Catholics, Buddhists Join Hindu Protests Against Smite

AngloDoom

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If people believe in a all-powerful creator-figure then they can feel free to be insulted on its behalf. I'd argue that such a powerful creature is simply beyond the mockery of humans, but if religious individuals don't like it they shouldn't play it: just as how I wouldn't play a game where you are God and you beat atheists until their Christian-metre goes up and they become 'better people'.

Done and dusted. People of certain faiths don't like it, so they're not going to play it - no problem.
 

dancinginfernal

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bluekangaroo said:
I am an atheist and even I find the image of Kali incredibly offensive, guys get into perspective, this isn't a small group of people hiding behind religion to get something they personally don't like banned, this game is quite clearly degrading deities like Kali.

I know that the I am an atheist opener may get some, hopefully most, saying so? but it was put there to discourage people from I'm a religious *insert your pick of swear words here*.
Then they can, and you can, ignore it and not play Smite. There are plenty of other MOBA's to play, and plenty of other things to do than worry about a game misrepresenting a deity when they're (probably) never interacting directly with it. It's not a big deal.

I mean sheesh, Jesus/Muhammad/etc. parodies have littered the internet for over a decade but you don't see everyone protesting whole websites when they make fun of a god.

I, for one, don't give a damn. Each character is just a character to me.
 

Maleval

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rcs619 said:
To be fair, a lot of christian, muslim and jewish religious figures would just not be that good for this kinda game. Most were just humans who received temporary powers.
Jesus would make a hell of a tank though
 

SmegInThePants

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Hammeroj said:
SmegInThePants said:
but again, we're leaving the real issue in the dust and not addressing it here - is what they did disrepectful? I don't see how it could be seen as such. It was not reverent, but they aren't believers, so that's to be expected. But depicting kali in a work of fiction, to me, is not the same as being actively disrepectful towards people who might believe in kali. At least not by itself. (obviously if your intent is to be disrespectful, then that same work of fiction could easily be made to be so).Believers cannot expect non-believers to show reverence toward things they do not believe in. The best way to achieve that would be to convince them to be believers themselves.
But with that said, respect is something that's earned, and not there by default. I'm under just as much obligation to respect religious beliefs as the belief that Lord of the Rings is a historic book, that Spiderman is real, that the stars tell our future, that Elvis is still alive or that the cosmic bunnyrabbit of Neptune wants us to do something - none. Until someone brings proof to their baseless (and often immensely contradictory, with itself or the facts) assertions, fiction is what they are.

And not only that, but it's fiction that people take as fact, which is poison to the mind. Ridiculous ideas deserve ridicule and all that.
yeah, I guess i'm equating 'disrespect' w/'insulting', and 'respect' w/'civility' - which isn't right. So i'm misusing my terms. One can have no respect and disagree w/a religious belief, actively argue against it both directly and in one's works of fiction, yet one can still be civil and not maliciously insulting (arguments of logic, reason, and non-malicious satire contrasted w/name calling, hurtful satire, and deceitful rhetoric). There is respect of the belief, and that must be earned. There is respect of the person, and that also must be earned.

Then there is respect for civil discourse itself. As long as one is not being uncivil/malicious, then I think they are being 'respectful enough'. Even civility isn't required, i'm not saying it should be the law that one *must* be civil. We'd lose half the internet if that were the case. But if the goal of your creation/work/product is to be persuasive, or to at least avoid pissing people off so they will buy your product, then being civil certainly helps said goals. Of course, if you're a politician and your goal is to be divisive and inflammatory in order to polarize a constituency - then the opposite might be true.

But no *idea* should be considered sacred. Critical examination is the method by which we discover when we are wrong about something.

and its much like sexual harassment. If a man in an office keeps grabbing his secretary's breasts after she tells him to stop = sexual harassment. he's been warned she considers it sexual harassment and he keeps doing it. But the law, at least in my country, states that it also has to be *reasonable* to consider the behavior sexual harassment, for it to be so. In other words, the same secretary can't just go around calling anything she doesn't like 'sexual harassment'. "When you breathe my air I consider that sexual harassment!". "When you spell it 'woman' and not 'womyn', that's sexual harassment!". I think this group calling Smite disrespectful is on par w/the secretary calling 'breathing' sexual harassment - unreasonable. The secretary might feel harassed because you spell "women" w/an 'e' and not a 'y', but just feeling harassed doesn't mean she has been. This group might truly feel insulted, but not everything that they find insulting is actually an insult.
 

HardkorSB

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Alluos said:
Call me silly but I just don't understand what is so offensive, what effect or impact on anything does the playable nature of their gods have?
Every believer thinks (or at least should think) that his god is the greatest and the very idea of being able to kick the ass of that god is unforgivable.

JokerboyJordan said:
I'm quite surprised at the response of Abrahamic faiths coming to defence of the depiction of Hinduism's pantheon, seeing that their holy scriptures down right accuse polytheistic faiths of being heretics. At least stick to your outdated/ridiculous beliefs people.
They're worried that if they'll let this one go, their gods will appear in the game as well. They don't give a shit about Kali.

Hevva said:
Those people are giving a great publicity for the game.
I bet most people on this website (or anywhere else) wouldn't even hear about it (including me) but thank's to religious leaders crying about it, the developers/publishers don't even have to spend money on promoting the game.

Also, If people like WBC can disrespect everyone in the name of freedom of speech then this game can be made and all these fuckers of faith can do is to tell the people who listen to them not to buy it.
 

AnarchistFish

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1337mokro said:
But seriously people stop being butthurt over a game. First of all it's not slandering your religion it's just using figures as heroes. Second of all your religion is not protected from slander.

I can say anything I want about it whenever I want to. So please, go cry in the corner silently.
They can say whatever they want about this game whenever they want to. Go cry in your bedroom, hypocrite.


Fucking hate this site sometimes for the self righteous and stuck up users that infest it.
 

Arcane Azmadi

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hazabaza1 said:
I'm glad that Religion can't invoke copyright laws.
The main offence I'd take if I was religious is that some creepy Kali rule 34 will probably result from this.
There has been creepy Kali rule 34 for years already; she was in Megami Tensei. Besides, "NO EXCEPTIONS", remember?
 

Mr F.

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Meh.

From reading the first 2 pages of this thread I do not think I have much to add. Most of the reaction seems to be rather out of proportion, insane and ignoring several key factors.

Depictions of Ra, Odin, Thor, Zeus and whatnot are more acceptable because there are very, very few people who still follow those largely dead faiths (Sure, you might be able to find someone who believes, but you would probably struggle). Hinduism however is not a dead faith whatsoever. So using hindu gods within this context is insulting on multiple levels, both the depictions (As in, the art style and the gameplay) plus the conotations "They are as important as Zeus and whatnot", you can be pretty certain that they will not have Allah in a punching match with God because Christianity and Islam are taken seriously.

To those who say that the Flying Spaghetti Monster should be in this game... Meh, I get that you are trying to be funny, but if s/he was included this would be much, much worse.

I am totally behind the arguments against this game and I am totally behind the game being made. I just think we should take a step back as a community and think before we get all uppity because some people are angry about their religious figures, the beings they consider to be supreme, being reduced to this level. It does no matter what your faith is, you can still attempt to understand.

So whilst I think that this game is insensitive and perhaps should pull the dieties from "Living" faiths out (You would still have plenty to work with from less mainstream faiths) I will fight to the last gasp both for the right of the producers to make this incredibly inflammatory game and the right for the religious community to speak up against this game.

And for the love of god, I hope they do not try and use Islam as a punching bag. That would end badly. We all know it would.

Which brings me to my final point, something which many people seem to forget when bleating about free speech.

Just because your right to say what you want is protected does not mean that you should say whatever you want, whenever you want. Just because you CAN do something does not mean you should. And if you say something (Or produce something which is protected by free speech) that people disagree with, they have as much right as you had to produce said item to disagree with said item.

Good day to you.
 

Malty Milk Whistle

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NameIsRobertPaulson said:
Malty Milk Whistle said:
Big problem with your analogy. The company making the game, to my knowledge, is not doing it to be offensive or hurt anyone. They are simply taking fictional characters and making a video game out of them.

Telling them to stop because it hurts your feelings is censorship. They are not infringing upon your right to worship, or any of your religious practices. Therefore, an attempt to stop them is censorship, pure and simple.

And in case you haven't noticed... this site doesn't like censorship.
Two things, 1) I'm an Atheist.
2) I never actually said i agreed with them, I could just understand their position, and in case you hadn't noticed, elderly, deeply religious people can't take jokes about their religion very well. This's their opinion about the game, and most likely, a minority of Hindu's probably won't really care that much.
And as long as two religions aren't trying to curbstomp each other, so much the better.
And if it gets this good looking game publicity, even better!
 

mfeff

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SecondPrize said:
If they don't include Muhammad, I'm going to issue a Fatwah on them for inconsistency.
That would be pretty simple... Islam as a philosophy brought forth by Muhammad was quite clear on it's position of the early Christian church... as being a den of idol worshipers and polytheistic. The same could be said for the Hindu manifestation of Brahmanism.

One could imagine that it would go something like this: That these idol worshipers and polytheist have come together to protest how their idol's and iconography are used in a medium are more of a confirmation of Muhammad's philosophical position rather than a defacing of it.

Commenting on the issue, Buddhist Reverend 'Jikai' Phil Bryan added, "Shame on the game-makers for denigrating these Supreme Beings."
Really? 'Jikai' is hardly known in Buddhist pow-wow's but he has chimed in on this stuff before... last time I saw him he was doing the same thing with the fashion industry...

"Bryan points out that Buddhism values freedom of expression. But business houses can also show responsibility and not unnecessarily drag revered religious symbols to advance commercial interests. Faith symbols are highly important to devotees and attempts toward commercial use can be painful to the devotees."

A monk asked Ummon,"What is Buddha?" Ummon answered him, "Dried dung."

Now mind you that is Zen, which is it's own flavor of Buddhism. Yet what does the Tibetan say as it relates to Buddhism in the context of progressive human effort?



Now I go to research this guy, and find about nothing... other than he is being constantly refereed to as a "Reverend". Buddhism is sort of funny about this, in that when it is discussed one normally refers back to one's particular school within a particular tradition. Not being able to find "anything" on his school or tradition certainly engenders a strong skepticism as to his authenticity and purpose.

Maybe someone could help me out here... but I call bullshit on this guy and his practice... including his claim to be anything other than some guy out of Reno in robes playing Hindu favorites while he masquerades as a Buddhist.
 

Gather

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Change the name from Smite to Smitten; problem solved. Otherwise Dungeon Siege 3 has monsters the Hindu authorities should also be complaining about.
 

DaWaffledude

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My problem with Smite isn't that Kali is playable. My problem with it, is that (as far as I'm aware) Kali is the only God in the game that is part of a still-active religion. It's basically saying Hinduism is unquestionably not true.
 

PurePareidolia

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I'm really happy that the developers are sticking their ground Freedom of expression should never be a slave to religious ideals - whether it be drawing Mohammad or making Kali a playable character. If they want people who don't subscribe to their faith to take them seriously, they can bring forth some evidence because otherwise you might as well be trying to copyright your imaginary friend.
 

CrazyGirl17

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Revnak said:
I... I feel so odd about this. On one hand, people of different religious beliefs are respecting one another. On another hand, they're trying to force a piece of media to not be made, which I am definitely against. I just don't know whether I should be upset or pleased.
^ This just... this. As much as I like seeing religions getting along... they picked a heckuva time/topic to do it around...
 

mfeff

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Mr F. said:
We agree here... meh!

snip...

So using hindu gods within this context is insulting on multiple levels, both the depictions (As in, the art style and the gameplay) plus the conotations "They are as important as Zeus and whatnot", you can be pretty certain that they will not have Allah in a punching match with God because Christianity and Islam are taken seriously.
Now, it is insulting for sure but the insult is one of contextual framing as per the particular paradigm from which one would be insulted. Speaking from experience (which is weak, lacks a large sample, and is simply a personal interpretation) I found that there are several types of Hindu philosophy, or schools. Some pretty laid back, others not so much. The anecdote I would offer is that during a discussion a young woman she proceeded to tell me that Siddhartha Gautama was the reincarnation of Vishnu.

"He was?" - I laughed - end anecdote...

Well not exactly, as Buddhism worked it's way back West it "became" that way to make it compatible with the emergent Hindu faith. Hinduism as a philosophy is loaded with caveats to make allowances for foreign beliefs by reestablishing the Hindu pantheon as primary, with other practices simply being manifestations of their own.

Why wouldn't it? Brahmanism is the core of Hinduism, which is a theocratic approach to governance, state sponsored, it became a basis for the Oligarchy of India until that was upturned by English occupation of the country.

Now that a philosophy tied to the regional history and importance of India in the context of early world events is still a "living" practice is not really debatable. That it "went" this way (adaptation for promulgation) by structuring itself to adopt other philosophies as secondary or tertiary doesn't really mean that the structure is "true" in the context of the known facts.

It's simply true for Hinduism as some people practice it.

To contextualize this for media, in the game Populous one plays as "God" with powers influenced by the faith of the little pixels running around. By the Hindu structure, the player is a reincarnation of Vishnu... so... there we go. Of course this is an reductio ad absurdum (and probably some other stuff), but the point here is that no one challenges that, as the individual is not relevant to the faith and it's power structure.

What is being discussed here is that the Icon is being manipulated in such a way as to make it difficult to reestablish it's dominance structurally as a prime mover. Not only that but it is being used as a prop for commercial gain. This is parallel to the "Reverend's" previous complaints. This isn't about "religion" it is about commercialization of iconography and structural posits of a fairly large school of Hinduism. I address this above questioning the "Buddhist" of this story as being no such thing at all.

By the by... Allah is Arabic for "God"... so by your account it would simply be God fighting God. I think the meme "full retard" would cover this.

In short this isn't about a religion, it is about power and how religions are often tied to power historically and culturally.

To those who say that the Flying Spaghetti Monster should be in this game... Meh, I get that you are trying to be funny, but if s/he was included this would be much, much worse.
It would be funny. Thus it's subjective what it would be. Perhaps a hidden level... (makes some notes).

...It does no matter what your faith is, you can still attempt to understand.
That is just it, many people do understand. Clearly I understand... I hold a degree on the subject... but I do not agree with the philosophical posit nor the ramifications as to "which God/deity/hamburger monster from beyond" is or how that ties to into anything.

What seems to be amiss here is that respecting where someone is coming from, or from where they hail is not the same as respecting the conclusions of where they come from. As the old saying goes, when in Rome do as the Romans... but in this context, "THIS" isn't India, nor a theocratic world based on Hinduism. As such, what goes around comes around.

It is for the Hindu practitioner of this particular Socratic slant to come to terms with the notion that not everyone agrees with the structure of their particular philosophy and certainly not with it's political implications of governance... OR NOT... essentially without the power to do anything about but complain, I suppose that is all that he or she may do.

The lady doth protest too much...

So whilst I think that this game is insensitive and perhaps should pull the dieties from "Living" faiths out (You would still have plenty to work with from less mainstream faiths) I will fight to the last gasp both for the right of the producers to make this incredibly inflammatory game and the right for the religious community to speak up against this game.
So what your saying is that you have no particular position one way or the other?

Mathew 12:30

Whoever is not with me is against me; whoever does not gather with me truly is scattering.

And for the love of god, I hope they do not try and use Islam as a punching bag. That would end badly. We all know it would.
Islam philosophically should have no particular problem with this, as I detailed above.

Which brings me to my final point, something which many people seem to forget when bleating about free speech.

Just because your right to say what you want is protected does not mean that you should say whatever you want, whenever you want. Just because you CAN do something does not mean you should. And if you say something (Or produce something which is protected by free speech) that people disagree with, they have as much right as you had to produce said item to disagree with said item.

Good day to you.
You don't have the right to say whatever you want whenever you want.

It is, as an example, quite illegal in most western nations to go into a crowded theater and yell "Fire!!!".

It is an act of treason to discuss bringing to harm a political figure... if that action could be construed as a plan of intent or is acted upon. Again, there are legal considerations.

Thing is, what we see here are people acting as "Vicker" to a philosophy that posits a supreme being with nothing more than their word that they are acting in accord with that being.

We may all respect that, THAT is how they feel; I mean, who wouldn't want a God on their side? However, I do not respect that their feelings on this matter mean anything in the context of anyone else's ethics, morality, or commercial capitalistic ventures.

There is a voice coming from this camp that what they are saying means something, beyond expressing an opinion. These are opinions, opinions offered as facts; which they are not.

The concern is not the "soul" or "lack-there-of" of the people in question who are straying from the flock, no, the concern is how the use of icon and narrative theme will be exploited to make a buck.

It's about power. I suspect it is much of this which explains "why" you are on the fence, defender of "free speech", "defender of the faith"... not really defending anything, not really for anything.

Fundamentally one has as much right to a thing as one may afford. If this was India, this game would not be made. Period. File that under Fact.