General Chat XXXIX: Reading Rainbow Returns Edition.

I highly recommend everyone to read this...

http://stephanpastis.wordpress.com/2014/06/07/ever-wished-that-calvin-and-hobbes-creator-bill-watterson-would-return-to-the-comics-page-well-he-just-did/


@ Koeing

I love that video.

I'm going to throw my hat in on part of the religious debate regarding the portrayal of theist or christians in anime:

Samurai Champloo had a semi decent portrayal of the japanese christians in the 1800s, apart from the episode with francis xavier, though it at least meets the criteria of blaming the man not the religion.

Otherwise there are at least a few decent portrayals of japanese christians in other anime's like kids on the slope and school rumble as well as a few others, though those series tend to have very little to do with religion in general.

As for series' concerned with divine beings, I think you would have an extremely hard time finding something you would find as "respecting theism" since the anime/manga landscape is mostly driven by sales, so inevitably there always needs to be a "hook" or a twist to make something seem fresh, and casting gods as villains or goals is far more exciting due to the fantastical and supernatural element. And perhaps that's the fundamental problem, they view religion and mythology as being fantastical and not "real" as it is for many adherents to a given religion.




As for whether Christianity is being persecuted, I would generally say that overall yes, much of the US is trending towards secularism, which innately places religion to a lower status. Conservative talking heads love pointing out the idea of "the liberal bias" against religion, which more or less exists, but other side of the coin is that religion is viewed by them as unnecessary. There are many places in the US where religion is still a very strong element of people's lives and social fabric. This is probably more of a strange growing pain for america and the world at large, since over the past 150 years religion has seen a pretty drastic reduction in the importance of societal function in more developed countries.

Speaking personally, I myself am not a fan of religion per se, for the reasons similar to luna insofar that some religious people I have encountered are quite convinced of the concept of hell, and the need for religion to supposedly save me from it. But I also see the good that comes from organizations of voluntary associations, and churchs can be good examples of those. On top of that the notion of sectarianism to me is foreign and absurd to me.

Those are my two cents on the matter

LegendX48 wrote:

Squirrel500 wrote:?_? looks like I missed a discussion about religion

And I've been avoiding it lol

ditto

Ochi wrote:As for whether Christianity is being persecuted, I would generally say that overall yes, much of the US is trending towards secularism, which innately places religion to a lower status. Conservative talking heads love pointing out the idea of "the liberal bias" against religion, which more or less exists, but other side of the coin is that religion is viewed by them as unnecessary. There are many places in the US where religion is still a very strong element of people's lives and social fabric. This is probably more of a strange growing pain for america and the world at large, since over the past 150 years religion has seen a pretty drastic reduction in the importance of societal function in more developed countries.

Speaking personally, I myself am not a fan of religion per se, for the reasons similar to luna insofar that some religious people I have encountered are quite convinced of the concept of hell, and the need for religion to supposedly save me from it. But I also see the good that comes from organizations of voluntary associations, and churchs can be good examples of those. On top of that the notion of sectarianism to me is foreign and absurd to me.

Those are my two cents on the matter

I saw this as a bit of the fact that Japan seems to mostly treat Christianity without respect. And it's because of what you said, it's seen as fantastical, it's not a foundational part of their culture.

As for the persecution of Christians, let me ask you this, do kids grow up with issues based on the fact that they're Christian? Does society tell them they're wrong and not normal? All this move to secularism that is being decried is something that should have happened long ago. Christianity is merely losing it's place of privilege within our government. I don't get why taking away one's privilege to be more in line with our country's supposed ideals is wrong and seen as persecution.
Take out religious mention in things such money or pledge of allegiance and that's discrimination? Not having prayer in school is discrimination? These are just the concrete examples. Society as a general still has Christianity as the norm. Look at athletes, politicians, music artists. How often are they not showing that they're religious devotion, especially when they win something.
I've never met anyone who was Christian that got shit for being so and I live in Los Angeles....isn't that supposed to be one of the biggest hives of secularism? The only times I will hear about something is when Christians get shit from other Christians for being in the wrong sect.

I have the weirdest crush on the goth monster from Monsters University right now...

I needs the blu-ray!

I've not seen that movie.

Koenig wrote:

lol @ the Golion bit

Got Mario Kart 8 yesterday, had this really funny Death stare moment from Wendy Koopa, As she was giving me the glare, she pulled out a banana. I wish I had it recorded. But alas, I'm a noob at the video editing on mario kart.

How large is the roster?

smirkytrick wrote:Got Mario Kart 8 yesterday, had this really funny Death stare moment from Wendy Koopa, As she was giving me the glare, she pulled out a banana. I wish I had it recorded. But alas, I'm a noob at the video editing on mario kart.

iirc, MKTV keeps track of recent races so the replay might still be there

@ Luna, It's a pretty good sized one, all of the Koopa Kids are in there and still there's a good amount of characters, I can't remember the exact number though.

That's awesome. Don't know why they don't add the same as smash bros, though.

MARIO Kart
That's why. Also, Link would look weird in a go-kart.

smirkytrick wrote:@ Luna, It's a pretty good sized one, all of the Koopa Kids are in there and still there's a good amount of characters, I can't remember the exact number though.

Thirty.

smirkytrick wrote:MARIO Kart
That's why. Also, Link would look weird in a go-kart.

But DK is in it...they should just expand the roster to be more inline with that. It'd be cool.

xXJus10Xx wrote:

smirkytrick wrote:@ Luna, It's a pretty good sized one, all of the Koopa Kids are in there and still there's a good amount of characters, I can't remember the exact number though.

Thirty.

Ah, that's awesome.

Darth Luna wrote:

smirkytrick wrote:MARIO Kart
That's why. Also, Link would look weird in a go-kart.

But DK is in it...they should just expand the roster to be more inline with that. It'd be cool.

Technically DK is a mario character. He was Mario's very first villain from the classic Donkey Kong.

smirkytrick wrote:

Darth Luna wrote:

smirkytrick wrote:MARIO Kart
That's why. Also, Link would look weird in a go-kart.

But DK is in it...they should just expand the roster to be more inline with that. It'd be cool.

Technically DK is a mario character. He was Mario's very first villain from the classic Donkey Kong.

I forgot about that, and it wasn't princess peach Mario was reusing it was another girl, I don't remember her name

Squirrel500 wrote:

smirkytrick wrote:

Darth Luna wrote:

smirkytrick wrote:MARIO Kart
That's why. Also, Link would look weird in a go-kart.

But DK is in it...they should just expand the roster to be more inline with that. It'd be cool.

Technically DK is a mario character. He was Mario's very first villain from the classic Donkey Kong.

I forgot about that, and it wasn't princess peach Mario was reusing it was another girl, I don't remember her name

Pauline

Mario Kart 8 is addicting and fun.

My favorite stage right now is Electrodome. Beautiful stage imo.

EDIT: I guess I should make my Skype account now.

I want to set my information to be seen by contacts only, but Skype isn't letting me do so lol

smirkytrick wrote:

Darth Luna wrote:

smirkytrick wrote:MARIO Kart
That's why. Also, Link would look weird in a go-kart.

But DK is in it...they should just expand the roster to be more inline with that. It'd be cool.

Technically DK is a mario character. He was Mario's very first villain from the classic Donkey Kong.

I knew you were gonna use that technicality. I still think it'd be awesome to have more characters from various Nintendo franchises. I mean, come on, imagine the custom karts that Captain Falcon, Star Fox, or Samus would have. :/

xXJus10Xx wrote:I want to set my information to be seen by contacts only, but Skype isn't letting me do so lol

You can sign in using a Microsoft account (i.e. your "email@live.com" account). That's what I did.

Darth Luna wrote:

xXJus10Xx wrote:I want to set my information to be seen by contacts only, but Skype isn't letting me do so lol

You can sign in using a Microsoft account (i.e. your "email@live.com" account). That's what I did.

Your Microsoft account sets what will be viewed by anyone and contacts on Skype? Not my Skype profile?
Oh, I did sign in with Microsoft Account.

Oh. There's stuff that's private, and there's stuff that's not.
Nevermind, then lol

wth Skype. I can't add contacts no matter what I'm doing right now.
The damn guide video doesn't help me because I don't have any way to "Select People" to access "Add Contacts".


EDIT: THIS VIDEO IS SO WRONG.
I HAVE TO RIGHT CLICK THE SCREEN TO ADD A CONTACT WTF