The rapture, for those of you who aren’t familiar with The Left Behind books (a fiction based upon the beliefs of Dispensationalist Premillenialism), is the belief that Jesus will return to earth and take all of the Christians up into the air before raining down unholy terror on the unbelievers for a nice seven years.

Basically the Christians miss out on the 20d6 points of damage that everyone else takes.

It’s important for me to mention this because it’s taken as a fact by much of my family and the surrounding peoples of Northeast Mississippi.

So.  Some facts about this belief:

1) It is hugely popular belief among Baptists and other smaller branches of American Christianity.

2) Not supported by the early church.  The early church taught that the church would be delivered after the 7 years of 20d6 damage.

3) Gained populairty primarily during the 1900s.

4) Gained attention in theological circles in 1957.

5) Now this is probably the most widely held belief among American Protestants.

6) Was not believed by Calvin or Luther and has never been Catholic dogma.
Further timeline information as well as scriptural support can be found here. (Wikipedia link)

So for my family and friends who subscribe to this belief, I would encourage you to read the information on Wikipedia and comment.

And to close, a question:  would any of you be interested in a article on the debate about whether a tribulation will happen or not?  Is the entire book of Revelation symbolic?

Just wow!

Noone told me there was a Hogfather movie….

The first 3 minutes can be viewed by clicking the above image.

For those of you who are already Terry Pratchett fans, this post should need no further explanation or verbiage. For those of you who aren’t *yet* fans, may I suggest the you read Thief of Time, Small Gods or Hogfather.

And perhaps on a more touching note, I’ll include an interview with Terry on his thoughts on Alzheimer’s, which can be found here.

This is a follow up to last week’s post.

full story can be found here.

Update no. 2:

Okay. This is the second Jesus Cheeto story I’ve seen:

Found here.

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Okay, breaking news.  I found a third separate incident on Fark today.  That’s 3 separate sightings in about 24 hours on the news.  This one is actually the coolest, but you’ll have to watch the video to see what they are talking about.

So, without further ado…. Jesus in Cat Fur.

I have been introduced to an evangelist named Louie Giglio recently (thanks to my stepsister).

This talk is not cutting edge or current, but it does reveal some interesting side effects of human nature.

The talk is a sort of science-evangelism. It’s wonderful that Louie appreciates science, but don’t think that his approach is quite … pristine for lack of a better word … for the non-religious.

Here’s his talk in a few short sentences (without the melodic keyboards in the background):

1) Our universe is big. Look at these huge stars!
2) Here’s a black hole that looks like a cross via hubble! (applause)
3) Here’s a protein (laminin) that looks like a cross … it holds our cells together! (applause)

I really would like to believe that my skepticism hasn’t run off uncontrollably, but I look at a room full of people who really want to believe in something awesome, and I feel the energy of it, and I feel moved by it, and I feel completely separate from it.

I think, wow, you found two things in the whole wide universe that look like an X.  Two intersecting lines.
Louie describes this protein, laminin,  as his knockout blow… a hook jab that he’s exceptionally proud of.

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For the video (and comments) from youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xg_ZVS6Kecw&feature=related

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One of my favorite comments to the video:

“Praise God for this video! Only true believers can fully understand this message.
God bless you Mr. Giglio and other true servants of God! ”

And another:

“WOW I was totally blown away……thats absolutely awesome! My 2 teenage kids were completely impressed! Thank you for sharing that with us! God bless you!”

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My mind jumped to a seemingly unrelated email I recieved a few months ago by Athen (my step mom)

http://www.foldmoney.com/

This shows how you can fold money and make images that look kind of like historical events.

These images are more complex that a simple intersection of two lines.  They look like the twin towers.  But despite the more intricate complexity involved in their making, I feel that most Christians will have an easier time being skeptical of the significance here.
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Pattern recognition is a wonderful thing. It really is. It’s good that we can see faces in the clouds, etc.
It really is.

But why is this being used as a basis for faith. Yes, the universe is big. Yes, there are lots of things shaped like two intersecting lines (a cross)

But, I can’t help but feel like I belong to a whole different species when I see people who interpret folded money as fore-tellings of apocalyptic events, or the structure of proteins (as diagrammed in science text books) as sources of reaffirmation of beliefs and convictions.

Here’s the rub though:  Our brain tends to latch on to things we feel are significant and toss out the rest.
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I have met a few men of faith who draw their faith through prayer and research into the Bible. Among them are my father and a brilliant preacher named Butch Simmons.

I cannot understand how people get so much inspiration from things shaped vaguely like a cross, however. There is a universe of shapes out there. If we put any special kind of significance on the capital letter ‘V’ these people would hold flocks of geese in the highest of spiritual regard.

I am just completely baffled how to process this. I don’t understand why I was given this video.  I don’t understand its positive commentary.  Maybe I am missing the part of me that takes this sort of thing as evidence.  Maybe a degree in philosophy has bred in me an extra thing (skepticism) which most people lack.

But then people are skeptical of things like aliens.  So, maybe it’s not even skepticism at work.

I’ll sleep on this.

Game design is a nebulous job. People have asked me how they can become a game designer. They have some great ideas. Maybe they’ll take some classes.
So I’ve created a syllabus for my upcoming free class called “So You Wanna Be a Game Designer”:

The purpose of this is as follows:

Think of this as night school. Before you spend your hard earned money and time learning C++, Maya, and Java… This course will help you to get the experience of design, without all of the overhead.

I need a good response when people ask me how they can be a game designer. Part of me wants to tell them to take out a huge loan, pack up and go to Full Sail for a couple of years.

It seems like there should be a quicker method for finding out if the discipline is attractive.

If this thing is works it can be a do-it yourselfer, with a final project you can share with your friends.

So I want to create a 2 month crash course to find out if you’ve got the chops. Luckily, I already have a test subject.

So anyways. Here’s my current syllabus for weeks 1 - 3.

1) Design a new “real materials” game. Examples include charades, boccie ball, and tag. The deliverable is a 1 or 2 page document that explains the game’s rules and play structure. If people can read it and easily understand what they need, and how to play the game, then your first homework is a sucess.

2) Focus test your game. Iterate upon your game. Clarify any rules questions that have been found. Game design is very much about iteration and creation. Finally type up the notes you’ve gotten from your focus testers. What worked? What failed?
The first two weeks deal with design in a way that someone with any skill set can attempt. As my friend Justin pointed out to me: “It’s worthless to spend years learning how to program, and then discover you actually don’t like designing games.”

By this point I estimate a good percentage of budding game designers have moved to greener pastures and have dropped out. Actual design and iteration is not as fun for some as they would like to believe. The remaining students are energized by focusing their creative energies.

3) This is tricky.

I feel that a game designer should know something about scripting. This may merit some harsh criticism from some who would say “no designer scripting“. As someone who primarily is payed to script my butt off, I can’t help but to say that, in my experience, it’s a darn fine skill to have as a designer. In “Rusty’s School of Game Design” we’re going to dive in despite all of the controversy and get started on scripting instead of tackling level design or something similar.
There is also a lot of debate here as to the best engine to get our budding designers started.

Neverwinter Nights has a particularly good engine for building missions and dialog. I’m throwing this one out for the simple reason that it’s a bit too focused of an engine for my program.

Flash is a bit sexier for me right now because of the flexibility and sharability of the game. This is still in the running but it gets minus points for the higher pricepoint pushing $700 for CS3 Professional. Also it is restrictive in regard to 3-D graphics.

Game Maker is a gem at $20 and that’s for the professional version. The good news is it has a lot of tutorials, is cheap, and is specifically set up for making games. It even makes .exe’s! The bad news is that its 3D capabilities are limited.

Shoot’em Ups like Team Fortress 2 have good SDKs and tools for creating custom levels. This is appealing, but once again I am determined to focus more on scripting than level design at first, as this course is designed primarily to help people understand whether they they like the day-to-day activities of a designer and I feel that people may enjoy modding and level design more than scripting.
So, the current top-dog for getting everyone’s feet wet in scripting is Yoyo Games’ Game Maker.

I’d like to hear from potential “students” as well as experienced industry people before we nail down week 3 and move on to making weeks 3 - 6.

It’s fun to look back on some of the psychotic quirks of your childhood. Remember True Love Waits?

For those of you who weren’t lucky enough to grow up in the very buckle of the bible belt, you may not remember TWL or the “Silver Ring Thing”. Both of these programs aim to get kids hopped up on Jesus at exciting rock-and-roll events and then convince them to take a virginity pledge.

It’s like signing a contract when you’re high. Teenage hormones beat guilt laden promises to Jesus, however.
Recent studies found that pledgers are more likely to engage in oral and anal intercourse and equally likely to get STDs as non-pledgers. The only effect found is that pledgers did prolong premarital sex for up to a year longer than non-pledgers, but they were more likely to forget to use contraceptives when they did begin having vaginal intercourse.
True Love Waits is just one part of a larger beast known as Abstinence Only Sexual Education.
A program that:

• Has as its exclusive purpose teaching the social, psychological, and health gains to be realized by abstaining from sexual activity;
• Teaches abstinence from sexual activity outside marriage as the expected standard for all school-age children;
• Teaches that abstinence from sexual activity is the only certain way to avoid out of-wedlock pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, and other associated health problems;
• Teaches that a mutually faithful monogamous relationship in the context of marriage is the expected standard of sexual activity;
• Teaches that sexual activity outside of the context of marriage is likely to have harmful psychological and physical effects;
• Teaches that bearing children out-of-wedlock is likely to have harmful consequences for the child, the child’s parents, and society;
• Teaches young people how to reject sexual advances and how alcohol and drug use increase vulnerability to sexual advances, and
• Teaches the importance of attaining self-sufficiency before engaging in sexual activity.

Wikipedia says, “In 2007, a study ordered by Congress found that middle school students who took part in abstinence-only sex education programs were just as likely to have sex in their teenage years as those who did not.”

This program doesn’t actually make kids less likely to abstain from sex, but it does purposefully avoid teaching kids about contraceptives. Anyone else frustrated? Joycelyn Elders is on this video.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for religious pseudo-science being taught instead of cold, hard facts. But shouldn’t it at least get positive results?

Proof that I have no ethics:

It has been recently suggested that people who are autistic or have Asperger’s Syndrome may be more likely to be atheists or agnostic.

Asperger’s Syndrom (AS) is a fancy psychology term for nerd or geek. This may be a simplification of terms, but it’s still true. One of the key factors leading to AS may be a kind of mind-blindess.

Take a survey now to find out where you fit on the “autism spectrum”. link:

One explanation for why people with AS are less likely to be religious is as follows:

People with AS have more trouble figuring what’s in other people’s minds. This means they are less likely to believe in a incorporeal intellect (believe in a God or gods).

The opposite of an autistic is called a “neurotypical” which is another fancy term for “muggle” or normal person. Muggles have a much easier time imagining a God because they place a heightened amount of interest in other people and have less interest in science, math and computer programming.

Continued here:

Read the rest of this entry »

What do people expect from a game design blog?

There are a lot of ancient game designers with 10 times my experience as a game designer.  People visit their blogs for sagely advise (as they should).

So what do I have to offer?  This is a sort of a mission statement on my part.

I will not pretend to be an old designer with tons of experience.  I’ve got 2 years of experience in the industry, split between QA and design.  This blog will become (I hope) a great resource for those who wonder what being an entry level player in the game development circuit.

Also, since I am a philosophy nerd, there will be the occasional philosophical or literary posting.

Hopefully, I will find an audience who needs this type of information.  Maybe the contents of this site will be more useful to the people looking to “break in” and see what to expect in the early years as they progress as a junior level designer.

Thanks guys!

I’ve recently been informed that a perfect world was once made for mankind by an Outside Source.

Apparently, there was an ecosystem which was both physically and morally perfect for its inhabitants, a man and a woman, and numerous other creatures.

Except for one thing, either the man or the woman could mess it up, just by performing an action. In addition, part of this creation broadcasted information to the users (the man and woman) to perform this action.

Perfect?

Imagine a perfect house, go ahead and imagine it. I’ll wait.

Nice drapes, comfy furniture, HiDef 1080p TV. The works. Maybe it’s Victorian, maybe a Ranch style 3 bed 2 bath. Whatever.

Oh, but if you use one of the bathrooms everything goes haywire. No, not just the house, you get cancer, you wife gets AIDs. You life the rest of your now stunted existence in perpetual agony. But, I promise, the house was perfect.

You may be thinking… wait a minute, this isn’t perfection at all. Something with obvious flaws this big is not perfect at all. Actually, it’s very crappy. You may be thinking, we measures and practices that prevent things like espestos, much less whatever you put in this bathroom.

We get it. So why can’t we just bite the bullet and say that Eden was no perfect place to hang out. It just wasn’t. It came with forbidden fruit and a snake that did nothing but tell you to eat it.

Likewise human kind was supposedly perfect. Except for the fact that they got outsmarted by a snake. A perfect intellect wouldn’t fall for something like that. They’d know better.

I’ve got a hunch that a story like that would be ruled a faerie tale if people only looked at it in terms of its logic, rather than from a mind set of “I’m supposed to believe this”.