Why do people still believe that religion causes violence? Humans cause violence because of our natural tendency to form groups and our greed. Those who are not within the groups are the enemies, and when the enemy has something a group wants, fighting breaks out. It just so happens that religion is often one of those groups that gets formed, but it's at least as often nationality or ethnicity or pretty much anything. Nobody has ever fought a war because the enemies had a different religion; they fought because the enemy, who happened to be defined on that occasion by a different religion, had something they wanted. Even the Crusades, which were divided among religious lines, were really fought because both groups wanted territory. That specific battle might not have happened without religion, but it just would have been replaced with a different one. If anyone remembers the South Park episodes "Go God Go", it works pretty much like that in real life. So can people stop with the religion bashing already? I know it's popular, but it's a terrible argument and I cringe every time I hear people repeat this nonsense without looking further into the matter. Disclosure: I am not a member of any organized religion.
Study Says Videogames "Problematize" Religion as Violent
- Thread starter Andy Chalk
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One could reference the extreme devotion to the Reapers as religion, especially considering they are referred to as "gods" at several points.soren7550 said:
Also, Samara is a champ. Don't dis her.
Eh, in all of these examples, what I see associated with violence is extremism, which actually is associated with violence. Religion itself isn't presented as inherently bad, except when presented in an extreme form.Andy Chalk said:
[small][small]If someone has already made any of these points, message me and I'll edit the post. This thread is getting kinda long.[/small][/small]
Are you admitting to trolling?Kimarous said:
No one is arguing semantics on Adam and Eve, the bible's depictions of the origin of humanity explicitly and fundamentally contradicts the proven and tested scientific discovery of evolution.
Of course it doesn't fit. This unscrupulously changes the definition of "day" because god hadn't made day and night yet, so the earth formed when it wasn't rotating? Why should I have to rebut such ridiculous claims. Actually I don't. The onus is on you and your website has FAILED in that regard.
In fact your "proof" of age-day genesis is a clear example of creationism, it tries to state that God CREATED the Earth and the universe, the only variation is unscrupulous fiddling of time-scales to somehow state the bible was accurate.
Good sir, you are a gentleman and a scholar.RaNDM G said:
Plus, as the guy said, religion has been responsible for a lot of violence and violence over the years. It's not a lot of a stretch to make your villains religious and evil. Plus, evil religions can be written rather well at times.
The bible said mankind were created from Adam and Eve. That in itself is nonsense and contradicts the archaeological record of ape-like creatures gradual evolution into modern humans.Krion_Vark said:
Sorry, grain of salt or bag of salt, there is no excusing how the Bible is full of false claims, as has been proven by science. The bible's word has about as much weight as Aesop's Fables and other stories.
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Yeah, I'm pretty sure religion does a pretty good job as portraying religion as violent. Video games haven't ever started a war. Yet...
I would be a bit concerned if this conversation hadn't gotten this far, but I just want to throw in my two-bits:
Someone didn't read his Old Testament.
Someone didn't read his Old Testament.
Funny how everyone is saying that religion is responsible for most of the violence in the World (This is true), but weren't Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot (to name a few) all atheists? Weren't they all responsible for millions of deaths? It's not just that they were atheists, but they all followed the doctrine of communism, which has significant elements of atheism in it.
Did World War 1 or 2 (Which both killed far, far more than all religious wars combined) have anything to do with religion?
Ah well, don't mind me. I've probably stirred up a shitstorm anyway.
Did World War 1 or 2 (Which both killed far, far more than all religious wars combined) have anything to do with religion?
Ah well, don't mind me. I've probably stirred up a shitstorm anyway.
You said yourself that you haven't read the bible, so you cannot accurately denounce everything as lies.Treblaine said:
You also apparently failed to read the article, since THE ORIGINAL HEBREW WORD has three different meanings: morning-through-evening, a full 24 hours, and an indeterminate amount of time. Most English translations simply say "day" for simplicity's sake. Which context of the word is correct? Who can say for sure? All I can say is that you automatically asserting "it HAS to be a 24 hour day, therefore you think like shit" just makes YOU sound like a troll.
But I digress; what does your constant ranting about "whys Christianity is wrong (in your narrow-minded eyes)" have to do with "why religion as a whole shouldn't be portrayed positively at all"?
Come on, Greg Perreault. Books have been doing this for ever, since the first of the Old Wizards used their magicks to create A4 lined paper and those neat clicky pens from Smiggle. I'll bet plenty of cave paintings depicted that religious violence, as well.
Interesting study. I don't think that he was trying to say video games are evil because of this. It's just worth noting that video games often portray religion in a rather negative way, just like other forms of media do.
Two reasons for that. First, organized religion has historically done some fucked up stuff. Whether the fucked up stuff they did was solely religion's fault or that religion was just the excuse to go through with it is up for debate.
The other reason is that evil religion is much more entertaining to make a story about. For example: the church I attend is really really chill. About everything. It's the only church I know of where you'll hear an 80-year-old lady proclaim that the apostle Paul was "talking out of his ass" when it comes to the role of women in society. We don't care what religion you are, and we'd gladly marry gays if our stupid state would let us. We just wanna love people like that Jesus fella loved people, because God loves everyone.
My church doesn't make headlines for being full of kind-hearted, open-minded religious people. Westboro makes headlines every other day for being the exact opposite.
Two reasons for that. First, organized religion has historically done some fucked up stuff. Whether the fucked up stuff they did was solely religion's fault or that religion was just the excuse to go through with it is up for debate.
The other reason is that evil religion is much more entertaining to make a story about. For example: the church I attend is really really chill. About everything. It's the only church I know of where you'll hear an 80-year-old lady proclaim that the apostle Paul was "talking out of his ass" when it comes to the role of women in society. We don't care what religion you are, and we'd gladly marry gays if our stupid state would let us. We just wanna love people like that Jesus fella loved people, because God loves everyone.
My church doesn't make headlines for being full of kind-hearted, open-minded religious people. Westboro makes headlines every other day for being the exact opposite.
Organized religions have inspired nations to start wars and commit genocides. Religion laws are responsible for executions, tortures, etc. This is the real violence. Video games violence is imaginary, none gets hurt and its effect is minimal, compared to other forms of human behaviour.
Yeah because religion is pure video games shouldn't depict it as violence I mean what violent acts have been started out of religion... the Spanish inquisition,the holocaust, the crusades, Salem witch trails, etc., etc. Listen I have no problem with those who believe in religion but religion ruined its own reputation long before video games.
Well, what I have read of the Bible, and compared with science, I have found to be false claims. Are you saying I must find and denounce ALL the false claims in the bible at once before I can denounce any of them? Is there anything else in the bible that excuses it giving god credit for creating humanity, in the face of the evidence that apes created humanity by evolution? This attempt to excuse genesis by obscure poetic use of ancient Hebrew where apparently the term for day is interchangeable with billions of years is just desperate.Kimarous said:
This is all relevant to just how ridiculous religion is and how a main character in a modern work of media being religious hugely damages their credibility. In a modern world post-enlightenment of pervasive scientific education, being religious and treating genesis as anything other than a fairy tale marks them out as a fool.
I've said before, a character can only be religious and credible in a work of fiction if their religion is REAL. Like in the Star Wars universe, Jedi is called a religion but (in that universe) The Force is real and as described. And in fiction based on our universe, theistic characters are indulged by directly showing the presence of God with His angels and also antagonism with the demons of hell, such as in Hellblazer. These are positive religious characters.
In a fiction where he writer can have ANYTHING happen, having a religious character believe in something that still remains unseen and without any evidence is just tragic.
Oh, for fuck's sake.
1. The study is not singling out video games because he thinks they're brainwashing children, despite the somewhat deceptive wording of the article's title (thanks for that, OP. Very professional). It sounds like he's doing the study for some conference about religion and digital media, so my guess is that he did the study for the sole purpose of finding out how religion is portrayed in games. No agenda, just a straight-forward question-and-answer.
2. He's not even saying it's a problem. He's just like "So religion is portrayed as an instigator of violence in games. The more you know!" and just leaves it at that. He's pretty much completely neutral about the actual implications.
But no, you know what? Just ignore all those plainly obvious facts because someone somewhere suggested that videogames are not completely perfect, and he must be FUCKING DESTROYED. Ever stop to think that maybe some people have a problem with games (not this guy, but some people) because of irrational behavior like this? You know, the kind the Escapist exhibits ALL THE TIME?
1. The study is not singling out video games because he thinks they're brainwashing children, despite the somewhat deceptive wording of the article's title (thanks for that, OP. Very professional). It sounds like he's doing the study for some conference about religion and digital media, so my guess is that he did the study for the sole purpose of finding out how religion is portrayed in games. No agenda, just a straight-forward question-and-answer.
2. He's not even saying it's a problem. He's just like "So religion is portrayed as an instigator of violence in games. The more you know!" and just leaves it at that. He's pretty much completely neutral about the actual implications.
But no, you know what? Just ignore all those plainly obvious facts because someone somewhere suggested that videogames are not completely perfect, and he must be FUCKING DESTROYED. Ever stop to think that maybe some people have a problem with games (not this guy, but some people) because of irrational behavior like this? You know, the kind the Escapist exhibits ALL THE TIME?
This.
Hypocrite "researchers" these days, well I guess he chose to make a living out of publishing bullcrap
They sure were.Darth_Dude said:
But atheism isn't an ideology. Just like not-collecting-stamps isn't a hobby.
Stalin to Pol Pot exercised hierarchical dogma with zealous and extreme enforcement, not in following religious scripture, but the new infallible document of revolutionary party policy. It wasn't founded under superstitious belief in a god-creator, but in the ideals of socialism to create an intangible utopia that they are indoctrinated to believe they must fight and kill for.
Under this, a crime against a person was irrelevant to them of a crime against "the people". Only it was a fallacious comparison, as if killed off people people one by one by saying each was less important than the whole, till the whole was in the hole!
Their objective was not atheism, that was just one aspect to ensure total party loyalty. The objective was absolute revolution. Challenging everything to fit some ideals and to enact them regardless of their negative consequences in practice and with utter bloodthirsty ruthlessness.
World War 1 and 2 didn't really have anything to do with religion. I suppose Imperial Japan did treat their emperor as a deity, but the emperor of Japan actually existed, so that distinguishes it from all other religions (zing!). Thing was, by the 20th century most countries were so diversified and secularised that religion played second fiddle to ideals of race and nationality. But there has of course been millenia of history BEFORE the World Wars. History did not begin in 1914.
And of course today. The ongoing conflict with Al Qaeda, Usama Bin Laden declaring a religious war on america, not for one nation but an entire religion to attack a country. Most Muslims rejected the siren call, but enough were seduced to conduct attacks. And those attacks to be founded on the delusion of an afterlife in paradise for the perpetrators and eternal hellfire for their victims, you can see some aspects of religion causing problems in this day and age.
If you grant that other people are in fact conscious and not philosophical zombies (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/zombies/), then it makes more sense to say consciousness has its seat in the brain than any sort of dualist explanation. But that's precisely my point, you've already presumed that people have subjective awareness, which is by its very nature unobservable. We can observe the behavior of a person's brain, but there's nothing in the action of neurons that necessarily suggests someone has conscious awareness. You could describe physical reality completely without any reference to consciousness. I'm not advocating any sort of substance dualism, i.e. saying that consciousness is immaterial. I'm just saying that we can't observe it.Treblaine said:
Yeah I completely agree that it's implausible and arbitrary and there's no real reason to accept it. Pascal's wager doesn't work because there are multiple, mutually exclusive religions that promise you salvation/damnation, so there's a lot to lose by believing in the wrong one.Treblaine said:
Believe me, I'm not a theist or a creationist. I was just making the point that scientific inquiry hasn't disproved every version of creationism because scientific inquiry is limited to the empirical. That, in and of itself is an argument against creationism: it goes beyond what we can verify, i.e., it's baseless metaphysical speculation. I'm just nitpicking.