Study Says Videogames "Problematize" Religion as Violent

[CarlsonAndPeeters]

Before you get offended, remember: this article was written, edited, and published by a multicultrual team of various religious faiths and beliefs.

 

[Jinxey]

Before you get offended, remember: this article was written, edited, and published by a multicultrual team of various religious faiths and beliefs.

+1 - I loved that "ass-covering" disclaimer at the start of AC

 

[SycoMantis91]

*Study Says Reality Problemizes Religion as Violent

 

[rofltehcat]

Any bets on how long it'll be before this study is being waved around on Fox News?

Information goes into Fox News, stupid comes out. You can't explain that.

-

Imo, one of the reasons why Religion is depicted as often being violent is that most religions contain quite a bit of violence and "propaganda". Most games are simply put very violent (about violence) and always look for systems/leaders/religions with mindless followers to kill and whose doctrine to defeat.
It is simply a good hook to keep many stories going. Not just in games, but also in literature, movies, theatre... basically all media.
However, in our daily lives, those violent aspects of religions are just the extremes and for every violent and intollerant religious person out there, there are countless religious people out there who are very tollerant and peaceful and for most religious people they play no real role. There have been, are, and will be wars "because of religion" but in this aspect it is just like any other doctrine as "godless" communism, capitalism or any other doctrine.

Now of course you will mainly meet violent nutjobs and zealots in a (violent) game. There might be only a few peaceful believers in the game, but then again there are very few "civilians" in games anyways. Many of the "civilians" might believe into a religion but most of them won't rub your nose in their religious believes.
The people most talking about religion the most tend to be the ones most extremist about it anyways. So either "militant" atheists who condemn all religious people and try to teach them or religious zealots who want to "convert (or burn)" all the people who don't believe into the same thing. This is also why religion is such a hot topic. It is nearly impossible to get a satisfying discussion going with any of the extremes present. And god help you when there are two extremes from different religions (or just denominations) present.

 

[Blind Sight]

While atheism itself has some rather vicious purges to its name

I'm genuinely interested, give me examples of atrocities done in the name of an absence of belief.

Marxism has a lot of associations with atheism. Stalin's purges of religious believers in Georgia and Poland are the most obvious case that comes to mind, but the problem there is that if you're discussing atheism in terms a 'rationalist atheist' perspective (i.e. the modern day push for a logical deduction of reality) it largely fails because said purges were based around another dogmatic, largely faith-driven system: Communism. North Korea comes up in these arguments a lot too, but once again, it fails because it does not focus on the root case: a fanatical belief in something, which rational atheism (well at least people who understand what rational atheism is, as opposed to irrational atheism) rejects.

Also don't let anyone tell you Hitler was an atheist, historians are still debating Hitler's religious attitudes. Mein Kampf has a lot of references to God in it, but I think that later actions by Hitler push him away from Catholicism towards a more deitist approach centred around Aryan mysticism (based on the documents I've read).

People also like to chalk up eugenics to atheism and science in general, the problem with that is that most fail to actually look at eugenics origins: support initially emerged from rural, religious populations who were used to concepts such as animal husbandry. Not only is eugenics more based on social alienation of the lunatic fringe then actual science, but many of its proponents were actually religious. Some excellent examples are the late 19th century eugenics movement that emerged in America from the progressive movement (which wasn't atheistic by a long shot) and the eugenics legislation in 20th century Alberta.

 

[omicron1]

While atheism itself has some rather vicious purges to its name

I'm genuinely interested, give me examples of atrocities done in the name of an absence of belief.

The wikipedia article on state atheism [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_atheism] reads like a who's who list of incidents. The French revolution, Albania during the cold war, Cuba, North Korea... I'm not surprised they aren't more widely known, though - they don't fit with the narrative.

 

[MortisLegio]

Haha, now comes the horde of angry gamers saying it's simply untrue that it's been "problematized" because religion is the most evil thing in the world.

Only, while there are crimes that religious organization are certainly guilty of, there are plenty of positive things that come out of organized religion, but I suppose we can all ignore this. I mean, there is the crusades, the Catholic/Protestant war in Ireland, the Spanish Inquisition, hate crimes against black people/asian people/jewish people/white people, etc/etc. It can go on forever. The only thing that people fail to realize is that these things exist because of social problems outside of religion, and since religion is such a big part of everyone's lives at any given point in time, it gets the finger pointed at it. It's not usually religion that is guilty of these things, it's usually people within that religion that guilty.

But, as the paper said, it is the focal point of many games. He is not incorrect in that. But, religion is not the cause of all the worlds ills like many would like to think.

wait... someone who I actually agree with? Hmm that never happens.

OT: I understand and agree with what the student was saying. I think alot of the reason religion is showed so poorly in games is because it is easy. I dont really see any perposeful malice in these games (at least the ones I've played anyway) but it seems like an easy way to have a large number of people all agree to do _______. Its kinda like...

Seriously I feel like the internet has been unwittingly and unintentionally indoctrinated into this belief that religion is evil. Extra Creditz made the point that if game designers, out of sloth/laziness, portrayed all Arabs as extremists/terrorists that it would feed into the gamer cultural psych. Using that same point, if all game plots portray religion as an violent, bigoted, narcissistic entity couldn't that feed into the gamer cultural psych?

Gamers aren't immune to being indoctrinated in this manner; nobody is.

Ninja'd

 

[ReiverCorrupter]

snip

Look, I'm not here to debate Christianity. If you want to understand us without reading holy books, go here.

I'm just trying to support positive portrayals of religion in general, not specifically Christianity. I'm not arguing things like "religious altruism is better than regular altruism" or that many horrible things have been done in the name of religion. What I am arguing for is an increase of "religious + good" characters.

Is it really so bad to have a character in a game who is clearly of a particular faith who isn't trying to oppress the world and is just a decent person who happens to be religious?

@Kimarous, it wouldn't be bad. But it probably wouldn't be terribly interesting either. A complicated protagonist is just more entertaining than someone who is one-dimensionally righteous.

@Treblaine, your argument seems to be a series of non sequiturs. First off, if someone is being good so they can get into heaven and avoid hell, then that isn't altruism because they are still self interested. Also, I don't think anyone was claiming that morality came exclusively from religion. Metaethics is complicated stuff. Honestly I think a truly objective moral system is impossible without some supernatural implications. The idea that God is the source of the 'Good' is called 'Theological Volunteerism'. This article might interest you: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/voluntarism-theological/. Ultimately I think Theological Volunteerism fails unless one commits to the more mystic conception that God doesn't command the Good, but simply is the Good. But even that theory would still be subject to a multitude of general metaphysical and epistemological objections. Another alternative is some form of Platonism where the 'Good' exists as an abstract entity and somehow supervenes upon or interacts with our physically embodied conceptions of the Good, but that is also pretty indefensible from a metaphysical and epistemological standpoint. So I would be careful about materialist views of morality because what you end up with is at best moral relativism and at worst abject nihilism or non-cognitivism.

As per the criticism of religion, I refer you back to my previous post:

Snip

 

[Dfskelleton]

Although I think religion gets tied up with violence, not because it's compelling but because it's a really easy way to explain why a character does what they do, which could be a sign of lazy story writing if handled poorly.

Bingo. Whackjob religions or political movements are usually just a lazy way to give a large group of characters motivation to do ridiculously evil things. It makes sense that it gets abused, since pretty much every single player action game needs to explain why there are thousands of people trying to kill the player character.

I had a funny thought of some guy saying:
Henchman:"Why are we blowing the moon to pieces again, along with all of the moon-fish-people on it?"
Leader:"BECAUSE THE MOON IS MADE OF HERESY, IT MUST BE PURGED!"
Then the silly idea got sad because I could easily see someone doing this.

I (as a Christian) cannot deny that Religion frequently leads to violence, but I think it's more of the people's fault than the faith itself (save for the faiths that encourage destroying those who don't believe). If more people could easily say "You believe that, I believe this, live and let live.", we probably wouldn't have so many problems about it.
The Bible says "Thou shall not kill." The Bible does not say "Thou shall not kill, as long as they believe as you do. If not, feel free to wipe them off the planet."

 

[dobahci]

I'm just trying to support positive portrayals of religion in general, not specifically Christianity. I'm not arguing things like "religious altruism is better than regular altruism" or that many horrible things have been done in the name of religion. What I am arguing for is an increase of "religious + good" characters.

Is it really so bad to have a character in a game who is clearly of a particular faith who isn't trying to oppress the world and is just a decent person who happens to be religious?

I think there's a tendency to not want to create such a character due to the fact that it might be seen as "promoting" religion (religion in general at best, one particular religion at worst). There might also be some fear that it would limit the market for the game to people who are religious, which would reduce its sales.

If you make your game center around a character who is essentially irreligious in a religious world, then you can always just stick a disclaimer at the beginning of the game ("this game was developed by a studio full of diverse individuals of all shapes, genders, colors, religions, and sexual orientations, blah blah blah") and be done with it. But if you make a game centering around a good character who is actually religious (as in, faith is an important part of their life and world view), then it wouldn't be so easy to dispel the possible criticism of bias. There would be a lot of atheist/humanist/secular gamers who just wouldn't touch it (unless the religion in question was "Jedi" in which case it's PEFECTLY FINE).

It's a bit sad, too. I say this as an atheist and someone who believes the world would be a better place with a bit less religious thinking and a bit more critical/skeptical thinking. But I think it's unfortunate that some people tend to recoil from religion as if it were a poisonous snake. Religion may have given us the crusades, but it also gave us... well, the entire canon of J. S. Bach. You could argue about just how religious Bach actually was, and people have, but anyway, the point is, there's good and bad there; religion isn't all bad. There's a lot of beauty in it too, but people tend to forget that in the adversarial climate that dominates debate.

 

[BrotherRool]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problematization

Problematization is a critical thinking and pedagogical dialogue or process and may be considered demythicisation.

I wonder did they REALLY mean to use that term, or did they just make up that term think it meant "oh, they're just MAKING problems".

I'm not sure.

I will say the central tenement of Christianity (at least) is based on violence; that is you don't follow their dogma then you will be horribly tortured for all eternity. And much violence has stemmed from that.

Hmm, the bible itself portrays it as a consequence of human action. (Choosing the wrong path) and even in describing the punishment, it's always in terms of human wrong (for instance, you used the word torture, something humans do to one another to inflict pain, as opposed to more natural descriptors) and most branches of Christianity talk about a God who is desperately trying to stop this thing happening to people, and people just shutting him off and well killing him for it.

So that;s quite an interesting little philosophical conundrum you're presenting here. If something internally presents something as a fact and then struggles against it, but from the outside can be viewed through the light of a certain persons eyes as imposing that fact. Can the dogma be described as violent, or that violence is a central tenement. Hmm pretty cool.

Anyway, don't way I know you weren't being totally serious and it's a cool little problem. Certainly the 'centralness' of the tenement is very very much from your perspective rather than the perspective of the book itself because the book has passages such as 'Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves the father loves his child as well. 2 This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out his commands. 3 In fact, this is love for God: to keep his commands. And his commands are not burdensome, 4 for everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. 5 Who is it that overcomes the world? Only the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God. '

The word hell only appears in the whole bible 15 times, comparable to helmet (12) and being soundly beaten by 'ear' (994 times). Preachers can overemphasise the point a lot and give the impression that it's a huge focus, because they try and provide context for the other side of it, but that focus isn't really there. For instance most of the after-death talk is about 'achieving eternal life' rather than talking about the flipside.

Here's an interesting illustration, Genesis, where the idea of sin is established and which contains the bits with the snake and the flood, only says this 'you must not eat the fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, for you will surely die'. Even the bit with Sodom (which talks of general sins and the citizens raping two daughters rather than what it's famous for) doesn't actually mention hell or eternal punishment.

I don't want to mislead you, hell is part of the way Christians see the world as is (although even there, there are 3 possibilities each of which has support 1. Non-existence. 2. Eternal Punishment. 3.Limited punishment then non-existence) but it's not emphasised at all and is hardly talked about. There are a couple of lines in Revelations and some more scattered elsewhere and that's it. Even the stuff about a valley-of-ever-burning-rubbish turns out to be a medieval invention and there isn't any sign that the references there is anything but generally to death. I thought you might be interested because it's one of those things not even many christians know.

 

[ph0b0s123]

While atheism itself has some rather vicious purges to its name

I'm genuinely interested, give me examples of atrocities done in the name of an absence of belief.

The wikipedia article on state atheism [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_atheism] reads like a who's who list of incidents. The French revolution, Albania during the cold war, Cuba, North Korea... I'm not surprised they aren't more widely known, though - they don't fit with the narrative.

So by that logic any atrocity carried out be a state that supports religion is due to religion.....

O/T: How is this a study and not an opinion piece carried out by a journalism student? I am failing to see the science an statistics usually underlying what we normally refer to as a 'study'.

Other than that where is the one about how other media treats religion?

 

[Tiger Sora]

My head hurts from all the face palming I just did.

I'll say this though before I continue to hit myself into unconsciousness.

Religion brought violence and murder to the extreme. What video games portray is but a spec on the cloth stained in blood. Try solving the main problem kid, instead of perusing some half assed idea of touching the "apparent hot button" issue in pursuit of your doctorate. Try some real journalism.

Ohh one more thing. I hear they hire people like you at Fox. Shwing.

 

[SnakeoilSage]

Odd. He goes to all that trouble pointing out that video games (not to mention movies, books, TV shows, and religions) depict religion as violent, without adding that many video games do make "faith" an important value for a character to have.

 

[Treblaine]

snip

Look, I'm not here to debate Christianity. If you want to understand us without reading holy books, go here.

I'm just trying to support positive portrayals of religion in general, not specifically Christianity. I'm not arguing things like "religious altruism is better than regular altruism" or that many horrible things have been done in the name of religion. What I am arguing for is an increase of "religious + good" characters.

Is it really so bad to have a character in a game who is clearly of a particular faith who isn't trying to oppress the world and is just a decent person who happens to be religious?

Why should I want to understand Christian lore more than Islam lore or Dianetics of Scientology? I am interested in Christian lore only in so much as it affect my society and legislation, more often than not for the negative.

You know I can think of several reasons why religion is not imbued on heroic characters, and main is a matter of WHICH religion! You can't even narrow down to Christianity as there are so many denominations within it which alienate people more than if the character literally came from another planet. Nothing like specific disagreements.

Would you really be happy taking on the role of a practising Muslim or one who is completely silent on the issue of religion. How about a Scientologist? Or are you REALLY more hoping for a Christian one.

Even taken for a given that the main target audience will be most familiar with protestant Christianity there is such a large proportion who have had negative experiences such as those interminable Sunday School lessons, wasting their valuable weekend with dogma of Noah's ark and other ridiculous and unrelatable stories. And of course, Westbro Baptist Church always being in the news quoting the bible literally, why would anyone want to have anything to do with that?

And of course religion is all about the invisible. All religions are based on how there is absolutely no tangible evidence, maybe some magic tricks thrown in. But a video game you aren't tried down by such lame reality. IF you are going to have something kinda religious in a game, make it a REAL religion. I.e. summon actual angels and demons in combat, and fight for a tangible god against the actual devil. You see this with God of War, possible only because all the practitioners of Greek Idol Worship are long dead (1st (or second, depending on version) commandment doing it's deed) can this be re-interpreted literally within the fiction.

And of course, another huge reason: Religious terrorism.

It's crusading if it positively depicts one real religion. It's religious persecution if it vilifies one particular religion. And this is shit artists tend to not want to have to deal with so they get around it by making fictional religions that comments on the very concept of religion without dragging in people's particular beliefs for or against on particular mythology.

But I think the main reason is that if you actually make the protagonist religious, that a huge proportion will just think the protagonist is a gullible idiot for believing in such things. Like being genuinely paranoid about breaking a mirror for 7 years bad luck, it comes across to many as superstitious.

Safe bet is NOT to make your protagonist afraid of some invisible sky man who they've never experienced and was just told about in Sunday School.

 

[KefkaCultist]

I haven't read all the comments because I have homework to do, so I'm pretty sure this has been said, but...

I'm pretty sure that the one "problematizing" religion is religion itself.

 

[Blind Sight]

While atheism itself has some rather vicious purges to its name

I'm genuinely interested, give me examples of atrocities done in the name of an absence of belief.

The wikipedia article on state atheism [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_atheism] reads like a who's who list of incidents. The French revolution, Albania during the cold war, Cuba, North Korea... I'm not surprised they aren't more widely known, though - they don't fit with the narrative.

Have any examples that aren't based around fanatical belief in a political institution, but on an actual lack of belief?

Examples:
French Revolution: Radical leftist Jacobins aiming for collectivist republican values, see religion as a threat to what essentially becomes state-worship.
Mexico: Ruled by a member party of Socialist International for seventy years, based around 'democracy for the workers'.
Albania: Communism, and Hoxha, who was aiming for a cult of personality.
Czechoslovakia: Communism
Soviet Union: Stalinist interpretation of Marxism, cult of personality around Stalin (later lightened in the Khrushchev era)
People's Republic of China: Maoist interpretation of Marxist-Leninism, cult of personality centred around Mao Tse Tung.
Cambodia: Complete restructuring of Cambodian society to agrarian values due to the conflict with Western imperialism, children taught complete devotion to the Khmer Rouge.
Mongolia: Also Stalinist.
Cuba: Push towards a secularist state, violence minimal, restrictions on religion minimal. Has to do with Castro using communism in a nationalist perspective rather then fanatically devoting himself to it.
North Korea: State-worship and worship of Kim Il-Sung/Kim Jong-Il/probably Kim Jong-un soon enough.

Don't get me wrong, I think that a complete focus on religion as the cause for the majority of human conflicts often underplays the effects of other factors, but all the examples you gave are all based on the fanatical devotion to some brand of leftism, which you could argue is a religion in itself. None of your examples are a logical challenge to modern-day rational atheism and its complete rejection of fanaticism. Instead you're arguing against irrational atheism driven by a fanatical, faith-driven belief in something other then religion.

 

[Evilpigeon]

While atheism itself has some rather vicious purges to its name

I'm genuinely interested, give me examples of atrocities done in the name of an absence of belief.

Marxism has a lot of associations with atheism. Stalin's purges of religious believers in Georgia and Poland are the most obvious case that comes to mind, but the problem there is that if you're discussing atheism in terms a 'rationalist atheist' perspective (i.e. the modern day push for a logical deduction of reality) it largely fails because said purges were based around another dogmatic, largely faith-driven system: Communism. North Korea comes up in these arguments a lot too, but once again, it fails because it does not focus on the root case: a fanatical belief in something, which rational atheism (well at least people who understand what rational atheism is, as opposed to irrational atheism) rejects.

Also don't let anyone tell you Hitler was an atheist, historians are still debating Hitler's religious attitudes. Mein Kampf has a lot of references to God in it, but I think that later actions by Hitler push him away from Catholicism towards a more deitist approach centred around Aryan mysticism (based on the documents I've read).

People also like to chalk up eugenics to atheism and science in general, the problem with that is that most fail to actually look at eugenics origins: support initially emerged from rural, religious populations who were used to concepts such as animal husbandry. Not only is eugenics more based on social alienation of the lunatic fringe then actual science, but many of its proponents were actually religious. Some excellent examples are the late 19th century eugenics movement that emerged in America from the progressive movement (which wasn't atheistic by a long shot) and the eugenics legislation in 20th century Alberta.

Thanks for writing my reply for me, I'd have had to go look stuff up to come up with some of this, though I did try to word my statement to avoid the communism accusations.

The wikipedia article on state atheism [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_atheism] reads like a who's who list of incidents. The French revolution, Albania during the cold war, Cuba, North Korea... I'm not surprised they aren't more widely known, though - they don't fit with the narrative.

Thing is, Communism became a belief in the same way as the various religions. I would class the persecutions in the same way as I would those done in the name of a religion. I'll agree on the French revolution however, a terrible backlash to the power the Church had had in France up until that point, same as happened to the French nobility. It was like the American revolution gone wrong, same ideals mixed in with several hundred years of oppression at the same of people who were in close proximity after they'd won.

 

[Sandytimeman]

I can't seem to recall the correct verse but in Deuteronomy in the Old testament there is detailed instructions on how to rape and marry a woman against her will.

Hey bro. Bro! Bro! Guess what bro? Did you know that during wars, a lot of rape happens? Like, tons?
This was to set up a precedent for marriage, rather than rape. Of course the woman's feelings aren't taken into account, 1) because she's a prisoner, and 2) because you're assuming she would be against the whole idea.

You're forgetting that whenever one country conquered another, it's women were ALWAYS sold as slaves and prositutes. The prisoners would know this very well, so marriage would no doubt be an easy way out for them. That said there would be cases of marital rape, of course.
Just like there were cases of marital rape all around the world, and lots of cases of rape and murder by soldiers - like there is in every single war since the beginning of time.

You have a Fox News vs. Videogames view of the Bible - you take everything out of context, act like it lets you do the most unspeakable acts, and then bash it for it like the narrow minded scum that you are.

it's pretty funny their are also verses that say the sun orbits around the earth.
"The earth is fixed at (or near) the center of the universe. The sun and other planets travel around it. That is what the Bible plainly says [Ps. 93:1, Ps. 19:1-6, Joshua 10:12-14] and what the evidence indicates. "

I call bullshit.

Guess why:

1) The LORD reigneth, he is clothed with majesty; the LORD is clothed with strength, wherewith he hath girded himself: the world also is stablished, that it cannot be moved. Ps. 93:1

2) (The sun) His going forth is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it: and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof. Psalm 19:6

3) And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day. Joshua 10:13


These are your precious evidence, right? Congratulations, retard, you just read too much into the Bible - if you were a theologian you would be laughed out of your job.

1) The world is established - cannot be moved, just means you can't fuck with it cos it's too big and heavy. Not that it literally doesn't move in space. Cannot be moved =/= does not move.

2) At first glance this seems to be saying the sun orbits the earth. Except that's first glance from a narrow minded retard - who doesn't bother to actually evaluate it on it's own merits. It's obviously talking about the sun from a perspective of someone on the earth. To someone on the earth, it clearly looks like the Sun goes round the earth - it moves from East to West, and it's only if you become an astronomer that you realize the difference.
This isn't a problem with the Bible, this is a problem of perspective on a completely normal scientific issue.

3) This was classed as a special miracle. The sun didn't move in the sky for a whole day. So what. A miracle is a miracle. That's another problem for another day.

Check all that apply.

[ ] Correct after all
[ ] Had indisputable evidence
[X] Pwned
[X] Told like a *****

Check all that apply

[x]called out on some sketchy interpretations
[ ] proved that the bible doesn't support the rape of women

 

[Kimarous]

Natter

My, you do like to rant. None of that has to do with anything I'm asking.

What is wrong with having a religion or religious character, not even the protagonist, and perhaps not even central to the plot, serve as a non-antagonistic and even helpful force in a game? Are you really so bigoted against EVERY SINGLE RELIGION, EXISTING OR NOT, that this seems like an absurd and offensive concept?