Y'know people fight enough over games without religion stepping into the mix.

I can already see another bible fight brewing and the main instigator hasnt even fired his rhetoric off yet. I mean im all for people defending their belifs but its not gonna work over the internet. You can't convince another who does not wish to belive what he is told after all.

Will the kids stay in church once halo is taken away and replaced with bible study? who knows.

Im not fond of the language they use though. Makes them sound a bit evil to be honest withrefering to teenagers as fish and how they're being creative in baiting their hooks. If the teens were really interested in faith the whole jesus malarky would have gotten them through the door in the first place.

Its nice to see Christianity in the news try and "understand" a great work of fiction and not rally the book burners over it, this is the what the real religion is not the brain washed brain eating horde the antis claim them to be.

You can see parallels in more works of fiction sure sometimes they are random but then so is life, hatign is over rated let everyone start finding things we can enjoy together, and sometimes if not at least in separate rooms.

Oh I jsut recalled I was part of a chruch based scout like group when I was young we had acouple outings one was a sleep over and we of 13-15 watched some R based action and martial arts flicks and and played on my NES with 12 games LOL.
(I am 30ish now BTW :P)

So again its not the chruch is evil its sometimes it trumps itself up to be, some staffers are so anal some are normal and care about fun and stuff,gota remember people the media hates US gamers and the chruch goers as well we both get the bad light put on us!

@Abadox50

You assume all these churches did that in the first place. The number of churches that are independent and not affiliated with any specific sect of Christianity are increasing.

Few of them bother to do things like condemn harry potter as satanic, and most of them couldn't give a flying fuck about what the pope thinks.

Yet another cynical sickening move from a religion that really struggles to deal with it's increasing irrelevance and decreasing power and influence in the modern world.

Christians can not handle an unbiased and fair consideration of their holy text. I'm sorry if your religious tradition is mired with hate, murder, and threats! Do not get so offended when someone simply puts out the values clearly stated in the Bible. Your "God" is a ficticious bully who makes Hitler and Stalin look like saints.

More and more kids are starting to wake up and realize the lie that is Christian superstition. This is why we see ministries utilizing highly secular forms of entertainment -- even when the entertainment contradicts revelation -- to keep children in the Church. Indoctrinating a child in Christian lies a young age is vital: once the mind is sharp and free of parental authority, wise individuals (who were not indoctrinated) will seek the truth. Christianity cannot stand by the merit of its own claims; so, I'm not surprised to see Churches doing everything they can to violate the mental agency of children while they are still young.


@Coravin

You were a smart kidd. That's great. But most children can hardly name a single gospel, or understand a full episode of spongebob. Even then, you're asking a child to abstract from a level of philosophical inquiry that is among the most challenging, difficult, and theoretical in all knowledge. And, on top of this, the child is usually guided under the presumption that all other religions are false and under the threat of eternal torture.

And, yes, Christ is modeled off a vidictive bronze age war god (I will NOT stop using this perfectly descrptive term). I suggest you re-read the book of Mark; Christ does not object the OT, his validity is derived from such superstition.

Supported by real life? Lol, okay. Sure! People see individuals walk on water, rise from the dead, commune with burning bushes, construct arks large enough to hold 23 billion species, and evoke the other insane supernatural claims of superstition every single day. Again, Christians seem to be so deluded in their indocrination that they are simply devoid of fact, inquiry, and reason.

As a literay work, the tomb of superstition is rife with contradictions, messages of hate, and is clearly the work of dozens, completely different, authors. As such, your religion does not stand up to unbias critcism, amounting to little more than a pile of functionless superstition. The text is hardly worth consideration as a work of fiction. Assuming it contain any fraction of the truth is absolutely insane.

@ Pandralisk

Ha ha, you are funny. Religion's base principle is free will. We choose to believe, you don't. We're okay with you not believing, but you aren't okay with us believing. S'okay. Be cool, man. You are free to believe what you want.

See, our God even has you covered there... He already gave you free will whether you want it or not.

Too funny.

Master chief > Jesus...... Wait I think I got that reversed....

LOL,
well at least it's fun.

[...] admin wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptEach commercial ends with the word, “Believe”. Gospel parallels anyone? I don’t mean to say by this that Halo 3 is a Christian video game… this is yet another example of what JRR Tolkien used to call “the one story.” [...]

"If you want to connect with young teenage boys and drag them into church, free ALCOHOL and pornographic movies would do it. My own take is you can do better than that."

Like communion perhaps?

sorry that was kind hitting below the belt

Let us take a moment to imagine how Pandralisk will twist this one around.
Also, we should try and guess at what new things he will accuse God of being this time, claiming that the Bible backs it up.

I'm going for 'Hooker', 'Racist' and 'rapist'.

I like it sort of. It kinda feels like when your parents try to act cool and compaire there things to yours.

I still don't see why this is a problem...anywhere. Like the military recruiters from a week ago, every organization that wants to attract people has to stay up with the times. People's fads change, interests change, and so any sort of marketing (even if it is military recruitment or church attendance) has to adapt. It's just them getting a foot in the door. Ultimately it's still up to the individual whether to continue with the marketing, or to just indulge themselves in playing the game the one time.

SlyFox:

I think it is more about the images. Take Spider-Man 2. When he stops the train from crashing into the river, he is carried on his back, in the position of Christ on the cross back inside. Basic images like this are used all the time. Now this doesn't mean that Master Chief is the second coming of Christ (My god I'm laughing as I write this) but it is kind of like the saying. "There are only 7 different types of stories to tell and every story since those 7 has been a rip off of those originals."

Not that I necessarily believe that, but still the thought of a pastor saying "Master Chief died for your sins." is pretty amusing.

Master Chief......represents Jesus ?
I didn't see this coming.

And forgive me for being ignorent but who's Pandralisk?

@ Sean

I guess that would have been popular culture of the day.

I guess my point was, that Jesus never advertised story telling sessions as a disguise to share a gospel message.

well at least they aren't trying to use the Left Behind games...

and the parables of Jesus (just like the fables of Aesop, etc etc) were storytelling sessions disguising a message. whether you believe in the tale itself isn't the issue, it's getting the moral that matters.

Im not much for "recruiting" people... but that priest is a lot cooler than most religious authorities i can think of.

@raziel

Pandralisk is one of the commentators on the iste, he is respected by . . . absolutely no one. He is very annoying and he goes on and on about Chrisitianity worships a bronze age God and is full of hate mongerers, freaks and is the source of all the worlds problems. Basically he is the type of person that gives atheists a bad name. Oh and he never listens to reason but keeps repeating the same stuff over and over.

Anyway as long as these guys don't get upset if they don't get as many converts as they thought then this is fine.

Just for kicks, if you live in New York expect to see this guy on the street corner

"REPENT SINNERS!!! MASTER CHIEF IS THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST!!! FOR HE WIELDS A FLAMING ENERGY SWORD OF BLUE AND RIDES THE WARTHOG OF DEATH!!! REPENT YOUR n00b WAYS!!!

I'm having way to much fun with this. I'm probably going to hell now.

Actually it doesn't sound like a bad idea. The keyword is Sound, but I really don't have anything against it otherwise.

What would this make Mario then? Moses?

Where is Jack Thompson on THIS issue??!!?

I don't have much problem with a 16-17 year old playing Halo3 and I don't even have a problem with the Church or the military exploiting its popularity for their own agendas, but I DO have a problem in that it's outrageously hypocritical of those who speak out against this behavior and then don't when it's their 'buddies' doing it.

the 1st amendment is in grave danger, people!

why doesn't Jack Thompson setup a 'sting' with his son to attend one of these Christian Halo Lan parties or send him into an Army recruiting center to see if he can play Halo3 while being too young. Probably because he knows there's a chance to lose his son to one of these organizations - there's no real danger of that in sending him into Target or Walmart. /disgusted

@Kirk:

Well, I'm in. I bet I can get the ragged, beardy look down. I'm not sure what icon represents the Master Chief appropriately, that would not cause trouble on a public street corner, though.

Hmmmm....-_-; Not to offend anyone religious but this just sounds wrong. Mabye its because I'm an atheist.

@Kincry

I think he's on holiday..

Wait.. what if this starts a "Cult of Halo" Outside of Xbox Live? They'll be at the TV's all day, slaves to the Bungie Monster! Western Society will collapse and then.. THE REDS ARE COMING!!

++COMMS BEGIN++

Seeds are sown. Advancing world domination plan through use of nut. Russia will rise again. And RAY is the key!

++COMMS END++

(Can anyone else see that happening in Lubyanka?)

Shortened my name again. Just incase anyone actually cares..

I'm a Christian, and I play Halo with other Christians all the time. In fact, years ago, I used to help mentor kids in my church's youth group, and we would have almost monthly LAN get-togethers. A few we even had inside the church itself, playing on the gigantic projection screens in the sanctuary. (The pastor caught wind of it eventually, and asked us to stop doing it inside the church. Understandable.)

Don't lump all Christians together. Some of us know what we're doing. ;)

Don't you love Hypocrisy?

@ZippyDSMlee

Duly noted. Didn't really help but thank you.

Sorry for triple post.


We played halo3 at it till 7am.

Odd one of my posts isn't there and I can't repost it because its there....

SO DOES TO FRANCE!!

KGB why the hell are cluttering up the thread?

Lets see here.

Picture of the Last Super

Jesus-Master Chief
Jeudas- Sonic?

Help me out here guys.

Generally, I feel that people have a right to believe whatever they want to believe but I can't help but point out the hypocrisy in this. They'll go out of their way to find Christian themes in Halo but they condemn the Harry Potter books for being satanic without having actually read them?

Then again, the same churches will probably jump on that bandwagon as well to attract more of the youth group (and by that, I mean finding Christian themes in Harry Potter). I wonder if the Pope will condemn this tactic.

@brokenscope

I admit, that was a pretty broad generalization and I've noticed that particular trend myself now that you mention it.

Churches doing this are ignoring some of their chief tenants. Morality issues aside, doing a passive advertising like this isn't quite the evangelizing Jesus was talking about. In stead of trying to get the people to go to them, they should go to the people. They don't because it is hard work. That one of the reasons why their numbers are dwindling.

In the end, using a violent video game, no matter how cartoonish, to promote the message of the "Prince of Peace" is quite contradictory and hypocritical. But then, so are so many church policies.

This is old news to me, my church has had Halo 1 since it got it's first XBox and someone's brought in Halo 2 for about a year now. It's so popular tourneys are organized often. They DO point out alot of things in the games that relate to biblical things, and it's just a grand ole time. Good to see my church isn't the only one using Halo in such a cool way. :)

Besides, it's not so much they have hidden references to the Bible in the game, more the unimaginative designers just ripped off the Bible.

Yeesh, what is with all the Christianity-bashing. Did God kill your kitten or something?

What's ironic is that Halo's story arc revolves around misguided faith and that the game is littered with Christian references (The Ark, The Flood, etc)

@brokenscope

"I didn’t realize that the church of England was in the United states too."

Yes it is, actually. They only use the term "Episcopalian" though, and aren't very big with attendance, but they are under the Archbishop of Canterbury like any Church of England denomination. They've made the news recently when they ordained a homosexual bishop and some of the denominations left and joined under the Nigerian and Rwandan archbishops so I guess those can be called "Church of England" for real now, only from African diocese.

They're also known for running a lot of private schools. I attended two of them, although few of the students or teachers were members of the corresponding church. My understanding is that they've lost membership to newer, more active or evangelical churches. They're also pretty liberal so I suppose its mostly just the "elderly" rather than the zealot (per Yuki's post). But each denomination is pretty independent.

As far as any controversy based on the above article it's sort of a non-issue outside of Christian circles. As posted above this kind of thing is pretty common. I guess the Quakers might be the main objectors, but I've only ever known one Quaker before (a principal at one of those Episcopal schools) and he was mean as a snake.

@ Chadachaha

Indeed. But it would probably create just as many. For science knows no morality. And if we did follow science like a religion, we would be asking 'Whether or not one could', we would never ask 'Whether or not one should."

And besides, it's not religion has no use. It has always been about control, for better or worse. The problem with religion isn't so much with the scripture itself (most of the time at least, some of the Word can be horrible), but with the interpretation and application of it. A fundamentalist athesit is much worse than a modorate Christian.

@ Internet Hate Machine

A fundamentalist anyone is much worse than a moderate anything.

@ Mr Electric

Aye.

@Internet Hate Machine

More religion != more morals

Plenty of people without religion are good, kind, etc., and plenty of religious people are jerks and evil. One does not necessarily follow the other. I'm dealing with a family member right now that has serious anger and social problems stemming from a mental disorder. He became religious, and now he's nearly legally a "danger to himself and others" because, on top of everything else, he believes that God has a "special plan" for him that may, but has not yet, including "smiting the wicked."

I know, it's extreme, but it's a serious example of religious thinking that actually made the moral situation much worse.

Sure, science doesn't bring morals, but boiling the world down to science-or-religion is a false dilemma. Religion doesn't necessarily bring morals either, and a non-religious person can find them by having even the smallest amount human empathy, which is what morals are essentially about... being good to other people and not hurting them.

Eh, what do I know, I'm just some half asleep atheist. :)

I'm not really a religious person. I guess I'm more spiritual....I am open minded.

I'd like to say that I respect others and their reigions except for thsoe individuals that want to shove their crap down my throat.

But Church anything usually makes me feel uncomfertable. I always get this feeling they are still trying to hold onto some kind of power over the people....I dunno.

@ Kajex

Um, Kajex, the religious themes of Halo's antagonists are far closer to Islamofacism than Christianity. Killing people would bring them salvation? Thought suppression? Hatred of logic and reason? It's right out of the jihadist play book. There aren't any parallels between the Covenant religion and modern Christianity that I've seen. (Granted I've not played Halo 3 yet, only Halo 2.)

I love this, if for nothing else than to shut idiots like Pandralisk up.

Though the way the story seems to assume that all Christians are automatically in agreement on whether violent video games are bad is kind of disturbing. The SP movement seems to grow more and more convinced that all people of faith are mindless robots who believe what their preachers preach and don't think for themselves. (Which is ironically far more typical of the secular progressives than most rational believers.) That kind of unnerves me.

The Cult of Forced Church Attendence:

"Here kids, we're suffering from empty-pew syndrome and need to indoctrinate you in our belief system of lies while you are still young and not capable of refined rational thought.

We know what these bizarre stories in the Bible are no longer applicable, supported by evidence, or crafted in a coherent manner. We'll selectively cherry pick the easy parts to you an regurgitate a vague interpretation of the text until you believe it as a source of truth (even though you have never actually critically engaged the text). We know this idea bores you, so while we indoctrinate you, feel free to blow the heads off aliens."

You, silly, silly, Christians!

@Kajex: The Jews are hardly innocent, they're blowing the crap outta palestine because they're unbelievers. Sure they claim that it's terrorists, but they just can't stand to be the only non-islamic nation in the area.

@Pandralisk: You just accused all christians of not being capable of refined rational thought? Do you believe the same way about stephen hawking or einstein? Most of the great scientsts are christians and use science to PROVE God's existance, not deny it.

@anon

No, I accuse many Christians of forcing children to attend churches and try to learn about an extremely complicated religious tradition when they are barely capable of reading at a first-grade level. Forcing content that is assumed to be true -- without ever considering arguements or alternative theories -- down the minds of children and the mentally underdeveloped DEFINES indoctrination.

Forcing a child to conemplate the nature of metaphysical reality, before they have so much as graduated high school, is just as damaging and obscene as forcing porn, violence, and hate on children.

@Bay

Christ is also derived from, or actually IS, a bronze-age War God that is guilty of genocide, tolerating eternal torture, and an entire canon of acts so terrible that any unbiased person of moral virture would find disgusting. I encourage you to read the Bible; especially the OT books of Deut, Levti, and the NT books of Corn and Rev.

I waste my time giving Christians the pleasure of a normative debate. The sad fact of the matter is that Christians/Jews/Muslims have no warrant, justification, evidence, or reason for holding their beliefs. In fact, indoctrination, fear, and hate are the chief historical and contemporary methods of spreading the religions of Abraham.

@Pandra

Um... Christ and the relevant information related to him came about during the New testament. So why are you attempting to use the Old Testament to ridicule our beliefs. That's kind of like a JT thing to do... you know, using irrelevant data to push your point.

Also, if it's such a waste of time, why do you bother? Your blatant disregard for anyone else's beliefs only deters anyone from taking you seriously. Again, another JT-like tactic. Why am I taking you seriously? I'm not really, but I'm trying to give you a little help in identifying the reason why people around here may look on you with contempt. Yeah, you're probably try to bite back with some insult to me beliefs (judging from previous experience) and I'm willing to accept that, but in the case that you don't, then thanks; it's appreciated in advance.

The vast majority of Christians who were forced to go to Church as children have not grown up to blind, zombie-like followers of the Faith. Actually, most, upon reaching an age and maturity of free thought, have very likely taken a step back and tried to analyse their beliefs against everything else that they now know. And you had better believe that they have had doubts, MANY doubts at times, but those who have kept their beliefs have not done so because they were forced to by their parents or by anyone else. They still have their beliefs because they choose to. We don't live under Sharia Law or Communism or the like where we only believe something because we are forced to.

@Love Gorilla

I can't tell whether you're being sarcastic or not, but if you are, I think you misinterpreted.

"Do not presume that divine-command ethics is the only form of ethical morality. Perhaps if you’d take your head out of a book that commands the murder of women, rape of children, and tolerates eternal torture and devote your focus toward an entire philosophical tradition..."

Oh for crying out loud, man, SHUT THE HELL UP.

You say you don't want to stereotype, yet look what you're doing. You've just said in two sentences that everyone who happens to be a Christian is no better than Fred Phelps. Do even you realize what you're saying?

@Pandralisk

(and any who want to see why he's wrong in what he's saying, not just how he's saying it, which is the summarized version)

I don't know about you, but I was reading The Lord of the Rings and certain Middle English when I was 6 and 7, respectively, so the Bible wasn't exactly above my comprehension level. That aside, CHRIST is not modeled off of some bronze age god. If you've studied the Bible as a serious literary work, you should be well aware that much of what is in its pages IS supported in real life, although the timelines are off on some of it. Which is not surprising, considering the numerous retellings until the versions we see, those inscribed once the written word was put to such purposes (it initially was only a business tool in the relevant parts of the world, leaving verbal storytelling to enshrine such stories in a far more mutable form).

Of course there are Christian and Jewish traditions maintaining that the Bible is infallible as the word of God, but that is harder to believe for a student of literature and myth (which doesn'y mean lies or fantasy, it's a reflection of culture), because dissection of the Bible's details and voices reflect beliefs of the time. However, it is still possible to believe that the Bible is the word from God in the light of such studies, only then one must accept that it is written with the best human understanding and even adaptation of that word according to contemporary understanding, not flawlessly.

It is entirely possible that certain tales from the early Bible and its GOD are based off of a bronze age mountain god that was followed by some of the early Jews before they became Jews. At which time they were quite spread-out according to tribes (made up of extended families) and such, which is the dominant division of societies prior to civilization as we recognize it. BUT those tales would have been precursors to the Jewish tradition as we know it (and their consolidation into anything that could be termed a Jewish peoples or nation) and possibly evolved but most likely were dropped for an elsewise-derived God founding a new faith.

The benefits of dropping the other religions in favor of this one are clear: unlike every other god, the religion that would become Judaism followed one single God who ruled over everything. In other words, the preceding gods were limited to one aspect of life or land that they ruled, and so a religion following only one god could only ply him for help when they were where he held dominion. A religion following multiple gods required multiple sets and types of sacrifice, but a religion following one god not only permitted focused worship but also allowed the belief that this one god was THE only true god.

Again, there is no evidence whether belief in this God preceded the assembling of Jewish community. Every other form of religion has parallels in other cultures that have lacked cultural crossover, spontaneous creation of systems of worship seeming to result in certain prescribed patterns of religion. Notably, the Jewish God does NOT fit into these patterns, and spontaneous creation of religion has never resulted in anything similar.

This faith appears to be entirely distinct from and unlike any before it, and is of interest because of its uniqueness (which remains until the present). There is no evidence which makes it certain that this God was not worshipped prior to this time, nor any making it certain He was; however, due to the small size and wide scattering of tribes, the faith built on the Jewish God would have left no more evidence of its existence than any other faith of the age if not for the stories compiled into the Bible. Such notable change follows most of the more brutal acts attributed to God but precedes the time of the eventual followers of this faith's actual cohesion.

In other words, the more violent aspects of the Jewish God are most likely attributable to an attempt to woo those who had followed various other gods by encapsulating their deities' history within the new faith. This results in a notable demarcation of stories certainly belonging to the new faith's singular God and those which may be remnants of efforts to consolidate tribes and therefor older systems of worships' sometimes multiple and usually feature-locked (as in inhabiting a certain mountain or lake) gods.

It is believed that certain repeated tales in the Old Testament had different versions due to something quite common in a time when most stories were maintained verbally and not uncommon after: the tellers used contemporaneous understanding of the world and beliefs in conceptualizing their story. Far from making these events fiction, all this means is that an event commemorated in the past was updated according to altered understanding of the world around them. It's possible that either historical events may have been retold in manners not suiting the reality or style of the time of their actual occurence, or even that allegorical tales were misattributed as history. It is still possible for an educated person to follow the Bible as part of their faith, which is one of the things we explored in studying its literary qualities, and that is a personal choice.

But to presume that you have the right answer and shove it in people's faces as you do, pandralisk, is every bit as obnoxious and arrogant as those Christians you claim turned you off from the religion.

But why continue carrying on this conversation? There's no need to go on and on and on about something that only applies to a select few people. You've brought this up far too many times already, we GET IT. No need to shove this down our throats.

Even I have my grievances towards the Vatican, but you know what? I don't hate Christianity or the Bible. I hate the people who abuse it. But I don't go spewing the insipid garbage that flows out of your mouth, P-JT. It's people like you who cause so much tension. If you want to hate so much, go elsewhere to spew it, but not here. Or is it simply you got nowhere else to go, because everyone thinks your are a complete asshole? Is that is P-JT, do you feel lonely in that complex of yours?

You talk about how Christians force themselves onto others. You are such a fucking hypocrite. Because you are doing exactly that.

@ Pandralisk haters

Since his posts are obviously intended to be inflamitory and are frequently off topic, I propose we ignore them. By writing long detailed agruments for him to respond to, you are only empowering him. He has some 'need' for attention and keeps coming back here because we give it to him.
This is a gaming website, not a religious philosophy (or history) site. If we ignore him long enough, he will move on to a better suited site to post his flaming rants.
I think the analogy to him as a religious JT is very apt with one difference. I find JT entertaining (in a sad way). Since I don't enjoy Pandralisk's rants (and he's certainly not changing anyone's opinion), I would rather not have him (or replies to him) clogging up the post.

@Pandralisk

don't blame my religion for what a few fanatics who claimed to be a part of it did.

real christians don't murder.

and our(or a the very least, MY) God doesn't want anyone to die either.

everytime you post, you seem to be attacking the entire religion, due to the actions of people who do not correctly represent the religion.

[...] Nota Bene 10.09.07 09Oct07 Halo in Church? - You can catch up on various online discussions concerning the use of Halo and other video games in youth ministries here, here, here, and here. [...]

@jds

[...] We’re okay with you not believing [...]

I could be wrong here, but isn't he going to suffer eternal torment after death for not believing? That doesn't sound like being o.k. with his beliefs.

I find this pathetic of churches to even go as low to use this game to attract kids my age PERIOD. Yes, its a great game, but is this really relevant to the Christian religon? No.