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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."
OK, so I'm a mildly tolerant atheist (actually, I'm not. Tolerant, particularly, but we'll pretend), or maybe just not a christian, and hypothetically, I'm paying to be involved in an MMORPG.
Some jerk starts following me around blathering about his god and how I'm not going to his heaven and basically talking about his personal relationship with Jebus.
At what point do I have recourse in this? I'm going about my business, and PAYING to do so, and I don't want to hear it.
Can I complain to the operators of the service? Can I smite the moron for annoying me? Or is my only option to log off or leave because some dumbass is ruining my time online?
-- I wanna decide who lives and who dies - Crow T. Robot, MST3K
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.
I think God in video games is a completly ignored subject. There is so much subject matter that could be used for material. It's amazing in these days where most people complain about storylines in games that they don't just use stories from the Bible? After all there is a lot of stories in there that many people don't read. Such as the political actions of the kings of Israel and Judah are complex. And what about the prophesies and visions that are in the Bible. And talk about complex characters, WOW. I really think that if most people get past there own bias and unfortunatly sometimes hate they would really like the Bible even if they don't chose to beleive it and I think they would really be impressed by any game that you could make from the history in it. History based or fictional.
-Emperor Alikar who for some reason can't rember his password... *sigh*
[Zachary, I'm talking mainly to my fellow Gentiles. I know you know all of this. I hope you're not too offended at all my uses of the Almighty's name. My only intention here is to promote interest in and knowledge of the Father among the goyim.]
The name of God, which is not the same thing as "God," appears in the original Scripture as the Hebrew letters: yud heh vav heh. These are all consonants, as the Hebrew alphabet does not have vowels. The vowels are implied. As Zachary alluded to, nobody remembers what the vowels are supposed to be.
Therefore, transliteration is really not the best way to derive a pronounceable word for God's name. If you insist, Yahveh, not Yahweh, would be the best guess. Word substitution has been much more popular throughout the ages. Christians use "the LORD," while Jews use Adonai ("to be" in Hebrew, I think) or HaShem ("the Name"). I'm surprised Zachary didn't suggest Adonai since it's used in both Jewish and Christian circles.
As I touched on before... The word "God" does not linguistically derive from YHVH (Yahweh/Jehovah/Lord/Adonai/HaShem), but from Elohim (pronounced Elo-HEEM). But yes, semantically, we can say that Yahweh = God, since Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai echad -- the Lord is our God, the Lord is one.