quote: Original post by PumpkinPieman
1) To take the teachings of the bible and use them as a guide for a story is one thing, to apply the teachings of the bible to a game that has relitivly no plot is another.

I didn''t mean to imply otherwise. My appologies if I did.

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2) I don''t hate them per say, sure I may have a big issue with religious people in general. But that''s only because they act anal towards others they do not know. Obviously most of them haven''t heard the saying "Don''t judge a book by its cover". It''s just that the Christians are easier to pick out by the looks of disgust in their faces, as they simply avoid the people who look “evil”. I''ve asked a few of them what religion they belong to (complete strangers) most of them said Christianity. These are the same people who look at you weird because you have long hair and a red goatee. So yeah you could say that in some way I despise their self-centered dispositions.''

Yeah, and I have my complaints about atheists, wiccans, Buddhists, etc. (as well as Christians, mind you) Just as one shouldn''t judge a book by its cover, one shouldn''t judge the whole by a few, nor expect stereotypes to fit an individual.

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3) Lets take another reign check, we''re talking about MMORPGS not Tetris. There is no way you can make a decently fun MMORPG with all puzzles and no killing.

Actually, we sort of stopped talking about specifically MMORPGs a while back. But even if we are talking about MMORPGs:

1) I don''t understand why the killing needs to be removed
2) A perfectly good MMORPG could be made based on economics and politics

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If I were to break down every style of game that christians are limited too this would be it.

Classic Gaming (Pacman etc ...)
Puzzles
Racing
Sports (depending on how anal the person is about violence)

Well crap... wish you could''ve told me sooner so I could''ve thrown my FPS''s and RPG''s in with all those Harry Potter books they used to burn!

quote: Original post by Way Walker
Well crap... wish you could''ve told me sooner so I could''ve thrown my FPS''s and RPG''s in with all those Harry Potter books they used to burn!

Generally speaking when someone says that they want Christian idea''s they''re already anal to begin with. I was under the impression that it''s the anal Christians that this thread is trying to appease, not the ones that can''t distinguish between reality and virtual reality.

quote: Original post by PumpkinPieman
Generally speaking when someone says that they want Christian idea''s they''re already anal to begin with. I was under the impression that it''s the anal Christians that this thread is trying to appease, not the ones that can''t distinguish between reality and virtual reality.

Just for clarification, you do mean "can distinguish between reality and virtual reality", right? Because I don''t think I''m anal (at least I don''t think so in the sense/to the degree that you mean) and I can distinguish.

I think it''s entirely possible to make a Christian game that

1) Doesn''t scream "CHRISTIAN" (well, if you thought the Matrix screams "BUDDHISM", then maybe this point wouldn''t work)
2) Doesn''t say "Jesus" everyone five seconds
3) Promotes Christian values
4) Promotes Christian ideas

for a book example, read "Till We Have Faces" by CS Lewis (which I mentioned earlier).

quote: Original post by Way Walker I think it''s entirely possible to make a Christian game that

1) Doesn''t scream "CHRISTIAN" (well, if you thought the Matrix screams "BUDDHISM", then maybe this point wouldn''t work)
2) Doesn''t say "Jesus" everyone five seconds
3) Promotes Christian values
4) Promotes Christian ideas

Unless you''re going to totally generalize "Christian values", I don''t see how you can do it without talking directly about jesus, or some placeholder for Him (Aslan, etc.). More to the point, how can you address "Christian ideas", much less promote them, without talking directly about Jesus? Just making a game that features characters who have a moral conscience doesn''t make it Christian.

Besides, it''s difficult to make Christian ideals make sense without Jesus and the new covenant to back it up. Let''s face it: Without Jesus as an example, talking about the wretchedness of mankind and the need for redemption doesn''t really do anything but kill your self-esteem. For a Christian theme to work, it needs to address the Pascal mystery, and that means dealing with death, suffering, and the hope of salvation. Try to get that message across without screaming "CHRISTIAN".

P.S. - The Matrix was more than Buddhism. A lot of different traditions were represented (often poorly) by those movies. The explosions and gunfights were still the best parts of them, though.

quote: Original post by Iron Chef Carnage
Unless you''re going to totally generalize "Christian values", I don''t see how you can do it without talking directly about jesus, or some placeholder for Him (Aslan, etc.). More to the point, how can you address "Christian ideas", much less promote them, without talking directly about Jesus? Just making a game that features characters who have a moral conscience doesn''t make it Christian.

I suppose I am talking about a somewhat abstract/generalized idea of "Christian values/ideas". Like what CS Lewis is talking about in the first part or two of "The Abolition of Man". It''s a different world view. And that world view is distinct to Christianity (just as other religions have their distinctive view).

quote:
Besides, it''s difficult to make Christian ideals make sense without Jesus and the new covenant to back it up. Let''s face it: Without Jesus as an example, talking about the wretchedness of mankind and the need for redemption doesn''t really do anything but kill your self-esteem. For a Christian theme to work, it needs to address the Pascal mystery, and that means dealing with death, suffering, and the hope of salvation. Try to get that message across without screaming "CHRISTIAN".

"Till We Have Faces" didn''t really scream "CHRISTIAN" until the very end, and if I remember correctly, even then it wasn''t completely explicit (just in your face obvious). Sadly, I lost my copy, so I can''t check.

And not everything explicitly references Jesus while talking about the wretchedness of mankind and the need for redemption.

"There''s nothing like complete exhaustion,
the atrophy of complete defeat.
The feeling of the world upon my shoulders,
and realizing I am incomplete.
Well there''s a lot of freedom in failure,
a recklessness of weightless abandonment.
I remember light coming through stained glass,
and it reminds me..."

or

"The thought it comes to mind, to somehow intervene,
but it could bring me trouble, and what can I do anyway?
It''s hard to be effective, when it happens so often,
too see a life unraveling, through drawn venetian blinds.
I''m sickened by compassion, I''m stifled by my limitations
Anesthetic apathy, come take the pain away.

And my heart still beats inside,
and the blood runs in my veins.
A remnant of life remains,
and my heart still beats inside."

From Brave Saint Saturn''s "Recall" and "Heart Still Beats" respectively. Granted, the latter does cry out to God later, but only once toward the end. The former''s only nod toward God is capitalizing "Your" in the lyric sheet and some imagery.

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P.S. - The Matrix was more than Buddhism. A lot of different traditions were represented (often poorly) by those movies. The explosions and gunfights were still the best parts of them, though.

Yeah, it was mostly just my complaint that most people think it''s Christian, when the Christian connections are much weaker than the connections to other religions (Neo is only very loosely a Christ figure, which is the main connection people point out). Buddhism was the one that came out to me most.

quote: Original post by Way Walker
Yeah, it was mostly just my complaint that most people think it''s Christian, when the Christian connections are much weaker than the connections to other religions (Neo is only very loosely a Christ figure, which is the main connection people point out). Buddhism was the one that came out to me most.

Regardless, fanatics will always try to find some reason to explain where the elements of the movies they enjoy come from. That having been said, the matrix II and III sucked!

quote: Original post by PumpkinPieman
Regardless, fanatics will always try to find some reason to explain where the elements of the movies they enjoy come from.

Calling me a fanatic?

quote:
That having been said, the matrix II and III sucked!

Even so, I have to see III for completeness (I saw II, ok action, but nothing like I)

If the Matrix is Christian, then it''s the extinct Gnostic form of Christianity: the Architect is YHWH, the Demiurge, imprisoning people in the false physical world. Neo is the Christ, opposed to the Demiurge, helping people to escape.

But in neither tradition did Christ start off human and escape later. Also, in neither tradition does salvation through Christ lead to a hard life in a shattered world. Neo works as a Buddha, but then Buddhism generally teaches that enlightenment leads to extinction.

The most obvious religious analogy for the ''real world'', that I can see, is Hades. Hades is not, contrary to popular misconception, a place where the evil go to be punished. Most of Hades is a joyless, colourless world, full not of pain, but boredom.

It occurs to me that there is a very rough parallel between Neo''s descent into the machine city and Jesus''s descent into Hell.

Neo, of course, causes ''paradise'' to arrive on ''Earth'', and for free passage between ''paradise'' and ''hell'', quite unlike Jesus.

But why, oh why do the machines give Neo a Viking funeral?

We''re so off-topic it isn''t even funny anymore. If this thread didn''t deserve to be closed before, it does now.

fo real dis conversation is way out left field now, but what i was talking about is the way the matrix uses principals of whatever religion it was. do the same for ur game but make it more vivid towords a christian standard. not to make anyone a christ but to relate to an every day struggle christians have spiritually, and put in a video game standard