Winning Souls In World Of Warcraft

Steve Rock writes "Many of us have heard about the various ways in which real life and massively-multiplayer role playing games intersect, which usually involves the exchange of in-game characters or items for real life money. Well apparently religion is spilling over into World of Warcraft." From the article: "We meet under the docks in Booty Bay for a bible study every Tuesday night."

Comments

Funny, but...

[tyoob]

Everything on landoverbaptist.org is crap, of course. I'd hate to think anyone's going to take this seriously.

I thought Landover Baptist was satire, right?

[bartkusa]

...I mean, it is, isn't it?

Please?

Re:I thought Landover Baptist was satire, right?

[Ayaress]

Yes, it is. The other day, when the Tsunami fish story got up, I submitted this exact same story just to see if it would go through (although I included the site's "free PS2" giveaway page as a sort of tip-off that it was fake for the industrious reader). I was actually relieved an hour later when I saw the "Rejected" tag on the submission. I guess I shouldn't have been quite so relieved, since they only rejected me because somebody else had already submitted the story.

Just look around the site, and it'll eventually become very clear the site is satire. Though, I should point out that my local news paper (which has as much journalistic integrity as the Sun) referenced it's christmas "evil toy" list, and also a particular (very loud) Baptist priest in my city supposedly uses it to prepare his sermons. I suppose that makes it either good or bad satire, since it can be hard at first glance to tell wether or not it's for real.

On a related note, this sort of thing does actually happen. A couple years back in Dransik, there was a player known as Bob the Warrior. He dedicated half his in-game time to saving people's souls, wether they needed it, wanted it, or not, and the other half to trying to convince rich players to give him Rune armor before it corrupted their souls. He never accomplished either, but he did manage to become one of the most hated people in the game to that point outside the guilds FU and AoS.

He was even more obnoxious than the ficticious guy in this story, to the point that he couldn't even leave town without being followed by somebody who he'd angered with the intent of killing him. My guild at the time was a neutral trading guild and generally avoided the major guild wars, but even we listed him as KOS.

He eventually accused me of persecuting him for his faith, demanding that me, all my guild mate and everybody we've associated with be permanantly banned and all their items given to him (with such a small game, this effectively amounts to 90% of the server population) and when the facts of the matter came to light (chat logs, screenshots, etc), he ended up with an IP ban and was never heard from again.

Congratulations

[Anonymous Coward]

Congratulations, you've managed to post a troll site on Slashdot.

If you look at the content on this site, it's either obviously fake or belongs to a cult, none of what they have posted is even remotely close to any church I've ever been to.

I suggest deleting this story and forgetting someone ever submitted it.

Re:Congratulations

[Entropius]

"[N]one of what they have posted is even remotely close to any church I've ever been to."

You've not been to Alabama, have you?

Re:Congratulations

[Temporal]

Congratulations, you totally missed the fact that this story is tagged "humor".

Hilarious

[rogueuk]

That whole web site is hilarious. Apparently not too many people realize it's a joke..as seen here

Re:Hilarious

[malakai]

Look at the ad on the bottom of that JesusSave.us site: http://www.preparingdaughters.com/
"PreparingDaughters.com, Dedidcated to building up Godly young ladies. *Now With Recipes!*"

Jesus H. Christ, they're cooking their children! These sickos must be stopped.

LOL

[HotNeedleOfInquiry]

Great troll, and slashdot fell for it. I actually believed the website until I came to this line: "I have a hot-key macro that broadcasts, Jesus Loves You! Please Love Him Back or He Will Burn You in Hell! PM Me if you want to learn more!

Of course, to recognize the troll, it helps to have been a fundimentalist Christian in one of your past lives...

Re:LOL

[Ayaress]

I'm not sure if the Baptists in Saginaw are a breed apart or not, but that sort of speech isn't that unusual at all. The only way I can distinguish this site from any of the pamphlets that gets stuffed in my door jam every Sunday morning is the free PS2 giveaway in the sidebar and the WWJD thongs.

In other news from the site...

[HotNeedleOfInquiry]

Sign your kid up for Vacation Bible Gun Camp

Please tell me that people know this is satire

[Meiyo Neko]

If one were to actually take a glance at the Terms of Service Agreement they would have noticed, "The Landover Baptist Church is a complete work of fiction. It is a satire/parody."

Umm, humour?

[mrpuffypants]

I really hope that everybody realizes this story is a hoax...

Landover Baptist is the same 'church' that sells Jesus thongs and other terribly funny stuff.

The same guys that run Landover Baptist also do WhiteHouse.org

Landover Baptist is a joke, but not ToJ...

[Kevin143]

There really is a WoW Christian Guild, named God's Peons. They are a chapter of the Tribe of Judah.

The best part of the ToJ webpage is the FAQ about why Mormon's can't join the Tribe.

Re:Satire or not...

[Ayaress]

It's a joke on a particular facet of the Christian community. Your in the same boat I am on it: There are so many people who actually act like that that it's not immediately clear wether or not it's a joke.

I'll get modded down for this...

[Wyatt Earp]

But, this is exactly why I won't pay for /. Crap editing, dups and crap submissions. This is /. not Fark. If we are going this far with /, where are the Boobies links?

Re:Very Un-Christian Behaviour

[slaker]

Having spent more than a little bit of time on that site, living in a place where such unctious Jesusland behavior is an accepted norm, and given the attitude of offense certain people take at the particular flavor of satire, all I can say is,

If you look at that site, and cannot instantly tell that it is meant to be humorous, you completely and utterly deserve the mockery and scorn of everyone else who can.

The authors of that site have a very valid message that is delivered very effectively. If you're offended as a xtian, why don't you take some time and convince those xtians you know who DO act like that to stop behaving in the ways that landoverbaptist lampoons?

Remember while you're being offended at someone who can make fun of your religion, that the evangelical xtian community didn't get upset when Jerry Falwell blamed 9/11 on gays and feminists, and George W. "Born Again" Bush has in the past publicly described the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as "Crusades". These are not exactly folks with shining ideals of tolerance and goodwill. Kind of makes me think that "people are what they claim to be" is only true if you START from the point of view of Landoverbaptist, at least as far as evangelical-types go. If you feel that their humor is in poor taste, just remember that those on the other side feels much the same way about you.