April 28, 2008 -
The Timothy Plan, a Maitland, Florida-based mutual fund group which offers a "biblical choice when it comes to investing," has issued a press release slamming Take Two Interactive (NASDAQ: TTWO), publisher of Grand Theft Auto IV.From the release:
Take-Two Interactive... has done it again, releasing another video game that contains extreme sexual and violent content... Beyond the intense violence, blood and mayhem, during the game the character can have sex with prostitutes, visit adult clubs, request a private lap dance and drive drunk.
The Timothy Plan, a morally responsible family of mutual funds, refuses to invest in companies like Take-Two Interactive because of their involvement in the anti-family entertainment and pornography industry.
Timothy Plan president Arthur Ally (left) is quoted in the press release:
This $30 billion a year [video game] business is exploiting sex and violence more than ever in their products. We hope more parents will not continue to fall into a category that four out of ten often do by relying simply on the ESRB rating and leave their children alone while they are playing video games.
While the ESRB system is a step in the right direction, the ratings are confusing and incomplete at best.
Ally also criticized another Rockstar game, Bully: Scholarship Education, because protagonist Jimmy Hopkins can kiss other boys in the game.
Take Two is among several dozen publicly-traded companies listed on the Timothy Plan's Hall of Shame. Others include Starbucks, PlanetOut, Wal-Mart, Microsoft and would-be Take Two acquirer, Electronic Arts.
While it's not clear exactly how these firms have transgressed in the Arthur Ally's view, the Timothy Plan is anti-gay, pro-life and opposed to investing in companies which deal in alcohol, tobacco, gambling or pornography.
Comments
Yeah, I got family that's like that too(more the liberal kind though). It sucks ass. Still family though, no matter how misguided they are.
That would be so sweet. I can actually see them doing that.
Strong Christian Values makes you look like you think you are better than everyone.
I am sure Jesus was not like that.
I remember a scene in the bible how when Jesus was at a banquet at someone's house and it had everyone in the village.
While many of his deciples were eating with the Priests and the Strong Religious people, Jesus was eating and taking with many of the lower common people who were prostitutes, adultrists, tex collectors, and other such people that many of the Hightly Religious people thought who lived a life of Sin.
When many of the Priests and Hightly Religious people looked at Jesus and found out that he was talking to people who were seen as sinfull people, they were shocked and upset.
But when Jesus came over, he explained that he wanted to talk to those people who were sinful.
Now from what I heard from other people about the Bible, they said that Jesus was talking to people who committed sin so he could tell them that by beliveing in him, they could be saved.
Now that is just some people's interpretation of the Bible.
For me, I interpret it as not of Jesus trying to convert sinful people into Christians, but I see this as a way that even though Jesus may not really like those types of people who commit sin in their lives, but he still respects people for who they are no matter what type of sin they have previously committed in their lives.
So yeah, I would say this sort of thing about conservatives is that sometimes they think they have read the Bible and know it, but in reality they forget about what Jesus did,
If Jesus was alive, he would not judge Grand Theft Auto 4, instead he will play it and try to do all the good things in that game and he would really have a good time playing it.
Ofcourse you can chose to do all the bad things in the game, but it is your choise if you wanted to do that.
You are never really forced to do that unless if it is a major part of the storyline that can't be avoided but you can almost forgive the game for doing so.
Any other sinful things that happen in the game is done by your own choise of if you want to be a good guy or a bad ass.
If Jesus was playing this game, he would have allot to say about Grand Theft Auto being like the modern day Bible in a Videogame form.
But that is just going by my own opinion, it is not gospal.
That's what I always hated about religion. Not only do you have squabbles among seperate religions, you also have squabbles among the different sects of the same religions. My family is mostly Lutheran(I'm non practicing), so we all interperate the Bible in a different way. Hell, there's Christians, Calvinists, Catholics, Lutherans, those snake handling ones, Roman catholics, Irish Catholics, Methodists, etc. Lot 'o different ways of looking at the same thing.
They don't invest in TTwo, TTwo is none of their business, this is just dick-waving for attention and profit.
That pretty much summed up their. The rest of their drawl came out as I expected of another right-wing fundie group.
I find it interesting it says nothing about them not investing in arms manufacturers. XD
And that doesn't even get into the hypocrisy of basing investments on the Bible, which explicitly states not only that material wealth is sinful, but that borrowing and lending, i.e. investing, is wrong.
You may also notice that they believe insurance companies are evil, but somehow investing isn't.
"And that doesn’t even get into the hypocrisy of basing investments on the Bible, which explicitly states not only that material wealth is sinful, but that borrowing and lending, i.e. investing, is wrong."
If I remember my Bible verses correctly, it's not that "money is the root of all evil." That's a common misquotation of Paul.
It's "LOVE of money is the root of all evil."
There's nothing wrong with being rich, so long as it's earned legitimately (More than I can say for a lot of the fundamentalists, though).
''April 28th, 2008 at 5:34 pm
In the UK, tabloids would slam him for the homophobic remarks about Bully.
But I find it incredible that just across the atlantic, a man can slam a video game because it contains possible homosexuality - and probably have quite a few people agree with him''
gotta say mate agree with you 100%
why is nobody going after this guy n slamming him because of his anti gay remarks? Arent there anti discrimination laws in the US preventing this kind of stuff?
i love how these people can forget all that. very christian.
This man should be ashamed.
Please don't call them Christian. It's an insult to the rest of the genuinely good people in the community.
Disney is presumably on the list because they have no problems with hiring gay people to work at their amusement parks. I remember some Southern Baptist Churches raising a big fuss about that maybe... ten years ago.
Do I have to buy my own alchohol before picking up the controler?
Uh... what the heck is that supposed to mean?
And for gambling I'm pretty sure they will support a church rafle...
That is all.
Sinner
Re:
Actually, if you look on the second page of the Hall of Shame you will see that they only screen out 626 companies. That leaves over 14,000 companies to choose from.