Religious faith in videogames

[BoringSupreez]

To reply to the original thought line of this topic, the games I've played that talked about religious faith the most are ones I'm suprised no one's mentioned yet: Deus Ex, and even more, its sequel, Deus Ex: Invisible War.

It was really Invisible War that picked up the religious commentary. Deus Ex mostly focused on government and secret societies, and the general price of progress. It takes a cynical view of religion as a method to control the masses, but it's a minor point in the game's philosophy. But Invisible War definately hits religion harder. That game just doesn't come to mind much because I haven't played it since I first beat it after release. Damn you Xbox and your rape of what was supposed to be an amazing sequel!

I didn't think it was horrible, but it sure could have been better. I played it on PC to try to minimize the console feel, but it still felt like a console game.

[MrPopo]

To reply to the original thought line of this topic, the games I've played that talked about religious faith the most are ones I'm suprised no one's mentioned yet: Deus Ex, and even more, its sequel, Deus Ex: Invisible War.

It was really Invisible War that picked up the religious commentary. Deus Ex mostly focused on government and secret societies, and the general price of progress. It takes a cynical view of religion as a method to control the masses, but it's a minor point in the game's philosophy. But Invisible War definately hits religion harder. That game just doesn't come to mind much because I haven't played it since I first beat it after release. Damn you Xbox and your rape of what was supposed to be an amazing sequel!

I didn't think it was horrible, but it sure could have been better. I played it on PC to try to minimize the console feel, but it still felt like a console game.

Some nights I wake up crying because of all of DX:IW's missed potential.

[the7k]

Somedays, I feel like giving Invisible War a proper shot. After all, I've played Deus Ex about 5 times.

Then I start playing it, and strangely, I end up uninstalling it 15 minutes later. Maybe I need to get an Xbox 360 controller for my PC.

[MrPopo]

You know what I would love to see? If the DX community recreated the IW content in the DX engine and tweak it to play like it always should have. But that's a project as large as The Nameless mod, and we all saw how long that took to create.

IW's story is pretty decent, though not as good as the first. It's just all those design decisions made with consoles in mind really ruins the experience.

[J T]

Two interesting articles recently showed up on this topic at Kotaku:

Losing Our Religion: http://kotaku.com/5509744/losing-our-re ... e=true&s=i
(a piece about censorship of all things religious in videogames)

The God I've Been: http://kotaku.com/5510748/the-god-ive-been
(a piece about playing the role of God in videogames)

[MrPopo]

I'd be interested to see if there are any recent examples of religion being removed that wasn't linked to Muslim references. The two examples Kotaku cited are clearly related to the fairly recent events involving extremist militants. SMT: Strange Journey is very clearly a battle between the forces of God and the forces of Lucifer (and they call out God specifically). It'd be fun to see if they ever made a remake to SMT2, where you get to kill God.

[Capcomwarrior]

As a Christian, I personally don't filter anything out based on conflict with my beliefs. If I was to just cover my senses from anything in opposition, that would completely defeat the purpose of owning and having faith in my belief system.

Contrary to common misperception, Christianity is not about blind faith or belief without evidence. We are encouraged analyze and put everything to the test!
-"Test everything. Hold on to the good". (1 Thessalonians 5:21)
-"The mind of the prudent acquires knowledge, And the ear of the wise seeks knowledge." (Proverbs 18:15)
-"Come now, and let us reason together," Says the LORD (Isaiah 1:18)36

The Bible encourages believers to have a knowledge-based faith, built upon sound biblical doctrine. Thoughts otherwise are simply misinterpretations or lack of understanding of doctrine (which is usually the case with shock-value/low substance atheist lit like Dawkins).

[Dylan]

SMT: Strange Journey is very clearly a battle between the forces of God and the forces of Lucifer (and they call out God specifically). It'd be fun to see if they ever made a remake to SMT2, where you get to kill God.

That's not God, it's YHWH.

I thought it was hilarious that SMT2 had a disclaimer stating that likenesses to real world belief systems in the game were coincidental.

[MrPopo]

Contrary to common misperception, Christianity is not about blind faith or belief without evidence. We are encouraged analyze and put everything to the test!
-"Test everything. Hold on to the good". (1 Thessalonians 5:21)
-"The mind of the prudent acquires knowledge, And the ear of the wise seeks knowledge." (Proverbs 18:15)
-"Come now, and let us reason together," Says the LORD (Isaiah 1:18)36

The Bible encourages believers to have a knowledge-based faith, built upon sound biblical doctrine. Thoughts otherwise are simply misinterpretations or lack of understanding of doctrine (which is usually the case with shock-value/low substance atheist lit like Dawkins).

Your confusing the Bible with Christianity. It's a common mistake.

[Capcomwarrior]

Contrary to common misperception, Christianity is not about blind faith or belief without evidence. We are encouraged analyze and put everything to the test!
-"Test everything. Hold on to the good". (1 Thessalonians 5:21)
-"The mind of the prudent acquires knowledge, And the ear of the wise seeks knowledge." (Proverbs 18:15)
-"Come now, and let us reason together," Says the LORD (Isaiah 1:18)36

The Bible encourages believers to have a knowledge-based faith, built upon sound biblical doctrine. Thoughts otherwise are simply misinterpretations or lack of understanding of doctrine (which is usually the case with shock-value/low substance atheist lit like Dawkins).

Your confusing the Bible with Christianity. It's a common mistake.

No, actually I'm providing some verses that I thought someone had asked for.

Explain what you mean though. How have you arrived at your conclusion of what Christianity is to you, ME, or even the majority of Christians or non-Christians?