Evangelicals' morality is left behind in real time stupidity

Video games, like comics and Dungeon & Dragons before them, have become the societal punching bag for anything that anyone who might have played one has done wrong. Oh yeah, let's say violent video games, although no one really makes much of a distinction. Never heard someone denounce violent video games and extol the virtues of nonviolent video games. They probably don't think they exist.

The hypocrisy of this situation was brought to the fore with Columbine, where people blamed pretend violence for causing, inciting, training those two nutjobs to kill in real life. The truth is, that like any other form of imaginary play, violent video games are not bad. They are safe sandboxes where people can explore lives, worlds and conditions they would never do in real life. They can even be good where normal, natural aggressive feelings are vented in a safe environment. There will be more about this in a future post.

The stupidity about violent video games continues now, but has flipped all around because of religion, with the idiotic Left Behind video game. The Left Behind book series is a Christian fantasy series where the Rapture occurs and all the good people go to heaven and those left behind on Earth duke it out with the satanic nonbelievers as judgment day approaches. It's a thin cover for evangelical jihadist-Crusader fantasies. Now there's a video game about it.

The game is violent and is predicated on a Christian crusade to convert or kill the unbelievers. But since Christians are committing the Christian violence, it's all okay:

The game's makers contend that the violence from the good side — the Tribulation Force — is exclusively defensive, and should not be seen as contrary to church teachings.

"Christians are quite clearly taught to turn the other cheek and to love their enemies," the company website says. "It is equally true that no one should forfeit their lives to an aggressor who is bent on inflicting death."


Oh, so Christian violence is okay in self-defense (like in Doom, where the mobs attack first, right?). And, they point out, there's no police killed and no decapitations or blood. Apparently all of the police are sent to heaven in the rapture. The Trackball is cursoring over some serious bullshit here.

Christian websites that review the game speak in glowing terms about how Mom and Dad can play this with junior and how it is 'inspirational entertainment'. Look Mom, that evil nonbeliever just wouldn't convert, and he was getting kind of all 666-twitchy, so I took him out with an attack helicopter! Funny, but some of those same sites, endorsed by Focus on the Family, knock games like Call of Duty 2 for the same kind of self-defense violence that is in this one. Nazis were Christians, remember, and killing them is a bit more objectionable than wiping out 'nonbelievers' by the truckload, apparently.

If you are feeling some deja vu here, it's because the same thing happened when Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ came out. It apparently was bloody and gory as all get out, but because it had religious content, it was all okay to Focus on the Family.

You'd think that leaders of a religion would take a second and ponder a scenario that is straight out of Hypocrisy 101. Can we throw a cross in Grand Theft Auto IV and it will be okay to them?

Am I opposed to this game because it is violent? No. Do I think the books should be banned? No - the only way to ridicule these things is to put them out in the open. I do oppose the rest of the world sitting by and letting these fundamentalists spew hatred and in response simply turn the cheek only in their case because they are Christians. Maybe when one of the wack job fans of the series goes on a shooting rampage or tries to blow up a mosque or a temple or another government building, the media will raise an eyebrow at the Left Behind books and games.

Until then, please Goddess, forgive these double-talking assholes who have no moral core at all and just want to promote their religious PR. I pray to Humanity that they will see through this fig leaf of religious cover and have the courage to identify hatred and religious intolerance regardless of which invisible avenger in the sky is being invoked.

2 comments:

SJR said...

This statement is posted from an employee of Left Behind Games on behalf of Troy Lyndon, our Chief Executive Officer.

There has been in incredible amount of MISINFORMATION published in the media and in online blogs here and elsewhere.

Pacifist Christians and other groups are taking the game material out of context to support their own causes. There is NO “killing in the name of God” and NO “convert or die”. There are NO “negative portrayals of Muslims” and there are NO “points for killing”.

Please play the game demo for yourself (to at least level 5 of 40) to get an accurate perspective, or listen to what CREDIBLE unbiased experts are saying after reviewing the game at www.leftbehindgames.com/pages/controversy.com

Then, we’d love to hear your feedback as an informed player.

The reality is that we’re receiving reports everyday of how this game is positively affecting lives by all who play it.

Thank you for taking the time to be a responsible blogger.

Amir A said...

Both the author of this blog and the PR guy from Left Behind games are missing the most important points, which are: this game when given a good review from people who know what they are talking about (instead of the old guys at New York Times who are impressed by shiny graphics) gave this game a grade of D which basically means it sucks really bad. their review had nothing to do with morals or theology. read the review yourself:

http://www.avclub.com/content/node/56307

also another MAJOR point is that this game apparently comes loaded with SPYWARE that is impossible to remove. I'm sure the free preview version has it too. YAY!! FREE SPYWARE.