God Mode

1up has an interesting look at the curious place where religious beliefs and gaming habits intersect. From the article: "'We view games as just games,' says Kendrick Kenerly, founder of +CGO+, Christian Gamers Online. 'They all boil down to a few things: They have a goal, they have a reward for the goal, and they have a set of rules that need to be followed to reach the goal. The violence in most games isn't something we get worked up about. It's merely presentation, simply a way to convey an experience to players so they can follow the rules to reach the goal.' Abstract games like checkers, chess, and Monopoly operate in the same fashion, Kenerly argues-they merely employ different presentation methods."

Comments

The Warrior Man

[teratogenicbenzene]

The article brings up an interesting point that I've always used to defend myself against more radical religious elements I've come into contact with:

Men are fricking war machines, and throughout nearly any of the world's holy books war is a fact of life: the Bible, the quran, (heck even the Bhagavad-Gita is narrated in a war setting).
In today's culture, men are told that the very things that selected their genes for greatness in the past (i.e. warrior prowess and the ability to survive) are liabilities. Thousands of years of genetic selection aren't going to be reversed in a few hundred years.
In that vein, I believe video games are a reasonable (and even constructive) outlet for a man's natural agressions. It could be said that God made men this way, so who are we to deny that?

For me, my faith is almost exclusively about self control, but at the same time I'm fully aware of my own humanity. Having a safe and (legal) outlet for myself is a wise choice. Obviously, games can become pathological, but that's true about anything.

My personal poison is Halo, and I've found that during the game I increasingly find myself looking after the welfare of my marine NPCs. I do generally tend to steer away games that are violent for violence sake. I think if you look back, the reason so many early games were generally pointless (i.e. DOOM's run-and-shoot mentality) is because back then that was already pushing the limits.

Just my two cents. Most rabid religious types are simply afraid of change. There are some of who aren't blindly reactionary, and realize that this isn't an bridge we want to burn our credibility/time over. Don't lump us all together.

Re:The Warrior Man

[ShamusYoung]

Men are fricking war machines,

You have nailed it.

For those that doubt it. Take a peek at nature. I think people would be shocked at just how much of our violent behavior is a result of base, primitive drives that reflect behaviors we see in animals. Even the most timid, rotund little accountant has the genes for skull-splitting combat buried beneath all the layers of civilization.

Think about the first time your girlfriend was attracted to another guy. How did you feel? Upset that she was so feckless? If you were a teenager, you probably wanted to kick his ass, even though that doesn't make any sense. That's the same wiring used when males needed to compete, via combat, for the right to mate. Now there it is in your 15-year-old civilized brain and you don't know what to do with it.

You can't educate these drives away, and the next best thing is to find a non-destructive way in which to satisfy those primal urges. Sports are another way to accomplish this.

We have other base drives, and we (ahem) manage to satisfy those even when we're not in a position to actually mate. Take sports and games out of our lives, and those primal combat drives will still be there, but we will be without the tools to deal with them.