A Christian Perspective

[exp(x)]

sweet, my news contribution made it.

[Skeletor]

You know, I actually wrote a review for Doom III for THAT website. They didn't use it though. Main point I brought up in my review was that Doom III wasn't for the weak hearted, know that it is just a game, and that people should know the difference between reality and games. I said the graphics, sound were great.

I guess they didn't like it.

and yes, I am a Christian.

[Scave]

Martin Howe said:
You can teach good morals secularly, they are independent of religion. Think about it for a moment, why do most religions and many atheists agree on common themes like "do not steal", "do not rape", "do not murder". These are things that any rational being could figure out for themselves; if you do something to somebody who doesn't deserve it, then you are being illogical, in other words, unfair. Therefore by logic we conclude that we must not steal or rape or murder. Emotion should properly serve as an inspiration to and check-and-balance on logic, not replace it entirely.

If you really wanted to talk about logic and rationality, why is it rational and logical not to steal, rape or murder if need be? In a world without morals, any intelligent agent would readily perform these acts if it increased their net gain.

That's what acting rationally is. Making decisions to maximise one's net gain. Any well engineered AI would behave in this manner.

The real question is, what is your desired outcome? Or purpose in life? This influences (whether we realize it or not) our every decision.


Anyway, I've had my counter-rant....continue with the religion bashing.

[gatewatcher]

Christian reviews are funny, mainly because they'll make some pretty good gameplay and technology observations, but then they ruin everything by complaining about pentagrams being too scary. Christian critics need to stop being pussies.

[myk]

MasterOfPuppets said:
i don't know about anybody else, but i'm quite pleased when something i like pisses off some people.

True, the christians pissing off DOOM 3 fans are indeed amusing characters.

[SulfurOccult]

i was, i guess you could say, proud when Doom topped the list of most controversial games.

what boggles my mind is how this reviewer called doom 3 gory. its probably one of the least gory fps games in a long time.

[dsm]

MasterOfPuppets said:

i was, i guess you could say, proud when Doom topped the list of most controversial games.

what boggles my mind is how this reviewer called doom 3 gory. its probably one of the least gory fps games in a long time.

Hmmm.

Lots of blood spattered all around on surfaces - check.
Exposed guts - check.
Bodies ripped apart - check.

Looks pretty gory to me.

[Shaviro]

MasterOfPuppets said:

what boggles my mind is how this reviewer called doom 3 gory. its probably one of the least gory fps games in a long time.

You never went to Delta labs? :P

[Bid]

The horror unleashed by Christians, in the name of Christ, makes DOOM 3's Hell senerio look like a picnic.

[exp(x)]

Bid said:

The horror unleashed by Christians, in the name of Christ, makes DOOM 3's Hell senerio look like a picnic.

Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!

Ximinez [angrily hurling away the cushions]: Hm! She is made of harder stuff! Cardinal Fang! Fetch...THE COMFY CHAIR!

[JARRING CHORD]

[Zoom into Fang's horrified face]

Fang [terrified]: The...Comfy Chair?

[Enjay]

Amaster said:

Outside of the religious perspective, this is probably the fairest review I've ever read.

Agreed. He obviously had an axe to grind and was coming from a biased perspective where even the appearance of a pentegram = unacceptable, regardless of context, but the review of gameplay etc was actually very fair IMO.

[Relica Religia]

Mewse, I wasn't hating on you for posting this at all. I was just a little surprised that one of these was put on the News when it was apparent they couldn't be discussed without flaming and trolling going on.

[S1lent]

** WARNING!! Marty Razor Kirra THINKS THAT THERE ARE SPOILERS IN THIS POST!! IF YOU BELIEVE HIM, THAN DON'T READ THIS POST!! **

MasterOfPuppets said:

i was, i guess you could say, proud when Doom topped the list of most controversial games.

what boggles my mind is how this reviewer called doom 3 gory. its probably one of the least gory fps games in a long time.

Oh ya, sure, once you get past the exploding (gibbed) bodies, the walls dripping with blood, the zombies eating people, the blood smeared all over the alls and floor, the messages written in blood on the walls, the dismemebered body parts hanging from the ceiling and lying on the ground, the bleeding and "living" walls, the horrific screams of torment, the demons burning away, the blood splatters on the walls and floors when you wound an enemy, the guts & bones hanging out and visible on the enemy, the zombies with decaying skin and some even burning, the people suspended from the ceiling with their leg and flopping around with terrible wounds, people impaled with multiple spikes on the ceiling and yelling, multiple people hanging from upsidedown crosses with their intestines hanging out, peoples faces decaying, lost souls popping out of people's heads, the tattooed demons and souls in hell, Hell itself (won't go into detail), and all corpses lying on thr ground, sure, it's not that gory of a game...

Me being a Christian, I don't have a problem with playing Doom 3. I think that games are fine and long as you are comfortable playing them and you don't let them influence you or interfere with your faith. I personally do not feel comfortable playing games that have sexual themes to them, some people don't feel comfortable playing gory games.

[Skeletor]

S1lent said:

Oh ya, sure, once you get past the exploding (gibbed) bodies, the walls dripping with blood, the zombies eating people, the blood smeared all over the alls and floor, the messages written in blood on the walls, the dismemebered body parts hanging from the ceiling and lying on the ground, the bleeding and "living" walls, the horrific screams of torment, the demons burning away, the blood splatters on the walls and floors when you wound an enemy, the guts & bones hanging out and visible on the enemy, the zombies with decaying skin and some even burning, the people suspended from the ceiling with their leg and flopping around with terrible wounds, people impaled with multiple spikes on the ceiling and yelling, multiple people hanging from upsidedown crosses with their intestines hanging out, peoples faces decaying, lost souls popping out of people's heads, the tattooed demons and souls in hell, Hell itself (won't go into detail), and all corpses lying on thr ground, sure, it's not that gory of a game...

Me being a Christian, I don't have a problem with playing Doom 3. I think that games are fine and long as you are comfortable playing them and you don't let them influence you or interfere with your faith. I personally do not feel comfortable playing games that have sexual themes to them, some people don't feel comfortable playing gory games.

same here.

[SulfurOccult]

dsm said:

Hmmm.

Lots of blood spattered all around on surfaces - check.
Exposed guts - check.
Bodies ripped apart - check.

Looks pretty gory to me.

well i mostly meant how enemy's just burn up, and zombies just become skeletons and vanish. even in classic doom you got to see some brutal evicerations.

[Xenaero]

I swear to god, christians are control freaks. (Notice pun)

[S1lent]

DD_133 said:

(Notice pun)

When you have to say that, you know your not good at it.

[Cardboard Marty]

S1lent said:


Oh ya, sure, once you get past the exploding (gibbed) bodies, the walls dripping with blood, the zombies eating people, the blood smeared all over the alls and floor, the messages written in blood on the walls, the dismemebered body parts hanging from the ceiling and lying on the ground, the bleeding and "living" walls, the horrific screams of torment, the demons burning away, the blood splatters on the walls and floors when you wound an enemy, the guts & bones hanging out and visible on the enemy, the zombies with decaying skin and some even burning, the people suspended from the ceiling with their leg and flopping around with terrible wounds, people impaled with multiple spikes on the ceiling and yelling, multiple people hanging from upsidedown crosses with their intestines hanging out, peoples faces decaying, lost souls popping out of people's heads, the tattooed demons and souls in hell, Hell itself (won't go into detail), and all corpses lying on thr ground, sure, it's not that gory of a game...

Me being a Christian, I don't have a problem with playing Doom 3. I think that games are fine and long as you are comfortable playing them and you don't let them influence you or interfere with your faith. I personally do not feel comfortable playing games that have sexual themes to them, some people don't feel comfortable playing gory games.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
OMG! It musta taking you a long time to come up with that,you ruined HALF THE FREAKIN' GAME! Look,the guy(the reviewer) knows he was gonna get flamed,he's an idiot.Most of us doom fans would of hunted him down and brutaly beaten him.HE knew that.When you go out of your way just to piss people off,you know you'll have people flaming you.
-MRK.

[S1lent]

None of those things give away any plot points... And it didn't take me very long to think of them either..they stand out pretty well. All of those things are in the countless number of screenshots on the net. But, just to make you happy, I'll add something.

As for the flaming thing, it's the childrens decision to FLAME instead of respectively discussing it without petty insults and empty threats...something your post obviously lacks. If you disagree, then find, diagree. But your only showing off how barbaric you are by saying stuff like "i'LL k33l j00!11! s7uPD cHr151@z sUx0rz b cuz d3y hav op1ni0nzz!11!"

Or, if none of you can read that, comments like. "He's an idiot" or "I want to beat the crap out of him" or "He's stupid because he's a Christian and that means his opinions don't matter but mine do," or "People flame him because he knew he would get flamed," or "You're an idiot" or "shutup" or "your stupid." It's stuff like this that really lets your intelligence shine...

[Quasar]

Scave said:

If you really wanted to talk about logic and rationality, why is it rational and logical not to steal, rape or murder if need be? In a world without morals, any intelligent agent would readily perform these acts if it increased their net gain.

That's what acting rationally is. Making decisions to maximise one's net gain. Any well engineered AI would behave in this manner.

The real question is, what is your desired outcome? Or purpose in life? This influences (whether we realize it or not) our every decision.


Anyway, I've had my counter-rant....continue with the religion bashing.

Considering the only moral issue to be your own gain or loss is an erroneous picture of the world which totally ignores the fact that we are social creatures evolved to live in a competitive but supportive environment.

Your assertion about AI is also incorrect. A well-designed AI will be based on the principles of Friendliness, as defined by the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence (SIAI). The last thing a Friendly AI would do is act only its own interest, because Friendly AI doesn't possess an anthropomorphic ideal of self in the first place. If an AI becomes capable of acting selfishly and can undertake actions of which the topmost supergoal is not Friendliness, then it has ceased to be a Friendly AI. Search for SIAI on Google if you are interested in finding out about viable design for true AI.

[Martin Howe]

S1lent said:

It's because some athiest feels the need to insult and descriminate openly about other people and their religions. If athiests are tought such good morals secularly, than why don't you use them?

I suggest that the above accusation is not true as it fails to take account of the difference between "fair comment" and "descriminate/insult".

Suppose person A believes X and person B belives Y and that X and Y are mutually exclusive to some extent. Suppose further that person A wants to state X. As long person A states X giving what, as far as they can see, are good reasons for it and does not state X purely to insult believers of Y, then two things follow:

(1) Person A has a right to state X.
(2) Person Y has a duty to apply self-discipline and treat what person A has said as "fair comment" rather than as a gratuitous insult.
(3) Person B also has the right to argue against X.

What person B does not have a right to do is to insist that person A not state X at all just in case somebody is offended by it. In that case, civilised discussion of controversial issues would be impossible. Society as a concept requires us to exercise self-discipline when confronted with views that we do not agree with. The person stating them may be doing it purely to insult us or they may instead simply be stating them because they believe them and have what, to them, seem to be good reasons for doing so.

To try to suppress discussion just because some people might be offended by the views expressed is a very dangerous thing to do and -- I am quite serious about this -- is one of the steps along the road to neo-NAZIism. This is the main reason why the UK Government doesn't simply ban poltical groups such as the National Front (racist nationalistic extremists; basically the UK equivalent of the KKK), despite the fact that their views are repugnant to most UK residents.

[Martin Howe]

Scave said:

If you really wanted to talk about logic and rationality, why is it rational and logical not to steal, rape or murder if need be? In a world without morals, any intelligent agent would readily perform these acts if it increased their net gain.

That's what acting rationally is. Making decisions to maximise one's net gain. Any well engineered AI would behave in this manner.

The real question is, what is your desired outcome? Or purpose in life? This influences (whether we realize it or not) our every decision.

Quasar has already answered this; however since it was a reply to one of mine, I will too. I was talking exclusively within the context of living in a civilised society, one in which justice and the good of the collective are axioms; of course in a society of, say, pirates or barbarians, self-gain is indeed the logical way to behave; however, I wouldn't want to live in such a society... :-)

[Scave]

Quasar said:

Considering the only moral issue to be your own gain or loss is an erroneous picture of the world which totally ignores the fact that we are social creatures evolved to live in a competitive but supportive environment.

Your assertion about AI is also incorrect. A well-designed AI will be based on the principles of Friendliness, as defined by the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence (SIAI). The last thing a Friendly AI would do is act only its own interest, because Friendly AI doesn't possess an anthropomorphic ideal of self in the first place. If an AI becomes capable of acting selfishly and can undertake actions of which the topmost supergoal is not Friendliness, then it has ceased to be a Friendly AI. Search for SIAI on Google if you are interested in finding out about viable design for true AI.

On the first point, I disagree. The issue is still one of personal gain and loss. Being a social creature would just imply that we gain from 'being social' (whatever the hell you want to make of that). Evolved to be competitive but supportive? Says who?

And on the second point, hmm I disagree. Not all AI is designed to be friendly. And even if it was, that would just mean that being friendly is again in the AI's best interests and so would have more to gain by not killing, stealing, etc.


But this matter has been resolved nonetheless by Martin Howe's clarification above. Although I'd like to add, I'm afraid we do live in that type of society Martin. Goodwill, friendship, etc., etc., are not universal axioms.

[LabRat404]

I absolutely hate christians. are there christians here? remember, satan loves you! lmfao. if christians were so content with their religion, you'd think they wouldn't be offended by it so easily. All the christians I've ever met are all about nocking what other people stand for if they dont like it, and this guy is no exception.

how ya gunna pour personal feelings into a REVIEW? "oh man, that chinese guy reminded me a lot of this guy that my ex girlfriend ran off with. I hate this game!"

christian is another word for over-active superego. somebody get this guy a hooker!

I'm sorry, I'm not one to take a group of people and criticize them, but christans are REALLY starting to piss me off.

[Fletcher`]

And any last chance at world peace has just been thrown out the window...

[LabRat404]

ravage said:

And any last chance at world peace has just been thrown out the window...

LOL

just be human =O)

[Darkhaven]

Simply using geometric symbols like a star inside a circle or a cross where the horizontal portion is below the vertical line's midsection doesn't strike me as a satanic plot any more than seeing a rainbow suggests a meteorological conspiracy to endorse sodomy.

Holy shit.

[june gloom]

LabRat404 said:

I absolutely hate christians. are there christians here? remember, satan loves you! lmfao.

slap

LabRat404 whined:
if christians were so content with their religion, you'd think they wouldn't be offended by it so easily. All the christians I've ever met are all about nocking what other people stand for if they dont like it, and this guy is no exception.

shut up, you ethnic slur. you are guilty of generalising. you take your reactions from when you met certain select members of a group, and assume your impressions of them apply to everyone else in that group.

LabRat404 whined:
how ya gunna pour personal feelings into a REVIEW? "oh man, that chinese guy reminded me a lot of this guy that my ex girlfriend ran off with. I hate this game!"

what the fuck

LabRat404 whined:
christian is another word for over-active superego. somebody get this guy a hooker!

slap again

"over-active superego" my ass. you know what? most christians are the height of politeness. the rudest and most self-righteous sons of bitches i've ever met were all atheists. notice i didn't say "all the atheists i've met were rude blahblahblah". i know some nice atheists. however, the fact is, those rude atheists will go to any length to convince you that believing in god, or any other deity, is wrong, even to the point of insult. there's nice atheists, and there's people like you. real atheists simply believe there is no god. people like you have an axe to grind.

LabRat404 whined:
I'm sorry, I'm not one to take a group of people and criticize them, but christans are REALLY starting to piss me off.

tell me, did you decide you hated christianity because it would piss off your parents? for fuck's sake, you say you're not one to criticize a whole group of people, then you go right ahead and bash a whole group of people, most of whom don't deserve your insults.

summing it up, you're an idiot, you're an insult to real atheists, and you're not worth the shit on my shoes or the piss on the ground. please kill yourself, and make sure the blood gets on your tool poster.

[LabRat404]

dethtoll said:...you're an insult to real atheists...[/B]

I never said I was an atheist. just because someone is nota christian, does not make them an atheist.

when ever single piece of shit you meet acts just the same as the last, you start to make opinions. don't rape me for that you fucking insensitive asshole.

[Mordeth]

You people better stop flaming before I lub some gasoline in your general direction.