Hero

It's impossible to argue that God exists or does not exist, because the theological consensus among all Abrahamic religions since the era of the Prophets is that direct knowledge of God can only be through divine revelation as opposed to reason. If you haven't experienced any divine revelations, you have no way of knowing what the truth is. If you have, then God's existence is proven through the fact that you have. Of course, it is possible to infer facts about God's nature based on revelations that have been written down or passed down orally using reason, if this wasn't possible thousands of theologians throughout history would never have found employment. But unless you are willing to have faith in God's existence and to accept the material you're working from as a divine revelation, no progress can be made. If people aren't willing to take this step, this topic will just keep moving in circles for a hundred more pages. Now for the problem of evil. The explanation for it that Blackbird offered, that suffering, or evil, exists because there is a force with the same power as God but the opposite effects doesn't really work within the boundaries of mainstream theology throughout all of monotheism. By mainstream theology here, I mean the ideas that God is omnipresent and omnipotent. In order for two opposite entities to be omnipresent, they would need to coexist in the same space. This is impossible, just like how at the same point can't be both white and black at the same time or how a person can't be both alive and dead at the same time. Therefore, neither can be omnipresent. Similarly, neither entity can be omnipotent, since as opposites each entity's power is canceled out by the other entities. They also must have equal power, since if they did not the stronger one would destroy the other. In order to reasonably explain evil while maintaining that God is omnipresent and omnipotent, I only know of two options. Either evil is part of God's plan or created by God or evil is the result of God-given free will. The second option still works if God is all good, if the goodness of the creation of free outweighs any evils that result from that action. The first option doesn't work unless God is evil to some degree as well as good. I hope my summary makes sense.

^ has a YouTube video that would take to long to load for me to want to watch it.

^ is married to Sanaki. Yeah, but I'm still aware! I've been driving through this heavy rain and I didn't even die once!

^ is obviously a robot because of the visible circuit boards and antennae.

^ obviously doesn't live near anything with internet access. How far from your house do you have to go to see interesting websites? Kind of hard to find one that hasn't, with the number of countries running around these days. Even good old oligarchic theocracies with deputy legislatures have their fair number of falls. Still a better track record than American-influenced presidential democracies if we look at the average number of years they stay in the game, though. Hey there, I'm not the one who said you were the Terminator.

^ comes from Austria.

^ uses a name in place of a first-person pronoun. I got a better idea looking at your display name history--I remember you as Konata Fan at least.

^ is easily provoked into calling others annoyable.

EDIT: Three new posts before I posted. ^ claims to be male while simultaneously claiming to be a dragon-girl. Confusing. ^ has an interest in keyblades. Funny, I don't recognize you at all. It's confusing when people are always changing their names and signatures and avatars, it's like only one or two people remain over a period of six months. Then maybe this is my fault for not visiting often enough.

^ will be graceful about it as he kills you.

The best is Link's Awakening. That's easy for me. After that, it's tougher to say. The Oracles games continue what Link's Awakening did well, but are a bit too slow-paced for their own good. A Link to the Past is overall very good, but I think that some of the dungeons just fell flat, the overworld was poorly designed by Zelda standards and a lot of the cool items you got were only actually useful a couple times. The N64 games were a lot better, unlike with a lot of franchises Zelda didn't lose much of its original ethos during the transition to 3D and fully utilized the new options that had been given to developers. Majora's Mask I'd put a couple steps behind Ocarina of Time, though, since it's so much more limited. Wind Waker was also very good, but I think it would have been better with a different graphical style. The graphics just didn't match the locations they were portraying, or the plot for that matter. It's hard to believe you're exploring ancient ruins when they're colored so brightly and every enemy and character is so over-the-top in their design. I'm not saying that every game should look like Diablo II, but a little gray and grime can go a long way. I really liked the 4 Swords, but never finished the game since I couldn't get multiple other people to play with me very often and you really can't go back to playing single player once you've seen the game played the way it was intended to be. The Minish Cap just wasn't memorable for me, I'm sure it was good but I can't remember anything that was particularly cool. The original Zelda, a lot of people like that one but I never really got into it. It's hard to really enjoy the game whose every aspect has been redone and improved in the process. There wasn't much in the way of puzzles, and all of the fights were slow-paced and monotonous compared to any of the games on later systems. I haven't played anything other than these yet. In the end, my list would be: 1) Link's Awakening 2) Ocarina of Time 3) Wind Waker 4) Majora's Mask 5) A Link to the Past

You guys should remember that gym leaders only have five pokemon apiece, fewer is alright but never more. Also, most of the leaders have unevolved pokemon. Here's my team: Zigzagoon Dunsparce Bidoof Ratata Slakoth (with the Truant trait) I haven't played Pokemon in awhile, but this team should be able to kick a low leveled trainer's ass. Unless they break the game's sequence and bring a ghost type.

Thanks for your help. I'll get some volunteers, and we can hopefully begin the testing within a week.

Hmm. That's interesting, I've never heard about harnesses that connected to the neck. They must redistribute the weight of the upward pull by putting pressure in strategic points of the spine and neck. It sounds very innovative. Where can I buy 80 or so of these? I'd like to start testing them and maybe manufacturing them as soon as possible. My parachutists' commanders have been complaining for awhile that not enough attention has been given them in terms of equipment upgrades, and frankly I agree.

^ the epitome of maturity. Every one of you could learn a thing or two from him, about maturity and about using using your minds. Really, someone should give him a medal.

I'm not sure what a webie is, but I am certainly glad to welcome you to these forums, comrade. This is a crucial time that you've joined us. The ongoing fight for the Super NES Fire Emblem games to secure their international recognition as the greatest among their peers has come to a crescendo, and your experience with FE5 will speed our side's inevitable victory. Beware of any friendly overtures, though--as snakes hide in grass, poison hides in sweet words.

I'll welcome you, comrade, but I must urge you to abandon the openminded ideal you seem to have about forums. There are dangerous ideas creeping about right now, ideas that could hurt you if you're caught exchanging for them. None of us can rest in this period of climactic struggle until the Super NES games are securely recognized as the most meritorious of the entire series.

No, they're fools.... Bureaucratic fools.... Japanese schoolgirls, very dangerous. You go first.

Seriously. I was a big fan of that one.

I've never thought it was impossible to learn a language as an adult, but I think it's much tougher. A language is always a huge amount of memorization, even if you know why the language is the way it is. At the end it all boils down to motivation. After college, most people don't have much of it for learning a foreign language unless its related to their work. Getting enough exposure to the language is also an issue for most people in the US at least. I do believe you about age having no effect on being able to pronounce things properly, looking into that a bit more it seems like there are too many exceptions for any simple rule to exist. I have yet to meet someone who started learning a language at 30+ and speaks it well, but it seems like there are plenty out there.

Nope, I can name five off the top of my head who used to be extremely active, though I'm not sure any are now since I was essentially absent for so long, and realistically I think there are dozens of Latin Americans signed up, if the demographics here are anything similar to how FESS was, back in the day. You undervalue your country. Any of the people I keep company with could easily locate it on the map. You guys have a relatively strong economy per capita, strong and important allies, are in a location where conflicts seem unlikely in the near future and get plenty of prestige and tourism from hosting organizations like the EU and NATO if nothing else. Compare this to the former eastern bloc countries, they've been getting nothing but abuse and bad luck since 1989. And you shouldn't be too offended by being called Germans, any classical/LA/medieval history aficionado can tell you that Belgium was solidly Germanic up until the 12th century at the earliest. They just might be referring to that. ;) EDIT: Carpetbagger.

I have a girlfriend, and haven't been single since just after I turned 16.

^ is a big fan of a character I've always ignored.

For the last month or so, and until next year I'm having a lot of free time. A good chunk of it has so far been spent watching Let's Play videos on Youtube, a nasty habit I picked up about a year ago, since they can be pretty entertaining and help get me tired late at night, like right now. For the last week or so I've been thinking of creating a series of my own, since I get the feeling when I watch a lot of the videos online right now that I could do better. ;) But I really have no idea of where to start. I'm unclear on what the best recording and editing software would be for making a Let's Play with an emulator. Also, I don't know how I'd gather an audience starting out. Last, I'd like some help deciding which game to do. I've been thinking of either Link's Awakening DX or Dragon Warrior I or II, since they're all personal favorites, relatively short and I think I could give any of them a pretty good treatment. It might also be that all of these are too overdone already for me to get any attention, you tell me. I'd appreciate if any of you guys who are familiar with Let's Play videos would help me with these questions--I know at least a couple of you are, or at least were back in the days of FESS.