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

[Kadamon]

We love to make fun of ourselves.
If we take a step back and look, we laugh at some of our mistakes.
Then we just get back to being ordinary people with another purpose.

 

[I am Jack's profile]

I don't know how much i can offer in relavence to the specifics of what you might be talking about but i prefer to look at it this way

wait

*diclaimer*
I am an Anti-theist(it's diffrent then atheism) so take my comments with a grain of salt


but i think as long as there is no parralels between the games view of religon and the real world. then there is no problem

if i create a religon called Orgblargism and in a game. I have character bash a fictional religon is there anything wrong with that. I certainly don't think so.

 

[bsaxagent]

I'm a Christian, and I don't care. The developers are entitled to their own beliefs. It makes the game more interesting for me if some of the characters have different beliefs than mine. I'm not saying any of it is right or wrong, though I do get tired of some typical stereotypes in games (not all Christians are stupid closed-minded people), but hey. If the game is written well, plays well, and makes sense, I'll play it, regardless of the religious factor in it.

 

[Midnight Crossroads]

Most game designers aren't theologists. While I see some attacks on religion in general, it's never educated or directed to raise any objections from me. It's like insulting the Chinese by lampooning how good they are at karate.

Probably the only reason that Christianity is a popular target is that it's the most familiar with Western developers, and Eastern developers, especially the Japanese, consider Christianity to be exotic enough to make it interesting.

I just think it's a popular plot device in games now.

 

[Acting like a FOOL]

most people...most gamers for that fact don't read that much into their games...that's what books are for...and that's what books will be for until the end of the world as we know it...

sooo, video-games won't be taken that seriously until people have to write term papers about them...

and religion will be around as long as humans have free will....
and from many perspectives...religion sprouting from free will sounds ridiculous,but that's the way it is...

 

[Blobpie]

There are two things people get zealous about, religion and politics/country. And those are the two main beliefs that massive amounts of people will die for.

These two beliefs can make very east, and powerful antagonists. EI: The Templar (religion) or Helghast (Politics/country)

i'm an LDS (mormon) and i belive in god. But games aren't generally anti religious.

 

[TOGSolid]

Dead Space, have plots in which the damage of religion is the MAIN FREAKIN' PLOT. "Unitology" is a huge, hilarious middle finger to Christianity

Unitolgy is a direct parody of Scientology and Dragon Age is anti-religion? HAH. Fantasy settings are HUGE on the gods being actively involved in day to day life, in both good and bad ways. Hell, in DA, one of the quests involves finding evidence of one of them and performing a healing miracle with her powers. Anti-religious my ass.

This topic perfectly illustrates why I'd love to burn every church of every religious to the ground. People put their beliefs, faith, and dedication into man made constructs rather than in the actual messages that their chosen deities purportedly promote.
"Hey, a plot involving a corrupt church official is OBVIOUSLY anti-religious, even though the game says fuckall about the existence of God(s)."

 

[The Austin]

I think that you're just seeing things that aren't there.. The games aren't saying religion is bad, it's just using religion as a plot point.

For example, Dead Space's Unitology wasn't a "middle finger" to Christianity, it was just a device to move the story along.

As for Halo, it is nowhere near parading religion.
The plot of Halo, is that a bunch of aliens find humans, and it turns out that humans are direct descendants of the "gods" that they worshiped. Well, humans aren't exactly gods are we?
So, the profits decide to destroy us so that they can remain in power. Once again, not a parody, but a plot point.

As for Dragon Age, you missed the point of that one completely. Dragon Age uses religion as a good thing, it inspires troops, calms villagers, and even heals the Arl.

I think that you are just seeing things that aren't there. Sorry?

I really don't see why so many people on the internet are seeing religion as a bad thing. To me, it's full of hate. It's basically saying "My beliefs are right so everyone should do things my way!"

It makes me sad, really.

Edit: By the way, if you haven't guessed, I'm sorta religious.

I believe in God and the 10 commandments, but thats about it.

 

[zenoaugustus]

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.

Oh I know that, I was paying attention. It more or less just shows how religion is used to control people. Regardless of his belief he was the Pope and he was using his power to quote unquote "fuck shit up".

 

[Sindaine]

Probably has something to do with most game designers being part of the new generation (20-30ish) who view religion as something archaic, corrupt and not relevent to modern life. For better or worse.

If games were made by 50+ year olds then we would probably see non-stop ironic patriotic drum banging combined with know your place rhetoric


generalisations ftw!

Don't forget racism and wife-beating! Oh, and the patriotic drum-banging would not be ironic in the least.

Bleeeergh, I need to go play something good now, to wash the image out of my head.....

 

[AhumbleKnight]

Ok, I've been wanting to know what people thought about this for a while, and I couldn't find anything on the forums, so here it is...

Has anyone else noticed the strong anti-religious sentiment in popular video games? It ranges from gentle lampooning (Dragon Age) to outright condemnation (Condemned). 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.

I am Atheist or Agnostic (depending on how much sleep I've gotten), so it doesn't bother me. In fact, my two favorite game series's (series'?), Silent Hill and Dead Space, have plots in which the damage of religion is the MAIN FREAKIN' PLOT. "Unitology" is a huge, hilarious middle finger to Christianity, and Dead Space is STILL flying off shelves! Which brings me to my main point.

There is one game franchise that almost everyone owns at least one game from. It has sold more copies than the Bible or Starcraft or whatever you want to name, and is, hate it or love it, pretty much a household name. I know DOZENS of Christians, Jews and otherwise, ranging from lightly spiritual to obsessed bible-thumpers, who all own this game and play it regularly. I think you know what I'm talking about.

HALO! "The Covenant" is more than a criticism of Judeo-Christian religion. It is a voracious, hate filled mockery. How have so many people overlooked this? Or have they? The Arbiter, the use of different alien races for different combat positions, the "Hierarchs?" The whole role of the Forerunners, a people whose intentions the Covenant blindly miss the point of, in a debacle that leads them fighting for their own demise?

Halo is direct parody. How is it also more popular than air? What do you guys think? And are there any other games who feature religion as the main antagonist that you can think of?

Dude, there are as many game references to religion in the positive light as there are in the negative(well maybe not quite as many but you get my point).

DaO. The only outright negative stuff in it in regards to the main religion of the game(lets ignore the cults) is discussed throughout the game by your NPCs. Every NPC has a different view and a different thing to say. What gentel lampooning are you talking about?

As for Halo, I think your looking too far into it. I really think that your drawing parallels that are there by coincidence only.

Edit: since most others have been doing this as a kind of disclaimer, I shall too. I am a Post-Theist.

 

[Romblen]

I've noticed it, it never really bothered me. I think that's because a religious extremist is just one of the accepted motivations for antagonists. I'm not a fundamentalist, so I don't feel anyone is targeting me.

 

[MortarTeam]

One has to remember the background of people in video-game industry. They are all tech-heads. And techs rarely are religious, save for Einstein's pantheism. No wonder games are filled with anti-reilgious bias, up to Kratos' deicide.

 

[Master_of_Oldskool]

I've noticed. Every time I'm over at my best friend's house and he suggests we play Halo, I'm reminded of another of my classmates. He's a radical, intolerant athiest who shouts "THERE WAS NEVER ANY JESUS, STOP SAYING HIS NAME" whenever anyone mentions Christ. And the worst part is that he is obviously stupid, because A) he doesn't know that Jesus is buried in a tomb in Israel which anyone can view, and that it isn't debatable whether he exists, just whether he was the son of God. And B) I once referred to him as an Athiest, and his response was "No, I'm not an Athiest, because Athiests worship the Devil, and I don't believe in anything."

So, he doesn't even know what the hell he is. This is ignorance, people.

Ignorant just like being hateful about religion in videogames.

Heh, I knew I could bring that semi-relevant rant back around to the original topic.

 

[Knight Templar]

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.

Not exactly.
It's true that the ashes and cure all aliments, but that does not mean that the legend itself is true, let alone the Makers existence.
Case in point: You can destroy the ashes and give their power to a Dragon Cult. Isn't false gods leading men astray exactly what made the make turn from Thedas? Didn't he supposedly punish the Dragons posing as Old Gods?
Yet here you are defiling the remains of his loved one in the name of a Dragon posing as a god, and no action is taken against you.

That is what I like about the Chantry, it's a very realistic depiction of a religion and best of all it is never made clear if the Maker is real or not. The Chantry isn't one monolith either, even within the real Chantry (as in not the imperial) we see differences in attitude and effect.

It isn't good, it isn't true, it isn't evil and it isn't false. It is also all of these things.

 

[Arella18]

I didn't really care...you're reading way too much into the games anyway...doing that will only make you start hating your favorite franchises.

Well... A strong atheist agenda usually has the opposite effect. It makes me LOVE a game. I don't think that we can really "read too much" into games. They are a growing artistic medium, and before anything (modern art, cinema, etc.) got recognition and therefore a strong community of intelligence, they had people over-analyzing things. If you take something seriously, it will grow to meet your expectations of it. Saying "it's just a game, don't read too much into it" is doing an interesting (albeit currently immature) new form of expression a disservice. We should be demanding depth of thought from our games, not praising convention. In short, if you like video games, you probably should "care."

Also, I realize that Unitology is similar to Scientology. But if someone can name a conceptual difference between Scientology and big, super church Christianity, I will give them a cookie. For serious.

And actually no...noticing that stuff and dwelling on it ruins things I couldn't enjoy the Golden Compass book and put it down after chapter 1 because of all the crap I knew about it pushing an atheistic agenda because its about killing god (cue eye roll) not wanting to read too much into something doesn't make me immature...it makes me someone who enjoys things without having to hunt for conspiracies in every word, phrase, or pixel.

Well for one thing christians don't believe an evil lord Xenu using spaceships that look like 747s flew to earth dropping brainwashed aliens into a volcano and the souls attached to cavemen (I looked it up they really believe this)) oh and they don't follow the works of a science fiction writer...just a regular fiction writer...or measure thetan levels and charge you 600 bucks for a book to make your depression go away.

 

[lostzombies.com]

Probably has something to do with most game designers being part of the new generation (20-30ish) who view religion as something archaic, corrupt and not relevent to modern life. For better or worse.

If games were made by 50+ year olds then we would probably see non-stop ironic patriotic drum banging combined with know your place rhetoric


generalisations ftw!

Don't forget racism and wife-beating! Oh, and the patriotic drum-banging would not be ironic in the least.

Bleeeergh, I need to go play something good now, to wash the image out of my head.....

yeah I meant to have 'non-stop, non-ironic' lol, it's my fault because I'm uneducated because exams get easier every year nowadays

 

[Ch@Z]

Who else has noticed the tons of similarities the Chantry from Dragon Age have to Christianity? A leader somehow related to a God, killed by another empire (Tevinter) and the whole religion spreads things about one God and being caring. I loved being a dick to the Chantry in Dragon Age.

Leliana disapproves -20

 

[zenoaugustus]

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.

Not exactly.
It's true that the ashes and cure all aliments, but that does not mean that the legend itself is true, let alone the Makers existence.
Case in point: You can destroy the ashes and give their power to a Dragon Cult. Isn't false gods leading men astray exactly what made the make turn from Thedas? Didn't he supposedly punish the Dragons posing as Old Gods?
Yet here you are defiling the remains of his loved one in the name of a Dragon posing as a god, and no action is taken against you.

That is what I like about the Chantry, it's a very realistic depiction of a religion and best of all it is never made clear if the Maker is real or not. The Chantry isn't one monolith either, even within the real Chantry (as in not the imperial) we see differences in attitude and effect.

It isn't good, it isn't true, it isn't evil and it isn't false. It is also all of these things.

That's what I meant when I referred to "the legend", it curing all ailments, nothing more. So, you're kind of agreeing with me? I dunno, I find it odd that you're trying to somewhat disprove me when we are essentially saying the same thing.

Edit: Essentially, I meant the game didn't take a stance.