Posts made by Avin

I think some formal instructions might be nice. I started reading these forums regularly only a few months ago, even though I had been playing the board game and been aware of this site in general for years, and I started investigating the idea of playing by email then, but I found it a bit daunting at first, never having played anything by email before. For a while I thought that you had to just visualize everything kind of like how good Chess players will look at a list of annotated chess moves and be able to construct the board in their heads. Reading through some of the games in the Games forum really helped, and I found that I was actually able to visualize the board overall somewhat, at least for the purpose of observation. But then I signed up at DAAK and got a mentor, and found out about map programs and such. Now I definitely enjoy play by email more than anytime I’ve played in person before.

I just wish people would play on these forums more often!

The game is in the “Play by forum” forum, look at it yourself; it seems like it worked, because Zero conceded within a turn from that move, stating that the pressure on Germany was too great and his offensive movement would not have been enough to compensate for it.

I had actually planned on evacuating Karelia on my next Russian turn so as to move offensively with Russia against Eastern Europe as well, as long as I had enough to defend Moscow. Germany would have easily conquered Karelia but it wouldn’t have done them any good having a northern factory when they would need to spend all their income defending their capital.

If you are playing LowLuck, there is only one scenario that will guarantee keeping a British controlled IC in India past J1.

Russia must land a fighter in India on R1.

In all other cases, Japan has a good shot or possible guarantee at taking out India on J1. Other determining factors include:

• Bid: Japan bidding any units within striking distance of India, particularly infantry in FIC or armor in Kwangtung, will seriously cripple India’s chance of survival

• R1: If Russia attacks Manchuria, that will possibly eliminate one fighter that is within striking range of India.

• G1: If Germany attacks Egypt or Syria, that can potentially eliminate two infantry that are transportable to India on UK1.

• UK1: As mentioned, the UK can transport its Egyptian/Syrian infantry to India. The sub in EMD can also be moved to BEN for fodder if it didn’t die on G1. A mutually exclusive (but rather far fetched and inferior) option from transporting the infantry is moving the transport in BEN to SCH, which blocks the Japanese transport in SUL from unloading in India.

However, even taking all of these variables favorable to the Allies (no bid in FIC/Kwangtung, Russia takes Manchuria, Germany does not kill any of the significant British units, the UK moves both infantry to India and sub to BEN), Japan still has a 22.6% chance of taking India (4 inf, 1 ftr, 1 bmb vs 4 inf 1 ftr after 2 ftr vs 1 sub 1 trn).

Of course no Japanese player will probably try such a risky battle, but the circumstances above are highly dependent on the above factors. The most likely scenario to prevent this is for Germany to attack the British sub in the Eastern Mediterranean, and for Japan to bid at least one infantry in either Manchuria or Burma. With those two changes, we now get an 88% chance of conquering India if Japan had placed an infantry in Manchuria, ensuring the fighter’s survival, or an 87% chance if Japan had placed an infantry in Burma and Manchuria was lost.

If the UK can take WEU in force, it can potentially be defended quite well, with not just the US but possibly Russian reinforcements as well, if the attack is made at the right time.

In my Forum game against Zero, Zero was trying a very offensive Axis strategy against Moscow and therefore was attempting to trade WEU back and forth from the getgo, but on UK3 I took WEU with 4 inf 1 arm, landed a US fighter there as well as 4 inf 1 arm (I was low on transportable units because he had killed off my navy on both G1 and G2, the latter with great cost to his air), and then on R4 landed the two Russian fighters there.

In most games, moving the Karelian fighters to WEU would probably not work as well, but in this game there was that slight window of opportunity (it required the UK to immediately move fighters to defend MOS from Japan on UK4, and then barely having enough left in Karelia to hold for another turn).

Interesting, it seems like this thread was began to ask about what origins theory people here believe in and why, but it has turned into predominately discussing what should be taught in public schools.

These are not at all the same issue!

In my first post on this thread I outlined how and why I stopped believing in evolution and became a creationist. Did anyone actually read it by the way? I’ve been reading through this thread on a daily basis and I get the feeling I was pretty much ignored. Anyway, I only touched on the issue of teaching briefly to say that I did not support the teaching of creationism in public schools. Yet I still firmly believe that creationism is true.

When you come to the question of what is taught in schools, the issue is not a question of science or religion at all, which is where I think many people get sidetracked in. Both of these, science and religion, are modern categories of ideas. They are not the only categories: history, sociopolitical theory, philosophy, and formal constructs (such as rules of systems like grammar, writing, etc) are others. There are two purposes for the things that are taught in school: to teach students how to think, and to teach students certain facts. In general, a parent should teach their child what they believe to be true, regardless of what category of knowledge any purpoted fact falls into, be it any of the above. A public school is a service provided by the government that is supposed to aid parents in this endeavor. As such, it should at minimum teach children what is universally agreed on to be true. When America was founded, Christianity was considered universally agreed on even though denominations were not, so it was not uncommon to educate students in ideas that were common to all Christian denominations. However this is no longer the case, so we do not do so any longer. When you have a difference of opinion regarding whether an idea is true or not, it matters little what the source of the idea is; the issue of whether it is taught or not becomes a concern for POLITICS not science or religion. You can use science or use religion to lend support for your view all you like, but that does not change the fundamental fact that X people think one thing is true and Y people think another, and the politics between them decides what gets taught and what does not. So for instance, statistics say that a large number of Americans believe in some form of creation, yet this is not taught in schools because politically creationism is not viable.

I do not advocate teaching creationism in public schools because I recognize that there are a large number of people who do not desire for it to be taught, and I do not seek to change their opinion by force. I would like to change their opinion by convincing them of it if possible, but not by making a law about it. I hope that proponents of opposing theories would be equally open minded that people like me exist that do not think that evolution explains the origins of living things (although I have no problem with the scientific concept of evolution happening today, and indeed I intend on teaching my own kids this) and that I desire for it not to be taught as such, but if they don’t, I’ll deal with it with my own kids and leave it at that.

Hi,

I’m the one creationist vote (so far). Before you dismiss my opinion as that of a religious fanatic, let me explain my position a bit.

First, I grew up as a Christian that believes in evolution wholeheartedly. Until I started college, in fact, science was always my favorite school subject and I was particularly interested in biology, and thus evolutionary biology was deeply fixed in my mind. It was not until I got to the university that I began to even question that, because to date I have never heard anyone speak out against evolution nor been taught ID or Creationism in any classes - I went to public schools my whole life, a secular university (Carnegie Mellon University), got degrees in Mathematics and Computer Science along with taking the standard intro courses in Biology, Chemistry, and Physics, and the church I had attended most of my life growing up never once spoke out against evolution to my recollection.

However as I was pursuing my degree in Mathematics (with a concentration in Logic) and began to wonder what to do in my life, I became intensely interested in the philosophy of science, mathematics, and reasoning. I came to thoughts through that period of questioning and reading that allowed me to have in my opinion, a much more informed and historical approach to understanding the logical processes of deductive reasoning, the applicability of the scientific method, and the epistemology we all accept. From my logic background, I began to see how the metaphysical assumptions people hold filters the way they accept or reject theories, and how the scientific method is used especially. So I came to the conclusion that if I wanted to accept belief in God, creationism, etc, or even atheistic evolution as it applies to origins (note: not current evolution, I mean merely of the extension of evolutionary ideas to the origins of each species alive today), I would have to do so more as a foundational element of my thought rather than as something that has been “proved”, because all of the above things are on the same level in that way. As long as the belief seemed to be consistent with reality as I knew it, I knew that I could hold it with as much justification as not. Yet I still believed in evolution because I saw no reason why I should abandon it at the time.

What changed my mind was a number of theological rather than scientific ideas. As I mentioned, I had been a Christian my whole life, so I was already taking the existence of God as a given. Now that I believe in creationism, I find my ideas about origins and the Bible to be far more intellectually satisfying, and I find my interest in non-Discrete areas of science far renewed. Of course, I do not seek to prove either creationism or my beliefs in God; I accept this foundationally, because I think they are the best explanations for life, and this is why it was theological ideas that made me change my mind about evolution: I knew that if it was a consistent interpretation of reality, I could make that switch on a foundational level. So note that when I say I believe in creationism, I no more advocate teaching that (or ID) in a public school science class than anyone else here does. I just also would prefer that the origins aspect of evolutionary theory not be taught in public school science classes either, but if that’s what the majority of people believe should be, then so be it.