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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.'"
As long as it isn't more Christian rock!
Of course the gaming community is downright disdainful of Christianity. Most gammers are relativlee intellegent and can see through the hokum. Christianity itself is historically anti-imagination and anti-intellectual. How exactly could you put that into a video game? Video games are meant as an escape from the real world, a fantasy. Why would you try to put into a game that which many are trying to escape from?
I promise to stop being disdainful of Christianity when they stop being disdainful of my beliefs.
Oh and BTW, in case you were wondering, video games don't handle Buddhism, Judiaism, Islam, Shintoism, Hinuism or any other religion very well. That you assumed "religion" is synonomous with Christianity shows complete hubris.
Isn't that a sin?
Never by hatred has hatred been appeased, only by kindness - the Buddha
What the christian community urgently needs is a development company to emerge which can balance both the needs of the gospel, and the needs of the game playing experience.
What the christian community needs is to disappear.
Seriously.
Perhaps the next hit game could take place in an interactive enviroment where you can go to church and pursue a sin free life where you then await judgement day. Wait, since when do we play games for their moral values or for their realism of certain elements (i.e. religion). We play games for our entertainment value. The last time I went to Church, I fell asleep.
---...a lot of my Christian experience has been interesting and worthwhile - not boring, irrelevant and "burn the heretics/witches/computers.--- You're not from the South (U.S.) are you? It's full of "Burn the heretics/witches/computers" type of folks.
"Yes. But foreknowledge does not imply a lack of choice."
I'm sorry, but yes it does. If you can predict with one hundred percent certitude what it is that I will do, it means that free will is illusory: if means that no matter what I think, I can only act in precisely one manner. Moreover, since God stacked the deck of the universe in precisely the way he wanted (since (a) he could set it up however he wanted, (b) he knew how each setup would end up, ergo (c) he picked the setup to result in the outcome he wanted), he wanted us to behave in the way we did.
Hell, lets pretend Free Will isn't the discussion. Look at just the deterministic question: if God could pick the outcome of all our lives, and did so, why would he pick the one that involved suffering? The standard, and only possible, answer is that God wanted us to either (a) learn something we don't yet understand or (b) something we cannot understand. You dont think that that is both a cop-out and absurd?
By the way, I can't help but notice how you ignored almost my entire post: you don't think its disingenuous to ignore almost an entire argument and respond to only one part? Just curious.
"Because He is God."
Apparently you don't know what "a reason" is. You seem to be implying that it is part of the definition of "God" that he is to be worshipped (a thought which is disturbingly in line with the "I am" name that God uses for himself to Moses). Here's a question for you to ask yourself: if it is a core component of God's identity that he is to be worshipped, what does that mean about his motivations in Creation? If He knows (and He must know everything, right? Oh yeah, you didn't discuss that...) that his creations must worship Him because he's owed it because of nothing he did but rather only his nature, then why would he make those creations dislike worship so much? Wouldn't it make more sense to make some creation that couldn't do anything but enjoy worship? What's that you say, that the Angels were supposed to be like that? Interesting, except for the fact that apparently the Morningstar and 1/3rd of the heavenly host disagreed, and Fell.
Sorry, your god is either a liar or a bastard. If I die, I honestly hope I don't face him, because it would drive whatever consciousness I hold completely insane to find out that the deity of the universe was so wracked with paradoxes, contradictions, horribly morality and nonsensical belief.
"Stumble before you crawl"
First of all I never said that. However, you seem to make clear differentiations between types of knowledge, a point of view that I do not share. I define knowledge to be "that which is true", and facts are facts, regardless of the subject. Regardless, the fact that God forbide the pursuit of any sort of knowledge is a very telling factor. What sort of God would willfully keep his subjects ignorant? Are we better off "stupid but happy?"
When you lose something irreplaceable, you don't mourn for the thing you lost, you mourn for yourself. - Harpo Marx
Without God to keep the laws of the Universe functioning, scientists would be very confused.
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
'Verily, Allah has purchased of the believers their lives and their properties for (the price) that theirs shall be the Paradise. They fight in Allah's Cause, so they kill (others) and are killed. It is a promise in truth which is binding on Him" (Surat At-Taubah 9:111).
"Kill the Mushrikun (polytheists, Christians and non-Muslims), wherever you find them, and capture them and besiege them, and lie in wait for them in each and every ambush. But if they repent and perform As-salat (public prayer with Muslims) and give Zakat (Islamic alms), then leave their way free. Allah is oft-forgiving, most merciful' (Surat At-Taubah 9:5).
"Fight against those who believe not in Allah, nor in the Last Day, nor forbid that which has been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger (Muhammad) and those who acknowledge not the religion of truth (Islam) among the people of the Scripture (Jews and Christians) until they pay the Jizyah with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued" (Surah At-Taubah 9:29). [Jizyah = big tax]
"And fight them until there is no more Fitnah (disbelief and worshipping of others along with Allah) and (all and every kind of) worship is for Allah (along)..." (Surat Al-Baqarah 2:193).
Here's a look at this last passage as translated by different people. http://www.qurantoday.com/BaqSec24.htm#Verse2:193
No, he's not, because he doesn't exist.
Anybody who wastes time debating nonsensical religious concepts with a moron is a moron.
And I'm not debating here - I'm just declaring you a moron. Which is fun, basically.
Your religion is bullshit, your beliefs are crap, no doubt your politics is equally asinine, and you personally are a moron.
Fortunately your kind are doomed to death.
Have a nice day.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Skepticsannotatedbible might be over the top in a few places, but no amount of wriggling can change the fact that the bible is full of ridiculous statements, obvious contradictions, and chilling atrocities. What little it science it includes is almost invariably wrong, and its moral teachings are corrupt.
:)
Please give me one of these contradictions. I'm somewhat of a Bible scholar and I'd like to point out why it's not a contradiction.
All it means is that people who quote the bible as a source of morality are hypocrites, and the bible is worthless as anything but an interesting fiction.
Why am I a hypocrit for quoting the Bible as a source of morality? What's hypocrital about it?
Unfortunately, once you take away the bible as a source of authority, there is simply no evidence for god. None whatsoever. And I don't typically believe in outlandish theories with zero backing evidence.
Most everything you see was created by God. The evidence is everywhere and overwhelming.
You can believe in god if you want; I couldn't care less. What pisses me off is that because of those beliefs, children are being deprived of a proper education in evolution. Because of those beliefs, gays can't enjoy the same civil liberties as the rest of us. Because of those beliefs, embryonic stem cells that might help find cures for terrible diseases are being wasted. Because of those beliefs, people stop questioning the nature of the universe, and accept the vacuous answer that "god did it". Because of those beliefs, my child will have to stand up in school and pledge allegiance to an invisible man. Not to mention the violence that erupts when fanatics take religion to extremes.
See, I know evolution to be a lie and God-willing if I can afford it when my child reaches school age, he/she will attend a private Christian school.
Gays have exactly the same civil liberties as everyone else. Heterosexuals can't marry members of the same sex, so why should gays be able to do it? A marriage is between a man and a woman, not a man and a man or vice-versa. If it is so natural, why can't they procreate?
I have no problem with stem cell research as long as the cells not come from aborted embryos. Why is it that liberal America is against capital punishment but for abortion? John Kerry recently said he was pro-abortion but believed that life begins at conception. Doesn't that make him pro-murder?
My child will have to sit in school and hear the abomination that is homosexuality is normal.
I'm enjoying the debate!
When millions disappear from earth, it's not aliens, it's the rapture.