Slashdot Mirror
Looking For God In Videogames
Thanks to MSNBC.com for their article discussing the use of religion in videogames, both overtly Christian titles and those just addressing the subject indirectly. As the article comments, "Before 'god mode' or 'god games' there were 'God games' -- low budget, PC floppy disks that married evangelical Christian thought and scripture with simple game play. The boundaries between the holy and the secular were simpler then... Today, the lines have grown fuzzier." The piece also points to religious overtones in MMORPGs: "In EverQuest, the massive online multiplayer game, new players are asked to pick from among the religions native to the land of Norrath. One of Norrath's deities, 'The Nameless' has triggered talk on discussion boards over whether 'Nameless' could be understood as the Jewish Yahweh. Some [Christian] evangelists have even used EverQuest to proselytize to fellow players."
On that note, Jesus was almost certainly not pronounced as we do today, nor are any of the names from Biblical times. In fact, Jesus is derived from Joshua which shows they were pronouncing it wrong even in the first century.
Christian writers have a long tradition of using both Yahweh and Jehovah. Do not worry about it so much, but understand who it is that you are going to offend. To observant Jews (and others), seeing it in print or hearing it pronounced is offensive in the same way that a pornographic picture would be. The prohibition against taking God's name in vain is taken seriously. That should not be laughed off. Faith is a scarce enough commodity in public discourse these days that a little respect for it is not going to hurt anybody.
That sounds like about the least offensive behavior that I have ever heard of on a MMORPG.
I have noticed, however, that there are a lot of people in whom any mention of God or other religious topics leads to an instant feeling of revulsion. As a fellow atheist, I blame it on our hard-wiring. It is something that is terribly important to overcome. It is easy to lose out on a lot of life that way.
Most games which are supposed to provide Christian entertainment are neither equipped with a meaningful Christian message nor entertaining. (See my comment in a previous discussion.)
The last part seems like another instance of somebody finding an arcane way to state the obvious and meaningless, prepending the phrase "existential analysis" in front of their banter, and pretending that they have therefore stated something profound and rich with meaning. Kierkegaard et al must have turned in their graves at that. Overall, the writing of the article positively reeks of "I'm on deadline for my column and thus just spouting out the following crap; I hope it gets by our editor and that our readers find it either funny or profound." I mean, is "Will firing up the game console ever be considered a sacred act?" supposed to be funny? It's positively moronic.
IMHO It's too bad that the people in the few denominations of Christianity (or any other religion) that are obnoxious about spreading their views ruin it for everyone.
As a Christian myself, I have become more and more annoyed at the overly religious people who think everyone needs to think and believe the same as them. Not too long ago I was approached by someone at a mall who would not go away and was very persistant that I accept God right then and there. Talk about a turnoff! It's very dishearting knowing that normal people are being scared off by these obnoxious few who think it's their duty to approach every random person they see on the street and do the 5 minute conversion. I've always thought the best way to share beliefs is to actually develop a relationship with someone and having them first be actually interested in what you think. And even then, it's their own path to discover and follow.
By and large, the more popular denominations (Lutheran/even Catholic for the most part,etc..) interpret the bible more liberally, and are generally really tolerant. Authors like CS. Lewis express it best when he says through his writing you don't have to even believe in the same God to go to heaven.
It's the ambitious, power seeking, and issue-centered people (ie. religious right) and the denominations that think you have to have a long list of people you have converted that are the least tolerant. Those are the ones to watch out for. The ones that read and follow every word in the Bible literally but manage to ignore the thousands about compassion and tolerance. But by and large I think the majority of religious people are NOT like those few who try to impose their beliefs on everyone. Don't get disheartened about Christians in general... the 95% more realistic, normal day to day Christians are just being drowned out by the loud, obnoxious minority.
The sending of this message pretty much inconveniences everyone involved.
"There have been too many games," said Bagley, "Where the devil always wins or is one of the strongest characters."
But surely if this guy is a Christian, he will have to admit that according to his religion, the devil is one of the strongest "characters"? I mean, he's possibly the second-strongest being in the universe, second only to the Big Guy in the Sky.
I have nothing but contempt for these pick-and-mix religious types.
(Although the thought of fighting for the soul of a "troubled teenager" kinda turns me on...)
Sentimentality is merely the Bank Holiday of cynicism.
- Oscar Wilde
Christians have a world view that they (we) believe is real. The simple belief is that if you do not have a relationship with Jesus, then you will go to hell (a very un-fun place). By telling you about Jesus, they are actually trying to HELP you. For them to do otherwise would go against their world view.
I have a world view that people should leave me alone when I tell them I'm not interested in listening to them. For all the random people that walk up to me when I'm waiting in line to see a movie or knock on my friggin door on a weekend morning to assume they know anything about me based on the simple answer that I'm not interested in listening to them is offensive. For all they know, I could be a Biblical scholar with no interest in discussing the matter at the moment, or a firm belief that people should study the Bible on their own and not allow themselves to bend to my beliefs just because I may have studied more thoroughly than they have (not that this is necessarily true).
But I do freely admit that a lot of people go about it in completely the wrong way.
And bugging me about Christianity while I'm playing Everquest, an RPG based in a world in which Christ certainly did not exist, is at least as annoying as people running around going 'D00dz, did j00 c the Simpsonz last nite?'. Never mind that I have to pay to play the game.
Also, keep in mind that religion is all about the truth. You believe that there is no God. That is your choice. I believe that Jesus is part of the trinity. That is my choice. BUT we both cannot be right at the same time. Either there is a God or there isn't. It can't be both ways.
That's the difference between you and me. I see religion as a system of beliefs, each person holding to a different system (this being true even if all of those people attended the same church through the same time period at the same age and devoted the same amount of time to studying their religion). It can be both ways, or it can be neither way.
So, the essence of religion is the search for truth, not personal preference. I can have a belief that watching TV and eating potato chips and ice cream is the best way to stay healthy, but reality doesn't really care what I think no matter how much I believe it (if you don't believe me, I can e-mail you a picture of myself). God is the same way -- he either exists or does not exist no matter what you believe.
The last sentence is certainly true, but your analogy is not the best. With most religions, you're dealing with things that are at best hard to prove, and therefore it is not so much the search for truth that is important in religions, but faith and belief, and the search for meaning. People want to know why they are here and what happens when they die, this is the primary focus of religion. The secondary (and what I believe is more important, even though it seems overlooked by some) focus of religion is morality. No one can easily prove that morality is truth, nor what happens when we die, because in the case of morality it is subject to what is taught and in the case of when we die all of the observable functions tend to cease, what we can prove to be life is gone, and no one comes back to let us know.
Before you entirely dismiss Christianity, you should read the book "The Case for Christ" by Lee Strobel (available here [amazon.com] -- The author is a former newspaper reporter, and is the one who exposed the whole "exploding Ford Pinto" story). Since religion IS the search for truth, you should at least know about the evidence in favor of Jesus being God before dismissing it.
Personally, I'd rather read the actual texts (or as close to them as we can get given age and language barriers) instead of someone's interviews with Christians and interpretations of what those people have said. Most of the Christians I've run into (doing their little conversion game) have too little understanding of the Bible itself, and instead rely heavily on what they are told by the church. It could be said (and the case could be made) that this in itself goes against the teachings of Christ.
-PainKilleR-[CE]