Tonight’s episode of Ghost Hunters should be interesting… They’ve got Meat Loaf along for the ride, and they’re investigating something out in Alexandria Bay.

Today is International Blasphemy Day.

If you wonder why it is necessary, you need look no further than Ireland – which actually still has a religious constitution and blasphemy laws on the books.

Religion is nothing more than superstition.  It deserves no special amount of respect or courtesy.  If we can poke fun at those who won’t walk under ladders or own a black cat, we can poke fun at those who believe some bread and grape juice have been magically transformed into the flesh and blood of a supernatural being.

And there’s absolutely no reason anybody should be worried about fines, jail time, or violence for laughing at someone else’s superstitions.

You don’t see the Christians affording any special consideration to Krishnas, nor do you see Muslims concerned overmuch about what the Pagans believe…  So why should either of them expect any different from the rest of the world towards their beliefs?

…and, just because I’m an equal-opportunity offender…

I’ve had a real love/hate thing going on with X³: Reunion.

It’s a terrifically cool game…  Fantastic premise…  Completely open-ended…  Basically a single-player version of EVE…  But it’s got some very rough edges.

The graphics look a little dated.  There’s absolutely no tutorial.  There’s very little in-game information about anything.  The GUI is clunky.  The whole thing is awkward and hard to deal with.

It’s compelling enough to make me keep coming back for more…  But painful enough to make me shut it down in frustration after just a couple of hours.

I’ve had to go to the web several times in order to look up information.  I’ve had to dig up maps of the universe…  Or walkthroughs…  Ship and weapon guides…  Eventually even a cheat script.  And along the way I’ve seen numerous mentions of X³: Terran Conflict – the follow-up to Reunion.

X3:TC is the more recent title, the one everyone is currently playing and talking about.  I kept seeing discussion on the forums about X3:TC being far superior to X3:R.  Eventually, curiosity got the best of me and I acquired a copy of X3:TC to try out.

The difference was obvious as soon as I started the game for the first time.

The GUI has been completely redone in a much more usable way.  Everything can be done with the mouse, instead of requiring obscure command-keys.  The command-keys are still there…  And they’re still very handy for quickly navigating the universe…  But they aren’t obscure anymore.  The mouse-driven menu entries all have their command-key equivalents clearly displayed.

The graphics have gotten an improvement.  I haven’t seen much of the universe yet, but what I have seen is very nice.  Very polished.

There’s actually a tutorial.  Nothing amazing…  But it at least teaches you how to fly your ship around, target things, communicate with other ships, dock, and things like that.  Enough essentials to get you into the game.

There’s also some mission guidance to help you complete your objectives.  Instead of telling you where to go and then leaving you to your own devices, X3:TC actually hilights the relevant steps along the way.  It’ll hilight the ship you need to kill, then hilight the gate you need to go through.  It’s very nice to actually know where to go and what to do.

Plus, I’m getting paid.  I’ve only done a few missions so far, but I’ve already made several thousand credits.

So far, I’m very impressed.  If X3:TC is still as open-ended as X3:R, I’m going to be a very happy person.

BLASPHEMY DAY TARGETS CHRISTIANITY

The Center for Inquiry will launch the first International Blasphemy Day on September 30, the anniversary of the 2005 publication of the Danish cartoons that so inflamed Muslims worldwide. Billed as a free speech event designed to oppose such things as a Muslim-sponsored U.N. resolution banning criticism of religion, the day has drawn the support of people like PZ Myers. Myers, a professor at the University of Minnesota known for intentionally desecrating a consecrated Host, says the day was established to “mock and insult religion without fear of murder, violence, and reprisal”; he wants every day to be Blasphemy Day.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue spoke to this event today:

The Center for Inquiry is factually incorrect to say that “Free speech is the foundation on which other liberties rest.” Freedom of conscience is the first liberty, and it is inextricably linked to freedom of religion. Moreover, the whole concept of inalienable rights presupposes a belief in the Creator. In other words, atheists have the right to mock religion because our Christian Founding Fathers afforded them human rights.

Our founding fathers were not uniformly Christian, or even religous.  Nor were those inalienable rights we hold so dear based on Christian dogma.  Christianity isn’t real big on rights…  Just take a look at the biblical opinions on slavery and women’s rights.

They are all such phonies. The stated purpose of Blasphemy Day has nothing to do with any religion but Islam, yet there is not one scheduled event insulting Muslims. We can only guess why. So who have they chosen to mock? You guessed it–Christians.

Imagine that…  Folks in a predominantly Christian nation, who are faced with Christians trying to force their views on other people on a daily basis, would chose to criticize Christianity.

Artist Dana Ellyn will wander to Washington, D.C. to show her masterpiece, “Jesus Does His Nails,” a portrait of Jesus polishing a nail jammed into his hand. In Los Angeles, there will be a film about a gay molesting priest and another about a boy who is so angry about being sent to bed that he asks God to kill his parents. Oh, yes, American Atheists will conduct “De-Baptisms” in New Jersey.

Nice to know that even the atheists know that Christians can be counted on to react to their antics like good Christians. Which is why there will be no violence.

Yeah…  It sure is a good thing that Christians aren’t violent.

Last night I logged into my Warlock on Elune to pick up this year’s Brewfest mug.  There were about 20 members of my guild on-line at the time, roughly half of them in Ulduar.  There were at least a dozen familiar names – folks I’ve been playing with for literally years.  I haven’t logged in on that character, into that guild, in something like six months.  Nobody said a single word.

Nobody said “hi” to me…  Nobody asked where I’d been…  Actually, not a single word was said in guildchat at all.  It was dead silent.

I logged in and out about four times, so there was ample opportunity for folks to notice me.  I was logged into that server for a good 15-20 minutes, so I probably should have seen something in guildchat.

Nothing.

Which is one of the main reasons why I don’t play with them anymore.  They’re all wrapped up in whatever it is they’re doing, and nobody has any time to just hang out and be social.  It’s all about the gameplay mechanics, not the players.

So, I got my mug.  And I moved everything I care about onto that one character, so it’ll come with him if I decide to transfer him to another server.

Unfortunately ZeGuild doesn’t seem to be working out for us…

Part of the problem is that I’m playing around on a newb again.  I don’t enjoy the low-level quests much.  I don’t want to be piddling around in Loch Modan and the Wetlands again.  I want to be out in Northrend killing things bigger than me.

Part of the problem, though, is the guild itself.

There’s very little going on for the low-level folks.  I see a constant stream of heroics and raids going on…  But there’s absolutely nothing for the low-level folks.  No guild activities, no random silliness, no events.  Nada.

And guildchat is turning out to be pretty annoying.  There’s one guy in guildchat who constantly spews random movie quotes…  Completely unrelated to anything that has been said…  And frequently so mangled that they’re just barely recognizable…

And we’re constantly being told to keep it clean.  Guildchat is supposed to be G rated.  Even though Blizzard has implemented some perfectly good language filters, we have to watch our language.  Which also extends beyond foul language into potentially-offensive subjects like religion and politics.

So I’ve basically stopped logging into that server too.  There just isn’t much point.  The only reason I was playing that character is to get a feel for the guild – ultimately the intention was to transfer my main off of Elune.

We’ve found a new guild that looks promising over on Stormrage – The Drunken Parrot.

They’ve got restrictions on what can be said in guildchat fairly similar to what ZeGuild has…  Keep it clean.  Nothing likely to cause drama (like religion and politics).  Try to keep out-of-game stuff out of guildchat.  A bit more restrictive, truthfully, than I’d normally like…

But the rest of the guild looks promising enough to overlook that.

They’ve got parrots.  And they’re drunk.  They specifically state that they’re interested in having fun and forming longterm friendships.  They’ve got weekly guild activities, and the news on their website is updated frequently.  They’re currently raiding Naxxramas.

All things considered, it looks like it might be fun.  So we’ll be rolling up some new characters over there and checking it out.

In the mean-time I’ve been playing X3: Reunion.  It’s a sandbox-style single-player space flight simulator.  Reminds me an awful lot of EVE, except without the other people.  Very open-ended…  Very free-form…  Very steep learning curve…  Lots of fun when I’m not cursing at something that should have been obvious, but wasn’t.

A new species has been discovered – the Eastern Pacific black ghostshark (Hydrolagus melanophasma, Latin for ‘water rabbit’ and ‘black ghost’).

They have this club on the top of their head with spikes. People think it’s used for mating. It’s like a little mace with little spikes and hooks and it fits into their forehead. It’s jointed and it comes out. We’re not sure if it is used to stimulate the female or hold the female closer.

…and folks thought the platypus was weird.

I’ve been seeing a lot of references to Pascal’s Wager lately.  I don’t know if a bunch of theists just discovered it for a the first time…  Or it showed up in the mass media somewhere…  Or maybe folks just decided to start talking about it…

But it seems like every other atheist site I look at has a discussion going that eventually boils down to Pascal’s Wager.

For those who don’t know what Pascal’s Wager is, I’ll quote Wikipedia:

Pascal’s Wager (or Pascal’s Gambit) is a suggestion posed by the French philosopher Blaise Pascal that even though the existence of God cannot be determined through reason, a person should wager as though God exists, because so living has everything to gain, and nothing to lose. It was set out in note 233 of his Pensées, a posthumously published collection of notes made by Pascal in his last years as he worked on a treatise on Christian apologetics.

Now, I’m going to ignore all the controversy that surrounds the wager itself…  The logic that goes into it…  The underlying assumptions…  I’m just going to take it as it is being presented in these discussions on atheist blogs:

Even if there’s no evidence to support God’s existence, it’s better to act like God exists because if you get it wrong you’re going to Hell.

I am unswayed.

The first, and probably biggest, problem that I have with this argument is which God?

There’s no evidence for a Christian God…  So should I be a Christian and go to church just in case?

But there’s also no evidence for a Hindu God…  So should I make a pilgrimage to Prayaga just in case?

There’s even less evidence for Norse Gods…  So should I sacrifice someone to Odin just in case?

The problem is that many religions are mutually exclusive.  Many of them claim that they’re the one true religion and that if you don’t do it their way, you’re going to suffer for eternity.  But they can’t all be the one true religion.  And you can’t actually adhere to all of them at once.  So you’re pretty much guaranteed to wind up suffering for all eternity anyway – even if you do decide to behave as if one of the religions is true.

Of course a devout believer will be happy to tell you which religion is correct – it’s the one that they chose.  And they’ll back it up with all kinds of evidence and scripture and whatnot…  But pretty much every religion has equally compelling evidence and scripture when you get right down to it.

The next problem I have with the wager is that it assumes there’s no drawback to behaving as if there is a god.

They suggest that living as if there is a god doesn’t affect you in any way…  You just go through your life like you normally would…  And at the end, if you picked the right religion, you get rewarded.  If you picked the wrong religion, you’re no worse-off than if you hadn’t picked any religion.

But this isn’t true.

They’re suggesting that you should live your life as if a god existed.  This suggests that you should be doing something differently than what you’re doing now.

For the Christians – this means that you should be going to church, tithing, condemning abortion, ignoring the evidence of your own senses, witnessing to others, and treating sex as something to be ashamed of – just to name a few.

So I’d have to waste a couple hours, every week, in church.  Sitting there, listening to some priest drone on and on about how great God is and how lucky we are to be saved.

And I couldn’t enjoy looking at pornography or reading erotica or fooling around with my wife.

And I couldn’t afford some unfortunate woman the safety and dignity of respecting her decision to have an abortion.

…those are some pretty big life changes, and they’re just the tip of the iceberg.

The fact of the matter is that living my life as if there’s a god would have a huge impact on my life…  And regardless of which god I pick, I’m still pretty much guaranteed to get it wrong…  So I’ll probably wind up suffering for all eternity anyway…

So, why should I behave as if there’s a god up there?

Wouldn’t it make more sense to act as if this life is all I’ve got?  No promise of heaven, no risk of hell – just one life.  One chance to make the best of my time here on Earth.