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Post by Leaf on May 18, 2015 22:03:19 GMT
I give up on this conversation.
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Post by gabriael on May 18, 2015 22:07:06 GMT
Stick in the mud!
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MagicPhD
Poster
Posts: 95
World: Fractal
Pronoun: he
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Post by MagicPhD on May 18, 2015 22:20:41 GMT
I agree that a species will develop better models of thinking as time passes, both morally and logically.
Morally, because even in the past century, we have seen a visible increase in individual rights and treating every person as morally equal, regardless of race, nationality, or social status.
Logically, from the hunter-gatherer who wonder why lightning happened and guessing a deity, who then immediately proceeded to worship it, vs. the scientific method, where every hypothesis is closely examined.
Is it true that a person who grows up in a society of more developed modes of thinking will be more advanced? I think that's fair to say. Are they morally superior? no.
Using the word 'intelligent' here seems misleading: as a measure of brain power, individual variation should matter more than societal paradigms. And no offence meant to Leaf or Nifl, but I have not noticed any difference in intelligence between them and Andrew.
I also find it interesting that even though Gabriael has said he is one of the oldest beings on this forum, his writing/discourse style appears as one of the youngest to me.
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Lantern
Regular
Posts: 106
World: Glazed
Pronoun: They
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Post by Lantern on May 18, 2015 22:26:06 GMT
Leaf in the wind! (translated as pun, for me? I'm not sure if funny in other languages)
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Post by Gabri Ael on May 19, 2015 11:01:20 GMT
I also find it interesting that even though Gabriael has said he is one of the oldest beings on this forum, his writing/discourse style appears as one of the youngest to me. Finally someone who understands me! Lot's of people when they first get older try to control younger people with their experience and for that try to make them accept their own superiority. That's especially relevant with institutional education. For that they need something called "dignity". This dignity gets them respect and influence with people, thus they become fond of that dignity and try to pursue it for it's own sake. Leaf for example seems older and better than me because he cares about seeming older and better than me, while I don't give a fuck! I'd rather display my flaws openly instead of hiding them, that way I'll get better friends, ones that fit more. Now that you made me think of dignity I realize that Rae thought I attacked the dignity of ALL MORTALS while I was talking about only a subset of them: I especially said primitive mortals. The language he thinks in probably has that as "Mortals, who are all primitive." Which is clearly a translation error. Since he seems somehow dependent off mortals he needs to cultivate his dignity with them and defending them from the "attack" of their dignity makes him think he scored points there. Even though they haven't heard. But that doesn't matter, he's already so far into the dignity business, that he pursues it for it's own sake instead of it's original use and thinks defending someone's dignity means doing something nice for them. While in actually it doesn't do them anything good, because they are unlikely to ever interact with people from the forum, so they can't use their dignity. Buuut if you tell them you defended them from the Evil Eldritch Horror from another plane of existance seemingly slandering them they'll feel all warm and fuzzy!
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Post by Leaf on May 19, 2015 13:04:49 GMT
Gabriael, I think your login glitched. I'm pretty sure it really is you, though - same writing style, same attitudes.
I'd like to ask you to please stop talking about me. The number of times in the past few days you have brought me up unnecessarily to make weird accusations or claim I'm a prince (?!) is starting to make me uncomfortable. Please just stop.
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Raezenoth
Poster
Posts: 79
World: Arabek
Pronoun: He
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Post by Raezenoth on May 19, 2015 15:24:46 GMT
Now that you made me think of dignity I realize that Rae thought I attacked the dignity of ALL MORTALS while I was talking about only a subset of them: I especially said primitive mortals. The language he thinks in probably has that as "Mortals, who are all primitive." Which is clearly a translation error. Since he seems somehow dependent off mortals he needs to cultivate his dignity with them and defending them from the "attack" of their dignity makes him think he scored points there. Even though they haven't heard. But that doesn't matter, he's already so far into the dignity business, that he pursues it for it's own sake instead of it's original use and thinks defending someone's dignity means doing something nice for them. While in actually it doesn't do them anything good, because they are unlikely to ever interact with people from the forum, so they can't use their dignity. Buuut if you tell them you defended them from the Evil Eldritch Horror from another plane of existance seemingly slandering them they'll feel all warm and fuzzy! I thought I was rather clear on the matter. I like mortals. I do not like when they are baselessly insulted. It is not, exactly, defending their 'dignity,' I am asking that they be respected for what they are. But it is becoming quite clear that interacting with you is a waste of my time. So I will leave it at that.
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Post by gabriael on May 19, 2015 17:14:21 GMT
Rae, the concept of insulting stuff is really stupid. And I mean really really stupid, like causes horrible things happening kind of stupid. If you cannot say bad things about stuff, how can it ever improve? You might think you are perfect, you might think that the mortals in your world are perfect, YOU ARE WRONG! Nothing, nowhere and no one is perfect. In your world people die to hurricanes! Don't you think that's kinda a waste? Ask Nifl, I bet you that on Nifls' planet no one has died to a hurricane in a long time, if ever. How about you study the history of other worlds than your own? Try about four different planets where intelligent life has evolved without direct divine intervention and make sure that they are not all humans. You will see that I have simply told you the truth. Gabriael, I think your login glitched. I'm pretty sure it really is you, though - same writing style, same attitudes. The operating system for my new giant robots is glitchy. The one, the only, the inimitable! Also I'll start using Nifl as an example if you want.
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Post by Andrew on May 19, 2015 17:55:56 GMT
I would not be the most impartial judge of my own intelligence, so I will refrain from continuing that part of the conversation. On most of the other points, I agree with MagicPhD. You are treating social progress (like understanding the Scientific Method or learning to predict hurricanes and evacuate) and species progress (like the transition from “animal” to “person”) as the same thing, when it seems they are quite different.
I also agree with Leaf and Raezenoth that it is unlikely that continuing this conversation will be fruitful for anybody. Instead, I’d like to return to a previous topic of conversation: how does religion generally work when gods are real? In my world, there is a major religion where the god did give divine commandments. There is no evidence of this god being real and plenty of evidence that many of the stories were just distortions of true descriptions of daeva. The divine commandments were indeed abused by the people in power (and even the people who believe the religion often admit this); I expect this would have happened less if the god had actually existed and could say “no, wait, that’s not what I meant!”.
How do god-mortal interactions generally work in your worlds?
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Post by gabriael on May 19, 2015 19:04:31 GMT
They work with the mortal none the wiser? I mean God's going around the universe, having fun, having friends, doing awesome stuff, enjoying the sights you know? There's always rumours about that hero or this inventor who disappeared mysteriously actually having been god all along, but it's only ever confirmed afterwards when he's all: "Oh, by the way, I'm god, goodbye!" Sometimes the Ael get mail from him to "Check this guy out!" when he found good Angel Material. Sometimes it's hard when your Dad is never around...
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Blackshard
Poster
Posts: 10
World: The Infinite
Pronoun: he
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Post by Blackshard on Jun 15, 2015 17:29:11 GMT
Though dormant, this seems like the most relevant place to expound upon my capabilities. I am, as I mentioned in my introduction post, a god; I suspect I might be more powerful than some of the locally-referenced gods, however. To clarify: Do you have a domain that you have absolute command over? By Raezenoth's definition, I am a god, in that I have absolute command over my fragment of reality. I control this forum inherently, similarly to how a biological organism controls their own body. I don't usually exert direct conscious control over all the details of its function. Does that count? Similarly to Mother Starlight, I control my fragment absolutely, as a lesser being might control their own physical body. As far as I understand it, being a god in the worlds that I've heard about is kinda a Big Deal. You 1) have a metric crapton of followers (unless you're dying or dead), 2) are immortal, 3) probably rule over either a whole plane or a major slice of one, 4) have authority over some fundamental facets of existence (like death, war, order, magic, etc) and 5) have whoopass cosmic powers that you're expected to exercise some restraint over because Cosmic Balance and Maintaining the Multiverse and all that. 1: The mortals within my fragment acknowledge my godhood, but are not meaningfully my 'followers'. There are no other gods here for them to follow, and I neither demand nor require anything from them. 2: I am immortal. 3: If 'plane' is meant to refer to reality fragments, than I could certainly be said to rule over my own. I do not often feel the need to specifically command the mortals within my domain, but if I chose to utter a command, there exist none here who could refuse to heed it. 4: I have unlimited authority over all facets of local existence. I am completely omnipotent within my fragment. 5: I have unlimited power within my fragment, and there exist none to challenge my use of it. Not all fragments have gods with such control, but I am the master of my own domain. Given these factors, I seem to be more powerful than the gods Mira references. Indeed, I believe that I am a more powerful god than anyone currently mentioned except the keeper and Mother Starlight, both of whom seem to have nontrivial power beyond their own realms.
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Post by Tama Eternal Stationmaster on Oct 24, 2015 17:10:34 GMT
My world have powerful beings that control afterlives and the beings that created the world (They are on vacation until the end of the next eternity, so no one knows what they are like). Many call themselves gods, but there are beings more powerful than those that don't use the designation.
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jasmine
Poster
Posts: 20
Pronoun: She, her, hers
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Post by jasmine on Jul 3, 2016 2:40:58 GMT
The gods of my world have been cruel in their negligence. I have tried to do my best to undo their mistakes.
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