"Jesus told his people to go preach to all who would listen. If they went into a city, and the people did not accept what they had to say, then they should shake the dust off their feet and move on. No points were given for brow-beating people into acceptance, and there were definitely no prize for punishing people on earth."
As I mentioned in the text you cut and paste, history is rife with examples of people either coercing or brutalizing other people in the name of their own version of Christendom. Roman Catholicism versus Eastern Orthodoxy has been the source of near-continuous bloodshed from the Adriatic to the Baltic for nearly two millennia, with only the occasional respite to kill and be killed by Muslims. We have the Thirty Years War that pitted Catholics against Lutherans. France's Catholic vs. Huguenot bloodshed only really ended when all the latter were finally killed or ejected. The English Civil War pitted Catholics against Anglicans against Puritans, and the Glorious Revolution simply moved things around some more, both of which were the catalyst of the perennial Catholic versus Anglican bloodshed that continues on the isle of Ireland to this day.
These are all conflicts between people who believe in the supremacy of Jesus Christ as the Son of God, but differ on the details, on what His will truly is, who speaks with His authority (if anybody). People who disagreed on the nature of confession, of communion, of baptism, of iconography, of prayer, who disagreed on the language to be used for mass or for the Bible, or what church to financially support or the nature of that support.
Countless Christian monarchs, from quisling German princes to emperors, took their rule to be a manifestation of divine intent, had the support of the members of their sects, and all took upon themselves titles like "defender of the faith." And even as monarchism gave way to modern republicanism, the Christian populaces in these republics took it upon themselves to elevate their preferred church over others, to coerce and compel their fellow Christians to practice as they do, to support competing churches with their labor against the dictates of their own consciences. This has happened in the past, this is happening now, this will continue to happen in the future.
There is no one, single, definitive interpretation of what a Christian is supposed to do when it comes to anything, let alone proselytizing. Your personal belief that one is not supposed to browbeat others to believe as you do is not universal throughout Christianity; if anything, it is a minority interpretation throughout history. I certainly doubt you'd find many who'd agree with you among the Christians of the Lord's Resistance Army, for example.
"I don't talk about Jewish, Hindu or Muslim religions, because I don't know enough about them not to make a fool of myself in public"
I'm not the one that believes that all Christians can easily be lumped into one category, and that adherents to your "Christianity" all agree on all details, no matter how seemingly insignificant (by your interpretation), or at least no such disagreements could possibly result in violence (let alone genocide) among self-described Christians. It tends to be a peculiarly American viewpoint, since two centuries of rigid separation of church and state has succeeded in its original intent to protect the Catholics, the Lutherans, the Presbyterians, the Episcopalians, the Methodists, the Calvinists, the Adventists, the Baptists, the Evangelicals, the Puritans, the Quakers, the Shakers, the Witnesses, the Mormons... from each other. Pick just about any two, and I'm sure I can name a war between them.
Maybe Rick Perry's personal flavor of Christianity includes a firm belief in a rigorous separation of church and state; some sects do, some don't, and not all members of those that do have great track records. But at the end of the day he wields political power and, in spite of the two constitutions he took an oath to defend, he ha
"No, "sitting" and "attending" are really the very definition of "minding your own business"."
On stage, with the intent to be introduced to the congregation by the pastor?
Nevermind, you're a lost cause. For you, it's apparently improper for the people to question their elected leaders in a republic, even when it comes to their public appearances.
"And if I attacked that choice by comparing Louis Farrakhan's skin color to that of the attendees of the event, would that make it bigotted?"
Because "People who share my skin color are morally superior to others" can't be justly objectionable to those who do not share his skin color?
"Perry was minding his own business"
Throughout much of the 90-minute service at Cornerstone Church, Mr. Perry sat on the red-carpeted stage next to the Rev. John Hagee. Mr. Perry was among about 60 mostly Republican candidates who accepted the invitation to be introduced to the megachurch's congregation of about 1,500, plus a radio and TV audience.
Attending an event as part of your political campaign, as a political candidate rather than a private citizen, sitting on stage with the pastor in front of over a thousand people, to appear on film, radio and television with the pastor in question during the sermon (both as part of the church's own production as well as the news media reporting on the deliberate spectacle), is not "minding your own business." He was not ambushed coming out of his usual church after regular service.
"comments regarding his belief in non-Christians' path to hell in questions asked of him _on that topic_"
"That topic" was a very public religious service he very publicly attended, and the content of the sermon.
"way back in 2006"
A whopping two years ago! Why, he might have converted to Hinduism since then!
"as if those have a particular bearing on anything he might say at E3 2008."
His religious beliefs are that a non-negligible portion of his audience are doomed to eternal damnation, and that he must do all in his power to save them by bringing them to (his particular interpretation of) Christ. We're talking about his religious convictions, not his favorite color or favorite song.
And even if he does manage to get through the speech without touching upon his audience's impending doom, these convictions of his still reflect strongly upon the man's character and, by inviting him to speak, upon the characters of those who invited him. But I suppose customers are overrated and unimportant in comparison.
"But they chose a religion-based attack. Other than bigotry, what might cause someone to make that choice?"
Because the expressed, avowed religious belief in question excludes, belittles, and insults those who do not share his particular flavor of Christianity, including other Christians?
Let's pretend somebody blew the dust off of Louis Farrakhan and invited him to be a keynote speaker at E3. If that made you unhappy, would have to be because he's black and automatically make you a racist, or could you be unhappy because of what he has to say about whites, Christians, Jews, etc?
"The fact that this person has nothing to do with the industry is relevant, their knowledge of computing is relevant, but their religious beliefs are completely irrelevant and did not bear mentioning."
Religious beliefs that E3 has the appearance of implicit support by inviting him to speak at an industry gathering, beliefs that tend to be exclusive, discriminatory, and can only serve to drive away customers.
"It seems fair to ask whether GamePolitics is motivated by anti-Christian or anti-religious bigotry in their coverage."
"If you live your life and don't confess your sins to God Almighty through the authority of Christ and His blood, I'm going to say this very plainly, you're going straight to hell with a nonstop ticket."
What if I don't agree with the governor on Christ being the sole path to redemption? What if I don't agree that one's actions in life are wholly without meaning or merit without Christ? What if I don't agree with the governor about where to find Christ's authority on earth, or the manner of confessing my sins to Him?
Why must distaste for the man be inherently "anti-Christian" when inflammatory rhetoric like this is insulting to other Christians on its face? His avowed beliefs don't seem to mesh well with the idea that "all men have a natural and indefeasible right to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of their own consciences," and his office requires he swear an oath on the latter.
"Funny. Rick Perry's religion says he should pray for you, love you as he loves himself, and treat you the way he wants to be treated."
Rick Perry's religion says I should and will be condemned to eternal damnation for not attending the same church he does as devoutly as he does. "If you live your life and don't confess your sins to God Almighty through the authority of Christ and His blood (...) you're going straight to hell with a nonstop ticket." Now, this leaves the door open for two alternatives that have seen themselves played out throughout history, repeatedly:
In his "love" for me he will do everything in his power (including the political power granted to him by the people) to "correct" my thinking through coercion.
Since his belief system has me being damned after death regardless, there's no real harm in allowing me or causing me to suffer while I still live (after all, I'd better get used to it).
We need not get into a "Christian vs. non-Christian" debate like the article and most posters seem to be trying to invite, all you have to do is disagree with Governor Perry on where Christ's authority lies, on which church is the right church. Not all churches are in communion with each other.
All in all, not someone I'd want speaking at a major industry gathering, unless I'm actively seeking to drive away potential customers.
"but you would think that they would find some of their old partners to revive the games and sell them online."
Most of their "old partners" would rather sell remakes at full price rather than the original games for a $10 download. Square-Enix, for example, has made it quite clear that you'll never see any old games with the words "Final Fantasy" or "Dragon Quest" in the title on any download service; they'd rather sell you Tactics as a $40 PSP game, or Origins as two separate $30 titles. Konami's SotN seems to be an aberration, and I wouldn't be surprised if they weren't simply responding to some sort of pressure after releasing it on Xbox Live (and it's currently the most expensive PS1 downloadable by far).
There's also holes in the other download services as well (I'm not seeing the phrase "Mega Man" anywhere near the Virtual Console, not even Soccer), but the consoles supported by the Wii were and are all heavily supported by their respective manufacturers' first-party titles (Nintendo, Sega, Hudson, SNK, etc.). The original Xbox, like Sony's consoles, had a small number of self-published hits, and Xbox Live's collection of downloadable Xbox titles, dominated by Microsoft titles, is even smaller than Sony's.
To their credit, Sony's library of downloadable PS1 games is larger than Nintendo's N64 offerings, and I doubt there's any technical reason why many of the Virtual Console games can't be transferred to the DS, as Sony offers with the PSP. But Sony introduced a new approach to video game consoles with the original PlayStation, one that only really supplied hardware and let third parties handle almost all software sales. And unless those third parties see compelling reasons (read "cash") to release their back-catalog as-is instead of super duper ultra mega high-definition re-re-re-re-re-re-releases (complete with artwork and director's interviews), what you're seeing on the PlayStation Store is about as good as things can possibly get.
If persistent rumors of Super Mario RPG showing up in the Virtual Console end up being true and Square-Enix starts seeing some fat checks from their stake in the title, then you might see the third-party situation start to turn around on all three consoles. But it's a big "if" and even then I doubt things would change overnight.
So not the newer ones with the peel-off paper top, but the ones with the aluminum can pull tab that left that lovely wrist-slicing edge after you opened it.
"Will CR be reviewing the next installment of Gran Turismo?"
CR picking up on Wii Fit is less an indication of CR getting involved in game reviews and more an indication of the success of Nintendo at reaching out to non-gamers. By the blurb alone it's easy to see that they tested it not as a video game but as a physical fitness device.
So no, Consumer Reports will not be reviewing the next installment of Gran Tursimo, any more than they review the next movie or album.
So long as no children were involved in the production, it's legal stateside as well as Japan (which tends to be the country of origin for most of it). Elsewhere in the industrialized world, such as Canada and Europe, you're up a creek.
"YouTube went on to note that they are strong supporters of free speech."
No, YouTube and their parent Google are very strong supporters of making more money. In China, they won't support free speech since it jeopardizes their access to the Chinese market. But stateside, where they can throw around the "free speech" catchphrase as much as they want, they don't want to let go of something as controversial, eye-catching and crowd-drawing as videos put out by a terrorist organization; they got ad space to sell!
Where's their precious love of free speech when Beijing asks them to stop allowing Chinese users to see this?
Dragon Warrior IV still won't be gracing the Virtual Console any time this century. Because why give people the original when you can make them pay for remakes again and again?
Slashdot Mirror
"Or how about just initially releasing it in English for the vast majority of gamers who simply want to play the game?"
Is that legal?
"Jesus told his people to go preach to all who would listen. If they went into a city, and the people did not accept what they had to say, then they should shake the dust off their feet and move on. No points were given for brow-beating people into acceptance, and there were definitely no prize for punishing people on earth."
As I mentioned in the text you cut and paste, history is rife with examples of people either coercing or brutalizing other people in the name of their own version of Christendom. Roman Catholicism versus Eastern Orthodoxy has been the source of near-continuous bloodshed from the Adriatic to the Baltic for nearly two millennia, with only the occasional respite to kill and be killed by Muslims. We have the Thirty Years War that pitted Catholics against Lutherans. France's Catholic vs. Huguenot bloodshed only really ended when all the latter were finally killed or ejected. The English Civil War pitted Catholics against Anglicans against Puritans, and the Glorious Revolution simply moved things around some more, both of which were the catalyst of the perennial Catholic versus Anglican bloodshed that continues on the isle of Ireland to this day.
These are all conflicts between people who believe in the supremacy of Jesus Christ as the Son of God, but differ on the details, on what His will truly is, who speaks with His authority (if anybody). People who disagreed on the nature of confession, of communion, of baptism, of iconography, of prayer, who disagreed on the language to be used for mass or for the Bible, or what church to financially support or the nature of that support.
Countless Christian monarchs, from quisling German princes to emperors, took their rule to be a manifestation of divine intent, had the support of the members of their sects, and all took upon themselves titles like "defender of the faith." And even as monarchism gave way to modern republicanism, the Christian populaces in these republics took it upon themselves to elevate their preferred church over others, to coerce and compel their fellow Christians to practice as they do, to support competing churches with their labor against the dictates of their own consciences. This has happened in the past, this is happening now, this will continue to happen in the future.
There is no one, single, definitive interpretation of what a Christian is supposed to do when it comes to anything, let alone proselytizing. Your personal belief that one is not supposed to browbeat others to believe as you do is not universal throughout Christianity; if anything, it is a minority interpretation throughout history. I certainly doubt you'd find many who'd agree with you among the Christians of the Lord's Resistance Army, for example.
"I don't talk about Jewish, Hindu or Muslim religions, because I don't know enough about them not to make a fool of myself in public"
I'm not the one that believes that all Christians can easily be lumped into one category, and that adherents to your "Christianity" all agree on all details, no matter how seemingly insignificant (by your interpretation), or at least no such disagreements could possibly result in violence (let alone genocide) among self-described Christians. It tends to be a peculiarly American viewpoint, since two centuries of rigid separation of church and state has succeeded in its original intent to protect the Catholics, the Lutherans, the Presbyterians, the Episcopalians, the Methodists, the Calvinists, the Adventists, the Baptists, the Evangelicals, the Puritans, the Quakers, the Shakers, the Witnesses, the Mormons... from each other. Pick just about any two, and I'm sure I can name a war between them.
Maybe Rick Perry's personal flavor of Christianity includes a firm belief in a rigorous separation of church and state; some sects do, some don't, and not all members of those that do have great track records. But at the end of the day he wields political power and, in spite of the two constitutions he took an oath to defend, he ha
"No, "sitting" and "attending" are really the very definition of "minding your own business"."
On stage, with the intent to be introduced to the congregation by the pastor?
Nevermind, you're a lost cause. For you, it's apparently improper for the people to question their elected leaders in a republic, even when it comes to their public appearances.
Because "People who share my skin color are morally superior to others" can't be justly objectionable to those who do not share his skin color?
"Perry was minding his own business" source
Attending an event as part of your political campaign, as a political candidate rather than a private citizen, sitting on stage with the pastor in front of over a thousand people, to appear on film, radio and television with the pastor in question during the sermon (both as part of the church's own production as well as the news media reporting on the deliberate spectacle), is not "minding your own business." He was not ambushed coming out of his usual church after regular service.
"Should be mentioned that only applies to OLD games,"
Which I did. After all, I was responding to "Where's the PlayStation 1 back catalog?"
"Megaman 1 and 2 are released on the VC."
Only in the PAL regions, it seems.
"What. Like it or not, Christianity says that non-Christians will go to hell."
YMMV
"If you don't believe that then I guess you've got nothing to worry about and his comments shouldn't bother you."
The man holds political office. What if he decides to "save" me?
"It's not like they affect how he administrates his state."
Can you guarantee it?
"That's a tenant of the religion and there are plenty of Christians in office."
They don't all attend the same church.
"Would you outlaw that religion?"
Which flavor?
"comments regarding his belief in non-Christians' path to hell in questions asked of him _on that topic_"
"That topic" was a very public religious service he very publicly attended, and the content of the sermon.
"way back in 2006"
A whopping two years ago! Why, he might have converted to Hinduism since then!
"as if those have a particular bearing on anything he might say at E3 2008."
His religious beliefs are that a non-negligible portion of his audience are doomed to eternal damnation, and that he must do all in his power to save them by bringing them to (his particular interpretation of) Christ. We're talking about his religious convictions, not his favorite color or favorite song.
And even if he does manage to get through the speech without touching upon his audience's impending doom, these convictions of his still reflect strongly upon the man's character and, by inviting him to speak, upon the characters of those who invited him. But I suppose customers are overrated and unimportant in comparison.
"But they chose a religion-based attack. Other than bigotry, what might cause someone to make that choice?"
Because the expressed, avowed religious belief in question excludes, belittles, and insults those who do not share his particular flavor of Christianity, including other Christians?
Let's pretend somebody blew the dust off of Louis Farrakhan and invited him to be a keynote speaker at E3. If that made you unhappy, would have to be because he's black and automatically make you a racist, or could you be unhappy because of what he has to say about whites, Christians, Jews, etc?
"The fact that this person has nothing to do with the industry is relevant, their knowledge of computing is relevant, but their religious beliefs are completely irrelevant and did not bear mentioning."
Religious beliefs that E3 has the appearance of implicit support by inviting him to speak at an industry gathering, beliefs that tend to be exclusive, discriminatory, and can only serve to drive away customers.
It's just plain bad business.
"It seems fair to ask whether GamePolitics is motivated by anti-Christian or anti-religious bigotry in their coverage."
"If you live your life and don't confess your sins to God Almighty through the authority of Christ and His blood, I'm going to say this very plainly, you're going straight to hell with a nonstop ticket."
What if I don't agree with the governor on Christ being the sole path to redemption? What if I don't agree that one's actions in life are wholly without meaning or merit without Christ? What if I don't agree with the governor about where to find Christ's authority on earth, or the manner of confessing my sins to Him?
Why must distaste for the man be inherently "anti-Christian" when inflammatory rhetoric like this is insulting to other Christians on its face? His avowed beliefs don't seem to mesh well with the idea that "all men have a natural and indefeasible right to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of their own consciences," and his office requires he swear an oath on the latter.
Rick Perry's religion says I should and will be condemned to eternal damnation for not attending the same church he does as devoutly as he does. "If you live your life and don't confess your sins to God Almighty through the authority of Christ and His blood (...) you're going straight to hell with a nonstop ticket." Now, this leaves the door open for two alternatives that have seen themselves played out throughout history, repeatedly:
- In his "love" for me he will do everything in his power (including the political power granted to him by the people) to "correct" my thinking through coercion.
- Since his belief system has me being damned after death regardless, there's no real harm in allowing me or causing me to suffer while I still live (after all, I'd better get used to it).
We need not get into a "Christian vs. non-Christian" debate like the article and most posters seem to be trying to invite, all you have to do is disagree with Governor Perry on where Christ's authority lies, on which church is the right church. Not all churches are in communion with each other.All in all, not someone I'd want speaking at a major industry gathering, unless I'm actively seeking to drive away potential customers.
"but you would think that they would find some of their old partners to revive the games and sell them online."
Most of their "old partners" would rather sell remakes at full price rather than the original games for a $10 download. Square-Enix, for example, has made it quite clear that you'll never see any old games with the words "Final Fantasy" or "Dragon Quest" in the title on any download service; they'd rather sell you Tactics as a $40 PSP game, or Origins as two separate $30 titles. Konami's SotN seems to be an aberration, and I wouldn't be surprised if they weren't simply responding to some sort of pressure after releasing it on Xbox Live (and it's currently the most expensive PS1 downloadable by far).
There's also holes in the other download services as well (I'm not seeing the phrase "Mega Man" anywhere near the Virtual Console, not even Soccer), but the consoles supported by the Wii were and are all heavily supported by their respective manufacturers' first-party titles (Nintendo, Sega, Hudson, SNK, etc.). The original Xbox, like Sony's consoles, had a small number of self-published hits, and Xbox Live's collection of downloadable Xbox titles, dominated by Microsoft titles, is even smaller than Sony's.
To their credit, Sony's library of downloadable PS1 games is larger than Nintendo's N64 offerings, and I doubt there's any technical reason why many of the Virtual Console games can't be transferred to the DS, as Sony offers with the PSP. But Sony introduced a new approach to video game consoles with the original PlayStation, one that only really supplied hardware and let third parties handle almost all software sales. And unless those third parties see compelling reasons (read "cash") to release their back-catalog as-is instead of super duper ultra mega high-definition re-re-re-re-re-re-releases (complete with artwork and director's interviews), what you're seeing on the PlayStation Store is about as good as things can possibly get.
If persistent rumors of Super Mario RPG showing up in the Virtual Console end up being true and Square-Enix starts seeing some fat checks from their stake in the title, then you might see the third-party situation start to turn around on all three consoles. But it's a big "if" and even then I doubt things would change overnight.
3.) Have her open the can.
"packaging Pringles in 1970."
So not the newer ones with the peel-off paper top, but the ones with the aluminum can pull tab that left that lovely wrist-slicing edge after you opened it.
"Hasn't Street Fighter 2 been released on Wii Virtual Console?"
Three times.
Wire fraud? Bank fraud? Don't you need to have done these actions against actual banks for these kinds of charges to get levied?
"Or be even more of a smartass, and write a bot that links all Wikipedia articles to Kevin Bacon's!"
Didn't someone already do that to the Uncyclopedia and Oscar Wilde?
"Will CR be reviewing the next installment of Gran Turismo?"
CR picking up on Wii Fit is less an indication of CR getting involved in game reviews and more an indication of the success of Nintendo at reaching out to non-gamers. By the blurb alone it's easy to see that they tested it not as a video game but as a physical fitness device.
So no, Consumer Reports will not be reviewing the next installment of Gran Tursimo, any more than they review the next movie or album.
"Why is everyone ignoring Hillary?"
Because it's down to McCain, Obama, and McCain in a dress.
Except in New Jersey, where what's blowing in the wind smells funny.
Nolan Bushnell: the John Romero of the 1980's.
"Soon you will be a felon for creating child porn in which NO children were actually abused."
Not really.
So long as no children were involved in the production, it's legal stateside as well as Japan (which tends to be the country of origin for most of it). Elsewhere in the industrialized world, such as Canada and Europe, you're up a creek.
"YouTube went on to note that they are strong supporters of free speech."
No, YouTube and their parent Google are very strong supporters of making more money. In China, they won't support free speech since it jeopardizes their access to the Chinese market. But stateside, where they can throw around the "free speech" catchphrase as much as they want, they don't want to let go of something as controversial, eye-catching and crowd-drawing as videos put out by a terrorist organization; they got ad space to sell!
Where's their precious love of free speech when Beijing asks them to stop allowing Chinese users to see this?
Dragon Warrior IV still won't be gracing the Virtual Console any time this century. Because why give people the original when you can make them pay for remakes again and again?
Even that eats up quite a bit of overhead and is needlessly noisy about how fantastically it's protecting my machine.
I'll be burnt at the stake for saying this, but I find I like Live OneCare.