Who knew that Spore would be so controversial?
First there was the DRM madness that has enraged so many gamers. Now an apparent creationist site refers to Will Wright's long-awaited game an "attack on Christian values."
Anti-Spore (there is some speculation that the site is a hoax) went live just a day after Spore's September 7th release. The site's opening post sums up its focus:
Yesterday I found out about a new game called Spore when my son asked me to buy it for him. It looked innocent enough at first and has “E for Everyone” ESRB rating. But don’t be mislead, apparently “everyone” means everyone they want to teach evolution to.
This entire game is propaganda aimed directly at our children to teach them evolution instead of creationism, or “intelligent design” ...
I decided that Electronic Arts needs to hear from concerned people such as myself that this sort of game is not acceptable, and created this blog to find support and share information and progress with anyone who feels the same as I do.
Indeed, the domain name, which is private, was registered on September 8th. The anonymous author claims to be a wife and mother and writes that she has received hate mail and death threats over her Spore views.
The site also tosses in this small bit of politics:
I got a message from the supposed mayor of McCamish, KS [a suburb of Kansas City]. Claiming that he will make sure the game is kept out of their store. I have no way to verify the info, though.
Via: bit-tech.net
Comments
Re: Creationist Site Targets Spore
With me and the crowd its a real mixed back, I have JW nutters, Pentecostal nutters and Catholic nutters all in my family but yes in my family they are the worse too... example: my cousin who as 8 at the time tried pascal's stupid wager on me.
So yeah, they even tell their kids "your cousin is a godless heathen who's going to burn, he needs to be saved". A quick word to her father saying to direct his debate topics towards me because unless he wants his little girl asking him "Who's Mithras?"
Re: Creationist Site Targets Spore
You do that too huh? Let me shake your hand!
Hunting the shadows of the troubled dreams.
Re: Creationist Site Targets Spore
Can we please remember that for every religious nutjob that goes on about 'wearing the colors of satan' and trying to convert everyone in sight constantly that there are 1000 religious people that are normal? Just like gamers. I'm christian too, and trust me, all these freaks that go out giving my faith a bad name are just as annoying to me, if not moreso.
Re: Creationist Site Targets Spore
My uncle is a Hindu, and he's a cool guy. He married my dad's sister who is a Christian and doesn't seem to mind that none of his children are Hindu.
Re: Creationist Site Targets Spore
Wasn't some athiest group mad about this game some weeks ago?
Re: Creationist Site Targets Spore
Nope. Atheist groups thought that it was funny because they predicted the this exact thing was going to happen.
Re: Creationist Site Targets Spore
Wait a minute if this game is somehow promoting evolution which ticks off the Christians then why would atheists be angry?
xD
Re: Creationist Site Targets Spore
Same reason, other direction. The game implies that there is an intelligent designer (the player) of life.
Re: Creationist Site Targets Spore
Ok if you have to bring it out to that big of a stretch on an "implication" then your just looking for something to bitch about for the sake of bitching.
*sigh*
Re: Creationist Site Targets Spore
Yeah, thats basically what they're doing. I'm atheist myself and I hate people who specifically look for insignificant things to bitch about, like "in god we trust" on money and "under god" in the pledge. Its almost as retarded as thsoe atheists that want to have a churche of atheism, then complain that they can't get the tax waiver, lol.
The game itself mentions evolution throughout, but the process by which the game uses it has nothing to do with actual evolution. You character "evolves" based on your will, rather than any specific advantage a trait gives in an environment. Hell, when you lay an egg, you can completely redo your creature to look nothing like what it was before. So yeah, I definitely feel this game actually leans more towards the ID viewpoint. But seriously, who cares? I own it, and its awesome.
Re: Creationist Site Targets Spore
Please don't compare "in god we trust" on the money and "under god" in the pledge with this. Those were created by the government during the height of the Red Scare of the 1950's specifically as a "fuck you" to non-religious people. You should be offended by that. unless you lack civic pride to begin with and therefore don't give a shit about the government going out of its way to disparage an entire class of its citizens (sound familiar?).
Re: Creationist Site Targets Spore
Yeah... I think that there should be an absolute seperation of church and state, but with people like the politicians we have, that will never happen. One person tried to argue with me that people who don't believe in god dont have the guidance for moral and ethical choices. I was like, dude, I have not believed in God since I believed in the easter bunny, santa claus, and the tooth fairy. I rank on the highest level on the psychological board's morality test, and before you just found out that I don't believe in God, how moral and ethical did you think that I was?
If you want to base your morals and ethics on your religion, fine, but strip down the religious part and use your own logic and reasoning when pulling it into politics without referancing the bible. Don't say that because god has created the child, the raped 10 year old should be forced to have the baby. Now if you morally and scientificly believe that the child is at the point of being classified as living, then fine, but don't drag god into it. Then with these politicians, especially McCain since he has the worse track record of all of them, if your religion says it is wrong to cheat on your wife, then don't cheat on your wife.
Re: Creationist Site Targets Spore
What doesn't spore really teach intelligence design??? I mean you the gamer are the one creating the creature, which if I understand it correctly what intelligence design talks about... If its about evolution then well the gamer wouldn't do anything but watch what happens then it would be Spore the Movie.
Re: Creationist Site Targets Spore
Then the Fund-tards would claim that the game is heresy and "atheist propaganda" since a bizzare number of fundies think that atheists think that they are gods.
kind of a damned if you do, damned if you don't, situation.
United we Stand, Divided we fall.
Re: Creationist Site Targets Spore
Well in essence you are right, but the game starts with an asteroid landing on planet disbursing micro-organisms as well as the term "evolution" is used throughout.
but i seriously doubt that if it was a real god sim like populous or black and white the christian fun-duh-mental-ists would be too happy about that either.
Re: Creationist Site Targets Spore
About the crash-landing asteroid- if that's how the game starts out, with pre-existing organisms, there is almost nothing for the Creationists to talk about.
Darwin's theory NEVER intended to explain the origin of life. It only explains how different species develop.
Re: Creationist Site Targets Spore
If this isn't a hoax my only question is what happend to the logic of just not buying something if it offends you?
Not getting into the whole debate of evolution and non evolution I just don't get it. Ok so you think the game is brainwashing your kids into learning something your against. Fine. Then why buy it? Consumers these days seem to think they are powerless when its a simple case of not buying something! U_U
Re: Creationist Site Targets Spore
That logic conflicts with fundamentalist's evangelical stance. They think they are doing everybody a service by forcing their values on them. Hooray for Fascism!
Re: Creationist Site Targets Spore
"No one EXPECTS the Spanish Inquistion!"
Hunting the shadows of the troubled dreams.
Re: Creationist Site Targets Spore
Fetch the comfy chair!
Re: Creationist Site Targets Spore
wow, everybody is getting worked up over nothing serious... this is like screaming at a kid "THERE'S A BOOGIE MAN IN YOUR CLOSET" and it happened to be a friggin' teletubbie.... (gay joke not intended)
Jesus Jack Jones Thompson told me to do it!
Re: Creationist Site Targets Spore
i hope it a hoax becuse if it not i feel sorry for people. i mean if you dont want to your kid to buy the game then dont but dont try to make them stop selling a game becuse it has someting to do about a scientific theory tho it been proven lol. plus i like the idea of evolution better then the talking snake no offince for any one christen.
Thanks
Zaruka
Re: Creationist Site Targets Spore
I smell BS. And lol @ McCamish, KS, population 878 :|
Re: Creationist Site Targets Spore
Woundwalker beat me to it.
This could be a hoax. Then again, from what I've seen from fundies, it could just as easily be genuine idiocy.
Re: Creationist Site Targets Spore
Yep, most anti- evoulutionists aren't exactly intelligent.
Re: Creationist Site Targets Spore
Re: Creationist Site Targets Spore
Totally. I bought into this right up until the most recent posting, because real fundamentalists really do say stuff like this all the time.
I'm not sure if I should take that as something horrible about fundamentalists or as an anecdote on the state of satirical humor...
Re: Creationist Site Targets Spore
Heck, it's impossible to create a parody of Fundamentalism that some Fundamentalist won't mistake for the real thing. I've seen Landover Baptist linked from actual church websites a couple times. Antispore might be parody, but it's close enough to the mark (it's actually more reasonable than a lot of the real stuff out there) that there's going to be people on both sides falling for it.
Re: Creationist Site Targets Spore
Yeah, thats a hoax.
Re: Creationist Site Targets Spore
hcf's razor: Hoaxes have banner ads. Real fundamentalists don't.
Someone apoplectic with rage wouldn't, in the midst of learning how to put a blog together all last-minute, will not stop and think "you know, I need to develop a relationship with a banner-ad service and get some dollars for jesus from the webhits I'm about to manufacture."
Re: Creationist Site Targets Spore
I could manage a website like this and not care less about the ad-revenue.
I'm laughing too hard at everyone raging to care.
Re: Creationist Site Targets Spore
Not to be a dick, but I would like to see you try it. If you were able to get even half as many articles, be paying for the domain and hosting, and program or pay to have half of this programmed, you would want to get your money at least partially back. Maybe you would have a place for donations instead, which I am supprised they don't here (maybe i am just not seeing it), but I doubt you would put $500+ or $50 and over 100 hours of work into a site and not have ads at all.
Re: Creationist Site Targets Spore
Uh you dont know very much about the internet, do you? Anyone here could have that site up in an hour, tops.
Re: Creationist Site Targets Spore
Yup, I think so too. Definitely trolling for a response.
Gift.