• Pence warns christian graduates "prepare to be ridiculed and shunned".
    77 replies, posted
Honestly the lack of half decent video games that are even based off of Christianity is really, really strange. We have Darksiders, Dante's Inferno, and that's about it. Castlevania (the heroes use crosses and bibles so I guess it counts!) but that's a stretch. It makes one wonder why do good video game developers avoid Christian mythology like the plague? Is it fear of controversy? I don't count Bayonetta because it's based specifically in a non-Christian universe, and the various games like Devil May Cry, Doom, and others that use demons and hell don't really count either in my book (In DMC it's been specifically stated by Kamiya, I think, that there is no heaven or angels). Aside from the 3 series I mentioned, Christian games or games based on Christianity have all been complete and utter garbage. We have plenty of great books and movies based on Christian mythology. Is the problem that the parts of Christian mythology that are conflict-oriented enough to make an interesting video game are also way too fucked up to actually be made into a video game?
To be fair, I can't think of any video games derived from Islam, Hinduism, Shinto, or any other religion practiced in the modern day.
You can find a lot of examples of this in Japanese media (anime/manga/video games). They love to spin off Christianity for material.
For Shinto, Okami and Nioh seem like two obvious examples to me. Even if they aren't retellings of Shinto mythology (which Okami, by the way, comes close) they're very strongly based on the concepts and mythology of the religion, much more than a game like Castlevania is to Christianity (and remember, I counted Castlevania as a Christian game). I'd say any game featuring Yokai could count but if I was to do that I might as well count any game with demons as a Christian game. Hinduism has Asura's Wrath, by the way (and I know that's only one game). I don't know of any for Islam though.
"The freedom of religion is under assault, because now you might run into someone with a different religious belief than you. They might even try criticizing your belief or trying to convert you! The audacity of someone non-christian doing that to someone christian!" El Shaddai is based on some of the more obscure parts of Judaism / the Old Testament. It's pretty fun. It obviously takes a lot of liberties with the source material, and it definitely has its flaws. But it's fun. It's a pretty artsy game, too.
Rise up Christian gamers, but only on the third day.
Shin Megami Tensei and Person pull from every religion under the sun if that counts.
Halo had a lot of christian references among other things.
Most western devs steer away from such heavy subject manner (it says a lot that one of the most religious triple-A games was Dante's Inferno, which reveled in its gore and dark matter in a very fantasy-like fashion), and the Japanese pretty much treat it like a cool thematic backbone that they rarely play straight and it's mostly just cool christian-themed stuff for the sake of it.
Those poor, poor Christians who look at me as if I had three heads when I tell them I'm not religious, how awkward life must be for them in these troubling times.
https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/279792/2e7a1b87-d756-482a-a473-086fc3d2438b/image.png I mean, maybe, but not for long.
Depends how often the retain those beliefs throughout their lives. I was virtually irreligious at 16-18 and now at 29, am a practicing Christian.
The Legend of Zelda had strong Christianity themes that were censored out in the west and eventually eliminated, overall. Although retconned in revisions, Ocarina of Time had a more noticeable Christianity vs Islam theme, originally, such as the Gerudo symbol being a star and crescent: https://tcrf.net/images/3/3c/OOT_GerudoSymbol1.png https://tcrf.net/images/9/9f/OOT_GerudoSymbol2.png The Magic Book is straight up called the Bible in Japan, as well, and Link has a cross on his shield in earlier titles. The Final Fantasy series also has a lot of Christianity vibes in the SNES titles that were censored by NoA and NoE in the west. Considering that the west often doesn't realize that both FF and LoZ had strong religious themes in their original forms suggests their censorship worked.
Christians were a persecuted group once and because a lot of the new testament epistles talks about that persecution and those epistles are the basis of a lot of sermon the thought "we are persecuted" unfortunately works itself into the Christian mindset. Of course, if you are a believer in more of a social reform Jesus you may still be persecuted. Nu-uh, faith not works. I quote Matthew 25:31-46 but cut out 35-40 and also 42-45. Christianity was actually supposed to be the official religion of Hyrule at one point in the series development. There is even official artwork of Link praying at a crucifix. https://zelda.fandom.com/wiki/Christianity I would say on the whole this game is about as Christian as the Castlevania series. It is a set-piece more than anything else and I can´t think of a single christian denomination where absolution works even remotely how this game portrays it. Spoilers: Near the end of the game Dante turns out to have been dead all along and uses the power of the souls he has saved to absolve himself Also I was on the phone and thus saw "Pence warns christian graduates "prepare to be r" and expected it to be "Prepare to be raptured, this generation for sure!" and the students wold be all "Wahey we don´t have to pay our student loans, gottem. Thanks based Jesus!"
Your post was mostly good up until you implied that Christianity in of itself is comparable ISIS. No. Certain forms of it, for sure. But like fundamentalist Islam, Christianity that justifies these atrocities is a perversion of the faith and, frankly, is not supported by their actual damn holy text. Trust me, I used to read my bible, so I know this shit - just as much as I trust progressive Muslims who explain how the Koran does not justify ISIS. Jesus specifically said to stay out of politics, and he said nothing about converting people by force. The bible also says faith without works is dead, so people who claim to be christian but practice evil are liars. What evangelicals here in this country are doing has basically nothing in common with the faith early Christians shared - or for that matter, the faith Christians practice in countries where they are a persecuted minority. (Ex: China) The total perversion started with Constantine making Christianity a state religion, and its been downhill ever since - but there have always been self-identified Christians who have stood against every atrocity committed by others who claim the mantle of Christ, from abolitionists to that theologian who tried to assassinate Hitler even as most of his fellow German chirstians stood with the naizs. That the majority of christians in history have been shitty is completely unsurprising, because the majority of humans as a whole have been shitty. Christianity and other religions are just one tool that people use to justify being assholes. But its far from the only one.
It's not, and suggesting Christianity has the same relationship to liberalism as Islam does just isn't accurate. I get people do this because they see the historical pairing of the first two as now a burden on the latter, it's written all over the response to 'thoughts and prayers', but this is just another example of ideologically-motivated distortion.
Looks pretty damn similar to me.
I stick by my opinion.
https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/279792/6204ed6f-6e42-440e-9272-7d6842ad95d1/image.png (Netherlands) It hasn't really been the trend in any country I've seen to just have it be age determining; it's generational cohort gradually trending toward irreligion over time in western european and US/Canada.
Maybe in your history, which I've said before to you is not a model, but not in the English-speaking world. Everyone from de Tocqueville to Marx have noted how Christianity accompanied liberalism and actively facilitated its rise. Judaism had a similar relationship. Hitler accordingly maligned Christianity as weak in relation to Islam, which is one reason that 'Harvard-educated' list is as dishonest as the guy who tweeted it. That interaction between Christianity and liberalism is one of the foundations of Western liberal-conservatism, and the contempt expressed towards the more parochial and religious parts of the country have less to do with liberalism and more with progressivism, which has always been guilty of vulgar modernism. That's one reason I don't confuse it with socialism for the record, so it's not a swipe at you unless you want it to be. If you want something to read on cultural conflict under capitalism and how it relates to conflicting takes on liberalism, check out Daniel Bell's 'Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism'.
You forgot the most important part of the term ((coastal elites)).
I believe religion is a natural extension of how human cultures work; it isn't inherent to them, but it arises as an idea to fill gaps in knowledge and provide cultural norms and traditions. Ideologies of any kind can do this, and I don't necessarily believe all the xenophobic genocides in the name of religion wouldn'tve happened under some other ideological framework used by countries lacking sufficient knowledge/respect for human rights during human history. I am an atheist and disapprove of religion in general, and in modern times and I think it's fairly harmful. But in the old days, as a force organizing societal mythologies (anthropologically speak every culture, religious or not, has mythologies) it was an important human tool for social organization; even if we have better ones now. The key flaw with it is the level of orthodoxy around the social guidelines it has; rigid social norms which delineated social division lines that are often very oppressive.
It's a weird side effect of Nintendo of America's censorship policy, they basically only tried to hide religious imagery that they expected American kids to recognize (or that they themselves recognized). Final Fantasy is a very good example of this because it, like a lot of JRPGs, essentially draws on a mishmosh of different religions for its themes and imagery, but Nintendo made them scrub out the Christian stuff specifically in the west, but not the Hindu, Shinto, or Norse stuff.
Religion is the old "sky cake" dodge; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55h1FO8V_3w
I missed your posts filled with substance less instances of invoking jargon.
Lmao, you're still rambling about this after getting BTFO'd multiple times? What's with that obsession, did a Frenchman sleep with your wife or something? But please, do elaborate. So, sort of like Islam during its golden age? Literally "you know who else liked Islam? Hitler!". You'd think that sort of argument would stay relegated to satire, but nope. Poe's law in action, folks. Really curious about how this invalidates the aforementioned, historically-backed list. Translation: Christianity has a significant influence on the ideology of those who want to deregulate the economy and want to enforce their bigoted standards on the rest of society (aka liberal-conservatives) and the left-leaning US population have more of a problem with the bigotry part than with the deregulation part when it comes to Christian influence. Like, yeah, no shit? What's your point there, other than trying to muddy the waters by conflating cultural liberalism with economic liberalism? How does that invalidate the pattern shown in that list? In fact, it strengthens it because it points out that Christian beliefs are a significant motivation for the enforcement of policies that violate human rights, like we see in the US with anti-abortion laws and resistance to gay marriage initiatives, among many other things.
You tried to suggest in a debate on the EC that my arguments weren't grounded in liberalism or were right wing. You also said our left is your right. I explained to you that us talking past each other on these things related to different political traditions that go back a long time. Religion is yet another example, with only your country having the kind of militant anti-clericalism we've seen. You didn't BTFO me. You post angry and ignorant vitriol and I give you explanations in reply that you don't read, since you treat this like a tweet thread where the point is to butt heads and play to a crowd. I've given you multiple chances to treat me this as more than just an opportunity to show everyone how militant you are. That's why I gave you the books, they're more detailed and you won't be too angsty to read them since you're not talking to me.
Right, right, so you're the one that brings up my country here out of the blue, and claims it's no "model". You're the one that's repeatedly tried to portray it as some sort of socialist failed state in a way only a caricature of an American would have. But sure, I'm the one who's petty and shoehorns unrelated debate where they don't belong. Just because I don't write my posts like I'm playing a game of scrabble doesn't mean they're ignorant. I'm curious how you managed to reach the conclusion that I don't read your "explanations" considering I explicitly quoted them and addressed them, demonstrated that they were either poor or irrelevant. Meanwhile, your post here doesn't even acknowledge my rebuttals nor does it seek to counter them. Instead, it's solely dedicated to criticizing my tone and project motives onto me. Who's the one treating this like a twitter thread again? Sorry for not being interested in the literary sources of some unconvincing guy who so far hasn't managed to demonstrate the relevance of his deeply buried point with the topic at hand.
You're just channeling Ben Shapiro right now. Is this all the ideological right wing has to offer now? Whataboutism and unrelated claims and ignoring the actual statements your interlocutor made?
This is a really good example. Yes, I explained why you already burned your credibility with me. I only replied to the other guy and to give you my input on why you might assume Christianity and Islam have the same relationship to liberalism. I'm not debating you, I think it's a waste of time. Why don't you look up at least a synopsis for what I recommended you?
Sorry, you need to Log In to post a reply to this thread.