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dune is a hill of sand.

Dune may also refer to:

In science fiction:

Dune (novel), by Frank Herbert
The Dune series beginning with the novel Dune
Dune (film), based on the novel
Dune (soundtrack), from the 1984 film
Frank Herbert's Dune (2000), based on the novel
Dune (video game), loosely following the novel
Dune computer and video games, related titles
Dune (board game), based in the novel's universe
In music:

Dune (L'Arc-en-Ciel album) (1993), by L'Arc~en~Ciel
Dune (German band), a rave/techno/progressive trance group
Dune (Dune album) (1995), by the German group
Dune (Klaus Schulze album) (1979), by electronica musician Klaus Schulze
A former name of Finnish IDM musician Brothomstates
In software:

Dune (software), a C++ library for the solution of partial differential equations

[edit] See also
Dune universe
Dunes (hotel and casino)
Children of Dune (TV miniseries)
This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dune_(disambiguation)"
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God is a deity in theist and deist religions and other belief systems, representing either the sole deity in monotheism, or a principal deity in polytheism.[1]

God is most often conceived of as the supernatural creator and overseer of the universe. Theologians have ascribed a variety of attributes to the many different conceptions of God. The most common among these include omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence, omnibenevolence (perfect goodness), divine simplicity, jealousy, and eternal and necessary existence. God has also been conceived as being incorporeal, a personal being, the source of all moral obligation, and the "greatest conceivable existent".[1] These attributes were all supported to varying degrees by the early Jewish, Christian and Muslim theologian philosophers, including Maimonides,[2] Augustine of Hippo,[2] and Al-Ghazali,[3] respectively. Many notable medieval philosophers developed arguments for the existence of God,[4] attempting to wrestle with the apparent contradictions implied by many of these attributes.

Contents [hide]
1 Etymology and usage
2 Names of God
3 Conceptions of God
4 Existence of God
5 Theological approaches
5.1 Theism and Deism
6 History of monotheism
6.1 Monotheism and pantheism
6.2 Dystheism and nontheism
7 Scientific positions regarding God
7.1 Anthropomorphism
8 Distribution of belief in God
9 References
10 Notes
11 External links



Etymology and usage
Main article: God (word)
The earliest written form of the Germanic word god comes from the 6th century Christian Codex Argenteus. The English word itself is derived from the Proto-Germanic * ǥuđan. Most linguists agree that the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European form * ǵhu-tó-m was based on the root * ǵhau(ə)-, which meant either "to call" or "to invoke".[5]

The capitalized form God was first used in Wulfila's Gothic translation of the New Testament, to represent the Greek Theos. In the English language, the capitalization continues to represent a distinction between monotheistic "God" and "gods" in polytheism.[6][7] In spite of significant differences between religions such as Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, the Bahá'í Faith, and Judaism, the term "God" remains an English translation common to all. The name may signify any related or similar monotheistic deities, such as the early monotheism of Akhenaten and Zoroastrianism.


Names of God
Main article: Names of God
Conceptions of God can vary widely, but the word God in English—and its counterparts in other languages, such as Latinate Deus, Greek Θεός, Slavic Bog, Sanskrit Ishvara, or Arabic Allah—are normally used for any and all conceptions. The same holds for Hebrew El, but in Judaism, God is also given a proper name, the tetragrammaton (usually reconstructed as Yahweh), believed to hark back to the religion's henotheistic origins. In the Bible, when the word "Lord" is in all capitals, it signifies that the word represents the tetragrammaton.[8] God may also be given a proper name in monotheistic currents of Hinduism which emphasize the personal nature of God, with early references to his name as Krishna-Vasudeva in Bhagavata or later Vishnu and Hari,[9] or recently Shakti.

It is difficult to draw a line between proper names and epitheta of God, such as the names and titles of Jesus in the New Testament, the names of God in the Qur'an, and the various lists of thousand names of God and List of titles and names of Krishna in Vaishnavism.


Conceptions of God
Main article: Conceptions of God

Detail of Sistine Chapel fresco Creation of the Sun and Moon by Michelangelo (completed in 1512).Conceptions of God vary widely. Theologians and philosophers have studied countless conceptions of God since the dawn of civilization. The Abrahamic conceptions of God include the trinitarian view of Christians, the Kabbalistic definition of Jewish mysticism, and the Islamic concept of God. The dharmic religions differ in their view of the divine: views of God in Hinduism vary by region, sect, and caste, ranging from monotheistic to polytheistic; the view of God in Buddhism is almost non-theist. In modern times, some more abstract concepts have been developed, such as process theology and open theism. Conceptions of God held by individual believers vary so widely that there is no clear consensus on the nature of God.[10] The contemporaneous French philosopher Michel Henry has however proposed a phenomenological approach and definition of God as phenomenological essence of Life.[11]


Existence of God
Main article: Existence of God
Many arguments for and against the existence of God have been proposed and rejected by philosophers, theologians, and other thinkers. In philosophical terminology, such arguments concern schools of thought on the epistemology of the ontology of God.

There are many philosophical issues concerning the existence of God. Some definitions of God are sometimes nonspecific, while other definitions can be self-contradictory. Arguments for the existence of God typically include metaphysical, empirical, inductive, and subjective types, while others revolve around holes in evolutionary theory and order and complexety in the world. Arguments against the existence of God typically include empirical, deductive, and inductive types. Conclusions reached include: "God exists and this can be proven"; "God exists, but this cannot be proven or disproven" (theism in both cases); "God does not exist" (strong atheism); "God almost certainly does not exist"[12] (de facto atheism); and "no one knows whether God exists" (agnosticism). There are numerous variations on these positions.

A recent argument for the existence of God is intelligent design,[13] which asserts that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection."[14] It is a modern form of the traditional argument from design, modified to avoid specifying the nature or identity of the designer. Its primary proponents, all of whom are associated with the Discovery Institute,[15] believe the designer to be the Abrahamic God.[16]


Theological approaches
Main article: Theology
Theologians and philosophers have ascribed a number of attributes to God, including omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence, perfect goodness, divine simplicity, and eternal and necessary existence. God has been described as incorporeal, a personal being, the source of all moral obligation, and the greatest conceivable being existent.[1] These attributes were all claimed to varying degrees by the early Jewish, Christian and Muslim scholars, including St Augustine,[2] Al-Ghazali,[4] and Maimonides.[2]

Many medieval philosophers developed arguments for the existence of God,[4] while attempting to comprehend the precise implications of God's attributes. Reconciling some of those attributes generated important philosophical problems and debates. For example, God's omniscience implies that God knows how free agents will choose to act. If God does know this, their apparent free will might be illusory, or foreknowledge does not imply predestination; and if God does not know it, God is not omniscient.[17]

The last centuries of philosophy have seen vigorous questions regarding the arguments for God's existence raised by such philosophers as Immanuel Kant, David Hume and Antony Flew, although Kant held that the argument from morality was valid. The theist response has been either to contend, like Alvin Plantinga, that faith is "properly basic"; or to take, like Richard Swinburne, the evidentialist position.[18] Some theists agree that none of the arguments for God's existence are compelling, but argue that faith is not a product of reason, but requires risk. There would be no risk, they say, if the arguments for God's existence were as solid as the laws of logic, a position summed up by Pascal as: "The heart has reasons which reason knows not of."[19]

Most major religions hold God not as a metaphor, but a being that influences our day-to-day existences. Many believers allow for the existence of other, less powerful spiritual beings, and give them names such as angels, saints, djinni, demons, and devas.


Theism and Deism
Theism generally holds that God exists realistically, objectively, and independently of human thought; that God created and sustains everything; that God is omnipotent and eternal; personal and interacting with the universe through for example religious experience and the prayers of humans.[20] It holds that God is both transcendent and immanent; thus, God is simultaneously infinite and in some way present in the affairs of the world.[21] Not all theists subscribe to all the above propositions, but usually a fair number of them, c.f., family resemblance.[20] Catholic theology holds that God is infinitely simple and is not involuntarily subject to time. Most theists hold that God is omnipotent, omniscient, and benevolent, although this belief raises questions about God's responsibility for evil and suffering in the world. Some theists ascribe to God a self-conscious or purposeful limiting of omnipotence, omniscience, or benevolence. Open Theism, by contrast, asserts that, due to the nature of time, God's omniscience does not mean the deity can predict the future. "Theism" is sometimes used to refer in general to any belief in a god or gods, i.e., monotheism or polytheism.[22][23]

Deism holds that God is wholly transcendent: God exists, but does not intervene in the world beyond what was necessary to create it.[21] In this view, God is not anthropomorphic, and does not literally answer prayers or cause miracles to occur. Common in Deism is a belief that God has no interest in humanity and may not even be aware of humanity. Pandeism and Panendeism, respectively, combine Deism with the Pantheistic or Panentheistic beliefs discussed below.


History of monotheism
Main article: Monotheism

16th century depiction of Genesis (Michelangelo, Sistine Chapel): God creates Adam. The concept of God as a singular patriarchal "Father [of all creation]" is common in Western culture (Abrahamic) monotheism.The concept of monotheism sees a gradual development out of notions of henotheism and monolatrism. In the Ancient Near East, each city had a local patron deity, such as Shamash at Larsa or Sin at Ur. The first claims of global supremacy of a specific god date to the Late Bronze Age, with Akhenaten's Great Hymn to the Aten (connected to Judaism by Sigmund Freud in his Moses and Monotheism), and, depending on dating issues, Zoroaster's Gathas to Ahura Mazda. Currents of monism or monotheism emerge in Vedic India in the same period, with e.g. the Nasadiya Sukta. Philosophical monotheism and the associated concept of absolute good and evil emerges in Classical Antiquity, notably with Plato (c.f. Euthyphro dilemma), elaborated into the idea of The One in Neoplatonism.

According to The Oxford Companion To World Mythology (David Leeming, Oxford University Press, 2005, page 153), "The lack of cohesion among early Hebrews made monotheism - even monolatry, the exclusive worship of one god among many - an impossibility...And even then it can be argued that the firm establishment of monotheism in Judaism required the rabbinical or Talmudic process of the first century B.C.E. to the sixth century C.E.". In Islamic theology, a person who spontaneously "discovers" monotheism is called a ḥanīf, the original ḥanīf being Abraham.

Austrian anthropologist Wilhelm Schmidt in the 1910s postulated an Urmonotheismus, "original" or "primitive monotheism", a thesis now widely rejected in comparative religion but still occasionally defended in creationist circles.


Monotheism and pantheism
Monotheists hold that there is only one god, and may claim that the one true god is worshiped in different religions under different names. The view that all theists actually worship the same god, whether they know it or not, is especially emphasized in Hinduism[24] and Sikhism.[25] Adherents of different religions, however, generally disagree as to how to best worship God and what is God's plan for mankind, if there is one. There are different approaches to reconciling the contradictory claims of monotheistic religions. One view is taken by exclusivists, who believe they are the chosen people or have exclusive access to absolute truth, generally through revelation or encounter with the Divine, which adherents of other religions do not. Another view is religious pluralism. A pluralist typically believes that his religion is the right one, but does not deny the partial truth of other religions. An example of a pluralist view in Christianity is supersessionism, i.e., the belief that one's religion is the fulfillment of previous religions. A third approach is relativistic inclusivism, where everybody is seen as equally right; an example in Christianity is universalism: the doctrine that salvation is eventually available for everyone. A fourth approach is syncretism, mixing different elements from different religion. An example of syncretism is the New Age movement.

Pantheism holds that God is the universe and the universe is God. Panentheism holds that God contains, but is not identical to, the Universe. The distinctions between the two are subtle, and some consider them unhelpful. It is also the view of the Liberal Catholic Church, Theosophy, some views of Hinduism except Vaishnavism which believes in panentheism, Sikhism, some divisions of Buddhism, some divisions of Neopaganism and Taoism, along with many varying denominations and individuals within denominations. Kabbalah, Jewish mysticism, paints a pantheistic/panentheistic view of God — which has wide acceptance in Hasidic Judaism, particularly from their founder The Baal Shem Tov — but only as an addition to the Jewish view of a personal god, not in the original pantheistic sense that denies or limits persona to God.


Dystheism and nontheism
Dystheism, related to theodicy is a form of theism which holds that God is either not wholly good or is fully malevolent as a consequence of the problem of evil. One such example would be Satanism or the Devil. There is no known community of practicing dystheists.[citation needed]

Nontheism holds that the universe can be explained without any reference to the supernatural, or to a supernatural being. Some non-theists avoid the concept of God, whilst accepting that it is significant to many; other non-theists understand God as a symbol of human values and aspirations. Many schools of Buddhism may be considered non-theistic.


Scientific positions regarding God
See also: Evolutionary origin of religions and Evolutionary psychology of religion
Stephen Jay Gould proposed an approach dividing the world of philosophy into what he called "non-overlapping magisteria" (NOMA). In this view, questions of the supernatural, such as those relating to the existence and nature of God, are non-empirical and are the proper domain of theology. The methods of science should then be used to answer any empirical question about the natural world, and theology should be used to answer questions about ultimate meaning and moral value. In this view, the perceived lack of any empirical footprint from the magisterium of the supernatural onto natural events makes science the sole player in the natural world.[26] Another view, advanced by Richard Dawkins, is that the existence of God is an empirical question, on the grounds that "a universe with a god would be a completely different kind of universe from one without, and it would be a scientific difference."[27]


Anthropomorphism
See also: Anthropomorphism
Pascal Boyer argues that while there is a wide array of supernatural concepts found around the world, in general, supernatural beings tend to behave much like people. The construction of Gods and spirits like persons is one of the best known traits of religion. He cites examples from Greek Mythology which in his opinion, is more like a modern soap opera than other religious systems.[28] Bertrand du Castel and Timothy Jurgensen demonstrate through formalization that Boyer's explanatory model matches physics' epistemology in positing not directly observable entities as intermediaries.[29] Anthropologist Stewart Guthrie contends that people project human features onto non-human aspects of the world because it makes those aspects more familiar. Sigmund Freud also suggested that god concepts are projections of one's father.[30]

Likewise, Emile Durkheim was one of the earliest to suggest that Gods represent an extension of human social life to include supernatural beings. In line with this reasoning, psychologist Matt Rossano contends that when humans began living in larger groups, they may have created gods as a means of enforcing morality. In small groups, morality can be enforced by social forces such as gossip or reputation. However it is much harder to enforce morality using social forces in much larger groups. He indicates that by including ever watchful gods and spirits, humans discovered an effective strategy for restraining selfishness and building more cooperative groups. [31]


Distribution of belief in God
Main article: List of religious populations

The percentage of people in European countries who said in 2005 that they "believe there is a God". Countries with Eastern Orthodox (ie: Greece, Romania, etc.) or Muslim (Turkey) majorities tend to poll highest.As of 2000, approximately 53% of the world's population identifies with one of the three Abrahamic religions (33% Christian, 20% Islam,

While the term gaming relates to game (any of a number of structured activities), it usually implies participation in particular kinds of games.

As used in the gamer subculture, the term can refer to participation in activities such as:

Role-playing game, in which players assume fictional roles
Tabletop game, any game played on a flat surface (often a table)
Video game, any electronic game with a video interface
see also Video game culture
The term can also refer to:

Gambling which is also referred to as Gaming
Game of chance

[edit] Definition
"Online gaming is a technology rather than a genre; a mechanism for connecting players together rather than a particular pattern of gameplay."[1] Online games are played over some form of computer network, now typically on the Internet. One advantage of online games is the ability to connect to multiplayer games, although single-player online games are quite common as well.


[edit] Early online games
Main article: History of online games
Early networking and timesharing environments often featured games among their most admired features. The PLATO system's game gallery was famous, as was Maze War at Xerox PARC. When personal computers reached the general public in the 1980s, simple multiplayer text-based games, MUDs, were often played on BBS systems using a modem. These games were frequently based on fantasy settings, using rules similar to those in the Dungeons & Dragons. Other styles of games, such as chess, Scrabble clones, and other board games, were available. Since continuous connectivity was often expensive as access was frequently charged on a per-minute basis, some games were set up as play-by-email games.


[edit] First-person shooter games
Main article: First-person shooter
During the 1990s, online games started to move from a wide variety of LAN protocols (such as IPX) and onto the Internet using the TCP/IP protocol. Doom popularized the concept of deathmatch, where multiple players battle each other head-to-head, as a new form of online game. Since Doom, many first-person shooter games contain online components to allow deathmatch or arena style play.


[edit] Real-time strategy games
Early real-time strategy games often allowed multiplayer play over a modem or local network. As the Internet started to grow during the 1990s, software was developed that would allow players to tunnel the LAN protocols used by the games over the Internet. By the late 1990s, most RTS games had native Internet support, allowing players from all over the globe to play with each other. Services were created to allow players to be automatically matched against another player wishing to play or lobbies were formed where people could meet in so called game rooms. An example was the MSN Gaming Zone where online game communities were formed by active players for games such as Microsoft Age of Empires and Ants!.


[edit] Cross-platform online play
As consoles are becoming more like computers, online gameplay is expanding. The first online game console was the Japanese SuperNES, the Super Famicom, which offered an online service with the Satellaview. This service was however offered only in Japan. Once online games started crowding the market, open source networks, such as the Playstation 2, Dreamcast, XBOX, and just a select few games for the Gamecube took advantage of online functionality with its PC game counterpart. Games such as Phantasy Star Online have private servers that function on multiple consoles. Dreamcast, PC, Macintosh and GameCube players are able to share one server. Earlier games, like 4x4 Evolution, Quake III and Need for Speed:Underground also have a similar function with consoles able to interact with PC users using the same server. Usually a company like Electronic Arts or Sega runs the servers until it becomes inactive, in which private servers with their own DNS number can function. This form of open source networking has a small advantage over the new generation of Sony and Microsoft consoles which customize their servers to the consumer.


[edit] Browser games
Main article: Browser game
As the World Wide Web developed and browsers became more sophisticated, people started creating browser games that used a web browser as a client. Simple single player games were made that could be played using a web browser via HTML and HTML scripting technologies (most commonly JavaScript, ASP, PHP, and MySQL). More complicated games would contact a web server to allow a multiplayer gaming environment.

The development of web-based graphics technologies such as Flash and Java allowed browser games to become more complex. These games, also known by their related technology as "Flash games" or "Java games", became increasingly popular. Many games originally released in the 1980s, such as Pac-Man and Frogger, were recreated as games that could be played using the Flash plugin on a webpage. Most browser games have limited multiplayer play, often being single player games with a high score list shared amongst all players.

Browser-based pet games are also very popular amongst the younger generation of online gamers. These games range from gigantic games with millions of users, such as Neopets, to smaller and more community-based pet games.

More recent browser-based games use web technologies like AJAX to make more complicated multiplayer interactions possible.


[edit] Massively multiplayer online games
Massively multiplayer online games were made possible with the growth of broadband Internet access in many developed countries, using the Internet to allow hundreds of thousands of players to play the same game together. Many different styles of massively multiplayer games are available, such as:

MMORPG (Massively multiplayer online role-playing game)
MMORTS (Massively multiplayer online real-time strategy)
MMOFPS (Massively multiplayer online first-person shooter)
MMOSG (Massively multiplayer online social game)

[edit] Browser-based MMORPGs
Advances in browser-based technologies have allowed the creation of browser-based MMORPGs, using similar controls as other browser-based games.

Due to current technology limitations, browser-based games cannot bring the same graphical or sound quality that custom-client MMORPGs can. Browser-based MMORPGs tend to be a little cheaper than full-blown MMORPGs.[citation needed]

One type of browser based game that is slowing gaining in popularity is the community oriented MMORPGs. These games are all long running (weeks, months, years) games that have a large element of community interaction through external forums or chat systems. These games have a large community of players who must plan, coordinate and work as a team. These games all involve communities of players called tribes, clans, or alliances, who will plan joint attacks and defenses, trade key objects, and coordinate defenses.[citation needed]


[edit] Online game governance
With growing numbers of players, it becomes more difficult to maintain social order in online games due to the large amounts of information and freedom that are given to the players. Even though there are many online rules that are already established, wherever there are people, there are conflicts.

More specifically, the advancement of technology allows online games to imitate the complex ecological, sociological, economical, and political dynamics of real life societies. Unpredictable societal dynamics such as hygiene, safety, and pollution require the society to form some type of organized regulation. Andrew Barry writes, "Regulation is often intended to protect and enhance the health and security of firms, cities and individuals." Like societies in real life, online games can warrant societal complexities and need some type of organized governance. [2]

Popular online games are commonly bound by an End User License Agreement (EULA), which establishes a limited yet definitive social order deemed necessary by the creators of the game. The consequences of breaking the agreement vary according to the contract; however range significantly from warnings to termination, such as in the 3D immersive world Second Life where a breach of contract will append the player warnings, suspension and termination depending on the offense. [3] Enforcing the EULA is difficult, due to high economic costs of human intervention and low returns back to the firm. Only in large scale games is it profitable for the firm to enforce its EULA.

Edward Castronova writes that "there are issues of ownership and governance that wrinkle the affairs of state significantly." [4] He has divided the online governance into "good governance" and "strange governance". Whereas people actually want to have governance but strangely, democracy still cannot be found in synthetic world. Castronova also mentions that synthetic world is a good test bed for government and management.

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