A new site for Biblical scholarship?

I have to admit, I enjoy reading about the gaming scene (I live my geek vicariously). I was therefore delighted/amazed/surprised/dumbfounded to read about a new MMO game called The Bible Online warning - extremely slow server The site describes the game as follows

<The Bible Online: Ch1. The Heroes> is based on the first book of the Bible, Genesis. Players can meet and play the real heroes of Genesis, Abraham and his descendants. The game is designed for users to actually experience the Book of Genesis by fulfilling quests of Abraham, which is based on the true stories of the Genesis. As a MMORTS, players are to lead their tribe, build buildings, maintain resources and engage in warfare with other tribes. However, players do not stay in one place, but will go on a quest to go to the Promised Land. Players will lead Abraham’s tribe from Ur to Haran and finally to Canaan.
Most game sites are very excited, but confidently expect the game to be 'adult only' due to the graphic nature of the sex, violence, and general debauchery inherent in the source material. [H/T - Destructoid and Penny Arcade]

Continue ReadingA new site for Biblical scholarship?

People really do play by the rules!

Studies recently completed at Washington State University suggest that we really, really don't like non-conformists, people who don't play by the rules, regardless of whether the outcome is positive or negative.

The studies gave participants—introductory psychology students—pools of points that they could keep or give up for an immediate reward of meal service vouchers. Participants were also told that giving up points would improve the group's chance of receiving a monetary reward. In reality, the participants were playing in fake groups of five. Most of the fictitious four would make seemingly fair swaps of one point for each voucher, but one of the four would often make lopsided exchanges—greedily giving up no points and taking a lot of vouchers, or unselfishly giving up a lot of points and taking few vouchers.
As expected, participants didn't want to work with the greedy players who took more than they shared. Unexpectedly, they were also eager to get rid of the unselfish players - who consistently gave more than they received. The researchers found that
unselfish colleagues come to be resented because they "raise the bar" for what is expected of everyone. As a result, workers feel the new standard will make everyone else look bad. They frequently said, "the person is making me look bad" or is breaking the rules. Occasionally, they would suspect the person had ulterior motives.
It didn't seem to matter that the overall welfare of the group or the task at hand is better served by someone's unselfish behavior. The do-gooders are seen as deviant rule breakers. It's as if they're giving away Monopoly money so someone can stay in the game, irking other players to no end. I think that this merely demonstrates that the majority of people are generally (small c) conservative, and want to stay within well defined boundaries. In my opinion, this respect for the rules is one of the major foundations upon which religion builds, and which is (also) appropriated by authoritarians for their personal gain. Hooking into our sense of fair-play and our inherent tribalism seems to be a winning strategy for those who would define the rules for their personal gain. Define the rules, and the people will enforce them for you. No secret police needed!

Continue ReadingPeople really do play by the rules!

Dangerous Intersection now available on your smart phone

We have now upgraded Dangerous Intersection so that you can access all of our articles and comments (and submit comments) on your smart phone. I'd like to give some recognition to two entities and one person that/who have made this advance possible. First of all, this website runs on a WordPress platform. This is excellent and free open source software has been developed by hundreds of community volunteers (how does Free Market Fundamentalism explain this massive effort?). For the new mobile capability, we are using a new release, WPtouch Pro 2.0, by Bravenewcode. For those of you who run your own WordPress sites, WPtouch allows incredible functionality for about $30 per website. If you visit DI on your smartphone, I suspect that you'll agree. I'd also like to thank Josh Timmons, a St. Louis computer consultant who tirelessly maintains our server and provides me with immense amounts of technical know-how, much of it in the wee hours. For those of you who use iPhones, you can also make DI the equivalent of an App. Simply visit this site by entering the URL (http://dangerousintersection.org/ ). Once you see the site on your phone, press the "+" button at the bottom of your screen and choose "Add to Home Screen." The next screen allows you to choose a shortened name for our site (I chose "DI"). Then press "Add." From then on, you can access DI directly from your iPhone home screen (you needn't go through Safari any longer). I don't want to be presumptuous. I hope that your finding this site to be thought-provoking in a civil way. To the extent that this is true, then, see you in the future, either on your computer or on your phone.

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Moral conduct in the absence of commandments.

“Thou shalt love puppies.”

Does the above Commandment explain why people dutifully gravitate to homeless puppies, adopt them, feed them and love them? Of course not, because there is no such commandment. Nor are there any other abstract moral principles requiring us to love puppies. We love puppies because the urge to love small tame animals is deep in our bones. We love puppies because we are built to love (contrary to those who claim that life is fundamentally dog-eat-dog -- Consider also, that the “struggle for existence” is only a conceptual metaphor with limited application). Our human bodies are pre-rigged to take care of cute little mammals, especially when they appear to love us back. We would love puppies even if there were a commandment telling us to NOT love puppies.

Continue ReadingMoral conduct in the absence of commandments.