u/This_is_User

Am i the only one who hates how AI-upscaled movies look. They all have ugly artifacts, the removal of film grain makes the movies look like they were recorded on cheap camcorders etc.

Can you please make a category for them instead of putting them in the UHD section?

I sometimes use ChatGPT to delve into biblical questions, and with my limited knowledge the answers I receive seems very good and makes sense.

Does scholars experience the same or is it primarily useful for answering superficial questions?

For example I got a pretty good response to the question of why Jesus had a need to fulfill Jewish prophesies.

Below is my question and the answer. How do you rate the answer given your knowledge of such things:

Question

>Jesus refers several times in the Bible to prophecies that he is supposed to fulfill, such as riding into Jerusalem on a donkey. Is there not an internal logical problem with this reasoning? Why would God need to have his son fulfill Jewish prophecies?

Answer

There is a genuine logical problem if the prophecies are presented as a series of checkpoints established by God, which Jesus then deliberately completes in order to prove that he is the Son of God.

The reasoning can easily become circular:

God predicts what his son will do. Jesus knows the predictions and does what they say. His actions are then used as evidence that he is the son described by the prophecies.

For example, if Jesus knew Zechariah 9:9 and deliberately arranged to ride into Jerusalem on a donkey, the action would show, at most, that he wanted to present himself as the messianic king. It would not by itself prove that God had sent him.

The traditional Christian answer

In classical Christian theology, the prophecies are not regarded as external requirements that God later had to make Jesus fulfil. The prophecies and the life of Jesus are understood as two parts of the same divine plan.

God did not therefore make Jesus ride on a donkey because God was bound by something a prophet had happened to write. God inspired the prophet to describe a plan that would later be realised through Jesus.

From within this theological framework, the sequence is therefore:

God has a plan.

God allows parts of the plan to be expressed through the Scriptures of Israel.

Jesus carries out the plan.

Christians discover that the events correspond with the Scriptures.

In this model, fulfilment is not the cause of Jesus’ actions, but a sign of continuity between the history of Israel and Jesus. God is not trying to prove anything to himself. The prophecies are meant to show human beings that the life of Jesus was not an isolated or improvised event.

This answer is internally coherent, but only if one already accepts that God both directs history and inspired the relevant texts. Without that religious assumption, the argument becomes much less convincing.

The problem with consciously performed prophecies

Some of the alleged fulfilments could have been arranged by Jesus himself. The entry into Jerusalem is the clearest example.

Zechariah describes a king who comes humbly, riding on a donkey. Jesus asks the disciples to fetch an animal and then rides into the city. This may well have been a deliberate symbolic act in which Jesus dramatically declared what kind of king he believed himself to be.

In that case, the event is historically interesting because it tells us something about Jesus’ self-understanding. But it is not strong evidence of supernatural prophecy. Anyone familiar with the text could attempt to play the role.

Matthew makes the connection especially explicit by quoting Zechariah. He even has the disciples fetch both a donkey and a colt, probably because he interprets the Hebrew poetic parallelism as referring to two separate animals. Zechariah most likely refers to one animal in two different ways, whereas Matthew presents a scene involving two. This shows how strongly the evangelist wanted the narrative to correspond to the wording of Scripture.

The stories may have been adapted to fit the prophecies

The larger historical problem is that the Gospels were written decades after the death of Jesus by people who already believed that he was the Messiah.

The authors knew the Jewish Scriptures and used them actively in constructing their narratives. Matthew in particular repeatedly states that something happened “so that what had been spoken through the prophets might be fulfilled”. His readers are almost trained to see the entire story of Jesus as a narrative written in advance.

This leaves at least four historical possibilities:

An event took place, after which Christians noticed a resemblance to a passage of Scripture.

Jesus deliberately performed a symbolic act based on the passage.

The evangelist altered or expanded a real event to make the connection clearer.

The evangelist constructed the entire scene from the passage of Scripture.

It is often impossible to determine with certainty which explanation applies.

Many of the texts were not originally prophecies about Jesus

Another problem is that several Old Testament passages used by the New Testament do not appear, in their original contexts, to be predictions about Jesus.

Hosea’s statement, “Out of Egypt I called my son”, originally refers to Israel’s exodus from Egypt. Matthew applies it to the child Jesus returning from Egypt.

Isaiah 7:14, in its historical setting, concerns a sign given to King Ahaz in the eighth century BCE. Matthew reads the passage as a prediction of the birth of Jesus.

Psalm 22 was originally a lament spoken by a suffering individual. The Gospels use its language to describe the crucifixion of Jesus.

This does not necessarily mean that the evangelists believed they were manipulating the texts. They interpreted them according to Jewish interpretive methods of the period, in which a passage could acquire a new and deeper application in a later situation.

What modern readers often call prophetic prediction was frequently closer to typology: Jesus repeats and completes patterns found in the history of Israel. Modern scholarship therefore often describes the Gospels’ use of Scripture as a broad reinterpretation in which the significance of Jesus is discovered through allusions, patterns and new applications, rather than only through precise predictions.

Why would God do it this way at all?

The theological answer is that Christianity had to be presented as the continuation and fulfilment of the history of Israel, rather than as a completely new religion with no connection to Judaism.

Jesus was to be understood as the new Moses, the heir of David, the suffering righteous man, the good shepherd, the Passover lamb and the person through whom God restored his people. The ancient texts provided the language and imagery that the first Christians used to understand him.

This was also necessary because the crucifixion of Jesus initially looked like a complete defeat. An executed Messiah did not fit easily with the expectation of a victorious king who would liberate Israel. By rereading the Scriptures, Christians could argue that suffering did not disprove the messianic role of Jesus. On the contrary, suffering was part of it.

The logical conclusion

There is not necessarily an internal contradiction in the classical Christian explanation. If God both inspired the Scriptures and directed the life of Jesus, the two parts could have been planned to correspond.

As a form of evidence, however, the prophecy argument is problematic. It becomes circular when the New Testament narratives themselves both provide the alleged fulfilment and claim that the fulfilment proves their theological message.

The strongest historical interpretation of the entry into Jerusalem is therefore not: “Jesus rode on a donkey, and this proves his divinity.”

It is more accurately: “Jesus or the evangelists used Zechariah to present him as Israel’s peaceful and messianic king.”

The prophecies therefore tell us at least as much about how the first Christians interpreted Jesus as they do about what Old Testament authors had specifically predicted several centuries earlier."

Why are the participating football associations accepting this? If they want to protect the integrity of this great game they should all boycott this shit show and just refuse to play on. That will stir up some shit.

If you, like me, have countless hours playing this great game, then you might fint it to be too easy, especially in the end game.

You might find that after a while your typical strategy will become pretty easy to win with, especially when you have your build up and running.

Lately I have experimented with the settings in order to prolong the part I really like: The start and early middle. The end will become a slog almost no matter what, but I'd like to extend the other parts.

GUIDE:

First, you need to go into advanced settings when setting up a realm. Under "Realm Factions" make sure to set "fixed teams" and then forve every AI to be on the same team. That will ensure that they are focused on you and not each other. Then set every AI on "Very hard". Put AI difficulty on "brutal" and Combat AI on "challenging". Personally I dont use the challenging+ setting as it just gives the AI a straight up bonus on damage compared to you and that feels wrong.

Each AI have a button with some extra settings where you can give them a strategic bonus if you prefer. It will make the game even harder from the get go. Medium is what I use most often.

Now, under the tap "Realm Content" set world threat on normal. It's a bit counter-intuitive but I find that the AI doesn't do well with high setting and the game will be hard enough without it anyway.

Under the tap "Game Flow" set the game speed on slow and research speed at slowest. The only win conditioning should be "Allied Victory", but you can also use "slow" score which gives me 200 turns and no more - otherwise keep it on "disabled".

All the other settings doesn't matter much. In Realm Setup you can make it extra challenging by chosing "Blocked Underground" which will help the AI not getting confused. I like the underground and also Umbrall Abyss as it gives me another avenue to defend.

Another great setting is "Timelocked Tomes". Combined with the very slow game flow you will find that research is slow and you will often experience periods with nothing to research. It makes you appreciate researching new tomes much more. Try it.

... And that's it.

I like to use a large map, but medium is fine. I find that 4 AI's is more than enough, but 5 is fine as well. I almost always have crystal dwellings (To buy the first scroll, mainly).

GUIDE END

These settings will force you to approach the game vastly different than what you are used to. You'd be forced into a defensive position where it's vital that you don't over expand and you will have to deal with a barage of enemy armies in home turf that will force you to prioritize how you move your armies and how you setup your cities. Be prepared to have at least three armies home while you attack with your leader... it's brutal but also a lot of fun.

Personally I wouldn't be able to play with these settings without save-scumming a bit since attacks can come anytime and with an intensity that will just blow you out of the water if caught unaware. I challenge anyone to try without.

And advance slowly. In one recent game I took a city a bit to far into enemy territory (which in the middle game is pretty much the entire map) and every single AI attacked my three armies in turn. I had to fight more than 10 battles in that city after finishing my turn, being barraged by three-stack upon three-stacks. Pretty crazy but also a lot of fun.

Tried the Danish subtitles and the amount of spelling errors and hilarious misunderstandings can't be understated. It's very close to being completely useless.

Why even have an option this broken on offer? What is the thought process here?

A constant problem with AOW4 is the fact that for a lot of us getting deep in the game usually means certain victory. I rarely get to use tome 5's as the game is basically over by that time, most often I am clearly winning before tome 4's really kick in.

I've tried everything it seems, lately having the AI team up coupled with the slowest possible settings in regards to mana costs etc. It certainly made the game harder in the first half, especially before I hit the first tome 4.

I have just finished a game with 4 AI's teamed up against me, but even though I had to do a lot more defensive work it still ended with me snowballing the last part of the game. The AI clearly lacks the ability to corroborate with other AI's so they just do their own thing and randomly walk towards me.

Is there options or fixes in the beta that adresses this or makes it possible to tinker with the settings in new ways?

In the bible Jesus could walk on water. And according to John 6:21 Jesus was also able to instantly move a boat several miles:

"They wanted to take him into the boat, but the boat immediately arrived at the shore to which they were heading."

What's up with that?

And after his resurrection Jesus could suddenly manifest himself among his disciples... Is any of that regarded as teleportation?