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Digital Praise Takes Up Christian Gaming Cause
Thanks to GameSpot for its article discussing the formation of a new Christian videogame developer, Digital Praise, formed to create a "planned line of non-offensive games." CEO Tom Bean notes: "Digital Praise is founded on the principle that fun, exciting computer games don't need to be flooded with violence, sex, hate or images of horror", and the company's official press release discusses "development on two games based on the Adventures in Odyssey radio theater series", arguing: "As long as new game titles are top quality - offering exciting game play and high production value - we believe that interactive Christian games will skyrocket in popularity much like Christian music did 15 years ago."
"As long as new game titles are top quality - offering exciting game play and high production value - we believe that interactive Christian games will skyrocket in popularity much like Christian music did 15 years ago."
Well, if that is their baseline for success -- we can only hope.
-- The Great Satan, Dark Lord Of The Underworld
"Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition!"
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
Somebody tell me planned line of non-offensive games." CEO Tom Bean notes How the hell is this Christian?
This is not the Christianity that the rest of non-christian world knows off. We know of a Christianity that demands absolute conformity. We know of a Christianity that beleives in conversions and in the process is ruining states of North-east India. We know of a Christianity that is just as intolerant as Islam.
The only room Christianity gives is for different "levels" of belief in the system itself. Everyone else and everything else is a "fool" who has to be shown the way.
From the press release:
:p
"Digital Praise is committed to releasing fun, exciting game titles that promote virtues and family values like forgiveness, tolerance and kindness, rather than the violent and sexual behavior that is the mainstay of most popular computer games today."
This single sentence implies two things:
- most games today actively promote violent and/or sexual behaviour;
- any kind of violent and sexual behaviour is a bad thing.
Starting with the second point, I think that we can all agree that this is utter nonsense. Violence and sexual behaviour are facts of life, and are two of the things which most actively define ourselves and our surroundings. Apparently it refers to the 'turning the other cheek', and the 'no sex before marriage/sex is solely for reproductive purposes' parts of fundamentalistic Christian beliefs.
Moving on, I'm guessing that even a game like the Sims is considered to be offensive by certain people. FPSs are violent by nature, but it would be ridiculous to state that the violence in this type of games promotes more violence (looking at the crime statistics for the US, the number of crimes committed since the introduction of Doom in the early '90s has sharply decreased, and never can a criminal act be directly attributed to a game).
Besides, there are already plenty of games which are totally PC and 'lots of fun'. They're called children's games
Anyway, those smug, fundamentalistic Christian types never seem to change, so this press release isn't exactly news, or even mildly shocking. With a couple of minor adaptations you could turn it into a press release regarding Christian music.
Site & blog: http://www.mayaposch.com
I totally agree. Hangman, anyone?
Hilarious!! Let's kill a few Hindoos and Buddhists!! What fun!!!
Strawman detected.
In an average TV crime show, the hero of the plot kills one person per episode. An average New York police officer draws their gun about twice in their working lifetime. An average FPS player kills several opponents per minute.
What they're looking for is a game which is closer to Real Life, both less traumatising/anaesthetising for the player (however small the doses of trauma are) and better training for Real Life.
Children's games don't fulfil that aim because they are too simple.
I notice that you don't directly address your first point. Meanwhile...
Not. To be precise (AFAIK) all that you can make a valid claim for is "existing FPS implementations are all violent", and this represents a poverty of imagination, not a natural feature of the genre.Does a paintball FPS exist - where the objective is to tag opponents rather than killing them, or perhaps paint them with enough of your team's colour to initiate them into your side? If not, maybe it should. How about an FPS where the objective is to stick radio tags to wildlife? How about an "orbital debris hunter" FPS? How about a waldo FPS, where you're working on mechanical stuff in high orbit (or maybe you're in a ship orbiting a planet that needs terraforming), and there's a couple of seconds of lag in the feedback loop, maybe even a slowly-varying few seconds? Much harder to master than Quake, and much easier to set up for a meaningful ranking system.
Any of these can be intricate and exhilarating, and there's absolutely no need for them to be nasty or gory. How about a baseball FP[BatterPitcherFieldsman]? How about a first-person run in a fibreglass suit to emplace sensors in and/or collect samples from an actively erupting volcano?
The problem is your viewpoint. It's not an honest one, it's only an excuse to run people down from faux philosophical high ground. If your aim is to convert Christians to your own (short-sighted) way of thinking, you should be pushing this for all it's worth, as a foot-in-the-door way of weaning Christians onto more violent games. But no, you're too busy looking for immediate peer-group approval instead, so you're not. News flash! There is more to life!
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
The words "niche market" come to mind. They are obviously targeting a very specific audience: people who want to play games, but who want to feel safe and moral while doing so.
I would posit that the vast majority of us who play games with violent or sexual content do so for the following reasons:
1. They're fun.
2. Normal, being a relative term, people can't do the things in meat space that they can do in computer games. They like that. They feel free. They get to step outside the boundaries for a bit.
3. Fragging helps to release tension. Sure, you would really like to go after Phil at the office with a rail gun, because he fucked up again and really made you angry. Go splatter some bots instead. You won't end up in either the electric chair or strapped to a gurney with a needle in your arm that is about to deliver to your bloodstream some chemicals of a very dubious and harmful nature.
4. A lot of geeks, nerds, dweebs, dorks, and whatever term you choose were kicked around a lot when they were younger. Violent games are a way for them to kick back in a manner that, while cathartic, is not harmful to others.
I suppose most of these points are intertwined.
There are already a great deal of fun games available that are non-violent, non-sexual, and non-Christian. I submit, for example, games like Enigmo, Text Twist, the wiley veteran Tetris, UpLink, etc. These are but a few examples.
I think that this company is merely using the tired argument that violent games lead to violent behavior. If anything, I would argue the opposite. I, for one, have become so jaded by violence in the news that I really don't care anymore. Some more soldiers exploded in Iraq again today. Some more Jews killed some more Palestinians. Some more Palestinians killed some more Jews. I've heard and read it so many times that I don't even care anymore.
This company just wants to offer alternatives that disseminate Christian values, which, I think, is not necessarily wrong. More power to them. However, I do believe that their market share will be rather slim and limited to Christian fundamentalists.
SiO2
Obviously, you don't get the point. (-:
Note to moderators: please don't mod stuff down because you disagree with it. Moderate it up or down based on the quality or otherwise of the points made. The parent AC deserves the occasional positive mod for polite, constructive sarcasm.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
It takes two to tango. Until you know about the individual Christians and what exactly it is that they're ruining, generalisations like that are at best pointless and in practice usually dangerous. Forex, if they're "ruining" a society which frowns on charity for fear of damaging the recipient's karma, then I'm all for "ruining" that. But I'd need more data than you've supplied in order to make a call there.
More-or-less genuine Christianity is also "ruining" (depending on your PoV) hundreds of Orthodox rabbis every year and hundreds of thousands (possibly millions) of Mohammedans. In return, many Mohammedans have demonstrated that they would rather murder their own than see them convert, including their own children (that's a pretty clear demonstration of the inferiority of their argument). How do you feel about that? Your answers might teach you a lot about your own anxiety.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Calling horror and violence something foreign to the church seems a little off kilter- anyone remember the crusades?
Making the moon less necessary since 1998.
Here are a bunch of people who are saying we don't like the current crop of games for a number of reasons. So instead of protesting and trying to make it so that others can't play they are going to make their own games. In a free country this is exactly what people should do. One of the points of free software is that people can take it and make it better, for whatever value of better they happen to want. Even if its something that is totally un insteresting to you and me.
If these folks want to make their games power to them. Remember in the USA fundemtalist christains are a very large number of people.
Erlang Developer and podcaster
It is a shame that it takes a group as descredited as any religious organization (don't start me on this one, just my opinion OK?) to tackle excesive violence and demeaning or exploitatve sex stereotypes.
I, being a non religious person, am sick and tired of games whose only aim is to brutalize as many characters as possible in the worst possible way.
I think game designers have a moral responsibility towards society, specially having in mind that many of their "customers" are impressionable young persons, I am not saying that there should not be ultraviolent, sexually explicit or politically incorrect games, the point I am trying to make is that game developpers seem to think that without at least one of the above they can't sell.
It is a testament to how wrong they are how Tetris, Pac Man, Myst, SimCity and other games like thes are perhaps the most successful in all time,
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
All of that being said, I don't really like they way this company seems to be headed. Christian music has become to popular, to the point it is often difficult to tell the difference between sacred and secular. It is my entrenched belief that once you cannot see the line anymore, it isn't there. Christian games should strive be the best out there, not the most popular. Christians these days often lose sight of it not being about money. You do what you are called to do, not because it is easy or popular but because you were called. You needs will be met, and by that I don't mean your need to drive a Lexus and live in a 3000+ sq. ft home. (unless of course it is a generational home or something similar).
Christian games can be fun, exciting challenging etc. All to often, however, they are cheesy, shoddily made, or quite droll. The Christian life isn't some go stick your head in the sand way of living (though again some have made it that). People forget that it is a Christian world view that shaped Tolkien's works and yet I would argue that there are a fair number of
In any case I will leave you with the following quote ascribed to CS Lewis regarding one of the many conversations he and JRR Tolkien had on issues of myth, storytelling and its effects"
Bad Panda! No Bamboo for you! In matters of importance ACs will not be responded to. Want to say something critical,OK
So the games won't be based on bible stories then?
Free as in mason.
Not only that, it's LEGAL to discriminate (in South Australia) on the basis of religion!
;-)
;-)
Ref: An Adelaide-suburban Christian school
advertised a job for a Bookkeeper, stating
that th successful applicant will be a prac-
ticing Christian & regular church-goer. The
employment application had a place for one's
pastor's comments. Clearly discriminatory!
Note: This was a NON-teaching office job.
Somebody made a complaint to the Equal Oppor-
tunities Commission, and they won't touch it!
I haven't checked any So Aussie IT firms, but
maybe this explains the number of Adelaide IT
folks that seem to sing in choirs...
PS The Adelaide Club was known to bar females
from membership, even while a female doctor
was Mayor of that City (not that any female
in town would want to join...
"will skyrocket in popularity much like Christian music did 15 years ago."
:)
Hm, guess i'll just walk around the company a little and ask if anyone can tell me something about this skyrocking christian music which everybody seems to buy
It seems to me that labeling a game as "christian" is setting it up for failure. While "Christian" themed things may be getting more popular, I highly doubt there is a large intersection between gamers and people who enjoy christian themed things.
Of course the problem is, if you are not going to label it Christian, then what? One could argue that religion should be left out of it, and that there should merely be some effort put into creating games which teach morailty. Of course morality even among christian denominations is highly variable.
I think alot of the problem is that people generally associate christian themed things with being preachy and uptight.
Giving these people the benefit of the doubt, I think that they have good intentions, wanting fun games that do not promote violence or gratuitous sex (though I don't personally see sexual themes as being very common in many games, other than the exaggerated portrail of many female characters). The problem is that by labeling it christian it will be passed up by people who might not otherwise pass it up.
I think a lot of times in america people forget that there are really religions beyond christianity, many of whom would likely be also interested in less violent games.
Famous Last Words: "hmm...wikipedia says it's edible"
Someone had to do it. ;)
In which one political entity (the Roman Catholic Church) taught another (Islam) how to be brutal on a large scale, yes? And what does that have to do with religion?
How about the Saint Bartholomew's Day Massacre, in which subjects of the same political entity suddenly rose up and murdered over 70,000 of their competitors in one day, not to mention slicing the breasts off others with shears, and other such pleasantries?
Or the invasion of Beziers, in which about 30,000 people - roughly half of them being at least nominal adherents to the aforementioned political entity - were wiped out in one go by mercenaries at the direction of said political entity, and the famous quotation "Tuez-les tous; Dieu reconnaitra les siens" (or, in English, "Kill them all; for the Lord knoweth them that are His") was born?
Yes, politics is murder. And often the reverse is true as well.
Lest you fall to believing that all lethal political entities have paternalistic religious connections, consider that (Atheist) Mao managed to kill more than 80 million of his own people, (Atheist) Stalin got another 20 million or so, and the Manchu got another few tens of millions suppressing the Ti Ping. To say nothing of strictly commercial murder and mass inhumanity like King Leopold's Congo (chalk up another ten million for that one, give or take).
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Allow me to interject with a few sobering facts from reality, taken from a book that a lot of people know of, but rarely actually read with their brains turned on:
Sex and Violence - Lot (A just and righteous man) invites a mob to rape his two daughters:
"Behold now, I have two daughters which have not known man; let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye to them as is good in your eyes: only unto these men do nothing; for therefore came they under the shadow of my roof."
Hatred, Violence and Sex - Moses, after he and his army kill the adult Midianite males:
"Have you saved all the women alive? Kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves."
Hatred and Sex - Homosexuals must be put to death:
"If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them."
Images of Horror - God kills everyone (men, women, children, infants, newborns) in Sodom and Gomorrah by raining "fire and brimstone from the Lord out of heaven."
So, which cosy little world of make-believe is Digital Praise living in? Have they actually read the bible, or are they "buffet christians", content to pic-n-mix tidbits from their holy tome?
For more delightful treats from the bible, visit www.skepticsannotatedbible.com
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
It would be really interesting if someone made a game accurately based on the bible (Which version? Ed.) where we could have the crusades for example, or perhaps a Populous type game where you have to invade an alternative culture and "persuade" the natives to convert to your religion. It could have the inquisition and various methods of torturing people who didnt agree with the church, and various violent killings and so forth. It would make a great multiplayer where you could choose to be the Romans, the Christians or the Muslims and so on.
The best part would be when the various happy clappy groups tried to ban it for blasphemy. After all - it would be based on "actual biblical events" and to disagree with this would surely be a sin? I think it would make an interesting statement about violence while showing that all dominant cultures are essentially the same.
I suppose it might end up like a low-tech version of C&C Generals but with the super weapons replaced by deity smiting etc.
...the story of Naaman's cure or Zaccheus' conversion can be turned into an interesting game. Mind you, some people can make toilet paper or styro-burgers seem exciting, so I won't say outright that it can't be done.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
...but they were a lot more inclined to negotiate than the Crusaders were, and did a lot less damage to the locals in their ever so righteous paths.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
FYI, 'Mohammedan' is a potentially offensive term. It implies that the followers of Islam worship Mohammed, just as Christians worship Christ. Moslems worship Allah; Mohammed is His prophet.
Granted, there are those who would argue your callous word choice was the least offensive portion of your post.
You like splinters in your crotch? -Jon Caldara
Unreal Roman Amphitheatre: The odds favor the lions, so keep your Christian butt movin'!
Quake, the Crusades: Kill people who don't believe like you.
Battlezone - Dark Ages: Kill more people who don't believe like you.
DungeonMaster, Salem: Kill even more people who don't believe like you.
Counter Strike - Inquisition!: Etc., etc., ad nauseum, ad infinitum.
Only those completely ignorant of history will by into that whole "God is love" line of bs pushed by these belief-based religions, whether it's Christianity or Islam or whatever: History shows these types of religions are really, truely Nazi-types who have hatred and complete intolerance for others.
Belief-based is another way of saying willful ignorance.
If you're going to make "Christian" games, you'll have to make some extremely ugly products.
Everything in the Universe sucks: It's the law!
Abracadabra, Aramaic for "I create as I speak" is heavily paralleled in the Bible. The term you're probably looking for is "hocus pocus", a corruption of "Hoc est corpus meum", the Latin uttered at the climax of a Mass when the priest purports to compress God (presumably a copy) into a wafer.
In another interesting pierce of irony, the cross is actually a symbol of Tammuz, the sun god. The cross-with-halo is an exact replica of the rising sun with atmospheric "lens effects". Christ was crucified on the symbol of His arch enemy. Mutating the solar disk into a crown of thorns in order to get away from the pagan implications is spectacularly ironic.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
I am waiting for Jesux: The Game!
I know movie licensed games usually suck, but maybe they could score a Thief in the Night deal?
The point here is to sell to a demographic that doesn't buy the games to play them, but rather give them to their children, paperboys, or whatever. It doesn't matter how hard they suck, the sap paying for it wouldn't begin to know the first thing from good or bad in the first place. They're not paying for a gaming experience, but fulfilling some sort of gift obligation and managing to do it in a pious way (and getting two steps closer to heaven in the process). While the title may languish on the shelf at home, it is because little Johnny/Jill has an evil mind, which just goes to show how strong the need is to buy even more christian games...
But god uses an aimbot... its so unfair!
Business Voyeur
afiliated with Satan
Christian games will have to do better than this to skyrocket:
Super 3D Noah's Ark
Other Wisdom Tree games
Yes, this is what we have to benefit from Christian gaming community. The Wolfenstein engine can be used for good!
It would be cool if it didn't suck.
Jeez, just because some group of religious fundamentalists isn't trying to oppress us, we should be happy? The fact that these people are leaving our freedoms alone is definitely not enough to make me want to be beaten over the head with the jesus stick while I'm trying to play a video game.
I agree with your basic point, that if people don't like the way video games are they should make their own, but the prospect of having to watch out for evangelist games doesn't exactly appeal to me either.
But there is another kind of evil that we must fear most... and that is the indifference of good men.
In order for Christian games to skyrocket, they're going to have to do better than this:
Super 3D Noah's Ark
The Wolfenstein 3D engine can be used for good!
(Sorry if this turns out to be a double post, the first one hasn't seemed to appear within five minutes)
It would be cool if it didn't suck.
fundie asswipe!
Tolkien explicitly stated in the introduction to LOTR that his story was NOT allegory in any sense of the word; in fact he claims to despise allegory in all of its manifestations.
CS Lewis, on the other hand, made no secret that his Narnia books were a Christian allegory. To the uninformed reader, because you attributed that quote to "CS Lewis regarding one of the many conversations he and JRR Tolkien," it might seem that Tolkien shared this viewpoint, which he absolutely did not.
But there is another kind of evil that we must fear most... and that is the indifference of good men.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
The server runs under WINE, I'll snaffle a secondhand client and see how well it goes.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Based on this quote from the article --
"Digital Praise is founded on the principle that fun, exciting computer games don't need to be flooded with violence, sex, hate or images of horror," said Bean."
We won't have the following titles show up any time soon.
The Adventures of Jephthah
Punish the Midianites
The trial and execution of Jesus
Inquisition - Heretics
Inquisition II - Torquemada's Rack
Fantasy and superstition should be used for entertainment purposes only.
...we're getting a new version of Tetris?
/pastor's son
It'd be nice to see people try and keep an open mind about games like these instead of just immediately writing them off with "Oh, a God game. It'll suck."
Do these folks have it backward?
Though I see nothing wrong in making a game geared to Christians as the target audiance, perhaps they are working this from the wrong angle. There objective seems to be a games espousing Christian values and perhaps based on scripture.
Perhaps their efforts would be better spent making games that Christians can play. The difference is just like difference between making music just for Christians or making music that is Christian friendly.
Of course this implies that there are no games Christians can play currently. This is obviously not true. We merely have to look to the numerous console games that are successes that aren't focused on sex, violence, hate or horror. One only has to look at the huge number of sports games out today. Follow those up by the number of games with heros who's major skills are running and jumping.
Maybe these folks should just go work for companies already making those types of games?
Compare a previous rather similar Slashdot story:
Recruit More Women Developers, Attract Women Gamers?
Quotes: "Half of the population isn't having input into what's being created... And the one thing that I learned is that people make games they like to play. Having a diverse opinion helps games"
Contrast with: "Digital Praise Takes Up Christian Gaming Cause" (that's this story)
Quotes: "those smug, fundamentalistic Christian types never seem to change"
Read the various comments on both articles.
Sure they're not about the same thing. But it sure is enlightening if you really think about it.
I thought DOOM was a christian game? I really thought I was helping Jesus by murdering Satan's minions. I was the archangel of righteous shotgun punishment! BOO YA! In other news, this reader prefers his heavy metal, rock and roll, pornography, junk food, and brutally violent video games. [/me renews his subscription of playboy] I was raised in a fundamentalist christian home and didn't manage to throw off that oppressive intellectual yoke until I was 21 years old. My 21 years as a "born again" christian have taught me that Christianity is wrong, it is backwards, it is founded on the worst kinds of mysticism and collectivism, and is no better than Islam or any other religion in any way shape or form. My intimate experience with religion has caused me to now believe that, while people may practice whatever backwards mysticism they want on their own time, religious people should be banned from all forms of government service, religion should be stricken from public influence, and all laws based on a religious principle should be, at the very least, re-examined. I love my parents, but one I took control of my own brain, I realized they were crazy. I predict that very few gamers will buy into these games, and that the general christian public does not like games enough in the first place to financially support the genre.
Taken from here.
Bart: When I'm feeling low, you know what cheers me up?
Rod: Kindness?
Bart: Oooh, tough room. Video games! Whaddyagot?
(He reaches to the bookshelf and picks up a copy of "Billy Graham's Bible Blasters," and they begin to play.)
Rod: Keep firing! Convert the heathens!
(A series of "heathens" crosses the video screen as a "Bible gun" fires Bibles at them. When a "heathen" is hit, he turns into a conservatively dressed man with a halo.)
Bart: Got him!
Rod: No, you just winged him and made him a Unitarian.
Todd: Look out, Bart! A gentle Baha'i!
(Bart zaps the Baha'i, turning him into another suit with a halo).
Bart: All right! Full conversion!
It would be cool if it didn't suck.
Historically accurate Crusades perhaps.
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
Well what about all of the cool puzzle type games out there? Some are quite successful, because they're fun. Or stuff like roller coaster tycoon and sim city. They all fit in with the idea of a non violent game that encourages productivity rather than destruction.
In the realm of video games, christian video games have been lacking. There have been a couple doom off shoots and other miscellaneous games that have fallen short of being anything quality. One possible reason is because these company are not doing it out of a want to spread "the gospel". But they are also capitalist trying to make a quick dollar. If they can sell a game that does require almost any time for programming the game and market merely as a "christian" game. Some mom is going to see it on the shelf and say "Its christian, it will be a good alternative to my little boy that like to play games that blow up things." This is as far as the game producers would care. Once the product is bought the lack of quality is no longer a problem. A game should not merely be looked down because it holds the title "christian" but because it is coming froma capitalistic society that it marketing on its christian label. If this company can produce quality games that have a christian influence it might change the tide of previous crappy programming. And in defence of christian about the previously mentioned crusades. These are obvious black marks on christian history. But the inquistion and the crusades had little to do with what the bible actually said. No where in the bible does it say anything about harming anyone or forcing anyone to believe in anything. The crusades where not based on christian morals. Simply Christianity is not at fault for the actions of people claiming to be Christians. Churches have been filled and will be filled with people who claim to be christians but really aren't.
Games do not have to be violent to be fun. Shrek 2 for Gameboy Advance is one of them. A very clever, fun, bright game animated at 30fps, Lost Vikings style. Yeah sure, Shrek and Donkey have to kick the attackers sometimes, but there's no blood, they just disappear, not unlike how King's soldiers disappeared when Shrek turned to their commander and said "Oh yeah ? You and what army ?".
I find games offensive if they DON'T have violence and sex. Offense is such a subjective thing.
The reason girls and Windows users don't understand UNIX is because all the documentation is in Man files.
In your statements regarding christianity, you neglect to mention that one of the keystones of the religion is hypocrisy: You must constantly encourage others to live by those commandments on the slab, while disobeying them yourself, since no sane human can keep to all ten at once, all the time. One of the best examples of Christianity's hypocrisy is the current war in Iraq. Here you have a so called "one nation under god" waging a war motivated by revenge. Quote me some scripture that encourages Christians to seek revenge.
I can hear you already: "But those aren't real Christians!" Fine. If the only true Christians are those who live their lives as Christ would have, then surely the only true Christian is Christ himself. All you other wannabes, stfu and leave those of us capable of rational thought alone. We have problems here in the real world, since we're not quite as certain of the afterlife as you and the rest of the flock. A word, by the way, which means a group of animals unable to think for themselves. A fine definition of christianity, it is.
or are people really this uptight and insane about stuff like sex? whoa.
you spout your beliefs as tho they were facts. try to remember that a lot of people arent as obsessed with sex and what others are or arent doing. we just enjoy it in whatever form we happen to experience and move on.
"The Christian standpoint" could be made to cover a lot of ground. I specifically exclude interpretations incompatible with Scripture, since they will be considerably less true-to-plan.Welcome to relativism, where there is no point in doing anything because there's no goals, no endpoints, no purpose, no hope.
All beliefs may be equally sincere, but not all beliefs can be equally valid, especially so since most of them contradict one another. The scientific approach to deciding which is most valid is to compare each belief system with observation and history.
Unfortunately for materialism, many features of this universe and specifically the planet we're standing on are completely incompatible with a long history, and even if a long history is granted in the face of the evidence most of the processes which we observe around us work directly against the development of the myriad forms of life which we also observe. And of course, commensurate with this, what we actually see in nature is species disappearing, not new ones forming.
Supporters of materialism are caught on the horns of a cruel dilemma (or possibly crottling fork
Once you delete materialism, it completely changes the philosophical playfield. You're basically down to creationism, standing the world on turtles (hello, Terry Pratchett), or building it from the body parts and blood of assorted godlets. Tough call.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
On a more serious note, "witches" was a term which in practice meant anyone who believed differently to you, or that you didn't like. Protestants (even before the Protest of the Princes, they had Waldenses and Albigenses and such to torture) were as much fair game as helpful, peaceful herbalists and genuinely nasty might-makes-right invokers of dark powers.
To give you some idea of how this mentality works, consider that when Inquisitions were set up, wealthy people were one of the high-risk categories. Methinks the confiscation of property and the spotter's-fee bounty associated therewith might have had something to do with this. A lot more than anything to do with religion, in point of fact.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
The scientist on the right is a creationist, and wrote the TERRA software being discussed on that page. In its time, it was regarded as the single best Earth-modelling package available and is still very well regarded (Linux and ForTran afficiondos will be pleased by that too, since it's written in ForTran-90 and runs on Beowulves).
Dr D Russell Humphreys predicted the whacko magentic fields of Naptune and Uranus from creationist principles; the predictions of materialists were well wide of the mark.
I could go on to labour the point, but there is real science and real scientists on the side of creationism.
Consider yourself called. (-:
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
The bit about the rock is misleading too. Jesus said "You are a loose stone ["petros"], but upon this rock ["petra", think in terms of bedrock] I will build My church". You could possibly interpret that as "upon these stones", but that's still too inclusive to support a Pope. Jesus repeats the offer of the keys to all of the Disciples in chapter 18, and note that in context there the Disciples are not represented as being in any way the leaders of the church as it existed then.
Next, consider Matthew 8:14 - Peter is married, and Popes are not (well... not in theory anyway). In Acts 15, James presided over the council and Peter was merely one of those who testified to it. In Galatians 2, Paul condemns Peter's hypocrisy. Finally, in 1Peter 5:1, Peter explicitly refers to himself as one among equals, and in 1Peter 2:8 he calls Jesus "the rock". None of this supports what you're saying, all of it speaks against the traditional Catholic position. You can see how the Bible wound up on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum until Vatican II.
If you want to conform to Christ, then you should accept personal responsibility for your own actions, so you can then admit fault completely to God and in turn receive complete forgiveness and be pointed towards a completely guileless and helpful life.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Setting aside the already-pointed-out fact that all those events you mention are post-biblical (since the Bible cuts out at sometime before 100 AD), I have a question: Does this mean that for the final 150 years or so of the game that you would turn into a non-aggressor who merely has unpopular opinions? Or are you going to argue that your game avatar would spend that time bombing abortion clinics and the like?
(sarcasm)'Cause we all know how the Church supports that.(/sarcasm)
Happiness is relative, Based upon the way we live.
(In the style of Zork)
You are in a brightly lit room.
You are likely to be blessed by a Grue
(In the style of Zero Wing)
How art thou?
All thine church are belong to us.
You have no chance to resurrect, make thine prayers.
(In the style of Mortal Kombat)
After performing a fatality, your opponent comes back to life 3 rounds later.
(In the style of Dance Dance Revolution)
(to a chant with a techno beat)
KNEEL, PRAY, GENUFLECT, HAIL MARY, NOVENA, NOVENA, GENUFLECT, KNEEL...
It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men. -Frederick Douglass
It is a bit ironic, (I might be wrong, Alanis Morissette messed me up) that there are people on Slashdot, a champion of freedom, that think this is bad.
The company doesn't want to require other game companies to make only clean and Christian games, it just wants to make them itself.
... sitting on store shelves forever. But let's not forget to teach old testament morality and justice and the new testament apocalyptic message.
Possible bestsellers:
1) Jesus & the apocalypse: Kingdom of god on earth.... Snippet: Wipe out those heathen unbelievers at your return who just 'didn't get' the low quality, paradoxical, contradictory message that took an omniscient, omnipotent god 1000 years to write!
2) Demon vanquisher... Starring Jesus as the excorcist (ref: Math. 8) because we *all* know demons cause disease!
3) Marry your rapist... Snippet: Be a benevalent god creating benevalent laws such as these for your followers! (ref: Deuteronomy 22:28-29 NAB)
4) Show no evil... Snippet: Be the OT god and mete out justice for disobedience, remember all acts of disobedience require death by our omniscient super-rational reasoning!
I'm just going to chime in here with something about Adventures in Odyssey, the audio series that the games will be based on.
I run a website (I have for years) devoted to the show at http://www.aiosf.com.
Actually, I was approached by Focus on the Family (the company who produces the show) to write one of the video games because of my background in gaming as well as my knowledge of AIO. Anyway, it's a rather popular show which is suprisingly very secular, despite it's "Christian" branding. I would say about 40% of the shows are entirely secular in content... and it's quite a fun show with a large adult fan base despite the age target of 8 - 12 (as they've always had a policy they would never talk down to kids, they deal with everything from abortion, murder, hold ups, villains, government spys, and of course family issues). Considering it's a radio drama, it's very good... with voice talents ranging from Townsend Coleman (the guy who plays The Tick), to Janet Waldo (who voiced Judy Jetson and Josie from Josie and the Pussycats), to Earl Boen (the voice of LeChuck in the Monkey Island games as well as Dr. Silberman in the three Terminator movies).
Anyway, just thought I'd throw this out there to give people a better idea on what the games will be based on. They obviously aren't going to compare with any of the games out there these days (the games themselves have a very short development cycle in a little over 8 months I believe), but the audio series is quite fantastic.
Shadowpaw
I am not religous at all, but I would love to see some different themed games. For one, I think the adventure game genera would fit in with their goals nicely. With some good animators drawing some really nice 2d artwork, it could make for a fun game. They could theme it a bible setting, or the garden of eden, or even do a modern story with someone finding faith through some adventures. I don't mind what the message is behind the game as long as it's well written and nicely animated.
Maybe they could invent some sort of sim game where you run a church and have to deal with the same types of things that most church administors have to deal with. That could be interesting, letting you build and expand the church, while trying to run programs that increase the amount of worshipers coming in. You could try to generate aditional income by using different donation collection methods all the way to installing a cell phone tower in your steeple for 12,000 a month. Throw in some events, such as weddings and funerals, and you've got an interesting game.
This could be interesting, but I know it will result in some people making crappy games trying to make a few bucks by using the term "christian" in the title and marketing it as the safest video games EVER for concerd parents.
I was wondering the same thing, and read most of the books (up through half of the fifth).
The main distinction between the two was the framework and the underlying worldview which permeated both works.
Both Harry Potter and The Chronicles of Narnia are set in modern-day England, both involve every-day children that the reader can easily identify themselves with, and they both embark on journies which said readers would like to envision themselves.
The main difference to whom one answers. In the Chronicles of Narnia, sorcery is something that is not for mortals, and shouldn't be meddled with (the two main mortals I can think of using magic in CoN are Dr. Cornelius in Prince Caspian, and Diggory's uncle in Magician's Nephew.) All magic is recognized as above one's self, it's not a solution to problems (it doesn't set scrubbers to wash pans automagically, etc).
But as said before, the main difference is the worldview, and what it would instill in a child fantasizing about what they wish they could do. Witchcraft is a real thing. I recognize this, I believe it, and have known people with very personal contact with this (as I'm sure most of us have). Both stories recognize the existence of good magic, and evil magic, but it is a problem when the users of magic are not ultimately answerable to any being higher to themselves. In Harry Potter, if you're strong (whether it be the Ministry of Magic or Voldemort's Death Eaters), you can be the end-all-say-all. Morals are arbitrary, though granted HP & friends do exhibit many noble charictaristics, Harry still has no accountability (unless you count the sparse teachings by Dumbledore) for his lying.
It's all very abstract, and I don't feel qualified to say "Harry Potter is evil, you shouldn't partake of it!". However, for myself, I've read them, though when I found myself enjoying them too much, it sent up a warning flag in my mind, and I decided to stop reading halfway through book 5. If you can read it, and not feel prodding of the Spirit to do otherwise, then I do not speak against you, and I can only support you and try to encourage you in your walk. :)
A similarly tough example in my own mind is why Tolkien is okay and HP is not -- though I follow similar reasoning for all of this. Basically the worldview behind the story, and who is Ultimate in the story: people or Something Else.
Respectfully,
clint
Christian games eh? Jesus 3: The Awakening? (Quake 3 + religous reference) Jesus vs. Sinners? (Alien v Predator) Jesus Tournament 2004? (Unreal 2K4) Jesus & Satan? (Black & White) Jesus Confronts Prostitutes? (Leisure Suit Larry, hehehehe....)
Ripley: What do those pulse rifles fire? Gorman: 10 millimeter explosive tip caseless. Standard light armor piercing round. Why? Ripley: Jesus explicitly said in Corinthians 3:16, that violence is not the answer to our problems. Burke: Whoah, whoah, she's right. We can't have violence in this situation, it would be against the Lord's will! Hudson: Hey, what the hell are we supposed to use man, harsh language? Ripley: You can't use that either....
Respect It.
Did you even read it? He's expressing his real opinion, not just trying to tick people off.
Given that the ratio of scientists being paid to produce results compatible with Naturalism to those being paid to produce results compatible with Theism must be hundreds to one, I think the creationist theories that have been put forward so far have fared exceptionally well.
Even so, Naturalism is a house divided against itself. One bunch tout "dark matter" and "dark energy" because without them their theories fall flat. A more honest bunch speak up about the patent ridiculousness of these just-so stories and try to produce Naturalistic theories that fit (so far, to no avail but yet their efforts are a good deal purer in heart than their opponents). Occam's answer would be to discard a lot of Naturalistic preconceptions about the age and uniformity of the Universe, and just work with what we have actually observed, not adding any interpretation to it until the last moment.
If you find your own gradual creation myths comforting, well, enjoy it. But I suggest that getting a right answer is far more important than getting a reassuring answer.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Paintball gives you objectives and urgency without the need to kill or injure your competitors. The opportunity to work out strategy and tactics (and or teach those to others) in a fairly direct manner with minimal risk, and without requiring ill-will.
I'd rather be playing real paintball, but if I can't, a simulation is better than squat.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
EXODUS: The Game-
You are Moses. Now lead the Israelites around a desert the size of Rhode Island for 40 years.
Or
Second Coming: Vengence
a game where the devil interferes with the timeline (ala Start Trek) and hurls Jesus 2000 years into the future where he never dies for our sins.
Now 'saviour-free', the earth is overrun by demon-zombies and aliens.
Jesus can fly and shoot lasers out of his eyes, destroying demon-spawn until he has a showdown with the devil -- his twin brother *gasp*.
Of course, they use ninja swords in the showdown.