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April 07, 2004
The Passion of Games
Matt Sakey's latest <a href="http://www.igda.org/columns/clash/clash_Apr04.php">Culture Clash column on games and religion</a> really resonates with me. He covers the often hypocritical nature of peaceful religions and violence in the name of that same religion. What's further interesting is that much of the backlash games take comes from those acting from a (supposed) higher morale standing...
I went to see <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0335345/">The Passion of the Christ</a> and thought it was an excellent film. Very intense. Very violent. It had an authentic feel to it (certainly the Aramaic script helped). Yet, despite the gruesomeness, the extreme violence only scratches the surface of what is described in the Bible. Oddly enough, my father refuses to watch the film as he does not want "Hollywood explosions" to interfere with his personal interpretations of the Passion - or at least, how the local church has nicely described it. Odder still, I got church spam encouraging me to "take your family to watch this film and discuss" and pointing me to a <a href="http://passion.catholicexchange.com/">Passion outreach site</a>...
I could go on about games, religion, violence, but should probably stop...
In related news, a recent Wired article trumps all the above by describing a tech/game project that will <a href="http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.04/holyland.html">bring peace and/or Armageddon to the world</a>. Crazy stuff.
Posted by della at April 7, 2004 04:19 PM
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Comments
I love this kind of stuff. No, wait. Hate. One or the other.
Hey, I've got an idea - let's see how quickly we can end the world!! Wouldn't that be COOL?
What, are you INSANE???
After the hologram doesn't bring about the end of the world, I suppose someone could accidentally drop the giant holographic cube onto the current temple, oopsie, *crunch*. And then they could say that the temple was ON the site. And then when THAT didn't bring about the end of the world, we could have a huge holy war over it and all kill each other. Now wouldn't that be great.
What a bunch of maroons.
This craziness is one of many reasons why we should be vigilant about the separation between church and state in the U.S. I certainly don't relish the opportunity to play a side in this religious game just because of where I live. Yeesh.
Posted by: madsax at April 7, 2004 05:08 PM