Game Burning: It's the New Book Burning
Game Burning: It's the New Book Burning
June 9, 2008
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While many churches are embracing video game nights as a means of reaching out to youth, a pastor in Newport News, Virginia would like to see violent video games and rap music go up in smoke.
As reported by the Daily Press, Rev. Richard Patrick, 42, blames violent entertainment for the crime which he says has affected 90% of his congregation in one way or another:
We are considering having something similar to a rally where parents and children can bring CDs and video games that they consider are destructive to the mind set of our youth and have a burning...
Young people are being influenced by what they see and what they hear. They are being influenced by television ... television and videos are telling young people a vision but something that's not reality...
[Violent media] has a tremendous influence on young people and violence. That's basically all they see. Most of them try to emulate what they see, when in reality, the people they see don't even live in those communities. Some of the rappers they see on TV portraying crime don't live in the urban areas — they live in the suburbs somewhere. It's all a facade.
Comments
"Television and videos are telling young people a vision but something that's not reality..."
Says the church.
Gosh-darn it, that was going to be my point. Ah well, at least the person that beat me to it got there FIRST!!!
"Television and videos are telling young people a vision but something that's not reality..."
"Says the church."
Don't be an ass
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And now back to my original post:
Game Burning: It's the New Book Burning
Wooo! thats all I need ter hear sign me up!
Nazi Germany FTW!
/obvious Sarcasm
---Reno to Thompson "I'm only interested in virile men. That’s why I'm not attracted to you." This kids, is what we call a grammatical smack down
Excuse me, when they say all these awful things about my hobby and beliefs, I'm sure as hell going to express my opinion. They don't get to say those things and then not hear critisism in return. This is utterly sickening.
Don't be a hypocrite.
If religious people have the right to critisize others, then we have to right to critisize them too. It goes both ways.
"...a rally where parents and children can bring CDs and video games that they consider are destructive to the mind set of our youth"
I should join them an bring various holy books.
When and where I want to come along for that!
Throw that priest in there as well
good anybody know the number to oreder the king james bibile on dvd i need a semitrucjk full to bring to this
ps any one know where i can get someoone to do a good nazi paintjob on that semi
becuase kids arson is always the anwser
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what choocko quasi christian sect is this i lost track three weeks into the Protestant reformation
Organised religion is a human matter that can be openly criticised, but the existance of God is a seperate matter than we can never know the answer to.
But I do agree about this bearing striking similarities to nazism.. seriously, when has burning things you don't agree with ever been a sign you're fighting the good fight?
Every good Christian knows that deatg something that only the clergy should be able to hand down - For stuff like not being in church on Sundays, or questioning the church; perhaps stealing a cup - wiat, anything - from the church, no matter how worthless or cheap it is. Or perhaps building a really tall tower... Wait, hang on a sec, we're not in the middle ages - I heard "book burning" and assumed that i had landed in a time machine or something
Did you honestly expect that this so-called Christian would refrain from blaming games and rap for social ills? In the 1980s, uptight Christians like this one blamed D&D and heavy metal. Now they blame videogames and hiphop. If Christianity is still around 50 years from now, they'll find something else to blame.
Lol.. Im not a Christian, and I blame Hip-Hop and Rap for many of societie's Ills..
Then again, show me an area where Hip-Hop and Rap are played exclusively and there isn't trouble. ><
Ugh.. Spelling, sorry guys, typed that in a rush...
First post and boy aren't they a bunch of nice people? To quote Henry Jones Sr. from Last Crusade, "My son, we're pilgrims in an unholy land. "
EZK:
Hopefully EZK makes it around and can replace your "first post" with a big ol' "Thumbs Down".
That's not the way we roll here.
Nah. When they say "First Post" and are not first, I just openly point and laugh as the whole "first post" thing is just a pointless pursuit.
E. Zachary Knight
www.editorialgames.com
Third reply to the second discussion thread! :woop:
---
The Mammon Industry
I would love to go there with a stack of fucking bibles and throw them into the blaze. This is insanity at its finest.
At first I honestly thought you said you would throw a stack of fucking BABIES into the fire. Although that would be really cool and possibly inspire another generation of dead baby jokes.
Then again throwing babies into the blaze would be insanity at its finest hmm maybe we can do that then somehow blame the church (I kid).
Yeah, that'll make them love gamers even more.
Sorry to break the news to you, but stacking babies is virtually impossible with out a form.
Or a lance.
Spoken like a true bureaucrat!
"We are considering having something similar to a rally where parents and children can bring CDs and video games that they consider are destructive to the mind set of our youth and have a burning, just like they had a gun buyback last year..."
Sounds great, I think Ill organise one for Bibles and other religious books.
Organised religion has done more to corrupt the minds of youth than videogames could ever hope to accomplish. Oh, and the whole "vision of reality" thing? From the Church? SERIOUSLY?
You'd probably get busted for committing a hate crime or something. >_>
Hate Crime? Nope, only if they were Korans...
Good one. But I haven't heard of any case where a Bible has been burned- ony moved into "Religious Fiction" sections at shops.
Oh great. I was wondering if we'd ever hear about this sooner or later. At least it's just this one guy, though.
Personally, I find the idea of a "game burning" impractical. I mean, the fumes from the burning plastic would be murder.
Hey, hey now, don't you go warning them!
"Golly! We found that everyone in our congreation had visions and spoke in tongues after the game burning! T'was a miracle! Praise jeebus!"
LOL!
This is just the church having a temper tantrum, because they aren't getting their own way (also see Hitler and Jack Thompson). However this is also dangerous temper tantrum, and I hope common sense actually prevails.
So first you do a 'first post!' when it wasn't, then ya gotta go and Godwin the thread.... I hate to think what your next post will be. :P
But agreed on the 'common sense prevailing' hopes, though.
Ya know, having said in the past that I believe that "God is made in the image of the individual believer" among other certain things along those lines, I once considered making a video where I would take bunches of religious texts, such as Christian Bibles, stick the names of specific individuals on those religious texts to represent those religious texts being the specific religion, translations, and interpretations of specific individuals (as opposed to the overall relgious beliefs the texts were written for), such as "Holy Bible of Fred Phelps" and "Holy Bible of Eric Rudolph" and "Holy Bible of John Bruce 'Jack' Thompson", and others, including other religions (not just "Christians"). Then, piling them up, defiling them with bodily waste products, then setting them ablaze.
Would make for a great protest against the abusive and bigoted nature of various individuals and groups who use religion as a justification for lies, deceit, bigotry, hate, abuse, and a great many other "immoral" acts commited against those who don't agree with their obscene, antisocial, sociopathic, and/or psychopathic beliefs.
Alas, my video camera requires a firewire connection which I don't have and the cost of all those religious texts is beyond my current financial capabilities.
Nightwng2000
NW2K Software
Nightwng2000 has also updated his MySpace page: http://www.myspace.com/nightwing2000 Nightwng2000 is now admin to the group "Parents For Education, Not Legislation" on MySpace as http://groups.myspace.com/pfenl
Do you accept donations?
Because seriously if you remove the human waste part or at least replace it with gasoline, that would be a GREAT public protest and I mean a truly great public protest of those who try to enforce or exploit religion.
Honestly if you were to hold that protest I wouldn't hesitate to join you if I could (just make sure everyone knows specfically what you're protesting so they don't interpret it as attempted Bible censorship).
As German this kind of reminds me of the lets say "not so bright times" within the history of my country... congratulations to Rev. Patrick for picking up that "glorious" tradition half a century later..
I was going to mention Farenheit 451, but Bradbury intented for the message of "television will destroy books" rather than "facists burn books".
-- If your wiimote goes snicker-snack, check your wrist-strap...
Thank you Rev. Patrick, for showing that you are one of those supposed "Christians" that believe that anything not of your version of "God" must be destroyed because you cannot control them. As much as I hate to say this, but YOUR actions are going to put YOU on the path to your hell faster then a Video Game EVER could!
Hunting the shadows of the troubled dreams.
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
It did say that the guns were destroyed in a foundry, so that counts for something, I suppose.
"...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.
He is just upset becauses he cant burn crosses in peoples yards anymore.
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...
The newspaper is from Newport News, VA.So I assume it's near there.And I just realized, by looking at the map. It's a coastal "bedroom" town, aka people paying 3 times what the house is worth so they can say they have a place on the coast. And probably quite a few folks from D.C. since it's a couple hours away. Yeah they REALLY have a good idea about what to do with something they don't like.
Hunting the shadows of the troubled dreams.
Only in the wrong hands.
I agree, but you must admit that there is a stronger case for burning bibles then video games, comic books and rap music...
Burning a source of art or knowledge shouldn't be burned at all but as long as we are burning things we believe cause violence then bibles go before games...
I've been thinking about that too, but the copy of the Bible I have here has plastic cover, so it would be VERY unhealthy to burn it.
"Where they have burned books, they will end in burning human beings."
Religion, politics, morality; these are all well and good. But when they destroy the fundamental values of our society and commit gross crimes against intelligence such as these, they do not deserve the respect they command.
This makes me sick.
Since when has organized religion NOT committed gross crimes against intelligence?
First of all, since when have children ever voluntarily burnt anything they owned? I mean, other then the game Indigo Prophecy, that game I could cheerfully burn all day long...
This sounds more like something the parents would make the children do.
I would love to see how he relates this to book burning, though. I mean, does he understand the implications of holding a media bonfire?
Clarify please Mogbert, do you mean Dennis or the Reverend?
Hunting the shadows of the troubled dreams.
I hope a rally like this is near me so I can throw an American flag and a couple copies of the bible into said fire.
xD
WHERE THE FUCK ARE THE ESA NOW???
Agreed, with the ESA's current weakness and such, now is the time for them to prove their worth.
The ESA is most likely trying to keep more companies from leaving them.
What should they do about it?
I mean other than go "everyone point at laugh at this wanker!"
the esa could atleast attempt to netralise the negative effect of this publicity. they could go have a speech nearby, release educational videos, or release a public service announcment.
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.
Don't burn your games, religious people. Give them to me. And I'll, um, burn them for you! Especially GTA4. For XBox 360.
Also, sorry mogbert but I really enjoyed "Indigo Prophecy".
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.
I'm going for the free high dude!
That was my first though too. This has all the makings of a mass Darwin Award. Maybe someone could shut this shindig down by calling the EPA?
Boy this is an enlightened time we live in. QUICK! Burn the games! Burn the CDs! Burn the internet before it abducts your children and probes them anally! Take money from your own pocket and put it in the pockets of the media you hate! Then watch your investment go up in smoke!
Seriously, I hope they all take deep breaths around the fire.
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.
Actually one could make a case for child abuse in this case. He is getting a buch of parents into a hysteria, taking kids toys away from them, and destroying the toys in front of them.
It is not at the level of criminial child abuse but it is still something pretty tramatic to be doing to a kid and this guy is pushing for it.
They did it with Pokemon cards and Yugioh cards at one backwards place. Wouldn't surprise me at all if it did happen really.
I think that was a joke.
Well people are calling him Reverend Hitler and a fascist because this is similar to book burnings that the nazis performed to "protect" people from the knowledge contained within. Since this is along the same lines (but on a much smaller scale), burning video games and CD's to "protect" the minds of children, I think its a relevant comparison. You also have to remember that the people who read this site are gamers, so obviously its going to piss off people when someone suggests that their hobby is so evil that it should be burned.
I would also imagine that their will be parents who take their kids games and CD's and burn them at this "voluntary" burning. It may be voluntary for the parents, but I doubt many of them will be burning their own CD's and games. In a sense then they are repressing their children I guess, so I think people on here have the right to be pissed off, after all they have the freedom to speak their mind.
Of course they do, but some of this mind-speaking is just as extreme and ridiculous as the not-so-esteemed reverend. You can't seperate Hitler from the murder of six million Jews or facism from the government. This is neither murder (perhaps child endangerment if those fumes are toxic, but not murder) and has nothing to do with the government.
As far as their children are concerned, parents have a right to control what entertainment kids are exposed to. And as much as we tout that as a defense of not restricting M-Rated games, it's also a two way street: Parents can take away M-Rated games if they don't want their kids to have them.
Yes, it's seriously screwed up, and we do have every right to be angry. But our anger should be tempered by reason. There's no need to bring down Godwin's law on our denouncment of this retard.
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?
How about "The Nazis burned things they didn't like, too!"
---Oh sure, its fine when a monkey does it. But when I throw barrels at an Italian plumber, they call it a hate crime! - Stephen Colbert
Is it still considered Godwin's Law if the analogy is apt?
I think Godwin's Law only applies to Internet discussions
岩「…Ace beats Jack」
If there are laws against burning something that releases toxic fumes, I would think someone would call the police (and fire department) and watch the police give the Rev. a nice seat in the back of a squad car on his way to the local prison would be poetic justice. Course, them burning it, and inhaling those toxic fumes while blindly chearing the burning of games would have some irony as well.
I stand rebuked Mr. Wray. This story reminded me of similar stupidity I had to deal with on the west coast and I jumped in. I apoligise if I have in anyway offended you.
As for the sign, If I can scrape a couple grand for gas, I might be beside you.
Hunting the shadows of the troubled dreams.
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.)
From what I can recall of BASIC, it looks about right.
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.
Opps. I mean Reverend Richard Patrick*
books: $5
video games: $60
Letting misinformed protestors spend themselves broke in a pointless protest: priceless
"We are considering having something similar to a rally where parents and children can bring CDs and video games that they consider are destructive to the mind set of our youth and have a burning"
Erm... can we wear Nazi armbands to the burning? I'm just curious.
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
Its nice to see that ONCE AGAIN, religion is there to keep the ideals of the dark ages alive. In light of this (and other pet projects of Chrisians), I feel bad for everything I said about Islam being held back by fundamentalists. At least the Taliban existed in a developing, poor, and otherwise destitute environment. For a burning like this to take place in a wealthy, supposedly modern country is even worse (there is little excuse).
I'll defend the right of Christians to hold book/game burnings, but seriously WTF is wrong with these people?
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
And Jack Thompson says WE'RE the bookburners of this generation...
---You are likely to be eaten by a Grue.
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...
Don't forget D&D game board burnings. :)
This makes me glad that the Father at my church plays videogames...his favorite right now being GTA4 strangely enough.
I'd like to hear one of his sermons.
"So I was killing hookers in Liberty City the other day when I realized that whores, while they are the objects of the devil, are also people can be convered. Today's sermon will be about Mary Magdalin."
Hey CE, yah thatr pastor is a probably a faggot boy molestor, so fuck him and his burning.
Oh for fucks sake, this is moronic. As people have said, the toxic fumes are not exactly a good thing and if they're standing around revelling in their phyrric victory, they'll breathe in the toxic fumes, get stupider and start to burn anything different.
Also, I want to advance a conspiracy theory: Mike Godwin is still alive and this seems a bit TOO perfect a catalyst for the application of Godwin's Law...
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.
That is the Nazi Anthom and the Nazis burned books that they did not agree with.
Burning games? Won't Homeland Security raid their party for violating the DMCA?
BUH-DUM-TISH
crazy catholics...I'm glad my church doesn't do this...heck we get together to play violent video games
As a Catholic I must correct your statement.
He's the pastor of the "Abyissinia Baptist Church"
We Catholics have plenty of our own problems, we don't need to be borrowing from this guy.
It's a Baptist church, not a Catholic one. Get your religions straight.
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...
"[Violent media] has a tremendous influence on young people and violence. That's basically all they see. Most of them try to emulate what they see, when in reality, the people they see don't even live in those communities. Some of the rappers they see on TV portraying crime don't live in the urban areas — they live in the suburbs somewhere. It's all a facade."
As Alpha 5 said: "Ai yai yai yai yai..."
Nuff said.
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.
He doesn't know where he's talking about. I think he have never see a game, never see a movie and so he doesn't can have a opinion
bring all the cds to me I will burn them for you. Onto my hard drive
The burning of any form of media (books, rap, comics, beatles records and yes video games) reeks of fascism. the nazis did it with impunity and yet this church thinks its a good thing to imitate. i wonder how many soldiers who gave their lives during the war are rolling over in their grave because of things like this, what they fought against, being done on american soil.
"Where they burn books, so too will they in the end burn human beings" - Heinrich Heine
Pandralisk is NEVER needed. You know where he is at? Probably somewhere burning bibles. These people though do not share Pandralisk's beliefs are his kin in spirit and action.
Got that right. We need Pandralisk as much as we need a diarrhea.
Amen, brotha.
True dat.
This is obivously gonna backfire if they have to purchase said games and music just to throw them into the bonf