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Game with God
Andrew writes "GamerDad has an article up about how religion is handled in computer gaming, titled 'Game With God'. The article features quotes from Sid Meier, Jane Jensen, Will Wright, Peter Molyneaux, Phil Steinmeyer, and Richard Garriott. Here's a snippet: 'While religion and spirituality add a lot to a game world, they often aren't used effectively. 'I don't think there are any games that treat religion at anything more than a superficial level,'; says Firaxis founder and Civilization creator Sid Meier. PopTop Software's Phil Steinmeyer agrees, noting that 'Religion is ignored in gaming, or if it is portrayed, it's wildly caricatured.'"
In Japan, religion is often portrayed quite heavily in games. Japan in general has a more liberal relationship with religion than the western world, and works of fiction aren't really lynched for not showing the church in a good light.
If you want some GOOD examples of religion in games, try Xenogears, Grandia, or Tales of Symphonia. All quite good games that deal with religion quite heavily. In the case of Xenogears, it was almost not released in North America, as the church would consider it to be almost blasphemous.
For a North American game dealing slightly more than average with religion... try Eternal Darkness. The game features a bit of the inquisition, and the main characters are using magick based a lot upon the pagan practices and rituals. I would guess that the church would be none too happy about this one either.
Another game which really delves into religion is Final Fantasy Tactics. In fact, it could be argued that the main point of the whole game is a critique on Christianity.
As for myself, though, I learned everything I needed to know about religion from Dungeon Keeper.
Windmills do not work that way!
There's plenty of imagination of what the God-role might be in a computer game. I'm not a big fan of Andrew Greeley, but he did stake out this turf in The God Game a decade ago. Or, for a high metafictional take on a real-life role-playing game with a godlike director, there's John Fowles's The Magus. And I suppose the best Death-of-God Game would have to be Lucky Wander Boy by D. B. Weiss.
How about Billy Graham's Bible Blasters?
Of course the gaming community is downright disdainful of Christianity. Most gammers are [relativly] intellegent and can see through the hokum [sic]. Christianity itself is historically anti-imagination and anti-intellectual.
No. Christianity is historically anti-atheism--a distinctly different thing.
A good number of ancient, medieval, and modern scholoarly advancements and creative achievements were done by devout Christians, often with the blessing and sanctions of their churches.
Off the top of my head, both J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis--very creative persons by anyone's measure--were extremely devout christians. (C.S. Lewis is actually as lauded for his nonfiction books on religion as he was for Narnia.)
Your misunderstanding is understandable, however, thanks to the semi-humanist screed that says Galileo was tried for heresey for daring to say that the sun was the center of the universe. The truth says otherwise, of course, but "Galielo was tried for heresy because he continually provoked the Pope despite ample allowances, and had a rather comfortable life after his trial" doesn't work very well as a rallying cry to toss religion out on its ear.
(Note: I'm aware I linked to a religious site. If you prefer Wikipedia, it also delves into the heresy, but with a bit more of an anti-religious slant.)
The Fellowship in Ultima VII The Black Gate has detailed rituals, songs, example services, etc... You even get to go through the initiation rituals to join at one point and interact with other believers and hear stories about how it's affected their virtual lives.
freeciv!
open source version of civ2 (pretty close and fun!)
And then only in English! In French at least, the name of that chess piece is litteraly translated to "Court Jester".
Delay is preferable to error. (Thomas Jefferson)
Anyone remember this great old game? Now there's a game that has religion in it! Why, the player is god!
... if he could do THAT, then why am I the one gunning down all those monsters?
Actually, I'm thinking maybe this is part of the reason there's so little religion in games - quite often the gamer takes on the role of the supreme being. Like Sims. If the player isn't a god, I don't know what he is. Or Civ.
In the old times (maybe still, but definitely back in the day) some games "cheated" when you were playing against the computer. This was to make the game harder to beat, but it also became infinitely annoying. So in a sense the computer is god in a game, you know, the reason for it all. Or the programmer might be god. That means, writing god into a game will be like god creating a god for the game.
God in a game might be annoying - a super existence that can do anything in a flash
I guess though that maybe religion could be the theme of a game, rather than god... Maybe.
A game needs to be interactive, or it's not a game. Most religions are not interactive, rather, they come with a set of rules or suggestion for how to make your life better. You can't change it, well, not much. Maybe this is the problem.
It says quite clearly that Eve ate the fruit in order to become wise (i.e. gain knowledge). Now you can "interpret" this story to mean whatever the hell you want, but the FACTS of the story cleary say that Eve ate the fruit to become wise (pursuit of knowledge) and was punished for it.
When you lose something irreplaceable, you don't mourn for the thing you lost, you mourn for yourself. - Harpo Marx
The Thief series of games is all about religion. The Builders, the Hammerites, Pegans, etc. The series doesn't hide the fact that they're poking fun at religion and showing how dangerous they can be, if taken too seriously.
I wish you people would ready our own god damned book:
Nope, 'twas disobedience.
Disobedience from a couple of innocent beings who were never taught about good and evil?
Disobedience that warranted damning them and billions of their children to eternal torment?
What a cool god you have!
Some data on the faulty logic of "original sin"
Why are you letting these clowns ruin our country?
I don't want to turn this into a debate, but I believe in critically analyzing the text we're reading. When reading the bible (like any other text), it is often useful to consider the entire context.
If you don't, then it is often possible to contrive any naïve and convenient conclusion, and then claim that's what the good book teaches when it doesn't.
Re your syllogism, it is a fallacy of the most rudimentary kind:
Eve eats fruit from tree of life to gain wisdom
God punishes her
Therefore Eve was punished for gaining wisdom?
Is that the only conclusion? Must it be? What kind of wisdom does the original Hebrew word talk about? What about other possibilities supporting facts? It is unfair to make any conclusion without considering these questions.
In reality, what most Christians are taught is this (now you may consider this "interpretation"): *God punished Eve for disobedience to his explicit command*. That's it. There are also issues of pride and rebellion, and supposition that one might be equal to God, but I won't get into those. I've made my point. Case closed.
Tell that to Augustine or Galileo, some of the greatest minds were devout followers of the church.
'The good Christian should beware of mathematicians and all those who make empty prophecies. The danger already exists that mathematicians have made a covenant with the devil to darken the spirit and confine man in the bonds of Hell.' - St. Augustine
Last post!
As an avid anime watcher and RPG fan, I disagree about the whole "stock plot" issue. FF Tactics' plot was unusually complex (which actually turned a number of people I know off to the game). While many Japanese games and animes often have some Christian symbolic elements and the like, outside of Evangelion I can't think of any such case that has as strong of Christian elements, and none have as close of a parallel to real Christianity and its history as Tactics.
And the commentary on Christianity in Tactics is pretty harsh. Have you ever read the Germonik Scriptures? It basically presents an alternative to the Christian presentation of Jesus ("St. Ajora" in the game), and at the same time, the plot revolving around the scriptures is a close parallel to the Catholic Church's repression of banned books viewed as being against God in the middle ages. Likewise, the plot of Tactics itself, with the church manipulating nations and starting wars for its own advantage has clear historic parallels.
So, I have to strongly disagree about the "stock plot" phrase you used. If you find it to be a "stock plot", give another such example that, say, offers alternatives to the Christian view of the life of Jesus or has the main plot revolve around what is essentially the historical Catholic Church.
Windmills do not work that way!
First the Hebrew word tam does not mean sinless. Tam might better be equated with "well-rounded" or "fulfilling one's duties" or "in the right place" (which would include proper reaction to sin), but it does not mean "perfection". The actual word for moral perfection in Hebrew is tamiym (cf. Gen. 17:1, 2 Sam. 22:31). ("Tamiym" is used to describe Noah in Gen. 6:9, but it refers to him as "perfect" in his "generations" [towledah], the word used of physical family descent. One suggests that, in the context of Gen. 6:4, this refers not to Noah's moral behavior, but to the fact that his line was untainted by interaction with the "sons of God" who came unto the daughters of men.)
Thankyou drive through.
I would love to see a game based on the bible. It would be the most violent, debased game in history!
Those of you who've read the bible with any sort of objectivity know what I'm talking about. How many places in the OT does god command the jews to wipe out entire peoples, including women and children? There are even passages where he is angered because the jews decide to spare a few individuals or animals. So in any true bible game, genocide has to play a key role. And of course god doesn't leave all the fun to his chosen people; he certainly gets his hands dirty as well. Some of the more famous instance of god's handiwork include leveling Sodom and Gomorra, killing all the first born in Egypt when the pharaoh refuses to free the jews (interesting note: according to the text, god intentionally "hardened the pharaoh's heart" to Moses' pleas; god forced the pharaoh to refuse so that he could demonstrate his power via the plagues), and wiping out almost every living thing on the planet in a big flood cause he didn't like the way the humans he created were turning out.
Or, how about a Sims-type game? You could try to follow god's laws as they're laid out (mostly in Leviticus, IIRC) without getting stoned to death. Choose to pick up some sticks on the Sabbath? Sorry: you get stoned. Are you a woman who gets raped in the city? Sorry: you get stoned. In a city you should have been able to scream loud enough that someone would have heard. Is your Sim character a child who makes fun of a bald guy? Sorry: god sends some bears out of the woods to maul you. On the plus side, though, you can have slaves and multiple wives, sell your daughters, and have sex with your servants. (Yes, these are all actual biblical laws/stories.)
And the NT isn't much better. You've got the whole crucifixion thing, which is plenty violent (and intentional; not like the omniscient being didn't know it was going to happen). And then there's the problem that Jesus' core message is about as horrible a moral as you can find: "Worship me or you'll be tortured for all eternity, regardless of how good a person you are." And considering god's actions throughout the bible, could any truly moral person worship him in good conscience?
So yeah, I'd like to see a game based on the bible. I want to see the religious right squirm when a game based on the actual stories of their holy book makes Doom 3 look like Big Bird on Ice.
p.s. If you doubt the accuracy of anything I've said, I encourage you wholeheartedly to read the bible yourself. You'll see that the points above are but a tiny sampling of the atrocities the bible has to offer. I just discovered that some enterprising folks have even distilled a lot of the horrors (as well as the ridiculous "science" and many contradictions) of the bible for you: http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com
If it doesn't exist, then the believer and the non-believer net out the same, with cessation of existence. And if the believer lived a happier life in the meanwhile, who's to say he/she was wrong? Conversely, what if the afterlife does exist? Then the outcome for the two could be very different. (Pascal's wager).
"But Marge, what if we chose the wrong religion? Each week we just make god madder and madder." - Homer Simpson
So, if you percieve lies as an insult to your intelligence and morality, you presumably think that only stupid, immoral people believe said lies, and are calling most of the world's population stupid and immoral. Bearing in mind that Archimedes believed in Zeus and suchlike (I think), Sir Isaac Newton was Christian, Gandhi was Hindu and Hitler was (again, not to sure about this) Atheist, I find myself drawing no conclusion other than that you are arrogant and immoral.
The sequal to B&W should address the questions you had. The followers can declare holy wars, their morals are influenced by your actions (you like to rain fire onto their huts to gain belief? They'll be more warlike), etc.
"Upon attaching the waterblock to my penis, I began to notice that I know nothing about computers." -- JRockway
Umm...no. Evangelical religions want to "convert the world". Others don't.
As an example, Judaism is not an evagelical religion. Generally, Jews have no interest in converting others, and, as I vaguely recall, make it moderately difficult to do so.
Christianity or Islam, on the other hand, are evangelical religions, and want to "convert the world". The extent to which any individual member tries to convert others to his/her beliefs is, of course, self-determined.
Buddhism is either evangelical or not, depending on the flavour of Buddhism. Some early Japanese variants were known to fight among themselves over details. Others, such as Zen Buddhism, don't bother trying to convert others.
Zoroastrianism isn't evangelical, so far as I know, but it's been 20 years since I even knew anyone who followed that religion, so my knowledge is fuzzy, at best. Ditto Hinduism. Ditto Shinto.
Most old religions are not especially (if at all) evangelical. The idea seems to have sprung from Jesus direction to Paul to be an Apostle to the Gentiles (all of us non-Jews, though the Mormons use the term differently).
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
For instance, while that verse does say that Eve saw that the fruit would make her wise, the issue goes deeper than that. Look at the previous few verses:Reading the preceding verses, you see that the serpent tempted Eve, not with knowledge, but with Godliness. The serpant told Eve that
1) God had lied to her
2) She could be like God
and Eve chose to believe him instead of God and ate it, gaining this very specific kind of ethical knowledge. Now the knowledge is important because it is what made Adam and Eve like God, but saying that the passage is big parable against the pursuit of knowledge is a little short-cited. If you go on to read the rest of the chapter (and the rest of the Bible) the big problem is not that Adam and Eve had gained knowledge, but that they had disobeyed God and striven to become like Him. This is proven throughout Scripture: whenever someone disobeys God or attempts to deify themselves, a divine bitch slap is always close behind.
On the other hand, wisdom and knowledge (in the general sense) are praised multiple times throughout Scripture -- only when the wisdom/knowledge is gained in defiance of God is the person punished. God blesses Solomon with both wisdom, and from wisdom comes wealth and fame: The entire book of Proverbs is one big love letter to wisdom and knolwedge....especially the first nine chapters.
-Troy
Please look here for an explanation of how lightning forms.
The Medieval iteration of this game used religion fantastically. If your populace was too zealous, and you had an unreligious leader as a governer of their province, they would be less loyal. If you had a really zealous governer, and most people in the province were of another religion, you'd better set up missionaries. The more zeal a province had, the more troops a Jihaad or Crusade would gather during its stay in said province. Glossed over and caricatured? I think not.
Galileo's real crime was not keeping his mouth shut at a time when others used his ideas to undermine the political establishment.
Well, you're half right.
Even the slanted wikipedia article notes that the church did allow teaching of the very theory that Galileo is famous for. However, they wanted the traditional "you're saying the world is entirely different" theory--qualifiers that it was "only a theory."
So--the church is being blamed for, essentially requiring that the scientists of the time keep to what is, after all, traditional scientific principles.
(And to go off on a tangent--it IS only a "theory", and like so many others we finally got to the point where we got rid of "theory" and we just call them "models." It's no more or less correct to call the sun the center of the universe than the Earth--it just makes navigation easier.
Funny, if the Christians burned it down to the ground, how come it was recently discovered beneath the sea off the Egyptian coast? Go here for some interesting studies on the subject. Personally, I'm inclined to believe it landed in the Mediterranean as the result of an earthquake, several of which were reported during the Middle Ages.
Furthermore, many of the works of Classical writers which reached us today were compiled by Isidore, the Catholic Bishop of Seville in the late 500s into an anthology which was used to teach in the Medieval Universities for one thousand years. So much for actively banning and persecuting all thinking that did not agree with Church dogma for over 1000 years...
They were called the Dark Ages by Illuminist scholars who had an axe to grind with the previous status quo, the same way "ogival" architectural style of the St. Dennis Abbey was called "Gothic" to link it to barbarism.
Meanwhile, in Muslim countries culture thrived, but so did political strife. The Abbasids chased the Umayyads from Baghdad all the way to Seville, the old animistic religions of the Near East were stamped out, and the old Babylonian faith finally failed after four thousand years.
In America, the "innocent" Incas and Aztecs were in fact powerful conquerors rivalling Rome in its heyday, standing proud over the remains of several civilizations they conquered and subjugated in the name of their kings.
And in India, of course, people were relegated to a life of social ostracism due to having been born in the wrong family, and still do to this day. Look up "pariah" in the dictionary.
Ad hominem attack -- you don't bother to refute any of his work, preferring to instead attack him for being a Christian. How is this different from the Reich scientists attacking Relativity for being "Jewish science"?
Here are some brilliant discoveries made during the Dark Ages: several chemical elements (Albertus Magnus et al.), the underpinnings of Musical Theory (Guido d'Arezzo, among others), the water wheel, crop rotation, the "Gothic" architectural style, the magnetic compass...
But evidently, it's the evil Christians who deserve our scorn and hatred most of all. How dare they come out on top in the cultural food-chain? Frankly, the one who comes across sounding like a bigot is you. Isn't mercy a virtue in Buddhism, too?