v40.5: Reason for Religion?

Howdy folks,

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First off, let me start off by giving a quick update on my NaNoWriMo progress.  So far, I'm sucking pretty bad at keeping my word count up.  The month of November is half over and I'm nowhere near half way through the word count.  I should be over 25,000 words right now and I'm not even half way to that goal.  Of course I'm blaming WoW for my lack of progress.  The next expansion for World of Warcraft is coming (out December 7th) and there are a ton of things going on in the world right now that are leading up to that expansion.  I'm getting a bit excited about this expansion.

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I'm sure you've all heard the story of King Arthur and the knights of the round table.  There have been so many different variations of that story over the years it is hard to tell which (if any) is the right story.  The story talks about how Arthur became the King of Camelot and how he pulled the sword from the stone and all that fun stuff.  It has been retold and passed down over the generations.  Did it really happen or was it just a story?

I often wonder if some of the "stories" in the Bible are similar.  I mean, how many of these stories were written by the people who actually lived them?  Take the creation of the Earth for example.  Obviously this wasn't written by Adam or Eve; in fact, the book of Genesis was written primarily by Moses.  Moses tells the story of the creation of the earth and tells us all about the fall of mankind after the first sin.  Moses wasn't around when the earth was created and he definitely didn't witness the first sin or the first murder.  These are simply stories.  In fact, if we take the book of Genesis for truth, it would have occurred around 4000 B.C. and poor old Moses wasn't born until around 1550 B.C.  So you have approximately 2500 years worth of "stuff" going on that was put into a single book of the Bible.  Some believe the stories we read in the bible are nothing more than stories to convey a religious message; similar to the way some Pastors will tell stories today.  Of course people will believe what they will and everyone believes something slightly different from the person sitting next to them.  That is what makes us unique and special :)

This begs the question, if the creation of the earth was nothing more than a simple story told by a man thousands of years later, is it safe to assume that nobody has a sweet clue about how the earth was created and they simply created a story to make God look all powerful?  I was always told that there was nothing God could not do and he was all powerful.  Personally, if I was God, it wouldn't take me 6 days to build a plant.  I would build it in less than a day and I wouldn't need to rest afterwards; but I digress.

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Of course this also raises some other interesting questions about the Bible and its authenticity.  Think of all the times in the Bible where God "spoke" to people.  Now I haven't gone through the effort to find the original word for spoke to see if it means verbally spoke or "spoke" through other means but given the fact there is text as if God was speaking, I would have to assume it meant he literally spoke with a voice.  Why doesn't that happen today?  I find it hard to believe that God is shy or has issues with public speaking.  What made the people in ancient times so special that God actually spoke to them?

Don't get me wrong folks, I'm not trying to tear apart anyone's religion here.  I'm just trying to figure out (for my own benefit) what the point is.  If I've learned anything over the years of studying religion it is that they all believe in something bigger than themselves.  Who's right?  Are any of them right?  Is there even an all powerful being out there that listens to our needs and shelters and protects us?  Unfortunately that isn't a question I can answer and everyone believes something different so there's no help there.  Personally, I'm beginning to think people need to follow their own heart and their own beliefs.  Religion isn't all about worshiping something greater than you, it is about living our lives and making the best out of this short life we're given.  Think of it as a set of guidelines for people to follow and how to live good lives and respect others around them.  Think back on all the bible stories you've heard.  How many teach a lesson in one form or another about being kind to others or respecting others.  The bible is full of stories like this and they all teach us right from wrong.

Unfortunately religion has turned people against each other and has started more wars and fights than anything else in the world.  In fact, I wouldn't be a bit surprised if I received some hate mail or nasty comments here because of this topic.  Personally, I don't care.  If you feel you need to say something, then by all means, post a comment or send me an email.  I'm always up for a good debate.

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Anyway folks, WoW is calling to me and I must listen.  I hope you all have a great day and hopefully things will slow down enough that I can post again soon.

Cheers,

Al

v40.4: NaNoWriMo Begins!

Howdy folks,

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The long awaited month of November is finally here and with it, NaNoWriMo!  I've been anxiously awaiting this to start and have been brainstorming ideas on what I want to write during the month of November.  For those who have no idea what I'm talking about, NaNoWriMo simply stands for "National Novel Writing Month" where every November, writers from all over the world take the time to write a novel of their own choosing and upload their progress to the NaNoWriMo site.  The goal this year is 50,000 words and I fully plan on making it this year.

Last year I was a bit disappointed in myself because I was only able to achieve approximately 20,000 words, but I was pleased with what I was able to accomplish and some of that novel I wrote has been posted here for others to read and enjoy.  It is still unfinished and perhaps some day I'll return to it and finish it off but this year I've decided to do a completely new novel.  I'm taking some advice from my sister and I'm writing about something I really know and enjoy, World of Warcraft.  I'm not going to write a strategy guide or anything crazy like that.  I'm simply taking a single adventure with my friends who play WoW and I'm writing about it.  I'm really excited about this year's NaNoWriMo project as it is something I really know a lot about and think it will be a  lot of fun writing about it.  I'm not going to bother changing the names or places, the goal here is to write as much as possible in 30 days and hopefully have something that vaguely resembles a novel by the end of it.  Proofreading and editing will come later.

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Speaking of gaming, the gang and I have been anxiously awaiting the arrival of Cataclysm, the newest expansion to the World of Warcraft collection.  To help bring in the new game and the new content we've all decided to start fresh on a new server.  As if that wasn't challenging enough, we've also decided to play the other faction to add even more "newness" to the game.  For those who are not into WoW or understand what I'm talking about: World of Warcraft is a massive game.  Approximately 11 million active subscribers spread across hundreds of servers.  A server is basically a copy of the same game which houses thousands of players.  Since each server is virtually identical, it doesn't really matter which server you play on to experience the game.  Having multiple servers is a way to help spread the population out to avoid latency so you can have hundreds of thousands of players playing at the exact same time.  You can't communicate with other players on other servers and if you were playing on a different server than I and standing in the same place I was, you wouldn't see me.  It's a tricky concept to explain to someone who has ever played.

This coming February will mark approximately 6 years of playing World of Warcraft for me.  I still find it hard to believe that I've been playing the same game for so long but WoW has "something" that keeps me hooked and as long as Blizzard keeps doing what they're doing, they'll most likely keep me for years to come.  I've met a lot of friends through WoW and made just as many enemies.  I've even met people in real life that I've played with which is strange and cool at the same time.  World of Warcraft isn't just another game, it is an experience and no, Blizzard isn't paying me for saying that.

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Anyway folks, just a quick post and quick update so you know I'm still here and alive.  I'm taking the two things I like to do the most and I'm combining them into a fun and awesome project; World of Warcraft and Writing.  Wish me luck and hopefully during the progress I can keep you all up-to-date on how things are going.  Maybe I'll create a little site widget and update my total word count each day so you can see how far I've progressed.  We'll see.

Until next time.

Cheers,

Al