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Ramzi wrote:
That's rich. I'd say there is a fair division between atheists who were born into believing families and atheists who were born into atheistic families. I'm of the prior. This means I had to counter my family, education, and society. I doubt you were born atheist and reasoned your way to such irrational beliefs. Don't tell me about open-mindedness.
Your statements indicate that you are no longer as open-minded as you may have been previously.
Fabian wrote:
I think Ramzi's point about atheists being raised in believing vs non-believing families is a good one.
There are atheists who were raised in Christian families, and there are Christians who were raised in atheist families. I don't understand what that is supposed to prove, other than that people are capable of changing their beliefs.
Bob A wrote:
Anyway, the reason there's no such article is because there is no evidence.
I've already said that the so-called "evidence for evolution" can be reinterpreted to support Creation. Facts do not, by themselves, nullify or validate any given theory. It is only in the interpretation of those facts that you can judge a theory. Your lack of belief in the existence of evidence does not mean there actually isn't any such evidence.
Bob A wrote:
Except that there's no reason to expect that. Why do species a, b, c, d, e, etc., etc., all have homologous organs when they probably could have been designed much more efficiently if those organs were redesigned for each species? In effect you're saying that god happened to create the species (genera, whatever) to appear exactly as they would if they were descended from a common ancestor.
So, you think it would be evidence against evolution if different organisms had dissimilar structures, instead of homologous ones? Don't you see that evolutionists would just change the theory to accomodate that, if it were the case? Instead of saying that there was one original thing from which everything is descended, they would just say that there were a bunch of them from which different types of organisms were descended, and they would say that evidence against evolution would be homologous structures. Actually, some of them are already saying that there was some sort of community of original things that exchanged genetic information because they've realized that the current diversity of genetic information could not have come from just one ancestor. My point is that this redefinition game prevents the falsifiability of the theory of evolution. Now, if the theory isn't falsifiable, it's not scientific.
Now, to deal with your "inefficient design" argument. You are assuming several things when you say that. One of them is that God designed* the creatures to be most efficient in the world as it is today. That is certainly wrong. The original creation was perfect, and the modern world is not. After the Fall, mutations in creatures' genetic information caused them to lose efficiency, if they didn't cause death before the creatures were even born. This genetic decay has continued until today, so the inefficiency has increased. The Flood is also an important factor. It destroyed the original creation, so that our modern world looks nothing like it in terms of geography, climate, etc. As the creatures were designed for the pre-Flood world, it is no surprise that they are less efficient in the current one. Therefore, you cannot use modern ideas of efficiency to judge the design of creatures that were created for a different world than the one we now know.
*Note: God did not "happen" to create creatures in some way, He purposefully designed them that way.
Bob A wrote:
Also, that doesn't solve the problem of vestigial organs.
Our lack of knowledge about an organ's function does not mean that it no longer has a function.
Bob A wrote:
I don't see how you can refute the evidence from fossils.
In a way, you could say that that's part of the purpose of the site, to show you how. They have a fossil section that you can read, so you don't have to look through everything. There's also a search feature. You can even contact them if you have specific questions.
Bob A wrote:
The article talks about those issues I presented, so they are relevant. The equation they give only works if you know the original ratio of parent to daughter isotope, and if you can show that no environmental factors changed it during the passage of time since the object was formed.
Bob A wrote:
Also, if you do screw up a particular sample, that only means that that sample is useless, and not all the others.
How do you know if you've messed up? If the numbers agree or disagree with what you already believe about the age of the object? That's circular reasoning.
moozooh wrote:
And how does it affect this claim: "the geological age of the eath (by carbon dating) is far older than the age of the galaxy (based upon its rate of expansion)"?
I was merely pointing out a word error. I don't believe his explanation.
moozooh wrote:
It's because no-one can provide the evidence (provided you understand what evidence means).
A book written by people (fallible people, as you would say) who were born long after the events mentioned in it occured, can't be counted as one per se.
Using your argument, anything written by modern people is even more removed from the events that you believe happened, so why should we count it as evidence?
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Boco wrote:
He breaks the calendar into two parts, the "days" and the "generations". Midrash says we are to interpret "days" as the six days of creation and "generations" as years from Adam, two separate calendars.
How does this show that "day" in Genesis 1 doesn't mean a 24-hour day, though? That's what I was trying to ask.
Boco wrote:
Use in contemporary works (including other scripture)
So, where in the Bible does it say that the days of creation weren't normal days? Based on the contexts of Exodus 20:11 and Exodus 31:17, for example, they are definitely normal days.
Boco wrote:
It just means we can't expect current definitions to hold. After all, how can one have a literal 24-hour day, four days before the sun?
You don't need the sun to have days; you just need a source of light and the rotation of the earth. God is the Creator of light, and He doesn't require any other source for it.
Boco wrote:
Also there's the whole thing about there being two creation narratives which disagree on details as a reason not to take it literally rather than as a multilayered poem describing how God went about his work.
If you mean the "apparent contradiction" in the order of creation between Genesis 1 and 2, it's dealt with on this page, which I've probably linked before.
DeFender1031 wrote:
If i recall correctly, i believe it was Maimonidies who said "woe is the fool who takes all midrash literally"
You seem to keep on quoting more recent sources to deny many things from earlier sources. By the argument that time dilutes knowledge about the actual events in question, with which I partially agree, you're therefore getting more and more inaccurate. If you only believe the things that modern "scientists" say, tell us already.
Truncated wrote:
Wikipedia links (neutral, all of them interesting reads)
The fact that there's no "Evidence of Creation" article makes me doubt Wikipedia's neutrality. That's not the only reason, of course, but it's a significant one related to our current discussion.
Bob A wrote:
How so? What of that evidence shows that the earth isn't 4.5 milliard years old and that life didn't evolve from a common ancestor?
I'll explain all of those "comparative <whatever>" ones quickly. You can find the rest on Answers in Genesis. The comparative <whatever> argument is that various organisms, organs, cellular components, cellular processes, etc. from different sources studied in the field of <whatever> are similar or the same, so they must have come from a common ancestor at some point. However, this can also be interpreted as a manifestation of God's omniscience. He created the characteristic in question in different creatures based on a common design. It's like theme and variations in music or standard libraries in programming or using the same materials to make different kinds of buildings, automobiles, books, <insert item of choice here> or... well, you get the idea.
OmnipotentEntity wrote:
Oh, I'd really like to hear this. Let's see which flawed argument you use. Maybe it'll be one so laughably absurd I haven't heard it before.
You've probably heard all this before. For me, at least, all of these arguments against the Bible are well-known.
Blublu wrote:
Of course, nothing will ever disprove creation. After all, it isn't a scientific theory, so it cannot even theoretically be disproven.
I disagree. The way you disprove Creation, evolution, or any other theory is by testing its predictions. If the predictions don't match up with our observations, you can throw the theory away. At least, this is how it works in principle. Practically, those assumptions/axioms that everyone holds about the universe generally interfere with the process, in that they will cause the interpretations of those observations to be favorable toward the person's beliefs. So, unless the person is willing to change those axioms, opposing arguments will be to no avail.
Blublu wrote:
But the whole point of evolution is that there is no creator... You'd have to radically re-interpret the bible right from the beginning until the end, until the interpretation is so different from what is actually written there, you might as well do away the whole thing.
I totally agree with this, although I suppose evolution could be the thing that is re-interpreted. I'll say more on this later.
Ramzi wrote:
If he told me he was a theist philosopher, and believes in God for good reason, I would ask him what those reasons are and dismiss them one by one.
Ramzi wrote:
This conversation would merely be to understand him and his faith better, but not to discover truths about the real world.
I'd say this puts you in the "people who aren't willing to change their axioms" category.
Blublu wrote:
According to the theory of evolution by natural selection, there is no intelligent guide. If you postulate an intelligent guide, it is not the theory of evolution by natural selection anymore. But like I said, you can ignore this. Or you could call it a "variation", or whatever.
I agree with Blublu. Whatever "variation" you're using isn't going to get you any support from the real evolutionists, since they don't believe in any guide whatsoever.
DeFender1031 wrote:
fine, G-d created the process of evolution from the beginning and it takes its natural course (except of course where G-d chooses to alter it, same as with any physical constant)
You seem to be misunderstanding Blublu's very clear point: Evolution, as believed by all those "U.S. earth and life scientists" that Truncated mentioned, does not allow for any alteration at all. It is driven by completely random mutations, not mutations that are susceptible to God's choosing. Anything that says otherwise is not the theory of evolution by natural selection.
Bob A wrote:
Seriously, what did yahweh need to do to make it clear that that was literally the way the world began?
I second this question. Even if the Bible said that light was created on the "first 24-hour period of time," you would argue that those "hours" were not the same kind of hours that we have today. So, how do you think the Bible could have been written better? (Note: I don't believe that the Bible is improvable in any way, but that's what people who want to reconcile it with evolution seem to believe.)
One other thing that you may not have considered is that we would have no choice but to believe if the Bible gave us "too much" information. That would nullify the free will which I believe God has given us. If you don't believe in free will, then you can just ignore this argument.
DeFender1031 wrote:
The pope can only decide for one religion. There are other religons besides christianity, you know.
The pope can actually only decide for himself. As he is human, he is as fallible as anyone else. Anyway, no one is forced to believe what the pope decides. Furthermore, it is not only Catholics who are Christian.
Truncated wrote:
3) There is no such discrepancy, the universe is calculated to be a lot older (13.7 billion years) than the earth (4.567 billion years).
He said the galaxy, not the universe.
Zurreco wrote:
Carbon dating is a proven system.
No, it's not. The most serious issue with it is that you have to assume what amounts of the isotopes in question were originally there. You also have to assume that the amounts were left unchanged from the moment the thing died to the moment it was tested; for non-living things, this means that you assume that the amounts were not increased or decreased since the thing was formed until the testing. If these assumptions do not hold, radioisotope dating is useless.
Zurreco wrote:
I should also point out that a lot of the theories that you are raging against were supported by the church.
The church, although it is headed by God, is composed of fallible people, and they can be wrong.
Blublu wrote:
There is absolutely, totally, NO argument within the scientific community about this.
I could question pretty much every sentence in that post, but I'll just stick with this for now. The numbers that Truncated posted earlier show that there is by no means 100% agreement among scientists about the truthfulness of evolution. Furthermore, the numbers are affected by the phrasing of the question(s) in the poll/survey/whatever and how they are being interpreted by the analysts to decide who believes what.
DeFender1031 wrote:
that doesn't disprove creation, as i've explaned before, evolution fits in to the story of creation just fine.
[and similar comments]
I was going to give a lengthy explanation of how evolution does not fit into the Creation story, but I saw several flaws in your "stage <#>" interpretation that I thought I would question you about. Assuming this thread doesn't get locked, I'll give my lengthy explanation later.
Stage 1: You seem to indicate that the planet earth was created at this point, but then you say that it wasn't in the universe. So, where was this physical object that we call earth located?
Stage 2: Genesis 1:6-7 says that the firmament, which God called Heaven in verse 8, was used to "divide the waters from the waters." Verse 7 says that there were waters above and below Heaven. If this division is a separation of realms, as you say, what are these waters that are apparently both in the metaphysical and physical realms?
Stage 3: Genesis 1:11-12 mentions trees that produce fruit. How does this work without photosynthesis, which isn't around according to your interpretation?
Stage 4: You reference the big bang as a theory that explains the beginning of the universe, but you said that God created the universe in stage 1.
Stage 5: Genesis 1:20-23 doesn't mention "crawling creatures of the land" on day 5. Genesis 1:24-25 does say that things that creep on the earth were created on day 6, however.
Stage 6: According to Genesis 2, your theory maintains that God created a garden with plants, rivers, and animals in the "metaphysical eden" separate from the things that were evolving on earth. What was the point of this?
Another problem is your explanation of the meaning of "image of God." If Adam and Eve were not originally physical, why does the Bible use physical terms to describe the events? For example, God made Adam from "the dust of the ground" and "breathed into his nostrils" (Genesis 2:7); the trees in the garden were "pleasant to the sight, and good for food" (2:9); the river leaving Eden split up into four heads, one of which encompassed a land containing gold, bdellium, and onyx (2:11-12); God gave Adam permission to eat from all the trees in the garden except for the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (2:16-17); God took one of Adam's ribs to make Eve, and He "closed up the flesh" (2:21); Adam said that Eve was "bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh" (2:23); Adam and Eve were naked (2:25); Eve misquotes God saying that they weren't even allowed to touch the forbidden fruit (3:3); the snake said that their eyes would be opened if they ate the fruit (3:5); they made and wore aprons out of fig leaves (3:7); they were able to talk and hear (3:8-19); they tried to hide (3:8); the head of the serpent and the heel of the woman's seed is mentioned (3:15); Cherubims and a flaming sword were placed to keep people away from the tree of life (3:24). These descriptions don't make sense if Adam and Eve were not physical. The last one is especially troublesome: Why would people need to be kept away from the tree of life if they had now been reduced to a physical state that had been separated from the metaphysical Garden of Eden and the tree back in stage 2?
All of that "proof" for evolution can be interpreted to support Creation. By no means is it unilateral.
Bob A wrote:
That's not faith at all. Faith is a process of non-thinking whereby one accepts beliefs passed down through tradition with no evidence, or even against the evidence.
I disagree. Faith is based on some kind of logic. The axioms of the various kinds of logic used to justify various faiths may differe significantly and may be a matter of debate, but every faith about which I know is based on logic.
Bob A wrote:
None of those things require faith; they can demonstrated scientifically (through inductive reasoning), not to mention that they're all glaringly obvious.
The "glaringly obvious" things are usually the hardest to prove, at least from my experiences. If you want to try, however, go ahead. There's also the matter of proving that induction works, though...
Bob A wrote:
Also, in my view it's futile to speculate about whether reality "really" exists; we can perceive it, and that's all that matters.
Our perception is easily fooled. Just look at how many optical illusions are out there.
adelikat wrote:
2) Whether there is a higher power or not, you can not argue that man has a need for something higher than himself (herself).
Why not?
Bob A wrote:
It's true that religions evolve, but they only evolve to come closer in line with secular culture.
So why are there still large, divisive issues today, such as stem cells, sodomy, abortion, physician-assisted suicide, and the death penalty? You'd think that this so-called "evolution" of religions bringing them closer to secular culture would have dulled some of the fervent ideas on these matters, but that is not the case.
Bob A wrote:
The more this happens, the more religion loses importance, and the easier it is for people to deconvert.
They're not deconverting, they're just converting to another religion.
Baxter wrote:
Main difference between a scientific theory and a religious theory is the fact that a scientific theory can be proven wrong, and a scientist will accept this.
The question is how long it will take for the scientist to accept it, and how much of a fight he'll put up.
Fabian wrote:
I am of the opinion that history teaches us very little on this, since (I've said this before, just restating) it's in the past few hundred years people in general have started to become well-educated enough to not need superhuman explanations (etc, everything we've discussed in this thread).
I disagree. I've already said that knowledge does not necessarily damage religious ideas. Another point is that this "we've become so much smarter" argument could be applied to anything from crime and wars to poverty and health, which I doubt anyone ever needed, but these are still large problems in our "more-educated" world.
DeFender1031 wrote:
you misunderstand me, the translation is days in modern hebrew not biblical hebrew.
You're implying that there have been large changes in the Hebrew language since antiquity. I took a Jewish history class with a professor from the nearby Hebrew Union College, and he said that the language is essentially the same. Part of the reason is that it has historically been used mostly for religious purposes; Israel was surrounded by a bunch of other cultures and generally used the dominant language of the time (e.g., Aramaic) to conduct everyday business.
moozooh wrote:
Remember the story about heliocentrism (and church's position against it).
That story that has been widely misrepresented. I recommend reading this page for some clarification, although the resources here are all quite good.
moozooh wrote:
Besides, the clone is not a perfect copy of the cell donor, which implies that it is a new life.
You seem to have the idea that it has to be a "perfect copy" if it shares the same genetic material. Phenotype, however, is influenced by the environment, not just the genes. Check your biology textbook if you don't believe me.
Furthermore, the cloning process is not creative. It takes an already-existing nucleus and places it into a different egg cell. For scientists to "create" life, they would have to start off with atoms and make a living thing. God created everything out of nothing, however, so even that wouldn't be such a big accomplishment, if you ask me.
Boco wrote:
But when you're looking for the intended meaning you should probably look as close to the writer as possible, for example at commentaries written within a few generations when the culture wouldn't've changed significantly since.
There have been significant changes in our cultures within the last century, even the last few decades, so why can such changes not have occurred in the past? Furthermore, how do you know that the intentions of the commentary writer(s) were to interpret the document as the author intended?
Boco wrote:
It's also rather difficult to take something as poetic as the creation narratives and translate them literally and have it make any sort of sense.
Why's it so difficult? Is it just because the story doesn't agree with "science"? I don't see what the problem is if you allow for the existence of the all-powerful God described in the Bible.
Boco wrote:
If we are to take it as six literal days, why did Moses himself differentiate them?
How does that example show differentiation? Sure, the word "day" in any language can probably mean something other than a 24-hour period, but you look at context to determine the meaning.
Boco wrote:
Commentary from 1500+ years ago differentiates them and lcaims the creation narratives are parable.
Can you give examples? This page gives examples of scholars who interpreted them literally.
Boco wrote:
The days are numbered, but they don't begin with "first day" (implying there are further days) - they begin with "day one" meaning that the first creation narrative is attempting to look FORWARD from God's view, NOT backward from man's.
How does this affect how long they are?
JXQ wrote:
Question, why do you "censor" the word God?
Some people believe that the word should not be spelled out completely because it's holy or because others could defile it. DeFender1031 could have an entirely different reason, however.
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Fabian wrote:
You might be right about the percentage of knowledge thing, although I'd guess no. It doesn't matter at all though. Don't really understand why it was brought up either.
You, or someone else, said that people generally drop religion as they get more knowledge. I then said, or attempted to say, that increased knowledge does not necessarily require people to drop religion. An important factor, of course, is whether they have access to information about how the new knowledge supports one type of religion or another.
Fabian wrote:
Do you agree or disagree with my prediction by the way?
I can't say that I agree or disagree. It will depend on that "access to information" factor. If people will only (or mostly) have access to information that supports non-supernatural religions*, then the other types will most likely decrease dramatically, and vice versa. I think that the amount of people who believe in God as revealed in the Bible will decrease, at least as a percentage of the earth's total inhabitants, but I don't know how the numbers will shift.
*I mean religions that don't believe in the existence of any sort of supernatural being/object
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Fabian wrote:
Also, this "I assume .... supernatural elements. " quote is partly contradicting the definition you yourself posted earlier ("esp. when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies"), but it's not a big deal so don't worry about it.
It's not contradicting the definition, since the definition does not state that all religions include the supernatural, only that some do.
Fabian wrote:
To say that this man does not have less knowledge than you or me or the average Joe in 2006? I'm sure you'll agree that's a bit much after thinking about it some more, right?
Yes, I did word that part incorrectly. I meant that the percentage of all our knowledge today which an average Joe possesses or has ready access to is probably not much greater than the percentage of all knowledge in 1506 which an average Joe of that time possessed or had ready access to. If you want to discuss various forms of impediments to the access of knowledge, we can do that.
Fabian wrote:
However, the quote of yours of everyone having their own religion (what I just quoted above) obviously has nothing to do with the discussion at hand, since we're specifically discussing religions with "supernatural elements" (your quote).
You did not specify that we were discussing only those religions at the beginning of the topic. You just said "organized religion." Based on the definition I presented, I consider atheism, evolutionism, etc. as organized religions. They do fit your definition of being "big" and "widespread."
Fabian wrote:
And as kind of a sidenote, "mass media" has very very little to do with what people know today, aside from news reporting.
My main idea was that the majority of people who present knowledge in some form present it in a way to further their agenda.
Zurreco wrote:
When we question religion, there is a huge necessity for faith in order to accept the responses. When we question science, we further question things we don't accept until we can surely agree or disagree, to an obvious limit.
Science requires large amounts of faith to work, too. For example, scientists must have faith that the universe exists, that it consistently follows rules/laws, and that we have the capability to understand those laws. You can't scientifically prove that any of those are true, since they could just be errors with how you perceive things. For example, solipsists are a rather extreme example of people who do not believe those things, since they believe that only the mind exists. So, faith is required in order to accept any type of response, not just a religious one.
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The debate comes down to arguing about the divine inspiration of the Bible. If you want to read about that, check this page, as typing all of that out myself would take too long.
Zurreco wrote:
The scriptures and gospels were definitely NOT written right after the fact, or even close enough to the point where exaggeration and whatnot couldn't have seeped in. I'm not saying that the works aren't true or anything, but I have a hard time remembering what I said to my room mates a few hours ago.
Actually, "exaggeration and whatnot" would count as untruth. Therefore, you are saying that the works aren't true.
Hyena wrote:
Those four authors were witnesses to what they wrote, for the most part.
From what the Bible says, Mark and Luke apparently became disciples later. However, they both worked with Paul and had contact with the Apostles. BTW, the Apostles were the 12 disciples who were with Jesus while He lived on earth. Matthias was chosen to replace Judas. See Acts 1:15-26 for more info on this.
Zurreco wrote:
The one part that comes to mind is when Jesus is doing his thing on a sunday, and the herodian preists are watching him. etc.
That's recorded in Mark 3. The man had a withered hand, not blindness. Furthermore, Mark 3:7 records that "Jesus withdrew himself with His disciples to the sea" right after that event. Therefore, His disciples were with him on that occasion.
Zurreco wrote:
Therefore, how is it possible that we can accept a second-hand telling of a situation that serves to benefit the initial narrarator? Isn't that practically rumor?
This isn't an issue because of divine inspiration. I think it would be nice if people asked those questions about so-called "scientific" knowledge, however, such as the so-called "proof" for evolution, which definitely doesn't claim to be inspired by God. We could make a whole other thread just about that, though.
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It's pointless to argue if the terms aren't defined. You can't "prove" anything at all without basic assumptions about what process(es) can be used in proofs and what you will accept as evidence.
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Fabian wrote:
I'm not saying this is necessarily the case, I'm saying that people being more well-informed than they were say 500 years ago has led many people to not believing in any religion.
I assume that you're using a different definition of "religion" than I am. Everyone has a religion, but not every religion mentions God, the supernatural, etc. Therefore, the trend, if it exists, is more toward religions without supernatural elements.
I wonder if people are truly better-informed than 500 years ago. There is certainly more knowledge than 500 years ago, but I don't believe that the general populace has access to the majority of that knowledge. Even the knowledge that they do access through the mass media is partial, since each author has his or her own agenda.
JXQ wrote:
Do you think this is disrespectful to Jesus? If so, why? If not, why not?
I think it is disrespectful because you're banalizing Jesus's power. The miracles He did were for the glorification of God, not just to show off. Such "jokes" only "promote" Jesus as some sort of magician or source of entertainment, when His purpose was to reconcile us to God.
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Zurreco wrote:
It just means that those who don't share the morals of most religions have more outlets by which they can voice themselves, and technology is allowing these people to slowly have more of a say.
I wouldn't necessarily say that they have more outlets, just that they're more outspoken. I mean, the majority of Muslims are supposedly peaceful, but we generally hear about the radicals who cause trouble.
religion: a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, esp. when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs
The universal part of the definition is "a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe." Consequently, I do not think that religion in general is on the verge of disappearing. I'm not sure what you mean by "organized religion," though. As JXQ already mentioned, Jesus and other people in the Bible said that there would be many false religions before the judgment, which is certainly the case today. While I don't know about increases and decreases in "organized religion," the Bible says that there will eventually be a world religion that will encompass everyone during the time of the Antichrist.
In accordance with the above definition, my belief about this whole idea of "separation of church and state" is that it is quite impossible. People will always believe something about the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, and their beliefs will affect how they behave and what sort of political ideas they support.
Fabian wrote:
The trend of religion becoming less popular is pretty noticeable, and I think it will only continue, at a faster pace as man's general knowledge keeps growing at a faster pace.
You're saying that knowledge necessarily makes religions that include the part after "esp. when considered" in the above definition less popular. That is not the case. Scientific knowledge can be interpreted in a way that agrees with the Bible. It all depends upon what unprovable assumptions you're using to interpret the data.
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JXQ wrote:
I had an interview yesterday and I took a small written exam with several riddle-like questions on it.
I think that's a rather unusual thing to happen at an interview. They really must have wanted to identify the people who "think outside the box." What was it for, if you don't mind telling us?
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On my first visit back to Romania in 1998, I got a videogame system (it says Sega Mega Drive 2 on the package) and two games that I brought back to the US for some weird reason. Well, I suppose that I thought I could somehow get it to work over here (feel free to laugh at my n00bishness, but please also respond with something helpful).
Anyway, the things that interest me are the games, which I dug up today. I'm pretty sure that at least one of them is a pirate cartridge. It says several things (in order from top to bottom: 95 in 1, VT-653, 1998, Super) and has some pictures of games/game symbols that aren't actually on it, iirc (Adventure Island IV and 3 Contra Force(?) on either side of the text; bottom row: a picture of a hockey goalkeeper diving, cartoon of a guy shooting a gun with a dog nearby, Mortal Kombat symbol, some cartoon picture with Japanese(?) text and the number 5).
The second game is the one that interests me the most. The cartridge says NT-621 and Street Fighter on it, with several other pieces of Japanese(?) text, two of which are preceded by the numbers 96 and 60. On the left side, there is a mosaic-type picture of Chun Li, Blanka, E. Honda, Ken, Sagat, Guile, Zangief, and Ryu. From what I remember, this game isn't exactly a normal version of Street Fighter II, if it could even be called that. I only remember playing it on an old, possibly B&W, TV in Romania, but the character select screen was definitely different from the real SFII game. There was a pretty large, rectangular grid of characters. It may have been 8-by-8 or even larger, but it wasn't necessarily square. In any case, I seem to remember that the character face sprites repeated every line or every few lines. Furthermore, I think that the sprite didn't necessarily match up to which character you actually got when the fighting started.
Basically, I'd like to know if anyone can help me identify these games. I can't exactly play them to get any more info. In fact, I should probably destroy the cartridges, since they're most likely pirated. What would be the best way to do that, btw?
Thanks for any help.
EDIT:
I would post pictures, but I can't find any of the digital cameras we have or the USB cables to transfer the pictures.
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Great job on this run, GuanoBowl. You spent a lot of time on it, and it's easy to see the quality getting better as the game progresses. Unfortunately, I voted no because we already know how to improve some parts of it (e.g., Deku Tree).
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bkDJ: Thanks for trying to help, but I see some issues with your suggestion.
I thought we had decided that the N64 runs at 20 FPS.
Capturing an AVI with H264 lossless seems prohibitive, at least for my current HD (10 GiB free space, around 30 GiB total). Last time I tried, I got a 3-GiB file when recording up to the Silver Gauntlets. Admittedly, that was at 640×480 resolution, but I think it would still be huge at 320×240.
I get the lag with and without "Sync game to Audio" checked.
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JXQ wrote:
Is this even going to be accepted for publication?
Since GuanoBowl already said that he would work on a better version, I don't see why it would be...
EDIT:
Very nice stuff in the Spirit Temple, GuanoBowl. Just one thing. Please keep more than one heart during the final battles. That beeping is so annoying.
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Bob A wrote:
(a) Everyone who works voluntarily prefers working to not working, otherwise they wouldn't be doing it.
I wasn't arguing about their preference for work but about their preference for the kind of work that they are doing. The way I interpret that point on that page is that the people are being forced to do tasks that they would prefer not to do, not that they are being forced to work when they do not want to work. For example, being forced to work in construction when one would rather be a teacher.
Bob A wrote:
(technically they would accept more, but that's obviously not what it meant.)
I didn't find it so obvious from what I read there.
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Nibelung: Actually, I was having problems loading the site sometime yesterday, and Opera performed no better than Firefox. I find Bisqwit's explanation the most likely one for that.
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No, I haven't, but that section you linked to seems about as utopian as you can get. Of the working population of the earth, how many people do you think (a) actually like what they're doing and (b) wouldn't voluntarily accept more money for what they're doing? Using the definition given on that page, and the statistics that I've seen about the questions just listed, it would appear that most working people are in a situation of slavery.