"Television and videos are telling young people a vision but something that's not reality..."

Says the church.

  So guns they just turn in, but games they burn? What better way to make your church seem reasonable, and welcoming than to burn things your disagree with? History has shown people that burned books to be such great people after all.

--
http://mallvillestory.blogspot.com

"...and have a burning..."

You can almost hear him say "a rootn-tootn', good-ol' fashioned -" under his breath. Could any one phrase be more redneck?

"...just like they had a gun buyback last year..."

Equating a buy-back with 'a burning' (I believe that's the common parlance) is a bit of a leap, if you ask me.

Where is this going to be?

I would like a bunch of gamers to go there with bibles and burn those evil books in front of the revrand...

WHERE THE FUCK ARE THE ESA NOW???

1: After the games, they're gonna burn a couple witches, a library or two, and then the "convert or die" campaign can begin.

2: His new name is "Reverand Hitler."

3: They probably stopped burning guns and ammo after their first attempt at such. After setting off an explosion that rocked the state, someone figured out that "Bullets + Fire = b00m". I guess they still haven't figured out that burning half a ton of CDs and CD cases is going to release toxic fumes into the air. Maybe fundies need to read more science texts?

I'd love to show up with a garbage bag full of Bibles, as a nice counter-point, but I can't afford the gas. I drive an SUV, and Newport News is four hours away.

If someone believes burning inanimate objects will further his religion, that person has serious mental health problems.  Burning CDs and other optical media will release toxic and carcinogenic gases into the air and poses a serious problem to the younger crowd and anyone downwind.  It's also an environmental hazard.  These are not the plans of a rational person.

Okay, seriously, as stupid as this game burning idea is, some of these comments are ridiculous. Reverend Hitler? Facist? He's staging a voluntary burning excersizing his own right to free speech. Yes, his speech is stupid, but he's not repressing anyone.

I'm not even sure if burning video games is safe or legal, so it may be a moot point to begin with. I think everyone needs to CHILL OUT and remember that one guy throwing a temper tantrum isn't going to lose use the debate.

First let me say that I live in Newport News, Virginia and this is by far not one of our finest hours in many ways. Our star quarterback is in jail and now we have an idiot talking about burning video games and cds. It is definitely not a good thing for us to be in the news it seems.

As for being a coastal 'bedroom' town, Newport News has the largest Shipyard in the United States and such great vessels as the USS Enterprise, CVN-65, and all other Nuclear carriers come from there as do at least half of the nuclear submarine fleet. We're also in the middle of an area known as Hampton Roads, which includes Norfolk. We are the largest concentration of Military on the eastern seaboard of the US. People pay more for housing here because it's all military people who don't want to live on base.

The pastor is a complete idiot besides. THe city of Newport News has a clean air act that prohibits burnings of any sort, especially ones where toxics would be released like the ones found in CDs. This guy is off his rocker, and if he manages to find a way to do it I'll probably arrange a counter protest to be right there with him.

Does any one think a sign reading "The Nazis burned books, too!" would be a little much?

While I am hardly a qualified theological scholar, I think all this "burning" rhetoric that the people who give christianity a bad name seem to spout is a...somewhat creative (in my view) interpretation of Acts 19:19 (I believe, it has been such a long time since I read the bible, being the quasi-agnostic I am now).

That being said though, what the hell does buring them accomplish.  Oh look, you incinerated your scapegoat...now what.  Seems to me that this is the logic they operate under.

10 INPUT "The evil of the world"=E$
20 INPUT "How many of these evil things are there"=N
30 IF N =< 0 THEN GOTO 10
40 PRINT "We must burn every last "E$" to protect the children"
50 INPUT "How many" E$ "were burned"=B
60 N=N-B
70 GOTO 30

It is a never ending series of scapegoating.  If they did the unthinkable (and grossly improbable) and managed to truly incinerate all video games, they'd just find something else  (Comic books, Harry Potter, Dungeons & Dragons, etc.).

(It has been a long time since I did any old apple basic programming, so my code is probably littered with Syntax errors and the like.)

This reflects the complete insanity of that particular congregation.  I'm not going to say its religion in general but Rev. Richard Patrick certainly is representing it in a very poor light.  He is basically glorifying his ignorance of entertainment products.  Perhaps in his eyes he seems to be intelligent and speaking with a voice of reason but in my eyes he just seems to be a fool wearing his ingorance on his sleeve for everyone to see.

Good Job Reverend Dick.  I'm sure there are plenty of potential new members in Newport News that you just alienated.

books: $5

video games: $60

Letting misinformed protestors spend themselves broke in a pointless protest: priceless

I think it would be cool if Christian gamers would write letters to protest this rally.

Just an idea.  I did more research on Rev. Richard Patrick and found this.  http://www.virginiapreachers.com/richard_patrick.html

Guns are worth a buyback but games aren't?  My local Blockbuster is shelling out forty bucks for used copies of GTA4.  Surely it would be more profitable and efficient to return all the games to a second-hand dealer and then burn down the building.

Also, if they burn the instruction booklets, it really is a book burning!

---
The Mammon Industry

The Beatles record burnings really made sure they were erased from the public mind...

Thanks to tireless Christian efforts, Harry Potter is but a faded memory and ashes...

I'm so glad they burned all those Batman & Robin comics- Homosexuality is at an all time low...

The coming videogame burnings will surely usher in a new era for Lincoln Logs...

Hey CE, yah thatr pastor is a probably a faggot boy molestor, so fuck him and his burning.

Quick someone teach this group the lyrics to the Horst Wessel song. They can sing it while they burn degenerate media.

Major brownie points and a cookie for whoever gets the reference.

Burning games? Won't Homeland Security raid their party for violating the DMCA?

BUH-DUM-TISH

I don't know why but it really does sound like a Pastor whos just really upset his congregation don't listen to him anymore >.> so? I don't listen to my Church's Priest because the bloody church decided to chuck out our old Priest.

Anyway, I seriously doubt he'd get away with burning CDs... hell you go burn CDs here your likely to get 10 to a month in the county jail, along with a few dozen fines from the county, and EPA...

Lol..wouldn't it be easier and more cost efficient to just ban the selling of those selected games and movies, and more passive than this alternative? Honestly, its extremists like this group that make a faith look like crap.

Playing devil's advocate, one might be able to conclude that this group of individuals feel that the only way to combat the rising is by fighting fire with fire(Ironically).
Although, I agree with the majority of you. This is the most ridiculous act I have yet to hear of. I swear people can be quite stupid when they try to rationalize their motives for censoring 'questionable subjects', especially religious sects.

 

bring all the cds to me I will burn them for you. Onto my hard drive

This is obivously gonna backfire if they have to purchase said games and music just to throw them into the bonfire, because I heard some book makers actually make money off those who buy books just to burn then.

This reminded me of my college days protesting and setting up a table for,"Porn for bibles." We'd hand out Penthouse and hustler to anyone who brought us a bible.

I'm an atheist but I feel that I should add this.

To anyone who wants to use this as proof that religion is living in the dark ages that it's full of intolerance that it attempts to supress all contradictory ideas or that it's made up entirely of 'moral majority' like pricks remember this:

Some churchs tried using (and might still use) Halo 3 in an attempt to get to kids (or something like that).

To all you people who bash religion, no.

This church obviously is not thinking its actions through, I doubt the nazi parallels even crossed their minds,  nor the fact that what they are doing is illegal (The bible *Jesus Christ himself* says that you should follow the law, give unto Ceaser what is Ceasers and give unto God what is God's).

Whoever dares claim that this church represents christianity, I will personally pw3n them in Halo3, my gamer tag is Voligne, my image is that of a disembodied eyeball.

If someone can get me this guys email I will gladly (nicely) enlighten him on the flaws of his master plan to cleanse the media.

I wish we can burn the stupid people. Keep in mind I do not mean mentally retarded. I mean stupid. (I love how my signature fites nicely with this article)

EDIT: And as some one mentioned somewhere in this article... WHERE THE HELL IS THE ESA?

--- Ignorance is bliss, I guess...

Does anyone else ever wonder if people like this are part of an elaborate reverse-psycholgy atheist propaganda scheme?

no this slope isn't at all slippery *falls on face* seriously though, you start with games and music, next movies and books. And when you can count yourselves in the company of the Nazis, it might be time to reconsider what you're saying and doing...

oh what's that? this material is harmful? and you don't want to actually learn how to protect kids against it and then educate parents? Oh well then by all means, torch whatever you want, heaven forbid you have to think for yourself afterall.
/sarcasm off

"90% of his congregation" has been affected by violent crime? He must have the unluckiest congregation evar, because the statistics I just Googled state that only 0.78% of Newport News' population have been the victim of violent crime in 2006. (murder clocks in at 0.01% by the way).

Maybe it's just me being all level headed and stuff, but my policy is always: "if you have to exaggerate or lie, then you don't have a valid point." But these people always seem to think that as long as they're "Christian" and are lying in the name of a "Godly cause", then that's okay.

I suspect a lot of "Christians" are in for a rude awakening when they show up at judgement day all smug with the "good deeds" they've committed.

"television and videos are telling young people a vision but something that's not reality"

something that's not reality? like your make-believe deity & stories? I have no problem with religious people, really, but this is an extreme case of The-Bible-Calling-the-Kettle-Black

well, the joke's on them, because burning all that plastic will release fumes. By the end of it, these people probably WILL see Jesus; inhale enough of it, you might even get to meet him

LOL The internet made *burning irrelevant many years ago.

I really like that the Bible quote that the Abyssinia Baptist Church has chosen as their tag line is "...my people are destroyed for the lack of knowledge"

I'd like to know why everyone is giving this guy so much cred.

He's just another whackjob preacher who has the ear of very few people. This is only a rehashed argument from 1991 over NWA and other such rap groups, reformulated into a video game argument for 2008. The good news for everyone who's worried about this is that the religous right already lost this argument to the first amendment, and corporate america is alive and well with the F word and video games where you can bang prostitutes. Thank God.

I believe the general consensus of those Americans who were smart enough to know the difference was that parents should monitor what their kids do, and actually be parents. I'm sure that this isn't happening in rural fuckyoursisterville or wherever this guy lives because mom and dad are respectively blowing their paychecks on pabst and the bingo parlor. I'm not that worried about these individuals and the effect they have on American society. Their words are worthless nonsense.

PS All statements herein can be directly applied to our current President.

I wonder if this guy has ever considered how many people died in the crusades...

Did anyone bother to read the source?

www.dailypress.com/news/dp-local_10questionspatrick_060jun09,0,2560847.story

Q: Have you been affected personally by the violence?

A: I grew up in this area. I graduated from Ferguson High School, and I used to live on 30th Street and Madison Avenue. I have a more personal contact with this community. My brother -in-law, Larry Patterson, was the last homicide in 2007. Not only has it affected me, but, I would say, 90 percent of the congregation has been affected in some way by violence or crime.

No mention of video games here or, violent entertaiment.  He blames violence and crime. 

Q: Are churches doing enough to help in the area?

A: I would say the church can take the blame for a lot of the problems in the Southeast Community. The Bible tells us as a church if we seek God's face, he would change the community. Until the church does what it's supposed to do, the community won't change. The church needs to be more outward and more outreach, to reach the community. My purpose is not only to pastor this church, but to pastor my community. I think the churches are doing better in helping, but there's always room for improvement. We have to go beyond meetings, and sometimes as churches, we have meetings and come back and have meetings about the meetings. We have to put some action behind our words.

Sounds like he's accepting some culpability for the state of his community rather than placing blame. He mentions burning cds and games in that one blurb, but barely mentions them otherwise in that interview.  If anything, it sounds like the site merely put in the video game angle to get more attention.  Looks like it worked.

I love my religion, I'm a believer. But sometimes I wish that these idiots would shut up, actually most of the time I do, they think they're protecting children, but they're just making themselves looks stupid. And they wonder why less people trust the church. *shakes head.*

People burn games.

Games spread noxious fumes to the air.

Greenpeace blames video games for destroying the environment, again...

What about the EPA? The epa could stop this in a second. burning lexan and aluminum will be a hazard to the environment and all the people in the vicinity.

Okay, first off don't assume Christians are all like this. PLEASE. These people are like the embarrasing cousin to rest of us, they're just a bit iffy.

All they seem to be doing is jumping on the band wagon, and this isn't a good thing. It's what caused the crusades, holocaust, etc. This is a symbol, not that they mean to show this, that they're actually destroying people's freedom. What they're doing here is downright evil, not to mention stupid and badly thought out and not researched at all.

These people, ladies and Gentlemen, aren't followers of god, they're sheep to a bad shepperd, if you'll pardon the annalogy. I wish them good luck and a decent dose of brain cells, which they seem to be lacking in.

I must admit it is ironic of them to do this when any movie of the bible (the ENTIRE bible, passion doesn't count) would very possibly be banned for graphic and extreme use of violence, sexual acts, etc.

Which may be in all honesty proof that they don't actually read the bible? Who knows.

If this comes to pass then Videogames will have truly become the modern day scapegoat of our generation(s). This kind of thing happened with books, movies, and Elvis and now they are all iconic parts of history.

Let the flames of ignorance scorch Videogames into human history! Whooo!

"Let's burn and destroy things! Now THERE'S a good example for our children!"

So who wants to show up with fire extinguishers and get some free stuff?

First of all let me state that I am a multi-platform gamer and that I am also a preacher.  I have read about 90% of these posts and I am left questioning if you ever even considered what he is doing.  The procedure is poor but his point has merit.  I don't agree with the burning part due entirely to the environment issues, but the entire process is two fold:  1) he is trying to make  clear point that the people that he is involved with do not want to tolerate these kinds of things, it is the same concept of Christians who will not go to r-rated movies or watch r-rated television, who stick to family oriented tv and film (he is a bit misguided but he is allowed his free speech); and 2 the reason for destroying them is because they feel so strongly against them that it would be wrong for them to give them to other people.   The idea is the same for a crack addict.  If I quit smoking crack and I realize that it was wrong for me to smoke it, I am going to destroy what I have left not hand it over to someone else who still smokes crack or is just expermenting and say "have at it".

I'm finished.  Feel free to tear this apart it won't bother me a bit.

Kinda reminds me of the mass book-burnings that took place in Nazi Germany in the mid-1930's. It was ordered by Hitler so the German culture can be "purified"; but we all know he ordered the book burnings because he was a man who feared the intelect and hated intelectuals. I guess this reverand fears the change in our culture...just like our buddy JT.

I lol'd. So what's the point of burning games and CDs anyway? There's plenty more to buy at the store... Are they gonna go raid the store and burn all the "harmful" games and CDs or what..? XD

Of course, there's nothing violent about taking these objects and Publically Setting Them On Fire. No, no, not at all...

* The World Just Spins Faster Than Me *

Is that... safe? Throwing a bunch of plastic CD/video games on a fire, I mean. It seems like organizing an event where people are at such a high risk of inhaling the fumes from  that sort of thing is fairly iresponsible.  Not to mention that the smell would be horrible.

What the Rev. needs to realize is that CDs are not the same as books. Books are made out of paper; out of wood. It's perfectly safe to burn pieces of literature that you don't like. You don't really have to worry about potentially toxic chemicals being released into the air with books. He'd also end up with a bunch of small puddles of plastic melted fast to his church yard.

Exactly how much money does he think he should be spending on this stupidity anyway? Video games are not a cheap rescouce my friend.

Im so glad I'm an atheist

When I was a kid, my town got together to burn comic books because "Seduction of the Innocent" made parents believe that their kids were becoming brainwashed. The more things change, the more things stay the same...

 why there is such a hell about gaming.

first all the music was the devil en now games are.

you can't stop the future so don't destroy all the thing you are not formiliour with.

we must let the new things come and have to listen to our selves.

"Burning books is only one step away from burning people" some one i cant remeber the name of on the nazis burning jewish books.

but i do enjoy the irony of a church saying that violent media is making people more violent and then telling them to BURN THE EVIL!!!

i am finding it hard to not reminded them of the fact that throughout human history religion has been the "sheild with which cowards have hidden from harm by throwing the innocent in to the fires" (that was an origanal qoute of me but i thought it would sound better in that format)

i didnt bother to read all of the comments so this could have already been said

parden me but does anyone even know what part of a video dame is even flamable

Wow Im gonna kill this dude.

Go to hell you pastor freak.

This is just a piece of crap. I play violent video games and im just a little teenage girl! You gonna force your religon on me? No. Because I wont fucking let you...you jesus freak.

FYI:
Mosh Pits With Jesus! XD

how can  this be  first music musicvideos tvshows go to www.b1b5150.com/@become one

very nice sites.good.

Basically, the way things are going. Will be ankara nakliyat nice too bee ankara evden eve nakliyat bu sekildeki yerle evden eve nakliyat yapmaları icin evden eve nakliyat sizlerde bu tip çalışma yapmak isterseniz ankara nakliyat başvurabilirsniz. Saç ekimi olması gereken lazer epilasyon ve bububn yanısıra merkezde burun estetiği olmak yanıbasında saç ekimi olması gereken sizlerde saç ekimi  saç ekimi merkezleri ankara evden eve yapmakla beraber.Tüp bebek merkezleri olmakla beraber ...

very nice sites.good.very nice sites.good.