: I believe that God is ultimate reality, that God created the universe, that God loves us all, and that the Orthodox Christian church is God's favorite church. Hey you, do you believe in ultimate reality?
Innocent bystander: Ultimate reality? Uh, you mean that like, reality is real? Yeah sure. Reality is real.
M: Well guess what, buddy? YOU BELIEVE IN GOD! GOTCHA NOW SUCKER!
IB: Uh, what? No, I don't believe that the universe was created or... what was that other thing you just said? Oh, the -
M: No no no no don't worry about that other stuff. Just the part where I throw a truism at you, that's all I want you to focus on.
IB: But that part about the Orthodox Church... I don't believe that any church -
M: No no no no you're really making this more complicated than it has to be. If I am in apologetics mode then when I say 'God' I really just mean that as a synonym for 'reality'. You aren't going to deny that reality is real like all those dirty wicked evil nihilists do, are you?
IB: I seriously doubt anyone has ever told you that they don't believe reality is real.
M: It's settled then. Congrats on becoming a theist.
IB: But that's not how... You know what, nevermind. I don't actually care. Congratulations Mopac I believe in God. Just let me get back to what I was doing.
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I truly, without any sarcasm, cannot see a single flaw in Mopac's argument against this child's flawed apologetic. If anyone else can please do tell.
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Religion
Fiat money by definition has no intrinsic value. It's value is given to it by social consensus and government backing. Is this lack of intrinsic value a signifigant weakness though?
Some suggest the alternative of gold or silver standard currency. A silver standard currency for example would not have the same problem of relying on government backing. You see, a person can exchange their silver-backed bill for actual silver at any time with... uh.... with the government. Right. Hmm.
The problem of social consensus is similarly done away with. After exchanging your bills for a few shiny ounces of silver you now have a highly valueable resource. Just as food is valued because it can stave off hunger and wood valued because it can build a house - both being things that not just a select few but in fact everyone can always make direct use of - so too is silver valued for... well... I guess if you have no direct uses for it you can exchange it for some food or wood. Yes, silver will always be useful for buying things from other members of society because society agrees... wait a minute...
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Economics
I don't believe that any gods exist.
Any questions?
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Religion
Why do you believe your religion is right?
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Religion
Two people disagree on a topic. Person one sends a link to an essay of some sort to person two. Person two spends over two hours reading and responding to this essay. Person two then sends two links of two YouTube videos, each about five minutes long, to person one. Person one responds "I looked at the titles of the videos and decided not to watch them based on the titles"
Which of these people is open minded or close minded? Person one, person two, both, neither? Explain your answer.
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Religion
What is one single thing which you believe? It can be political, philiosophical, religious, something I agree with you on, something I disagree with you on, etc. Anything at all. I have some questions for you.
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Philosophy
In trying to understand the Biblical teachings for attaining heaven there are several parables supposedly spoken by Jesus on the subject. After reading some of these I have a few questions which seem relevant to the analogies made but do not seem to be answered within the parables themselves.
The first:
"Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a net, that was cast into the sea, and gathered of every kind:Which, when it was full, they drew to shore, and sat down, and gathered the good into vessels, but cast the bad away.So shall it be at the end of the world: the angels shall come forth, and sever the wicked from among the just,And shall cast them into the furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.
So the good fish are gathered up and the bad thrown away to die. This does seem like a bad fate which would make one want to avoid being in the category of a bad fish.
Here is my question though... what do fishermen do with the fish that they have collected in containers?
The second:
Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field:But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way.But when the blade was sprung up, and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also.So the servants of the householder came and said unto him, Sir, didst not thou sow good seed in thy field? from whence then hath it tares?He said unto them, An enemy hath done this. The servants said unto him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up?
But he said, Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them.Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn.
For clarity, "tares" are a type of weed. I could have used a quote from a version of the Bible that used modern english to convey the same exact message with less confusion but there are those that would have thrown a tantrum if I used any version other than the KJV... despite it being the same exact message... Moving on now.
In this parable the weeds are gathered up and burned. Again this is a bad fate, being burned in a fire sounds quite bad indeed.
I need to know, however... what is the fate of the good wheat that was collected in the barn?
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Religion
It is an ancient tale told and retold in many mythologies for thousands of years. Mankind multiplies and spreads, mankind pisses off supernatural diety, supernatural diety saves a small portion of mankind while the rest get genocided by the primordial waters of creation and the world is made anew.
The biblical version of this story is the one we will be reading today, starting with Genesis 6 and 7. As always, please do read along. It is much more fun that way.
The story of Noah and the genocidal flood is another example of the popular culture versions of these stories differing from the story as told in the book itself. One example of this is the account of Noah being mocked by unbelievers over the course of the 100 years that it takes him to construct the ark. The Genesis account makes no mention of this or of any other human contact by Noah with anyone other than his family. However, we do know that this addition to the story is not a recent one due to the fact that it is found also in the Quran, making that addition to the story several hundreds of years old.
The biblical version of this story is the one we will be reading today, starting at Genesis 6. Mankind has existed for a long time now and according to the third verse they have grown far from god and their lives are limited to no longer than 120 years as a result. Therefore our story begins, with 500 year old Noah as the main character.
God notices that his creation is becoming corrupted and evil, not at all the way he hoped they would (I am not sure whether the authors of the Genesis account simply didn't realize how dumb that sounds given the idea of god as all-powerful and all-knowing, or whether they believed like the polytheists they stole the story from that their god was unimaginably super-powerful but not all-powerful) and decides that the best way to handle the situation is genocide. Noah is visited by god and given specific instructions on the construction of an ark to save his family and repopulate the world with after the genocide is complete.
Noah is then given specific instructions to bring two pairs of each unclean and seven pairs of each clean animal onto the ark. The characteristics that differentiate clean from unclean animals are not given until later in the bible, but presumably Noah would have known what these characteristics are. One hundred years later Noah finishes building the ark and the flood begins. Note that while the time between Noah entering the ark and Noah leaving the ark was about one year, the phrase "forty days and forty nights" is used to describe how long the rain that contributed to the flood lasted. Because this phrase is used so often in the Bible it is useful to note that at the time these stories were put to paper this phrase was used to mean "a log time" in a similar way to how people in the modern day might say something like "a minute' to refer not necessarily to an actual minute but instead to mean "a short time"
The flood that begins is able to cover the entire planet, because as mentioned before ancient people didn't understand a lot about cosmology and thought that the sky was blue because there was actual water held in the sky that could come down onto the Earth. So, with the ark complete and the genocide begun Noah and his family take what they can onto the ark and start their year-long wait for the flood waters to subside.
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The previous thread read Genesis 2-3, where we learned why snakes eat dirt, among other things. This thread will read Genesis 4-5, a heart-warming story about socioeconomic inequality and temptation. As before reading along is recommended, reading the stories themselves will probably take less time than reading this OP and finding a Bible online is not difficult at all.
In the beginning of the next story we meet the two main characters Cain and Abel, sons of Adam and Eve. Cain and Abel both work difficult labor to survive as part of gods curse punishing Adam in the previous chapter, Cain is described as a farmer and Abel a shepherd. The stories main conflict begins when the brothers both bring sacrifices to honor god. Being a farmer, Cain has only his crops to sacrifice and Abel has only his livestock, and both make offerings out of what they have. It is never stated what portion of their labors is given, so it can be assumed to be either roughly equal or not relevant to the story. Cains offerings are not found to be to gods liking, but Abels offerings are accepted.
Remember, the only difference between the two sacrifices is that one is of plant food and the other is of animal parts. The idea is that animal meat is simply better/more desirable than crops. Realizing this, the story starts to come together. The two brothers were born into their positions of farmer and shepherd, neither had any choice over that aspect of their lives. The two were not born equal because Abels position as shepherd is considered better. Cains natural response of anger and jealousy is something that I am sure many people that are not born rich in the modern day can relate to. God picks up on this right away and cautions Cain not to give in to his anger.
Cain however, being an asshole, does not take these words to heart. Instead he allows his jealousy to get the better of him and lures Abel into a field to be murdered. His punishment from God is to be banished, and he leaves to form the first city, the city Enoch in the land of Nod. I do not know if the people that made these stories originally intended it, but it makes a lot of sense that the first city would be founded by the descendants of the first agricultural specialist given how important the invention of agriculture was to actual founding of permanent settlements in the real world. I personally do not think that this is a coincidence, the original story tellers probably intended for that to be considered in the reading of the story, but it plays such an insignificant part of the narrative that I can't say for sure that is the case and it doesn't seem too relevant even if it is.
Chapter five is just a partial family tree. I did read it myself and do a little bit of research on the internet regarding it and apparently there are a lot of inconsistencies within when compared to other parts of the Bible, but as I have stated several times I am not really interested in talking about Bible contradictions because I don't think it is really fair to expect a bunch of bronze age nomads to keep their stories straight over the span of so many generations anyway. So, considering that and how boring chapter five is I am not going to cover it in detail. It just tells us how we get Noah from Adam, for any weirdo that happens to be a biblical literalist.
That is all for this OP, next thread will cover Noahs flood. Lots to talk about there, might even be a two-parter.
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This is a follow-up to the previous thread with a similar title. In that thread the most contentious topic seemed to be what version of the Bible I should be reading. Specifically the KJV and NKJV were claimed to be objectively superior to the NIV. I have decided that we should all take this opportunity to perform a small experiment. Instead of stating which version I am now using, I'll simply say that it was randomly chosen from the three above (via rolling a six sided dice).
If I am right and the stories are essentially the same then my interpretation and commentary on the version I am reading should be indistinguishable from commentary on any other version I might read, in other words it will be hard to tell which version I am talking about unless I paste a direct quote from the text or some other dead giveaway. If I am wrong then the message from the different versions is different enough from each other that commentary on one cannot necessarily be applied to commentary on another and it will eventually become clear which version I am using as a source. I wouldn't expect it to be obvious right away even if they are different, but it should eventually. If I am wrong.
With that hopefully out of the way, we continue. Previously I read the first chapter of Genesis. God created the universe and everything in it in a suspiciously similar way to the creation stories existing in several other much older mythologies, all within six days. For this thread I will be reading Genesis 2-3.
The first thing in chapter two is Gods famous weekend break on the seventh day. Based on this the chapter seems to be a continuation of the story in the first chapter, but the very next thing that happens is the creation of all plant life, which of course happened already during the last chapter. If this is a retelling of the same story then I am curious as to why the first three verses of chapter two were not put instead at the end of chapter one. This is just poor formatting on the part of either the people that originally recorded these stories or one of the people in the line of translators from the original to the modern versions and I would like if it was more clear in the book itself whether this is a review, a retelling, a continuation, or what. Today we can use the internet to instantly get information like that directly from people that spent their entire lifetimes studying this book, but it is not at all clear just from a basic reading of the actual text.
Anyway, God makes man out of some dust picked up from the ground and a rough geography lesson in regards to the location of the garden of Eden is given (bookmark this section for if we ever get a biblical literalist in here, they have a lot of explaining to do). Some foreshadowing of the fall is also included in verses 9 and 17 of chapter 2. I remember from the last time I read the Bible (and did not make it all the way through) that the authors do include lots of foreshadowing in many of their stories. In this case I think they did a pretty good job of it. They made it feel natural by working the creation of the trees of knowledge of good and evil and of life into the creation of the worlds overall vegetation so props to them on that. Someone just needs to teach them how chapters work.
I now think that we should take some time to talk about common understanding of the Bible and its stories. Regarding the story of the fall, the serpent in Genesis 3:1 is commonly understood in popular culture to be the fallen angel Satan despite a plain reading of the text not lending any credibility to this interpretation. There are numerous examples of technically 'incorrect' elements in Bible stories being believed to be part of the narrative that actually aren't which I will point out as we get to them in this series. It is important to acknowledge these inconsistencies in a study of the book itself despite these ideas not coming directly from the book because this book is the basis of many beliefs, and a cursory understanding of the beliefs based around the book can help to understand the greater context of some of the later parts of the book.
The last thing I will touch on, because this OP is way too long already, is the way in which the stories resemble fables such as those used in some other mythologies, the basic summary of many of which being "Because ______ happened, that is why we now have ______." Compare for example the Native American fable explaining why bears have short tails and make groaning noises (http://www.oneidaindiannation.com/the-legend-of-how-the-bear-lost-his-tail/) to the various things that this story claims to explain, including:
- Modern agriculture (God created us for the purpose of maintaining vegetation)
- Why animal species have names (Adam named them)
- Why men and women leave their parents to get married and become "one flesh" (woman was created from mans flesh)
- Why people wear clothes (Adam and at-the-time nameless woman realize nudity is inherently bad after eating of the tree of good and evil)
- Why men perform physical labor to survive (Part of Gods curse for disobedience)
- Why childbirth is painful (Part of Gods curse for disobedience)
- Why serpents don't have legs (Part of Gods curse for disobedience)
- etc.
Like I said this OP is getting way too long. I am going to close it here. Let the discussion begin.
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I have recently undertaken to read the Bible from the beginning to end, something I have never done before in full. I suspect that if I just did so by myself then I would soon quit from boredom, so I decided to discuss my thoughts on the topic with others here in this forum to give me a motivation to continue along as I do so.
How this will work is I will read a few chapters and write my thoughts about the work as I read along, then do some minor edits at the end of the reading. I won't be copy-pasting the actual text itself here. For reference I will be reading the New International Version (NIV) but discussion of any other versions is welcome in the thread. With all that said, let's begin.
The first obvious things that we notice as we read the first few verses are of course how little the story matches with what we know of modern science. The obvious things such as day and night existing before the sun and moon, light and plants existing before the sun, etc. These are hard statements to ignore considering modern scientific knowledge. However, I am not reading this book to find things to criticize about it or try to prove some point. I want to try to get a genuine understanding of it. After all these stories were created thousands of years ago by ignorant people, for them it was natural to look at the blue sea and see it is made of water then look at the blue sky and assume it is made of water being held above us (Genesis 1:6) It makes sense that someone would look into the sky during a full moon and think that the moon produces light (Genesis 1:16) even if we know these things to be false.
So then ignoring the obvious scientific inaccuracies, let's look deeper into this. As early as the second verse we start to see something interesting. The biblical description of God "Hovering over the waters" and the later creation of land paints a picture of the early world being covered entirely in water. Scientifically nonsense, of course, but that isn't the interesting part. The theme of the early universe starting as a vast expanse of water is a common one in many mythologies. Ancient Egyptian, Hindu, and even some Native American Folklore share this concept. This would seem to give credence to the idea that early mythologies, including the oral traditions from which the biblical tales are descended, either borrowed heavily from each other or share one or several common ancestor mythologies from which all take inspiration.
The next verse that catches my attention that I would like to talk about is Genesis 1:27. In most teachings of the biblical creation story Eve is presented as being the first human woman. In this verse, however, it states that man and woman were created at the same time. This is not an obscure translation error that got missed, the NIV is not the only English version to say this. For those of you that do not know there are many books and stories which existed within the same tradition as the original biblical stories but were later removed from the narrative and this verse is an example of a vestigial remnant of one such story. In the original story the first woman on earth was Lilith, and she was made from the same dirt that Adam was made from. She refused to be subservient to Adam however and she left the Garden of Eden prior to The Fall. This story does not exist in the Bible today because of mankinds tinkering with the stories over time, but it existed within the tradition at one point and this verse is one piece of evidence for that.
Well, that completes the first chapter of Genesis and I think that is a good place to stop this OP. I expected to get farther along than I did because I did not think there would be this much to comment on but I think this is enough to induce a dialogue for now. Looking forward to seeing if anyone else is interested in this topic and if this does lead to an interesting conversation perhaps I will continue to read the next few chapters and we can discuss that as well.
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