Yes, there is a spiritual world. I am a baptist Christian who believes in heaven and hell, but not the Catholic purgatory. After all, the idea of purgatory was never in the Bible. There is also nothing to support the existence of ghosts. Why is only the theory of evolution only in schools? It has more holes in it than a Dutch dam made of Swiss cheese. For more info about the spiritual world, see the book of Revelations.

Please inform the new swine flu that it could not possibly have evolved and therefore does not exist.

Perhaps it will listen to your reasoning and be convinced to stop killing people.

Master Shakee has groupies? Cool.

Of course! How'd ya think I got started?

You can figure out the first two numbers of the combination lock. I guarantee it won't take more than 40 attempts to figure out the last number.

As for the other lock, you could just "PUN"ch it really hard. Or reach in the hole with the key in it. Or find a piano and keep playing until you find the right key. Or you could paint a nose on it, then just pick it with your finger! Or put it next to a few other shady looking locks and pick it out of the line-up! Or if you had a French-Canadian Monkey (mon key/my key?-yeah, a stretch, that.)

You get the idea.

LOL, looks like rIDdLEmynaME and Grayven have clobbered the punny looking lock!

Open the lock with your teeth! That is, take the skin of your teeth and put it on your knee, your skinned knee will get a scab, you can pick the scab, and use that pick to open the lock. One down, one to go.

As for the other one

there's a reason why I made sure it was the LAST number that was unknown

[How would you cross puzzle land? Part II]

Garbage burns too fast...

How long does it take for a logician to sink into the lava? According to Brainden, we've got way too many of them anyways.

And if we run out, any Swindlecants lying around?

You're on the right track for one part of the answer. There was a reason for that one statement in the puzzle that looked just a little out of place:

"...none of whom are very short."

Edit: added spoiler

Unreality has me confoozed, are we talking about free will versus determinism now? If it will impact this topic, then I'll go ahead and dive into it. Otherwise we'll start getting into discussions about whether the intelligence operatives who tortured prisoners can be held accountable for their acts if they were ordered to do so, and if not, at what point do you draw the line and say that this will was free enough to be responsible for its actions under the circumstances but that one wasn't. That would be a whole other can of worms that I'd rather not get into right now if we don't need to... or if it's on a different thread somewhere then maybe I will as time allows. But for now, back to topic.

Octopuppy's completely right about current religions, in that they are quite well adapted to persist in their current environment. And yes, I was judging them by very different criteria: not how well they persist, but how much good they do.

As for UU, it sounds like both octopuppy & I would ideally like to have more control over our followers. But so far, we seem to be stuck on the problem of how to make something that would be able to adapt, yet not either become utterly corrupt (if it has a single centralized governance) or undergo denominational selection that ends up selecting for attributes that aren't the ones we really want (basically what's already going on right now). Given those limitations, UU might be the best option out there if it has some favorable attributes that others don't.

Specifically, in a system where people build their own doctrine, it might be allowable and perhaps even encouraged to (gasp!) have experts come in and talk openly about the merits and limitations of things that although not strictly religious are nonetheless often considered in the domain of religion like {evolutionary theory, the practical consequences of outlawing vs allowing abortion, and the degree of sex education and access to contraceptives that kids should have} so people can make informed decisions on them. Seeksit, does such sort of discussion on those types of issues openly happen in UU, or is it more like your traditional church fare presented in such a way that people can appreciate it regardless of their own personal views? It was a little unclear just how much is set by the church and how much is set by each individual parishioner since you also mentioned things like some congregations being more Jesus-friendly than others. And do UU-ers get held accountable for the doctrine they build, or can they still believe whatever they want and expect to not have to defend it? If either of those answers are unfavorable then we might have to correct them with a takeover by Uberfaith or 0mnifaith corp. I may be going way out on a limb here since I have absolutely no evidence to support this hypothesis, but I suspect that individual people making their own such decisions and being held accountable to justify their views would produce far better results than churches that are able to claim that they carry the word of God and expect to go more-or-less unquestioned.

Of course we reserve the right to change our minds and rewrite the future of humanity if we do come up with a better solution like a well-controlled authoritarian church. Which is a distinct possibility seeing as how octopuppy just pwned the x-or Randomcant puzzle.

Edit: Nevermind...

Oh, I would advise having a text editor like Notepad open with a fixed-width font.

Copying the game board into Notepad, adding your line (and initials if you score), and then pasting it back into the message will make sure that everything is aligned.

Otherwise I don't know of any way to keep everything aligned while it's in the editor's window.

Also, there's a button on the top-middle part of the editor window that says "Wrap in code tags". I suggest that you copy the board into the editor, highlight the whole thing, and then click that button.

How about an audio speaker. Sorry about no spoiler. Couldn't get it to function

That's it! I'm not sure why the spoilers weren't working for you. Were you able to get a box to pop up when you clicked "Insert: Spoiler" on the box to the left in the editor? If not, maybe it's a browser issue. Afraid I can't help out much with that.

'fraid we've not got it yet.

Hey dude, surf's up! Go catch a few waves

They're coming at you, gifts that I gave

Contort around and maybe get spun

You might look daft, but all in good fun

I'll gaze upon you shrouded in veil

And move with such exacting detail

Confined inside a massive black bowl

My heart beats strong to give you your soul

So who am I, and where might I be?

Don't bother looking under the sea

Nor fly to space, I'm not over there

Indeed, I am terrestrial fare

Whoops, I just re-read the OP and realized I don't have the choice of not taking either cup.

In that case, since I don't have the option of leaving the contents of cup B for the Seer, I'll leave at least cup A.

That might mean I end up taking the million bucks from him/her, but I guess I don't have any choice over that anyway.

[Honestants and swindlecants XI]

Brilliant move, octopuppy!

An implementation need not be too convoluted.

1. (Ask to god #1) Are exactly one of these statements true? A) The alphabetically first of your words for "yes" and "no" means "no". B) You are the god of the Honestants.

2. Same question to god #2.

3. To whichever of god #1 and god #2 gave the alphabetically first answer (if they both gave the same answer, ask whichever you prefer): Are exactly one of these statements true? A) The alphabetically first of your words for "yes" and "no" means "no". B) You are a god.

Spoiler for And the logic behind it:

1. The replies from each of the gods would be:

Honestant if "yes" comes first: A is false and B is true, so exactly one statement is true, answer with the word for yes – answer with alphabetically first word.

Honestant if "no" comes first: A is true and B is true, not exactly one statement is true, answer with the word for no – answer with the alphabetically first word.

Swindlecant if "yes" comes first: A is false and B is false, not exactly one statement is true, lie by answering with the word for "yes" – answer with the alphabetically first word.

Swindlecant if "no" comes first: A is true and B is false, exactly one statement is true, lie by answering with the word for "no" – answer with the alphabetically first word.

Randomcant if "yes" comes first: both Honestant and Randomcant answered with "yes" (the first word) so answer with "no" – answer with the alphabetically second word.

Randomcant if "no" comes first: both Honestant and Randomcant answered with "no" (the first word) so answer with "yes" – answer with the alphabetically second word.

Final result: Both Honestant and Swindlecant would answer with the first word, Randomcant would answer with the second word. (Of course, at this point since you've only heard one answer, you don't know whether it's the first or second word.)

2. Same logic, but now if both answers were the same you know that god #3 is the Randomcant (and that the answer you heard was alphabetically first). If the answers were different, you know that the one who gave the alphabetically second answer was the Randomcant. Either way, you know who the Randomcant is

3. You're now asking either the Honestant or Swindlecant, so the possibilities are

Honestant if "yes" comes first: A is false and B is true, so exactly one statement is true, answer with the word for yes – answer with alphabetically first word.

Honestant if "no" comes first: A is true and B is true, not exactly one statement is true, answer with the word for no – answer with the alphabetically first word.

Swindlecant if "yes" comes first: A is false and B is true, exactly one statement is true, lie by answering with the word for "no" – answer with the alphabetically second word.

Swindlecant if "no" comes first: A is true and B is true, not exactly one statement is true, lie by answering with the word for "yes" – answer with the alphabetically second word.

Final result: Honestant answers with the alphabetically first word, Swindlecant answers with the alphabetically second word. You already know from the first two questions which word is alphabetically first.

So who wrote the riddle, prof?

The "hold your breath so E won't die" line is giving me fits, but maybe this is an explanation

We're watching electric lighting. Since it's an outdoor show, the neon of Vegas would be a good fit. The breath holding refers to having to keep neon in and room air out of the bulb.

It could apply to a regular incandescent bulb as well, they need to keep oxygen out so the filament doesn't oxidize.

The lock that came from the room with 10 foot thick steel walls is a reference to a classic riddle here on BrainDen:

Trapped.

As for the combination lock problem, it's is hard for the same reason that part II in the series is hard. It requires you to completely change your approach to the problem halfway through. Natille & JarZe got the answer to the math problem, the first number is 9 and the second is 19, but the third number can't be solved. At that point it seems like the problem is impossible. However, if someone were to come up to you and say "I've got a combination lock with a rotary dial, and I'll give you the first two numbers of the combination, but not the last one. Do you think you could open it in twenty seconds anyway?" Well, that would be much easier because you realize what the new problem is.

You didn't think I was leaving you guys with an impossible problem just to be mean, did you?

*edit* Wait, I think I'm on the verge of figuring out a way to fool the Seer. Other than posting stupidly, obviously. I'm sure there has to be a way besides faith to get the big bucks? Wait for it..

The Seer would know that I'm a sweet and loving and caring person and that I realize that if I took a million bucks then that would mean the Seer would be out a million bucks. And since we somehow know that the Seer is an emissary of all that we hold dearest and sacredest (or whatever) then I would gladly give up the money (which would only corrupt me anyway) to see it in the hands of the Seer and put to the loftiest of uses.

But really I would still walk off with the money anyway

. The Seer can't see inside spoilers, right? RIGHT?!?

Oh well, the Seer knows by now what a wise-a** I am anyway

a fire?

Burning rope and something that requires breath-holding to stay alive makes me think of a lit candle.

I don't know what could start with E, though.

Embers? Effulgence? (Yes, I had to bust out a thesaurus for that one.)

Plasmid's idea can work too. It's not as colorful but it will work.

Can it hold a 6 x 6 board and not look deformed?

You mean show the whole thing without a scrollbar?

Yes, you'll just need to use a "code" tag instead of the "codebox" tag (that the Quick Access box on your left has) so it won't have scrollbars.

Just make a Codebox and delete "box" from the bracketed tag.

If that's not what you're talking about, I'm not sure what kind of deformity you mean.

+  +  +  +  +  +  +


+  +  +  +  +  +  +


+  +  +  +  +  +  +


+  +  +  +  +  +  +


+  +  +  +  +  +  +


+  +  +  +  +  +  +


+  +  +  +  +  +  +

Boogers? Wait, no, they've probably all been picked.

Edit: Argh, rIDdLEmynaME had me beat by a second!

I was totally beaten to my answer, props jazz man, but I still have to point out that the last line only has 4 syllables, so this is not a true haiku

You mean it's pronounced frail-ty and not fra-il-ty?

Oh noes!

Regardless, Jazz man nailed the answer to the deformed mutant Haiku.

Light scorches my skin.

Baptize me. Holy water,

Fix my frailty.

(With props to peaceBONE

for developing concept

of Haiku riddle)

[Riddle of fire]

... I'd say you heard the story about Rajul starting a fire in the lab. He was pretty green at the time.

But my guess for the riddle is smoking a pipe.

Hi seeksit, thanks for the Belief-o-matic link. Octopuppy: your next job is to write an app that lets you fill out a questionnaire and then crunches the results to uniformly reach the conclusion that you belong in Uberfaith The Belief-o-matic does seem pretty legit, though, I don't mean to bash it.

The evolution of religions when left to their own devices had left me underwhelmed. That's been going on for the past couple hundred years in the US and has produced less than stellar results. Televangelists can thrive precisely because half of the population is dumber than average. I just saw a documentary that was re-playing the reverend Wright tape, and that's an example of what a generally well respected leader of the free world had selected until it became a political liability.

Unitarian Universalism might have some useful characteristics that should be preserved and adapted if we went the Uberfaith route. But since the goal of this project is to create a religion that fills the void so to speak but prevents spiritual beliefs from becoming detrimental: how much control does UU have over individual beliefs if someone were to come in and say something along the lines of "I come from a long line of Christian Scientists and I definitely think prayer healing is the way to go. No way am I going to let my kids go to a hospital." Even if the UU were to discourage something so blatantly dangerous, I would imagine that more insidious problems like creationism are tolerated. While it may seem harmless, I would suggest that raising new generations to believe in creationism is an impediment to the advancement of biology. That's why I think it would be useful to have doctrine specifying what is and isn't acceptable to keep people in line.

But something UU-ish might have a favorable consequence: If UU were to become widespread and everyone had their own independent beliefs, then people would become less and less able to support completely baseless claims simply because they perceive them to be consequences of their faith. An example of such a thing carried to a ridiculous extreme recently is John Shimkus, a congressman from Illinois, arguing that we don't need to worry about global warming because it's not in keeping with his interpretation of scripture (

). While in this case he's certainly only using it as an excuse to enact policy that would otherwise be indefensible, it illustrates that people can go around using faith as a defense for their actions and expect others to simply accept it. If people are known to be setting their own doctrine, then maybe they would have more responsibility to be able to defend it.

If nothing else, I suppose that UU is one way to have a doctrine evolve over time without having the leadership responsible for setting the doctrine become corrupt: the "leadership" is just one person who's setting their own doctrine and doesn't have any power that would be corrupting. Whether or not memetic selection would behave any differently in a UU setting than it has with a bunch of denominations, I don't know. I think you're the only one here who has access to the experimental data on how belief selection has worked in practice in UU, seeksit.

Interesting, Jesus intentionally making it look like he's fulfilling Old Testament prophesies in order to come to power. Brilliant, seeksit! All right, how about this for starting up Uberfaith: Just to get it off the ground, we fulfill the prophesies in Revelations. Since it's so metaphorical, that will basically involve interpreting the scriptures in such a way that they could be easily fulfilled (we can hone our creative interpretation skills by practicing on Shakeepuddn's riddles). Then we'll need someone charismatic with worldwide appeal to launch the faith. I suggest we recruit Barack Obama after his second term's up. It will start off as the Third Testament of the Bible. Just like the Second Testament, we can have one of the things it does right off the bat be to say that all prior dogma is null and void (even if it was valid previously). Eventually, however, the first two testaments will have to go. We don't want it littered with old fables about serpents handing apples to people or such.

I would suggest:

A small blank grid

+  +  +  +  +


+  +  +  +  +


+  +  +  +  +[/codebox]

With some lines added

[codebox]+ +--+--+ +
| |
+ + + +--+
| |
+ +--+ + +

With some initials filled in.

+  +--+--+  +

   |BD|BD|

+  +--+--+--+

   |RM|RM|ID|

+  +--+--+--+[/codebox]

It's probably easiest to copy into Notepad (or whatever you use with a fixed-width font) and paste back into a codebox instead of using the forum's editor.

I got the same answer

My answers are

A=9

B=19

C=3 (although any number would work, I'm guessing 3 because it says a, b, c (3))

Are the locks located in different parts of the door? If not, maybe you only need to open one of the locks...

So you open one of the locks.

EDIT: Changed C value

Sam if spaced out in (presumably) deep thought trying to figure out what the clues mean, so this time you try the combination yourself

9, 13, and 3. But it's still not opening.

However, I'm not so sure about the 10 foot think steel walls...

It is necessary to know that the only digits acceptable are integers 1 through 40.

The equation, a³bc-2b³c-7bc = 0 has has the variable c in all parts, meaning it can be canceled out and is therefore equal to one.

The remainder of the equation boils down to a³ = 2b² + 7

A few trials and errors brought me to conclude that a must be odd. And I worked my way up to a = 9, where I got a whole number for b, being 19.

So, the combo is 9, 19, 1

Sam tries out the combo.

"All right, 9, 19, 1. Hmm, not opening. You sure about that combination?"