[QUOTE=9thFloor]
True, it makes sense that the conflater would have those reasons; but don’t you think another reason would specifically be the fact that, as you said, you can play it as the most heinous bastard possible killing maiming, etc.? I think that sticks in the craw of conflaters and they aren’t satisfied with the cause/effect morality that would result in the avatar probably not being alive and free much longer because, for one thing, it would be possible to completely get away with it and live and die without ever losing your freedom or your life as a result of that behavior (everyone dies anyway eventually); it has been known to happen.
Not everyone gets their comeuppance in equal measure every time in the RPG model, so that even though the structure of it allows for ‘moral’ balance to usually occur in the aggregate it doesn’t guarantee that each individual avatar will always suffer punishment for every “heinous” offense and that, methinks, makes conflaters angry as well. In religion, at least they’ll get theirs in the afterworld.
I guess you’re basically saying as much when you say issues of reward and punishment are wiped away; I think a conflater would hang their hat mightily heavily, however, on the RPG notion expressed by your statement that " just don’t be surprised if your avatar isn’t alive and free for much longer" as total justice that functions as reward/punishment on an avatar basis, every time.
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If somebody is that desperate to have every good deed be punished and every evil deed be rewarded (by some arbitrary standard of good and evil, presumably their own personal one), I’d say that they’re probably not going to be able to truly accept the RPG model as I’m presenting it. Even if you went back to the ‘leaderboard’ version of the model that I originally proposed way back then, where the avatars are tacked to a scoreboard once the Players are done with them, that still leaves the Player, who was the one actually responsible for the deeds, entirely unpunished and unrewarded.
A person might attempt to use ‘apologetics’ to force their morality into the RPG model (levels, anyone?), but at it’s heart, the RPG model proposes that our world is a game that possibly eternal and maybe already perfect beings play for fun, not because they have to play or for some reward. If a person wants sticks and carrots and brimstone and harps, then there are other, different models available for them to choose that will provide them those things.
