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I will ignore any evidence to the contrary and blindly affirm that Heathansson is incapable of deep thoughts. :)
If only it were true, and I were oblivious to the machinations of epic stupid that ceaselessly batter at me with their sloe-eyed bleatings, and neverending war of attrition.

Patrick Curtin |

If only it were true, and I were oblivious to the machinations of epic stupid that ceaselessly batter at me with their sloe-eyed bleatings, and neverending war of attrition.
LOL, did you jump into the flamewar circle? Let the trolls play, they look more like boggards at this point and will eventually dwindle to pixies sprinkling golden showers of rage upon one another amongst the mushrooms.

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Ambrosia Slaad wrote:I like it when the head falls off.Heathansson wrote:2. Ogay. We make all these devices, stairmasters, bench pressers, all that crap to give us big thews.
THEN we put a little f&&%ing button in the car door to a motor that will roll up the window for us, because that spinning hand cranky thing is just too exhausting.
ALSO, when that little motor gets sand in it's figurative buttcrack, it costs $200 to replace.
f&&%!Actually, those are handy to close the other three windows in the car when it starts raining and I'm driving.
Also, you can get an annoying passenger to stick his head out the window, then raise the window on his neck and cut off his air supply. Ah, sweet silence!
Unfortunately they installed these silly safety devices.

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Patrick Curtin wrote:I know right? And having those five +1 swords down the bottom of your character sheet could often come in handy too.I know I am a grognard because:
Reason 43:
I have a hard time taking loot and just buying items for my character. I guess it's a hangover from AD&D, but I always seem to feel like if I didn't find the magic item in a treasure pile, I didn't 'earn' it. Weird huh?
Hey, give 'em to all those hirelings who follow AD&Ders around.

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Mothman wrote:Hey, give 'em to all those hirelings who follow AD&Ders around.Patrick Curtin wrote:I know right? And having those five +1 swords down the bottom of your character sheet could often come in handy too.I know I am a grognard because:
Reason 43:
I have a hard time taking loot and just buying items for my character. I guess it's a hangover from AD&D, but I always seem to feel like if I didn't find the magic item in a treasure pile, I didn't 'earn' it. Weird huh?
Yeah, for sure, that's what we did. By level 7 or so you normally had enough spare magic weapons to equip a small army.

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Heathansson wrote:If only it were true, and I were oblivious to the machinations of epic stupid that ceaselessly batter at me with their sloe-eyed bleatings, and neverending war of attrition.LOL, did you jump into the flamewar circle? Let the trolls play, they look more like boggards at this point and will eventually dwindle to pixies sprinkling golden showers of rage upon one another amongst the mushrooms.
Oh, no. This is real life.
I actually am within five points of dull normal here at Paizo; either above or below, depending on how much sleep I had the night before.
Mairkurion {tm} |

Mairkurion {tm} wrote:Sorry, Kruelaid, it was the best avatar available for young Skywalker. :)Ye thoughts I was dead, dint ye.
Not at all. But I did wonder if the lack of avatar choices in this case would spur a reaction. Still, if you imagine that the pic was taken while Luke was joy-riding in his landspeeder...

Patrick Curtin |

Why is it that Halloween/Samhain always brings a certain amount of chaos in its train? Is the polarity of roles, where you assume another aspect? Do the spirits of Fall infuse young kids thoughts as they hoot and holler in their cheap plastic masks? Does the thrill of carrying off a pumpkin from the neighbor's stoop and smashing it on the road somehow transcendent in its malice? Why couldn't Christianity ever kill or co-opt this holiday?
Deep thoughts on Devil's Night.

Ambrosia Slaad |

Halloween/Samhain... Why couldn't Christianity ever kill or co-opt this holiday?
I thought that was the whole point of All Saints Eve & Day.

Patrick Curtin |

Patrick Curtin wrote:Halloween/Samhain... Why couldn't Christianity ever kill or co-opt this holiday?I thought that was the who point of All Saints Eve & Day.
Yeah, but who celebrates that? We don't make a big deal of it, unlike Christmas which has been totally subsumed. You can just barely see Yule and Saturnalia down in the details. But Halloween never went away .

Ambrosia Slaad |

Ambrosia Slaad wrote:Yeah, but who celebrates that?Patrick Curtin wrote:Halloween/Samhain... Why couldn't Christianity ever kill or co-opt this holiday?I thought that was the who point of All Saints Eve & Day.
It's pretty big with Roman Catholics. I used to have to go to Mass every year for it.
And one of my aunts, a former RC but now a strict born-again, believes it is the literal Devil's holiday.

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Patrick Curtin wrote:Ambrosia Slaad wrote:Yeah, but who celebrates that?Patrick Curtin wrote:Halloween/Samhain... Why couldn't Christianity ever kill or co-opt this holiday?I thought that was the who point of All Saints Eve & Day.It's pretty big with Roman Catholics. I used to have to go to Mass every year for it.
And there is something wrong with that?

Ambrosia Slaad |

Ambrosia Slaad wrote:And there is something wrong with that?Patrick Curtin wrote:Ambrosia Slaad wrote:Yeah, but who celebrates that?Patrick Curtin wrote:Halloween/Samhain... Why couldn't Christianity ever kill or co-opt this holiday?I thought that was the who point of All Saints Eve & Day.It's pretty big with Roman Catholics. I used to have to go to Mass every year for it.
Not to me. I don't care if others celebrate it or not, and I'm not RC anymore anyway.

Patrick Curtin |

Crimson Jester wrote:Not to me. I don't care if others celebrate it or not, and I'm not RC anymore anyway.Ambrosia Slaad wrote:And there is something wrong with that?Patrick Curtin wrote:Ambrosia Slaad wrote:Yeah, but who celebrates that?Patrick Curtin wrote:Halloween/Samhain... Why couldn't Christianity ever kill or co-opt this holiday?I thought that was the who point of All Saints Eve & Day.It's pretty big with Roman Catholics. I used to have to go to Mass every year for it.
Yeah, but it doesn't have much of a presence outside the church, as Easter and Christmas does. Believe me, the RC never gave up trying, they just couldn't subsume the holiday to their satisfaction.

Ambrosia Slaad |

Yeah, but it doesn't have much of a presence outside the church, as Easter and Christmas does. Believe me, the RC never gave up trying, they just couldn't subsume the holiday to their satisfaction.
I'll give you Christmas, but I think Easter has gotten a lot more secular in the last 15-20 years too (that's just my anecdotal observation anyway).

Patrick Curtin |

Patrick Curtin wrote:Yeah, but it doesn't have much of a presence outside the church, as Easter and Christmas does. Believe me, the RC never gave up trying, they just couldn't subsume the holiday to their satisfaction.I'll give you Christmas, but I think Easter has gotten a lot more secular in the last 15-20 years too (that's just my anecdotal observation anyway).
Sure, but it was very religious for quite some time. Samhain was never eradicated as thouroughly as Eostre/Ostara was. That festival (and diety) is so eradicated that there is some doubt as to whether it even existed at all. All we have for a source is the Venereable Bede,some linguistic anthropology, and ritual leftovers (eggs, bunnies, etc.)

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I've been thinking about it; I think the subsumation is kinda respectful of the customs of the group being assimilated.
I mean, there's religions that want you to routinely dress in the standard garb of another culture that has nothing to do with yours, much less chuck all your traditions. At least those old timey guys had the wisdom to not tell a bunch of frothing Germanics with battleaxes and chainmail whose women would follow them to battle Roman soldiers so they could finish off the wounded, "ogay.....accept the cross.....oh, and the whole Yule feast? The drinking and partying? That's done, guys."
Happy New Year!!!!

Patrick Curtin |

I've been thinking about it; I think the subsumation is kinda respectful of the customs of the group being assimilated.
I mean, there's religions that want you to routinely dress in the standard garb of another culture that has nothing to do with yours, much less chuck all your traditions. At least those old timey guys had the wisdom to not tell a bunch of frothing Germanics with battleaxes and chainmail whose women would follow them to battle Roman soldiers so they could finish off the wounded, "ogay.....accept the cross.....oh, and the whole Yule feast? The drinking and partying? That's done, guys."
Happy New Year!!!!
I think of it as canny brand marketing. Humans are creatures of habit, so if a religion needs to expand, build your churches on the foundations of the previous temple, rename and steal all the fun holidays, and arrange things so that it doesn't take a lot of thinking to switch religions.

Mairkurion {tm} |

There's an important principle involved in the Christian assimilation of cultural, religious, etc practices into the observances of Christmas, Easter, All Hallows, etc. It's called preparatio evangelium: that truth or foreshadowing of the truth are contained in all pre-Christian cultures, and the Church is to pick up those strands and hook them up as it spreads. In the case of Christmas and Easter, it didn't take much work. All Hallows was a bigger deal -- the observance was completely moved in the calendar and involved lots of problems with what were proper observances regarding the dead. As a result, All Saints falls in different places in the Eastern Church vs the Western.