God loves slaughter. Never mind that stuff we tell you about Jesus and love-thy-neighbor; God not only likes you to kill, he'll sometimes hate you if you don't. I'm not just talking about the battle of Jericho, I'm talking about God II, Deus Ex Video, the shoot'em up game called Halo.
Microsoft's latest version hit $300,000,000 in sales in its first two weeks and at first glance, you'd think it was the sort of thing that Fundamentalists as well as actual Christians would hate. It not only takes place in worlds the Bible does not discuss, but it's all about the thrill of killing and kids love the wanton destruction of life so much they'll put up with lectures about God and his upcoming first person shooter called Armageddon. Even more so if there's free pizza.
This morning's Times tells us about the hundreds of Churches around the country offering free access to the violent video game on big screen TVs to lure kids into indoctrination. In Denver, the Colorado Community Church uses the joy of wholesale slaughter to lure pre-teens. “We want to make it hard for teenagers to go to hell,” says the youth minister. Of course other Churchmen are raising holy hell, metaphorically speaking. “If you want to connect with young teenage boys and drag them into church, free alcohol and pornographic movies would do it,” said James Tonkowich, president of the Institute on Religion and Democracy and he's right.
Of course this is America and what makes money is what is right and the business of religion is business and if it gets asses onto church pews and donations onto the plate it's good. All that's needed is a better video game more in line with the Bible; its drownings, burnings, stonings, floggings, hangings and disembowelments. Why go looking for alien worlds when you have all the mayhem you need right there? As for going to hell, Microsoft is planning to release that one for the X-Box in time for Christmas.
Cross posted to The Reaction.
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2 comments:
MS really does need to make a game based on the old testament.
What would be interesting would be the resultant contraversy of rating the game... Those that scream for the "Violent, adult content" rating on "other" games would likely be silent if the victims of torture, genocide and whole-sale slaughter were the original inhabitants of the land of Canaan.
I take your point but I'm not sure anyone knows who the original inhabitants were. Several disciplines tell us the Philistines and the Hebrews were essentially the same people and there is no evidence of any violent influx of Egyptian ex-slaves into Jericho or the area in general. I think it's likely that the biblical accounts were written no earlier than the 7th century BCE and reflect the political needs of the writers to unite a disunited people with tales of a glorious past.
Whether the "original" Egyptians, the Hittites, the Hyksos, the Nubians, the philistines, the Ammonites, the Greeks, the Romans, the Persians, the Babylonians or the mysterious "sea people" and all the others who swept through the area were good guys or bad guys is entirely subjective.
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