Anti-Religious Sentiment in Video Games (have you noticed?)

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Yeslek Ssomllur

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Glademaster said:
Actually Unitology is more like Scientology than Christianity while the religion of the Covenant is as you have said Jew/Christian/Islam. I'd like to know how you got the impression that Unitology is closer to Christianity than Scientology.
I think the point is that mainstream Christianity (super churches, televangelists, etc,) is barely distinguishable from Scientology in practice. Lots of money based on a lot of fairy tails.
 

Vykrel

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Feb 26, 2009
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it seems strange that you think anyone other than yourself gives a crap about the religious aspect in games, as if the fact that the games are insanely good doesnt matter. thats why they sell so well
 

ziggy161

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Aug 29, 2008
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Charisma said:
i see it as a symptom of humanity's slow, necessary weaning off the teat of superstition

a cutting of the umbilical cord, if you will

i myself am planning a series of short stories/books that will culminate in humanity giving a big middle finger to the gods, and i plan on framing it in terms of a "coming of age" story for the entire human race. as in, god is a parent figure, and if humanity expects to mature and evolve, it must turn away from its gods and take responsibility for itself.

that's how i see it.
that sounds great :eek:
 

Agayek

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Oct 23, 2008
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Kyuubi Fanatic said:
Religion itself isn't a problem, it's the people who follow it that make a religion crazy (with the possible exception of Scientology. Those guys are nuts). I support games that bring to the forefront just how ridiculous and insane fanaticism in religion can be. A lot of people want to casually sidestep and ignore this issue, but I disagree. When the whole world can accept just how retarded fanaticism is, maybe we can stop all this religious fighting, from backwater cults all the way to Jihads.
I just have to ask, why is the Scientologist belief in Thetans and Xenu, et al any worse than your belief in a cosmic Jewish zombie who was his own father granting you eternal life if you consume his flesh so he can remove an evil force from your soul that's only present because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree?

Both are patently absurd when viewed from an outside perspective. The only difference between them is that one has been around for approximately 2,000 years while the other has existed for 57.
 

Outcast107

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Also on the whole Halo is a parody. Its not. If you ever read the books, they actually talk about why the prophets hate the human so much and everything. They actually found out they been misreading about the human/relics. Instead of telling everyone "Hey we goof" they decide to keep it hush hush to keep the power to themselves.

I don't really believe this is a middle finger to Christianity, just merely how people can be corrupted by power no matter what they do.
 

Biscotti187

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I think it has less to do with the idea of religion and more the physical circumstances around physical religious groups, for the same reason religion can be a powerful force in politics. The basic is that you have an idea around which large groups of people can organize. The same go for games that are based around armies or organized crime or even ideological ideas. Religion happens to be one of the older, powerful, and wide-spread of these things (can't think of a proper word) in the history of humanity, organized religion and especially more primitive pre-historic superstitions are more or less older than the city-states of ancient Mesopotamia themselves. So in the end I think its less about religion in of itself and more regarding when developers are creating a story and they have to answer the question "How are we set it up so a whole mobs worth of villains are willing to be bound to this one idea (be it the covenants destruction of humanity or the Silent Hill's cult desire to summon an apocalypse)?"
 
Jun 11, 2008
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Yeslek Ssomllur said:
I think the point is that mainstream Christianity (super churches, televangelists, etc,) is barely distinguishable from Scientology in practice. Lots of money based on a lot of fairy tails.
Not really Scientology is much more secretive like Unitology and you must pay to get into the church what so ever. You don't have to pay to learn the "secrets" of Christianity. Whether or not it is a fairy tale is up to the individual. So ultimately Unitology is based around Scientology even look it up on the wiki of Dead Space.
 

Grand_Arcana

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Baron von Awesome said:
While some games like Assassin's Creed target the Templars and the Catholic church, it's honestly just an absurd anti-historical rip-off of The da Vinci Code. The games series that I thought had something reasonably well thought out to say about ideology was the Bioshock series which showed us through extreme capitalism and then socialism how dangerous and destructive ideologies were when taken to an extreme. Most other game series I've seen that have anything to say about religion have so little to say that is intelligent it's fairly obvious to see that it's just trying to milk religion for another bad guy.
Actually, the Assassins are only against the Templars, not the Catholic church. They fight the Templars because they believe that it is wrong to take away ones right to chose for themselves. The Templars, on the other hand, are willing to go to any length to establish peace, even if it means violating what we today would consider human rights.

"Nothing is true, everything is permitted". The first means that you should always think critically about what people or books say, and to make your decisions not on what you are told, but on what you see. The second part means that while there is no ultimate authority to tell you what you can or cannot do, it means that you should be all the more thoughtful about your actions and not to abuse this freedom and to allow others this same freedom.

Oh, and it's just a game, chill.
 

DanDeFool

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Aug 19, 2009
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Yeslek Ssomllur said:
It seems like radical fundamentalists should be more concerned with all the pointing and laughing at organized religion in gaming than with a couple of men trying to share the same taxes.
"...trying to share the same taxes"? Oh! Homosexual marriage! Took me a second to get that.

I think the media in general has been bashing organized religion for quite some time now. Music, television, and popular fiction have all taken turns punching the religion dummy. It's not surprising that games do it too. Hell, given all the flak religious institutions direct at video games, it's surprising that they don't get even more criticism from gaming media.

Personally, I think society has been chafing from the dominance of religious power structures in their private lives for a long time now. Now that we have cool things like science, the Internet, freedom of speech, and freedom of religion, people are starting to be much more open about how fed up they are with religions and all the shenanigans they get up to.
 

imPacT31

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Mar 19, 2008
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I'd say the this is less about videogames being anti-religious and more to do with religious fanatics making for easy, and often disturbing, antagonists who are innately difficult for the audience to sympathise with.

Dead Space revolves around a cult who believe in achieving some sort of immortality through sacrificing themselves to alien beings; Unitology is a little different from Christianity. The Unitologists are essentially painted in the same light as modern radical terrorists - determined to martyr themselves regardless of the insane measures required or the cost in human lives. The cult of Unitology is essentially the public front for a terrorist organisation, although one that is guided entirely by religious doctrine. You can't really sympathise with the cult members or hope to understand their goals beyond what is blatantly obvious: they're more than willing to kill people for a goal which as depicted as being absolutely insane.

Clive Barker's Jericho presents a bit of an odd case: a squad of supernaturally powered soldiers, including atheists, a guy with a demon in his arm and a paedophilic priest, fight a secret war against "the cult of the dark rapture" and aim to stop God's greatest mistake being released upon the world. The game's antagonists are religious fanatics or have made deals with demons, yet the protagonists are treating it more as a military exercise than any actual religious task. Of all the playable characters, only one is blatantly Christian and he seems almost designed to be unlikeable. Despite using a story that implies a classic good versus evil dynamic, Jericho is more about secular humanity facing off against religion's mistakes: the God of Jericho's universe is clearly far from loving.

Silent Hill involves a cult using human sacrifice, nobody is truly religious in the Assassin's Creed universe, the chantry of Dragon Age combines idyllic Christianity with the warlike nature of the crusades and institutionalised persecution - the list goes on.

Religions in videogames generally exist for two reasons:

1. To provide a little background colour and "realism" to the setting
2. To provide fanatics who have undying loyalty to their cause and are willing to commit unspeakable evil in the name of their Deity/s
 

ilion

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Aug 20, 2009
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It is fashionable nowadays to be Atheist or Agnostic. The Western World is undergoing a spiritual renewal since the the dawn modern age, many religions are being discarded because they are already being seen as morally wrong \ or the perfect tools of control of many governments. Every religion can have a good philosophical argument with other religions, its when its power its being abused that it loses its value. However i must say iam a bit afraid of this growing nihilism and Historicism in the western world. mybe we should all just become Buddhists, lol. Anyway.
 

Unesh52

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bruein said:
Heres a list of games with Religious main characters
http://www.dorkly.com/article/1762/christian-versions-of-games
"Halo: Combat Intelligent Design"

I lol'd.

Kagim said:
Umm... Its a game?

Its a fictitious story based around fictitious events based around the past, present or future.

None of it is real, and it is only a story. It's not anti-religious. it's just a game.

People are just able to use religion more often in stories now. Church's don't hold the same power these days and are more open to interpretation.

It's just a story. Thinking silent hill is condemning Christianity is about as stupid as thinking Cat In The Hat is Condemning Abortion.

Thinking any game is TRULY trying to get people to give up on religion is foolish. It's just a story. People are just reading to much into shit.
Um... it's a metaphor?

It's an artistic construct intended to parallel real-world events, sentiments, and organizations.

None of it's real, but it's representing stuff that is in order to make points about them without the complications and limitations of reality.

People are just unable to talk about religion as openly as they like, which is why they usually have to project their dissent onto such constructs -- to avoid directly offending too many people. Political correctness in corporate industries is holds the same power these days that mandated orthodoxy (as in du jure/de facto faith) ever has.

It's a consciously written story. Saying Silent Hill (admittedly not the best example) has nothing to say about religious dogma is about as stupid as saying The Cat in the Hat had nothing to say about social responsibility.

Thinking any game is TRULY trying to get people to give up on religion is foolish. (hmm, that one's actually right) But stories are allowed to have points; unifying themes that form a message. As the "readers into shit", people have the right to be critical of the prevailing representation of religion in their entertainment media.

...see what I did there?

Celtic Predator said:
When people stop crushing newborn kittens for pornography, then I'll have a say if there's a god.
wut

Naheal said:
Poofs said:
games arent really anti religion they seem much more anticult
all the religions you mentioned are violent, and want to somehow destroy the world or kill lots of people
thats a cult, not a religion
www.dictionary.com said:
cult
-noun
1. a particular system of religious worship, esp. with reference to its rites and ceremonies.

2. an instance of great veneration of a person, ideal, or thing, esp. as manifested by a body of admirers: the physical fitness cult.

3. the object of such devotion.

4. a group or sect bound together by veneration of the same thing, person, ideal, etc.

5. Sociology . a group having a sacred ideology and a set of rites centering around their sacred symbols.

6. a religion or sect considered to be false, unorthodox, or extremist, with members often living outside of conventional society under the direction of a charismatic leader.

7. the members of such a religion or sect.

8. any system for treating human sickness that originated by a person usually claiming to have sole insight into the nature of disease, and that employs methods regarded as unorthodox or unscientific.

?adjective
9. of or pertaining to a cult.

10. of, for, or attracting a small group of devotees: a cult movie.

According to definition 4, all religions are cults. According to definition 6, whether a group is a cult or not is subjective.
Def. 6 says "religion or sect considered to be false," with the dependent clause at the end explaining the typical manifestation, not the rule. Considered by who? It's left to be determined my the individual. It is subjective.

You're wrong in that at least, though def. 4 can certainly be interpreted that way (though in etymology dictionaries are not set in stone and definitions both can and should be revised to more appropriately fit their intended meaning). However, Poofs is wrong too, I think. In my experience, video game representations of religious organizations are marked more by their corruption, hubris, short-sightedness, intolerance, and impotency more than their homicidal tendencies. These are all characterizations which can arguably be applied to many perfectly orthodox religions.
 

Devil's Due

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weker said:
Well to be fair, try come up with an idea for a game which promotes religion as a benefit?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bible_Game

This is just one.

As for the thread, I honestly doubt they are Anti-Religious, just means for a story. I'll give an example: The world of "Gears of War" is on a planet called "Sera", not Earth, that has a large number of pools of liquid called "Immulsion" which has caused them to fight for over a hundred years amongst themselves before the Locust showed up. When the "Judgement Day" or such came where they called down the Hammer of Dawn strike on every city in the world, they effectively killed 92% of the entire worlds seven billion population in a blink of an eye to try and stop the Locust.

After such a day, many lost any faith in any sort of god they have, which is understandable considering what they've been through. All in all, it's just to help deliver the story. And personally, I'd prefer a fake religion given to me in a story than a real one any day. At least you can seriously joke around with the fake one for the fun that ensures, but even bring up a real one in a joking manner around here and you'll be bible slapped so hard by how many Christians are here. (Not literally, but if the law went away against religion in schools, I wouldn't put it past them here)

Sides, who doesn't love Unitology in Dead Space? It makes for an awesome shirt.

http://visceralstore.com/dead-space/dead-space-apparel/dead-space-white-altman-tee

I'm honestly decided to buy that shirt or a Isaac shirt. Seriously divided on the issue :-(
 

Cheesus333

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I don't know if anyone remembers but in Fable, they had the two churches of Skorm and Avo which were revealed to be very false twin money-making schemes by a greedy trader. If that's not religious mockery...
 

JaymesFogarty

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zenoaugustus said:
I wouldn't say Dragon Age is entirely anti-religious. The myth about the game's religion's God's wife's ashes (crazy amounts of apostrophes) is true. Like, Andraste's ashes are ACTUALLY holy and heal any wound. At the same time, the game kind of makes fun of all religious groups in its own way. So I guess the game is saying that religion itself is okay, it's just how twisted and bent people can make it (please, I'd prefer no flame wars to break out, these aren't my beliefs, they are merely what I observed when I played the game).

And obviously Assassin's Creed (the first and second one). Hell, the bad guy of the second one is the fucking pope, and the game tells you that evolution is true and that there wasn't a god but a group of powerful beings that inhabited the planet before humans.

Edit: Fallout 3 makes nearly every religious sect out to be a bunch of idiots.

Although Oblivion is rather neutral, or leaning more towards the pro-religious side (specifically the Knights of the Nine DLC).
But did you know that the Pope in the game admits that he doesn't believe in the religion,and that he is only using it to manipulate people? The Assassin's Creed series don't focus on evil religious people; it's all about how innocent people can be misled by religious dictators with ulterior motives.
 

ANImaniac89

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Unless something is truly blasphemous to what I believe in, I don't mind a bit of religious satire. I was born and raised in the Christan faith and still believe in the teachings of Christ, but I am also a human living in this modern world which requires some level of sensibility when dealing with things that you are uncomfortable with (or else you could end up insanely protesting comic-con). I have never had a real problem with any video game offending me , In fact I don't really get offended at anything I love non religious music including Metal and Shock rock, I love Horror and exploitation cinema and I don't even have any real problems with porn (as long as its in moderation). Only 3 movies out of the thousands of film I have seen ever offended me and 2 of the 3 were due to things happening to children with the other one being a train wreck of attempted religious satire.

I have noticed this newer thread of religious uses/satire in gaming but I view it a simply another step that gaming as an art form needs to take to be respected as an art form. As long as its handled with some respect and not in a blasphemous way I have no real problem with it. in the end its only entertainment and should be treated as such.

also the sad truth is that their is a lot of thing wrong with religion. What starts with a message of peace can be taken out of context by men and uses to fuel their own agendas. also whole idea that a human can decide what the will of a divine entity is a little messed up as well.
 
Jul 13, 2010
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manythings said:
until then the fuckwits will make sure atheism is forced on people.
You mean like how Christianity has been forced on people for the last 2000 years, and still is? Or how Islam has been? Or how Hinduism has been? I could go on, but I think you get my point. We don't have Atheist schools. We don't Atheism spreading organisations. We don't have Atheism based political parties. We don't have Atheism based countries. Religion is forced on people much more then Atheism is.

Anyway, I don't think most of the religious satire is particularly intentional. Sure I don't think its there by accident, but I think its more a case of people drawing from the real world rather then deliberately trying to be anti-religious.
 

Kagim

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summerof2010 said:
Um... it's a metaphor?

It's an artistic construct intended to parallel real-world events, sentiments, and organizations.

None of it's real, but it's representing stuff that is in order to make points about them without the complications and limitations of reality.
Making a point and being anti something are different things.

Example. I don't think religious groups should be allowed to stop others from having abortions or organ transplants as there morale standards are not shared by everyone.

I just made a point, it is, however, NOT anti-religious, but rather my thoughts on religion and abortions/transplants.

People are just unable to talk about religion as openly as they like, which is why they usually have to project their dissent onto such constructs -- to avoid directly offending too many people. Political correctness in corporate industries is holds the same power these days that mandated orthodoxy (as in du jure/de facto faith) ever has.
Accept in most examples given it seems like people are making a huge stretch to justify what they are saying. Once again Silent Hill and Dead Space have religious themes. However after playing both SH1-3, Home and 0 as well as Dead Space many times I in no way see it as a case of "Religion is wrong and evil!" but rather, "Look at these stupid people, this is religion gone WRONG." Not all religion. Once again. I do not believe games are actually anti-religion.

It's a consciously written story. Saying Silent Hill (admittedly not the best example) has nothing to say about religious dogma is about as stupid as saying The Cat in the Hat had nothing to say about social responsibility.
Sorry, this one was my bad because i referenced the wrong Dr.Seuss. I was talking about Horton Hears a Who. A book that people still to this day hold up as Dr.Seuss screaming abortion is wrong. Which he has denied countless times.

However, once again, my point isn't that these people aren't exploring religious context and ideals in negative lights, but that the intended purpose isn't "Religion is bad kids! Stay the fuck away!"

It's used because Religion is such an interesting and strange place, to simply say "Silent Hill is trying to tell people Christianity is bad!" Is stupid.

Thinking any game is TRULY trying to get people to give up on religion is foolish. (hmm, that one's actually right) But stories are allowed to have points; unifying themes that form a message. As the "readers into shit", people have the right to be critical of the prevailing representation of religion in their entertainment media.
Yes, stories have the right to have points in fact you could say that's why people right stories to begin with *wink wink*.

However i do not believe the writers for Dead Space were sitting thinking "Hmm, whats a subtle way to call Religious people retarded freaks of nature who would gladly murder themselves for an alien race."

Yes, the story is about religion, yes it shows religious dogma taken to an extreme. However the intent in purpose to me wasn't to slap religion in the face and make people hate it.

There is a difference between showing something in a negative light and being anti something. Thus far I haven't seen anything that is truly anti religion, but rather simply taking ideas and creating negative reflections or extremes of them.

Sure, people are allowed to be critical of anything they read and totally have the right to think and believe anything they want. That's the glory of freedom of speech. However i do not agree with them and feel maybe people are reading to heavily into things. To call a game a negative reflection, or religion in a darker light would be more appropriate, but to label most those games as actually anti-religion i think is incorrect as that would mean the writers made the conscientious decision to attempt to persuade people away form having religious beliefs. That is something i simply don't think is happening at all.



...see what I did there?
See what i did?
 

GiantRedButton

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Mar 30, 2009
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x434343 said:
Imperator_DK said:
Assassins Creed had you fighting Crusaders, and AC2 had you fighting the Pope.
More like *****-slapping the pope. And for the record, that pope is probably the worst in history. Best not to talk of him, or to portray him bad.

Probably the coolest take on religion are BioShock 1 and 2. In BioShock 1's backstory, there was no religion, and partially due to that, Rapture went to hell. In BioShock 2's backstory, and at one point during the game, religious fanaticism causes things to become even worse. Bioshock 1 and 2, therefore, takes a middle ground: religion is good, but it should not rule your life.
Just played bioshock 1 and in neptune the splicers talk about jesus christ pretty often ad that they know hes their savior, also at the entrance there is a bible and a cruzefix with jesus nailed on it.
Whether it failed because or despite of religion wasn't explored but some certainly where openly christian.