E3 Keynote Speaker Says Non-Christians Will Burn In Hell

[Geoffrey42]

Yes and?

From the smiley I'm assuming you understood and were just poking me, but that bit in particular was aimed at statements like the following (and others like it), which seem to imply that nonbelievers are exempt because they don't believe:

Hell only works as a threat if you believe in it. I am an atheist. Crisis averted!

~~~~

And you don't think games have a problem here?

No, not really, when taking into account that (A), (B), and (C) are AND'd, not OR'd. You have to qualify on all 3 counts to be categorized as "obscene". Criteria (C) actually provides a pass to things that would otherwise be considered obscene if they have literary, artistic, political, or scientific value. Again, to be clear, I am not saying that I'm a fan of the way the US formulates obscenity laws, or the way that this obscenity clause applies ONLY to "digital interactive media production"'s. I'm only saying that this is standard boilerplate obscenity as far as the US is concerned, and there's not much there about which to get huffy.

 

[hughball]

escapists why cant we just agree that this guy is a twat and move on...? im an atheist but i passed it on to a friend who is a christian his words were and i quote "what a tosser".

 

[Arkitext]

I make sure I always carry a Sausage in my pocket incase I die.

Barbeques for the ultimate win! ^_^

Nom, nom, nom.

 

[perfectnump]

im not sure why you would any attention to some one who says non-christians are going to hell he is an obvious toss pot and how the sweet sweet fudge do they know non-christians are going to hell?

 

[Arbre]

A theory is a meta-scientific elaboration, which is distinct from, but in harmony with, the results of observation. With the help of such a theory a group of data and independent facts can be related to one another and interpreted in one comprehensive explanation. The theory proves its validity by the measure to which it can be verified. It is constantly being tested against the facts; when it can no longer explain these facts, it shows its limits and its lack of usefulness, and it must be revised.

Safe that religion is not verifiable. You cannot ask your god to create a second universe, just for the kicks, to see if it actually works the way it's claimed by the sacred texts from all over the world.

 

[KBKarma]

You know it's funny I'm Irish and technically a christian and even though Ireland, where I live, is meant to have the most stoic of catholics we really couldn't give a shit! I mean seriously at a sermon our local priest even said that people should not be prosecuted for creed, race or sexuality. At first I was about to stand up and say that isn't he meant to be apart of a religion waving the flag of burning the gays but then I thought hey this priest is actually saying what he thinks is right and breaking away from everyone else. Most other priests over here are like that too. I don't think I've ever heard hell mentioned once in church. But hey Ireland's kick-ass like that right?

Unless the weather is like it is today.

My local priest went on the radio once asking why there are no women priests in the Catholic faith. Decent guy.

On-topic: I'm always interested in how politics and religion are such close bedfellows in America. And I was here as well. Right up until I rediscovered his little law and its limitations (also, Geoffrey42, apparently it was him what done it).

Then the more important point hit me: why a POLITICIAN? I'm getting some very bad vibes from this.

Luckily, no member of the gaming public will be there at E3. Only journos and industry peoples.

 

[Arbre]

I like the idea of someone in my office that has a strong religious background, because it should hopefully be a sign that they actually have a strong backing of what is right and what is wrong.

Yeah, let me answer this with a quote about some of those great christian "morals"

22:23 If a damsel that is a virgin be betrothed unto an husband, and a man find her in the city, and lie with her;
22:24 Then ye shall bring them both out unto the gate of that city, and ye shall stone them with stones that they die; the damsel, because she cried not, being in the city; and the man, because he hath humbled his neighbour's wife: so thou shalt put away evil from among you.

Or to put it simpler, stone virgin women who were raped. Yeah, that is a great idea of what it right or wrong..

Which I love how moderately religious people say that the extremists are altering the fundamentals of religions, but when you read the "best" pieces, you just wonder who is the most hypocrit of the two.

Someone said that the Old Testament is to be ignored, probably in favour of the New Testament.
Of course, the New Testament is many times worse. It's full of anti human-rights shit put down by a few guys who were just too intelligent for their time, to sheppard legions of uneducated primitives in marvel and awe at the mere existence of lightning storms.

I also love how they pretend to speak of tolerance, when most religions simply claim to be true, and the others wrong. I can't help but giggle seeing those commitees full of high level theo-representatives sit at a table and pretend they love each other, because you precisely know that the nutcases sitting at this table are some of the most fervents zealots you could find on Earth, and certainly not the moderate ones.

Unfortunately, we get the theories of Darwin crammed down our throats. Darwin, who was inspired by Nietzche. Nietzche, who has time and again been proven wrong by well read literary circles that no what they're talking about (well, to be specific, his later stuff where he became a conceited asshat, which is primarily what Darwin's hit is based on). So, by association (using logic now), Darwin's theories being based on theories and ideas proven wrong time and again only makes Darwin's theories....oh fine, I'll be politically correct and say "misunderstanding" or something so I don't tell you people that buy into his tripe "wrong".

They're no longer "Darwin's theories" the only thing that guy did was build a foundation that is considered outdated by any serious scientist. A good school gives the facts as they're known by scientists and basically tells students to think for themselves.

You can also spot the association fallacy, or attempt at an ad hominem, instead of adressing the matter at hand and the theory that matters, not if person X might have been wrong on topic A.

Yes and?

From the smiley I'm assuming you understood and were just poking me, but that bit in particular was aimed at statements like the following (and others like it), which seem to imply that nonbelievers are exempt because they don't believe:

Hell only works as a threat if you believe in it. I am an atheist. Crisis averted!

~~~~

And you don't think games have a problem here?

No, not really, when taking into account that (A), (B), and (C) are AND'd, not OR'd. You have to qualify on all 3 counts to be categorized as "obscene". Criteria (C) actually provides a pass to things that would otherwise be considered obscene if they have literary, artistic, political, or scientific value. Again, to be clear, I am not saying that I'm a fan of the way the US formulates obscenity laws, or the way that this obscenity clause applies ONLY to "digital interactive media production"'s. I'm only saying that this is standard boilerplate obscenity as far as the US is concerned, and there's not much there about which to get huffy.

Huh, that's a problem of context, or perspective.

By definition, yes, nonbelievers are exempt because they don't believe, because the Hell claim is just a subcase of the whole religious rumour issue.
For those who do believe in the texts, those willfully ignorant ones will go down into the Pit of Fire.
You can't people to agree, because the standards are different.
But I side with nonbelievers, for the simple reason that any shmuck on Earth can craft an hypothesis, then say it's correct, and therefore claim that there's a Hell and whatever, and that if you don't buy in said theory you go down the flush pipe. HA. HA. HA.
The mere difference being that you have 2000 years of "history" to *cough* back it up.

 

[Rolling Thunder]

Okay, now time for me to get in on the action:

Firstly, I wish to say that all you nutjobs who keep ambling around, saying 'believe or you'll go to hell' are the main reason for atheism. Seriously, anybody who takes you bastards with anything other than a 50,000 ton bulkers worth of salt is high or stupid. You would all be more convinving if you all sat down and worked out the nitty-gritty of your message before going out on to the street to harass me, instead of arguing amongst yourselves, you would be a lot more believeable. Sadly, you spend so much time claiming that everyone (including other nutters like you) are going to hell, that there's the same chance of going to hell whether we believe as you would have us or not. So you get ignored, or if I'm harassed more than three times in a week, headbutted, and I claim you tried to mug me.

Secondly, 'Most of your countries founders were christian.'

1. Most of them were also slaveholders. Ergo- it is morally acceptable to enslave black people, because they did it, according to your logic.
2. Deists are not Christians. They are not in any way or form Christians. Stop trying to convince yourself.
3. They also wanted a seperation of Church and State, and yet this prize asshat is mouthing off how a good number of his constituants (even in Texas) are going to hell.
4. The failure to seperate church with state, much like the failure to seperate 'opinion' with 'fact', is a dangerous one. This failure creates situations like the spanish inquisition, the thirty years war, the sacking of rome, the holocaust- hell, the list stretches on into the infinite. The church deals with opinion- god, and salvation, and holiness. The state deals with fact, like 'budgeting' and 'administration' and 'infrastructure'. Do not confuse the two,

Thirdly: I'd much rather go to eternal torment with Darwin, the Greek Philosophers and decent music than spend eternity in paradise with cocks like you.

Fourthly: While I believe God exists, and was raised a Christian, most of the Chistians I was raised amongst would agree with me: you weirds are bloody dangerous. The God I was raised with was a kind, gentlemanly fellow, who forgave your sins but prefered an kind atheist to a cruel believer, a God to whom treating your neighbours correctly and being as human, rather than as animal, was the main thing. People like you are not Christians, you are nutters, you would divide the world into 'us' and 'them' and have me choose. We do not worship the same god here.

 

[KBKarma]

Okay, now time for me to get in on the action:

Firstly, I wish to say that all you nutjobs who keep ambling around, saying 'believe or you'll go to hell' are the main reason for atheism. Seriously, anybody who takes you bastards with anything other than a 50,000 ton bulkers worth of salt is high or stupid. You would all be more convinving if you all sat down and worked out the nitty-gritty of your message before going out on to the street to harass me, instead of arguing amongst yourselves, you would be a lot more believeable. Sadly, you spend so much time claiming that everyone (including other nutters like you) are going to hell, that there's the same chance of going to hell whether we believe as you would have us or not. So you get ignored, or if I'm harassed more than three times in a week, headbutted, and I claim you tried to mug me.

Secondly, 'Most of your countries founders were christian.'

1. Most of them were also slaveholders. Ergo- it is morally acceptable to enslave black people, because they did it, according to your logic.
2. Deists are not Christians. They are not in any way or form Christians. Stop trying to convince yourself.
3. They also wanted a seperation of Church and State, and yet this prize asshat is mouthing off how a good number of his constituants (even in Texas) are going to hell.
4. The failure to seperate church with state, much like the failure to seperate 'opinion' with 'fact', is a dangerous one. This failure creates situations like the spanish inquisition, the thirty years war, the sacking of rome, the holocaust- hell, the list stretches on into the infinite. The church deals with opinion- god, and salvation, and holiness. The state deals with fact, like 'budgeting' and 'administration' and 'infrastructure'. Do not confuse the two,

Thirdly: I'd much rather go to eternal torment with Darwin, the Greek Philosophers and decent music than spend eternity in paradise with cocks like you.

Fourthly: While I believe God exists, and was raised a Christian, most of the Chistians I was raised amongst would agree with me: you weirds are bloody dangerous. The God I was raised with was a kind, gentlemanly fellow, who forgave your sins but prefered an kind atheist to a cruel believer, a God to whom treating your neighbours correctly and being as human, rather than as animal, was the main thing. People like you are not Christians, you are nutters, you would divide the world into 'us' and 'them' and have me choose. We do not worship the same god here.

QFT (sans the bit about being atheist). My family on my dad's side are in the Legion of Mary. Well, except for my dad.

My personal opinion is that a good person will get into heaven. I know far too many good non-Catholics and not-so-good Catholics for it to be true otherwise.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

And you don't think games have a problem here?

No, not really, when taking into account that (A), (B), and (C) are AND'd, not OR'd. You have to qualify on all 3 counts to be categorized as "obscene". Criteria (C) actually provides a pass to things that would otherwise be considered obscene if they have literary, artistic, political, or scientific value. Again, to be clear, I am not saying that I'm a fan of the way the US formulates obscenity laws, or the way that this obscenity clause applies ONLY to "digital interactive media production"'s. I'm only saying that this is standard boilerplate obscenity as far as the US is concerned, and there's not much there about which to get huffy.

Ok, let's take the Sims 2.

A) the average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find that taken as a whole appeals to the prurient interest in sex; (Now I think that's a tick) especially as homosexual parents can have children.
B) patently offensive representations or descriptions of ultimate sexual acts, normal or perverted, actual or simulated, including sexual intercourse, sodomy, and sexual bestiality;
(More difficult, but I'm sure good old JT could describe them as offensive giving the panning Mass Effect got)
C) It's a game; Therefore we lose.

Now, off the top of my head, I could apply this to any game that depicts sexual acts between adults, because unless your defining "obscence" or "average" then JT et. al. will have a reasonably solid case, for once.

Load up Mortal Kombat by De-Rez or Tomb Raider by Yahtzee; and see if you can't provide a solid reason for them to be withheld due to that law.

 

[PedroSteckecilo]

Ugh! Can't debate politics/religion while foruming at work, not enough time to collect thoughts! ARGH!

 

[L.B. Jeffries]

What difference does it make? Neither science nor religion are overly fond of their followers questioning them.

Thinking for yourself is still the best faith of all.

 

[Geoffrey42]

Huh, that's a problem of context, or perspective.

By definition, yes, nonbelievers are exempt because they don't believe, because the Hell claim is just a subcase of the whole religious rumour issue.
For those who do believe in the texts, those willfully ignorant ones will go down into the Pit of Fire.
You can't people to agree, because the standards are different.
But I side with nonbelievers, for the simple reason that any shmuck on Earth can craft an hypothesis, then say it's correct, and therefore claim that there's a Hell and whatever, and that if you don't buy in said theory you go down the flush pipe. HA. HA. HA.
The mere difference being that you have 2000 years of "history" to *cough* back it up.

I get the overwhelming impression that we agree, but that we're talking about different things. Understand that my whole point presupposes that Hell does, in fact, exist, and that non-believers will be sent there when they die to be tortured. Now, given that we here on Earth have absolutely no methods to prove or disprove this, we have no basis for gauging whether the Perry's and Hagee's of the world are correct, or not. Thus, we end up with a lot of people that believe, and a lot of people that don't believe. They each have their reasons, and neither has any particular incentive to believe otherwise (because, as stated, the 'threat' of Hell is rather ineffective against those that don't believe in it.)

In the end, given the original condition that Hell does exist, and non-believers are sent there, the non-believers disbelief does nothing to protect them from it. This is a semantic point, and largely irrelevant, but I just wanted to point out how silly it is to say "I'm not going to Hell, because I don't believe in it". Kind of like saying "If I step out of a plane with no form of equipment, just me and my birthday suit, I will not fall because I do not believe in gravity." The latter we can verify scientifically, and thus it sounds much sillier, but the former is equally, if not more, silly, because it cannot be verified.

Ok, let's take the Sims 2.

A) the average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find that taken as a whole appeals to the prurient interest in sex; (Now I think that's a tick) especially as homosexual parents can have children.
B) patently offensive representations or descriptions of ultimate sexual acts, normal or perverted, actual or simulated, including sexual intercourse, sodomy, and sexual bestiality;
(More difficult, but I'm sure good old JT could describe them as offensive giving the panning Mass Effect got)
C) It's a game; Therefore we lose.

Now, off the top of my head, I could apply this to any game that depicts sexual acts between adults, because unless your defining "obscence" or "average" then JT et. al. will have a reasonably solid case, for once.

Load up Mortal Kombat by De-Rez or Tomb Raider by Yahtzee; and see if you can't provide a solid reason for them to be withheld due to that law.

I remain at a loss for your point. Are you arguing that standard US boilerplate obscenity laws don't make sense? That they are largely arbitrary and arguable? Ummm, yes. Point of fact. They were made that way on purpose, so as to evolve with the changing standards of the community. This is why they're typically handled in courts, where judges either come up with new tests, or make "judgment calls" on whether a particular item fails or passes the existing tests. If an individual community wants to declare Sims 2 as obscene, they are allowed to do so, and Sims 2 will not be allowed display in public. If the state of Texas wants to declare Sims 2 obscene and deny the developers subsidies to make it there, they get to do that. I'm fairly certain that JT et. al. HAVE spent a great deal of time trying to get obscenity laws applied to various videogames (without too much success).

Why you bring up De-Rez or Zero Punctuation, I'm unsure, because they don't qualify as "digital interactive media production"s, and thus would not fall under the scope of the clause in this particular law. Would you be subject to obscenity laws in most US communities if you chose to blow up ZP on the side of your house, and show it to the kiddies in the neighborhood? Highly likely. What's new about this?? Again, let me be clear: if you want to argue about the basis of US obscenity law, [a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller_test]the Miller test[/a], fine and dandy, but there's no point in mixing that argument up with the Texas subsidy law/Gov. Rick Perry and his heathen views. And if you do want to debate the Miller Test, I really recommend a new forum thread, because it has approximately nil to do with this one.

 

[neddy]

Quoted: Atheism is not the belief that there is no god, but the lack of belief that there is a god.

A-theism = A, meaning without or opposite of, theism meaning a belief in a deity.

A-gnostic = A, meaning without or opposite of, gnosis, meaning knowledge.

Atheism is a belief there is not a god or god-like creature. Agnosticism is a belief that there is no information that indicate god exists.

Also: Intolerance occurs when people won't let others practice their beliefs and hold their opinions IN PEACE.

I somehow find it ironic that all the "intolerance" filled a-somethings always come out of the woodwork and declare that the "Christians are intolerant!" then proceed to muse about putting us in asylums and killing us.

Irony, thy name is Internet Atheists.

 

[Geoffrey42]

Lack of proof proves nothing indeed.
It is essensially impossible to prove non-existance. However, there are infinite things that do not exist. I do not require proof that they do not. 400 billion undetectable pink, cart-wheeling hippopotami on the moon, for instance.

Atheism is not the belief that there is no god, but the lack of belief that there is a god.
As has been stated famously many places, everyone are atheists to most of the gods that have ever been believed in. A lot of us are just taking it one step further.

Agnosticism is just not taking a stand. Either you believe there is a supreme being behind the world and all that is in it, or you do not. Do you say a weak "maybe" just because a lot of other people have decided they believe? Or are you hiding some credible evidence for a supreme being that you do not think is ready for publication yet?
Are you as agnostic about the pink hippopotami on the moon, or Santa Claus, or Freddy Kreuger, or aliens hiding in the shoes of your dentist?

Must be hard not to check for man-eating monsters in your closet every night. After all, lack of proof is not evidence against.

Not an entirely fair summation of my position on the matter. I was having this conversation with a friend offline, and they made the distinction about what an "atheist" truly is, the lack of belief that there is a god, as opposed to the belief that there is not a god. The issue becomes that there are people who identify themselves as "atheist", who think "there is no god". You and I agree that it is essentially impossible to prove the non-existence of something, and thus my issue is with this splinter group of idiots: let's call them "anti-theists".

As to why agnostic isn't just a "weak 'maybe'": if there is no way to prove or disprove the existence of one or more gods, then why take a position either way? Why even bother answering the question, if I have nothing to gain FROM answering the question? As per pink hippopotamuses, they are apparently invisible, then sure, they don't impact me, I don't care. Santa Claus may exist, but the stories are apparently wrong. Why spend so much time debating what does not exist? I'm just saying, ignore the question. Who cares? You can't prove it. Let's spend our time exploring those things about which we can make positive claims.

And you know what? If I bother to think about it before going to bed, and I ponder all the different ways I could die before the morning, I eventually just get to sleep by accepting that I may be dead in the morning. No point in losing sleep over it. Pretending that there is nothing out there that may or may not kill you tonite is a waste of your energy; accept that there may be, and go to sleep.

 

[PedroSteckecilo]

If that's the definition of atheism, then rocks and trees are atheists.

If we want to keep rocks and trees from being called atheists, then atheism can't be a simple 'lack' of all beliefs about god. Rather, it has to be a different belief when it comes to the question of whether there is a god. To lack belief in something you must not even be aware of the concept of a thing, or the concept must be dependent on believing something you have already considered and rejected. Atheists are aware of the concept of god, and they have an active belief that such a being does not exist.

Agnosticism is taking the stand that there is not sufficient evidence to answer the question either way. Agnostics might by default believe that there is no god on the basis of Occam's Razor, but, that's different than an atheist.

Um... rocks and trees don't think, hence they can't be "theists" thus they must be... AHTEISTS, the absence of theism, is athiesm. If you must label Atheism a religion, then Atheism as a belief system is a strong belief in the absence of belief, or reasons to believe, which I think would be closer to the concept of Anti-Theism.

On the topic of agnosticism, there is ANOTHER current of belief in Agnosticism called Strong Agnosticism, which rather than taking the stance that there is "insufficient evidence" they believe that there can NEVER be evidence, that it is impossible to understand a supreme being, even IF one does exist, feeling that a being such as "god" is so far above us in wisdom, intelligence, power or whatever else you want to attribute to it that we CANNOT possible understand it or explain it, and anyone who attempts to do so is arrogant and foolish.