19th Level

I've tried to keep my blog reasonably nonpolitical and in a way I find it sad that commenting on an act of murder and terror is a political act. Forty nine people were murdered early Sunday morning at the Pulse nightclub. The Pulse being a gay nightclub, they were almost certainly targeted due to their sexual identities. I don't know what to call it - an act of hate, an act of terror. I don't think it really matters what you call it. Forty nine lives were ended and their loved ones are left dealing with the horror of what happened. I've been wrestling with my own thoughts. They're layered but for what it's worth, this is what they are... As far as guns are concerned... As a nation, we're not going to do a damn thing. Twenty 6 and 7-year old children were killed in Sandy Hook, along with school personnel and the killer's mother. We didn't do anything then. When we decided nothing was the right course of action for dead children, we accepted that...

"Let me first of all say, to god be the glory." - From Ted Cruz's victory speech in Iowa "I’m a Christian first, American second, conservative third and Republican fourth. I’ll tell ya, there are a whole lot of people in this country that feel exactly the same way." - Ted Cruz while campaigning for Iowa I keep on reflecting on the fact that not only was what Cruz said acceptable but was said with the expectation that it would garner him votes. And he's almost certainly right. I want to be clear that I don't think an American should have to hide his or her faith. Or lack of faith. But I'm picturing if would have been acceptable for a Muslim candidate to have said "Allahu Ackbar" under similar circumstances. Would it have been ok to have said "all glory to Satan"? We know the answer. The mere suggestion that then-Senator Obama was a Muslim was something that had to be refuted. I think former Secretary of State Colin Powell ...

Luke Skywalker is a quick convert. In one scene he is asking Obi-Wan Kenobi what the Force is. A few scenes later he is looking down on Han Solo's lack of belief in the Force. This got me wondering as to the state of religion in the Star Wars universe. Let's take a look at the films. We'll go in order of release. I'll be quoting scripts from the Internet Movie Script Database . Episode IV - A New Hope In A New Hope  I believe there are three references to religion/gods/etc. plus a fourth colloquial reference. In the first, Admiral Motti is mocking Darth Vader's belief in the Force and refers to it as a religion:                                      VADER                          Don't be too proud of this                           t...

One advantage to your typical RPG religion is there isn't a whole lot of doubt. When you have priests who can heal injuries and turn away vampires, agnosticism and atheism are positions that make absolutely zero sense. In our own world, despite the claims of various prophets, saints, and the like, we've no conclusive proof of the existence of any supernatural being or beings, much less knowledge of what they might want or expect of lowly mortals. Moreover, even within a given religion, there is a lot of disagreement. You can find the greatest disagreement among people who are essentially in agreement - consider the great controversy in the news as I write this with the Anglican leadership censuring the Episcopal church for its permitting same-sex marriages. Watch the debates between liberal and conservative Catholics on matters like economic policy, immigration, birth control, etc. The Thirty Years War devastated Europe, a war with religious differences between Catholics ...

This morning I woke up at some dreadful hour and found myself unable to go back to sleep. Doing something probably awful for falling back asleep, I started reading news stories on my smartphone. One caught my eye at Newsbusters - a site dedicated to "Exposing and Combating Liberal Media Bias". This liberal was somewhat bemused by the following story: Fox Spotlights Minnesota Town's Rebellion Against Anti-Christmas Atheists . The short version is the evil whining atheists made a town take down its nativity scene. In response, gazillions of residents put up their own nativity scenes on their own private property. That'll show those pablum puking liberals. As one of those evil people strongly in support of separating church and state, my thoughts on the matter are... cool. The town is no longer endorsing a religion. And people are exercising their own freedom of expression and worship. I fail to see how putting up a nativity scene on private property is ...

"Go, now, attack Amalek, and deal with him and all that he has under the ban. Do not spare him, but kill men and women, children and infants, oxen and sheep, camels and asses." - 1 Samuel 13:3, New American Bible To be honest, it sounds a lot like the behavior of your typical gaming groups mechanism of dealing with a goblin lair. However, that passage comes straight out of the Bible. I recently finished Reza Aslan's book Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth . In it Aslan examines what we know and what we can surmise about the historical figure, Jesus of Nazareth. It's a fascinating work, something I will be reviewing in its own right, either here or in my political blog (or in both places, from different perspectives). I'm pretty certain I'd not want to live in  Judea within fifty years of 1 AD. But as a time for adventure, it is an absolutely fascinating period. It is a period of numerous Messiahs who rose up against the Romans in attem...

I threw down my enemy, an he fell from the high place and broke the mountain-side where he smote in his ruin. Then darkness took me, and I strayed out of thought and time, and I wandered far on roads that I will not tell.  Naked I was sent back - for a brief time, until my task is done. - J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings - Gandalf describing his death and resurrection.  Now that very day two of them were going to a village seven miles from Jerusalem called Emmaus, and they were conversing about all the things that had occurred. And it happened that while they were conversing and debating, Jesus himself drew near and walked with them, but their eyes were prevented from recognizing him. - New American Bible, Revised Translation, Luke 24:13-16 If I were smart and planned my blog a week in advance this idea would have come to me way earlier. When I was reading Swords & Wizardry yesterday, in between prepping for reading at Easter mass this morning, I came a...

I talked a bit about religion in various fantasy worlds last week which got me thinking about religion in our world. It's a touchy subject, whether in office conversations or your gaming group. I've gamed with  followers of Christianity, Judaism, Paganism. I'm not certain but I think I may have gamed with a Hindu and a Buddhist. I've gamed with believers, atheists, and agnostics. And truth to tell I'm comfortable with all of them. But I've also learned to respect people have different comfort levels with the way their beliefs (or things they don't believe in) are treated in fictional works. When I had a group playing D&D 3.0 several years ago I was strongly tempted to run a game using Green Ronin's Testament  setting, based on the lands of the Old Testament of the Bible. One of my players was, quite honestly, horrified of the idea of using that for a game. I had thought it made for a fascinating setting with lands being conquered, betrayals, noma...

As a preface to this post it probably makes sense to describe how I view religion in the "real world" as it surely has an impact on how I view it in fictional settings. I was raised a Roman Catholic and I remain one though I suspect if the pope ever had a chance to have a chat with me he'd probably show me the exit in short order. I believe in marriage equality (aka same-sex marriage), believe the church's teachings on the ordination of women and contraception are flawed, and I don't believe Catholics or Christians have an exclusive claim to salvation - to be honest I'm a believer in making this world the best it can be. I am a huge fan of Jesus who spent an awful lot of time telling people to love one another and not much time talking about birth control or homosexuality. Generally speaking if your religion gives you what you need and leads you to a compassionate life I'm fine with it. Heck if your lack of religion takes you there, awesome too. A lot ...

(Warning - there be spoilers for the movie Prometheus as this is more a discussion than a proper review.) As I mentioned previously, I saw Ridley Scott's Prometheus over the weekend. I've long been a fan of the Alien  series of movies (though for some reason my parents didn't take me when I was seven years old to see the original when it first came out. Going through high school and college I was a fan of the Dark Horse Comics various spinoff series (which manage to get more and more invalidated with every new release, though they are still well worth reading in their own right). The nasty chest-bursting xenomorphs from the series inspired tons of creations in my science fiction gaming - I added my own xenomporph's to my FASA Star Trek game, coming up with the idea of the critters being biological weapons. So, what of Prometheus?  Despite clearly taking place in the same Alien universe, it is not truly an Alien movie. A variation of the familiar Alien xenomorph ...