Major Changes! POLL INCLUDED, VOTES AND COMMENTS WELCOMED

As revealed Here and HERE, two friends (SykoShadow, an online friend, who is a great, borderline insane, sharp and hilarious guy; an unintentional badass who Jumps out of second story wndows and Claudio, my very best friend in 'real ife'; a rogue badass who's profession is so dangerous they made a web series about it and who is in my top 3 greatest people of all time list), both recently joined the blog as authors, taking The Thoughtful Gamer and transforming it into its older brother, The Thoughtful Gamers, which, as signified by the sexy and dignified brand new pluralization, can get into clubs without presenting ID, can drink at least  a glass of wine and a half without worrying about its figure, and now has a confirmed IQ of 67, which is a whopping (especially at this elite end of the spectrum....Mensa will be knocking on the door any day now, baby!!!) 23 points higher than the stellar IQ of 44 it held up until this point.

Myth Busted: William Lane Craig Is Rational

William Lane Craig, the poster boy for post hoc rationalizations and bald assertions based on outdated cosmologi- er, sorry, rather, the poster boy for Evidence Based Christianity, had this to say:

"And my view here is that the way in which I know Christianity is true is first and foremost on the basis of the witness of the Holy Spirit in my heart and this gives me a self authenticating means of knowing that Christianity is true wholly apart from the evidence. And therefore, if in some historically contingent circumstances the evidence that I have available to me should turn against Christianity, I don't think that that controverts the witness of the Holy Spirit."

''a self authenticating means of knowing that Christianity is true wholly apart from the evidence. ''

Wow, talk about circular.

Welcome Claudio to the Thoughtful Gamers!!!!!!!!!!

Following the announcement of SykoShadow's arrival, I am proud to announce the addition of my best friend Claudio to the Thoughtful Gamer's team!! I don't know if he'll ever post, but if he does, well look out because anyone who reads what he has to say will immediately grow a third nut (or a first if they are female), put on 10% additional muscle mass, have their voice deepen, and lose their religion (if they have one).

He is also in the process of building his first ever blog, which you can find HERE It's still under construction, but his already has a nicer aesthetic than mine :( Damn computer guys.....*grumbles*

If I sound overly excited.......I AM!!!!

Btw, Syko (you crazy fuck) and Claudio (you need a nickname, you sound too....nice) I have an idea for a group blog post that we can do. Little effort on your ends, don't worry :) Something small and relatively easy, but I think it will be fun. In the next few days, I'll do my part of it, and you'll see it saved as a draft. That will be your cue to add your own (bit by bit or all at once, no biggie) and then we can decide if we want to combine them into one or post them as three seperate ones. Basically, we'll all be ansering a few questions, getting 3 takes on some classic theistic queries directed at atheists.

Welcome SykoShadow to the Thoughtful Gamer(s) Blog!!

The Thoughtful Gamer is about to be renamed The Thoughtful Gamers, as my friend SykoShadow has joined the blog as a contributing author. In addition to the new author, the blog will now be displaying multiple blog posts per page; likely three but I am still playing around with this. Between 3-5 will be the final number, I imagine.

Atheist Billboard in North Carolina Defaced. NEWSFLASH, PEOPLE: "One Nation Under God" is DIVISIVE!!!!

I was sent a news story by a friend over MSN tonight. The story is entitled 'Atheist billboard defaced on N.C.'s Billy Graham Parkway' and it can be found at the following link:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/ynews_ts2936?b

An excerpt from the story:

Unknown vandals unhappy about atheists' billboard in Charlotte, N.C., spray-painted "Under God" on the ad, the city's atheist association discovered Monday. The defaced message will remain in place until after July 4, the group reports, which is the soonest that workers can furnish a fresh billboard image. Here's how the vandalized billboard now looks:



The billboard reads, "One Nation Indivisible," which is the phrase preceding the 1954 insertion of the words "under God" to the Pledge of Allegiance, reports the Charlotte Observer's Tim Funk. The billboard was erected on Billy Graham Parkway last week. (Graham is, of course, the state's famous evangelical preacher.)

Alpha Protocol Xbox 360 Review

Alpha Protocol Xbox 360 Review-
Choose Your Own Adventure

Alpha Protocol is a 3rd person Action RPG developed by Obsidian Entertainment and published by SEGA. The game has you assume the role of Michael Thorton, a newly recruited secret agent working for the top secret organization known as the Alpha Protocol.

Note: This Alpha Protocol Xbox 360 Review can also be found HERE.

Psychology: Science? Unscientific? Bullshit? Pt. 3

This is a follow up to THIS post, entitled "Psychology: Science? Unscientific? Bullshit? Pt. 2"

Some further discussion has taken place. A new comment from him, in response to the last one I gave (featured in part two of this (originally not intended to be a) series:

Then again I never studied psychology so thank you for elaborating. I just don't know how that general psychology or psychoanalysis as you pointed out helps any in the business world other than bettering someone as a person. I feel the same about art even though I am kind of an artist myself; I think it's totally useless unless you're actually going into art.

And my response to that was as follows:

Well, I'm not sure why you're using the business world as an endpoint (remember though, I still basically agree with your contention), but if that's the one you're going with, I suppose one could argue that, ina ddition to bettering yourself, as you pointed out, you could possibly use an understanding of the human psyche to aid yourself in processes like detecting falsehoods, guaging prospective employees, social networking, closing deals, etc.


Not that I really buy that (well, to some limited degree, sure) but I think that could be an argument. Although, if you remove the business world as the end goal, you have all sorts of ends: the sake of knowledge, interest, interpersonal relationships (famiial, marital, etc), professional endeavours (counselling), etc etc.

I was never a fan of it, but I don't think it's wise to write it off entirely (not that you or I are necessarily doing that).

If you compare real world benefits of something like your field and psychoanalysis, I think that the clear winner is your field. I think the argument could be made that of all areas of study, mathematics is probably the most important, as much as I hate(d) it.

What do you think? If you offered an opinion after part one and/or part two, does this have any bearing on your opinion at all? As always, feedback is mucho appreciado.

EDIT: Go back to part one to see a comment from this very same person. His original opinion is no longer one that he holds to the letter. I think we had a productive dialogue here. I also got his major wrong :(