Slashdot Mirror
Wal-Mart Asked to Drop Christian Video Game
doug141 writes "Liberal and progressive Christian groups say a new computer game in which players must either convert or kill non-Christians is the wrong gift to give this holiday season and that Wal-Mart, a major video game retailer, should yank it off its shelves.Players can choose to join the Antichrist's team, but of course they can never win on [his] side. The enemy team includes fictional rock stars and folks with Muslim-sounding names, while the righteous include gospel singers, missionaries, healers and medics."
and it does look really bad. It does come across as nothing more than "covert or die". If taken in context, the game works just fine. There is nothing PC about religion and trying to apply PC centric ideals to a game based on religion and one groups belief of the end times is even dumber than any game can be.
The books, yes I read them - I love most end time fiction (whether is religious or not - Zelazny wrote some good stuff). The books deal with a society where the surviving members of society are either members of the new world order and subscribe to that order's church or are denied rights, and eventually killed out of hand. Christians are set as the opposing force, after all its a book from Christians about a story in Bible. Throughout the series they convert many people from various religions and non-beliefs. Though many times that never convert and directly or indirectly stop them. It isn't all happy go lucky and neither will be the game.
I look at it this way, if those Christian readers who take offense at the game were not offended by the books then they are just hypocritical. Does making it a game, itself just another work of fiction, present it in a way that that is more offensive than print? I guess seeing a visual representation does the trick for many people. I know many who can read murder novels, even graphic ones, but take offense at seeing dead bodies on the TV. Hell, there are many who can read about sex but damn if they would watch it.
Look, the first rule is no one is forcing anyone to buy it. The second rule is, you have the right to be offended but you do not have the right to suppress what offends you. The third rule is, get over it.
Leave the game in the stores. There are far more more violent and offensive games that have come out and they are still sold. If we change the rules because the game is based on religious themes how long before we change the rules for everything else?
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Think about it - in Grand Theft Auto, you routinely kill innocent people and police officers, beat women, commit various crimes, and do terrible things that all (well, most of us) would never do in real life for fun. Yet this game receives the greatest protection from the Slashdot community because, after all, what we do in a violent video game doesn't define what we do in real life, right?
Along comes this "Christian" game (as a Christian myself - well, Mormon, but I most certainly consider myself Chrisitian and couldn't care less what the Southern Baptists, et. al. believe - I would never consider purchasing this trash) and suddenly it's a terrible sign of what's wrong with the country, the people, etc.
I say let Wal-Mart sell the 3 copies of this game they'll sell and let the publisher of the game take a bath on it. It looks like total crap, it's offensive, but if we're going to protect other violent video games filled with scenarious we'd never condone in real life, then why not this one?
Also, how many people here who decry game censorship and hate people like Jack Thompson, are supporting those who want to ban this game now? And what does that say about your intellectual hypocrisy?
"In the game of life, someone always has to lose. To me, if life were fair, that someone would always be Oklahoma." -DKR
Sorry, dude, but there's no such thing as a "Christian", Christ is a Jewish construct. All Christians are actually dumber-than-average Jew who like to wear crosses.
I'm sure you can say the same thing about the Jews to.
Infact, Sorry, dude, but there's no such thing as a "Religious person", they were all born Athiests. All Religious people are actually dumber-than-average Athiests who like to beleive in God.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
Here's the deal. Either Jesus Christ is God, or He's not. If someone teaches that He is not God, according to Christian teaching, and because of the law of non-contradiction, Jesus cannot simultaneously be God and "not God" in the same time and relationship. Since Judaism, Islam, and Christianity teach different things about Jesus, man's relationship to God and how it may be possible to reconcile to God, logically either all three beliefs are wrong, or one is right and the others cannot be right.
Unless of course God chose to reveal Himself differently; we cannot begin to understand His ways, nor divine His intentions with respect to his covenents with us.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
It really has to do with what parts of the bible you choose to quote. There are plenty of contradictions in there. You can see the biggest differences by looking at the old and new testament side by side. While the new testament takes a softer, inclusive side towards religion, the old testament is full of stories fo the wrath of god. Of course, I should mention, as a jew, that jewish people don't really interpret the old testament as is. There has been plenty of discussion and reinterpretation of the laws, so that, for instance, it is practically impossible under rabbinical law to condemn a man to death for breaking a commandment. No one in mainstream judaism honestly suggests death for homosexuality. Compare this to some of the (let's be honest) hate speech coming from the Christian Right.
I came here for a good argument
I still don't understand this. In the old Israel they were too stupid to interpret the ten commandments themselves, so God lays down additional rules very explicitly. Nowadays, we're smart enough to understand the 10 commandments, so we can now disregard his other rules? If the other rules were there to clarify the 10 commandments for simpletons, should we not assume that they are by design consistent with the spirit of the 10 commandments? Or is it that somewhere later on in the bible Jesus rescinds the anti-gay stuff?
Honest question, I haven't read much of the new testament, and lots of smart people seem able to reconcile Christianity with homosexuality, so I expect I'm missing something important here.
yp.
What's a "sin" and why should I care?
If you mod me down, I *will* introduce you to my sister!
that if two people both lead the same 'good' life, one is a theist and one an atheist - the atheist is the better person.
One could argue that a believer does the right thing due to either the threat of a smiting, or a reward in heaven. An atheist doing the same act is performing a truly altruistic act, knowing he could either have got away with the alternative and will receive nothing in return.
I did what the voice in my head told me. Now my room has nice padded walls.
Seriously, though, if you can pick and choose which morals you want from the Bible, why even have the Bible? If it comes down to a person's own conscience as to whether or not to favor the death penalty, gay marriage, or abortion, why should one keep reading an archaic book every Sunday as if it were the authoritative source of morality? Instead, why not let the Bible go, and look at the facts and arguements founded on reason, so you can at least come up with a defensible position as to what is "right" or not?
The nature of the holy trinity and the belief that Jesus is both fully human and fully divine were hammered out by a bunch of leaders of various christian sects, and some members of the roman government, at the council of Nicea. It was a decision of men, not of gods, which is why unlike events in the bible no one was turning sticks into snakes or being plagued or what have you.
We know nothing of Jesus' life in between infancy and the years immediately preceding his death. No historians of the day confirm his existence - the only writings we have which support it are those which are contained within the bible. But if he was human, then he must necessarily have sinned.
Again, this was a decision made by men.
Some of us have faith in what we have seen. We trust what we have been given a reason to trust. We have learned not to believe that something is true simply because someone said so.
Some of you never learned that lesson and you've been wandering around like deluded children as a result.
I had the same brainwashing material thrown at my mind, but luckily my will was strong enough to dismiss it out of hand and move on with my life.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
- Andrew
I meta-moderate because I care.
So is the Old Testament the "Word of God" or not? Or can you pick and choose what you would like out of the Old Testament? Or is it that the Old Testament is the gospel, except when contradicted by the new testament? Or is it more of "you should believe the parts we tell you to believe"?
Remember, the Old Testament is a very bloody document including God punishing his true people because they did not kill all of the the women and children of a people he commanded them to slaughter.
I know that one of the commandments says that we are not supposed to think we can understand the mind of God, but it seems to me that all religion is attempting to do that, and that the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament have fundamentally different ways of doing things.