"God is real, and it wants us dead: The religious terror of BioWare's biggest games"

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**Manchu**

mattyrm wrote:
every single religion always boils down to "magic" so how is that not silly?

Anything about religion that boils down to "magic" is certainly silly. It is just as silly, purely as a matter of logic, to look for God among the set of things which he is said to not be a part (Creation). The trouble is, your point of view is so uncritically and narrowly materialist. But let's not just subvert this thread into whether religion is worthwhile or not. (Feel free to PM.)

The topic is actually about religion in video games and more specifically how God is presented in ME and DA. Hence:

Manchu wrote:
Let's just take the article in question as an example:

The article claims the Reapers are analogs for God. The argument is entirely based on the Reapers' role in engineering galactic civilization. Is that the key quality of God? The article invokes another metaphor: a child using a magnifying glass to kill ants. It is telling. For the child created none of the magnifying glass, nor the ants, nor the sun. So how does the article envision God? What is God's definitive attribute: the power to manipulate things at some relatively vast scale. This may very well be how lots of folks who don't think much about God think about God. But does it have anything to do with any actual religious tradition? No. It is solely a caricature developed to tautologically support the article's thesis.

The article brings up religion but fails to talk about it. Just like in the games it mentions.

This is exactly why I say the Maker is just an off-screen NPC (a D&D-style "god") rather than a serious metaphor for anything about religion.

**Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl**

Manchu wrote:
The trouble is, your point of view is so uncritically and narrowly materialist.

As opposed to what? I can think of something not material: emotions. Is that what our point of view must be, when talking religion? Emotional?
Because sure as heck, all religions I ever heard about talk a great deal about material things. From creation myth to day to day rules.

**Melissia**

Manchu wrote:
Melissia wrote:
How do you mean "take religion seriously", Manchu?
As in, how does one take religion seriously?

No, I meant in a game, or in media in general.

For example, I can't think of any non-scholarly media that takes Christianity seriously. No, not even media that explicitly describes itself as "Christian" media-- certainly, Left Behind doesn't take it seriously, it feels more like an open mockery of Christianity than anything I can think of. Its "heroes" are amoral jackasses, and they're supposed to be representing the ideal Christian according to the writers. Closest I can think of was "A Thief in the Night", but even then... it felt like they only took a small part of it seriously.

**Manchu**

Melissia wrote:
I can't think of any non-scholarly media that takes Christianity seriously.

Just off the top of my head, I would recommend Mean Streets and Calvary.

It might also be worthwhile to watch this:

**mattyrm**

Calvary was a wonderful yet incredibly depressing film.

**Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl**

Manchu wrote:

Spoiler:

To me the “mechanics” of religion and “faith” are basically the same thing, except one is at a whole society level and the other is at a personal level. Let us take some game I recently finished as an example: Shadowrun Return.

Spoiler:

**Manchu**

Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
However, as you can guess, faith is not portrayed in a very positive fashion. How could it ever be?

This kind of thing is why there is no reason to have a conversation with you.

**Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl**

I just do not see how you can portray this as a good thing in a video game. Do you get the character to get magic power because he believe, Samson-style ? Or do you make him stop being a jerk/not become a jerk because he believe in something supernatural? With all the unfortunate implications of this?

**Pacific**

Did anyone playing ME really compare the Reapers to their idea of 'God' - I assume spelt with the capital G means that it is likened to the Abrahamic conception of a creator?

It should be 'god' in lower case, it has no connection whatsoever to the events in the Bible, and the God of Genesis which created existence. I don't think it ties into 'religious terror' at all, more a fundamental fear within us of armageddon, whatever form that might take, and which has taken forms as varied as great floods, to asteroids, plagues and Gort.

I don't think anyone, religious or no, would compare what happens in ME to events which are religious/holy in nature. Except perhaps for scientologists!

**Chongara**

Games where you to kill "God", or some god-like entity because it's enslaving us or destroying the world or propagating some dark cycle have been common for as long as I can remember. This hardly new or unique to Bioware. Games have always done this.

**Compel**

I'm surprised noone mentioned 'Mask of The Betrayer' yet on this subject.

Or did barely anyone play it?

**Chongara**

Compel wrote:
I'm surprised noone mentioned 'Mask of The Betrayer' yet on this subject.

Or did barely anyone play it?

I tried playing NWN2 I could never get more than an hour or two in. Somehow they made the sequel stiffer and more unwieldy than the original.

**Compel**

Mask of the Betrayer was an expansion pack, not a sequel. It was generally seen as far superior, with a far more engaging and interesting storyline, heavily tied into the Forgotten Realms mythos, that the original.

The plot was heavily based around the religious make up of the Forgotten Realms universe, including you having personal one to one chats with multiple gods.

**Chongara**

Compel wrote:
Mask of the Betrayer was an expansion pack, not a sequel. It was generally seen as far superior, with a far more engaging and interesting storyline, heavily tied into the Forgotten Realms mythos, that the original.

The plot was heavily based around the religious make up of the Forgotten Realms universe, including you having personal one to one chats with multiple gods.

I mean NWN2 vs NWN1. I enjoyed NWN1 I couldn't really get into 2. That's rather neither here nor there I suppose.

**LordofHats**

Though this article is about film, I think it helps illustrate various ways in which religion is approached in silly ways. I think Machu has been spot on in this thread. Religion is very rarely seriously discussed in fiction, and when it is it's often behind elusive metaphor/allegory or is so busy bashing you over the head with it that you quickly want to drop what you're reading. The all too common presence of religion is often merely for characterization, or stage setting, than a serious portrayal of what it means to be religious. Scully's development in the X-Files may well be one of the best 'discussions' of religion on screen, and really you have to really read into it to find it in that show.

For example, I can't think of any non-scholarly media that takes Christianity seriously. No, not even media that explicitly describes itself as "Christian" media-- certainly, Left Behind doesn't take it seriously, it feels more like an open mockery of Christianity than anything I can think of. Its "heroes" are amoral jackasses, and they're supposed to be representing the ideal Christian according to the writers.

Also from Cracked because Mel reminded me of this article;

The premise of Left Behind is that God abruptly kidnaps every devoted Christian on Earth, as well as all the kids below a certain age, and society more or less crumbles. And this probably sounds like Christian propaganda, but it's not, because I think this movie hates Christians too.

"NICOLAS CAGE looks SURPRISED that he is IN THIS MOVIE."

Since the movie is oh-so-obviously religious propaganda, you can expect the particular denomination behind it to be portrayed positively -- but that's not what happens. Atheists and insufficiently devoted Christians and even a kindly, charitable Muslim are all mocked as being inadequate for God's love, but the devoted Premillennial Dispensationalists Christians -- the religious faction that the movie is made by and for -- are all depicted as insecure, impotent, boring donkey-caves: the first one we meet loses an argument about faith with a journalist, and the second one is hated by her family because she doesn't know how to do anything but bitch at them for not being Jesusy enough. The third one is an insecure woman who tries to live vicariously through her friends' sex life, because she finds her own existence so unsatisfying. These are the people who get to go to heaven. Is this how Primo-Linear Disco-Fashionists see themselves? I hope not, because that's gakky. Cheer up, guys! We'll all wanna be your friend if you just stop telling us we're going to hell all the time.

How to Fix It

The weird thing about Premeridiall Dissipationalists is, as has been pointed out before, they're not actually trying to get people to join their religion. They just want to rub in everyone's faces how saved they are (because they're not gonna die, see, because God is going to save them) and how fethed everyone else is. So I say this unto them: quit hiding behind your feigned attempts and proselytization, and just make the God-based slasher movie you all want, in your twisted black hearts, to make. Give us a delusional, hateful, vaguely senile doom-deity, and explode the feth out of everything. Can you imagine? I can't! I could never dream up anything half so small-minded and hateful as Left Behind. That's why I want them to do it.

Remember when you hilariously booted the little person off the plane? That was awesome!
I never would've thought to have a hero be such an irrational douchebag.

Seriously, do it. Depict God as a flaming ball of death that vaporizes anyone who dares look upon him. Give us shots of biology teachers forced to flay themselves for refusing to teach intelligent design. Show us an abortion clinic atomized by meteors made out of flaming fetuses. Give us a scene where Los Angeles is consumed by a dick-shaped volcano that spews homosexual semen that burns through non-believers' flesh like a Xenomorph's blood. If you shoot the CGI-filled, R-rated, Old-Testament, fire-and-brimstone, balls-to-the-fething-wall, snuff film that plays constantly in your deranged little heads, I promise we'll pack that theater hard and fast enough to give the entire film industry a prostate-based money-gasm. Because even if you won't admit it, we all know that's what you Preludial Differentialists want.

The sad part is that Preludial Differentialists (that's a mouthful isn't it) really are as terrible as Left Behind portrays and somehow they seem to be perfectly okay with it XD

**Manchu**

LordofHats wrote:
Scully's development in the X-Files may well be one of the best 'discussions' of religion on screen, and really you have to really read into it to find it in that show.

That is a terrific example. They played it up a lot in the second film, too (which I really enjoyed -- although admittedly I saw it on TV rather than at the cinema).

**LordofHats**

Another interesting example is DS9 and the Bajoran faith (and more secondary, the relationship between Odo and Weyoun*). Though I feel that the Bajoran religion is rather shallow in it's actual portrayal as a religion, the series at least tackles the idea of religion on an individual level, exploring it via Odo, Kira, and Sisko and tries to show the good and bad sides of religion in society. In that alone the series stands a bit above other media that attempt religion.

*Treachery, Faith, and the Great River. WATCH IT.

**Manchu**

Compel brought up DS9 earlier. I'm not convinced it is a very good example but it is the best Star Trek has ever managed. TNG is particularly condescending.

**Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl**

So basically, Left Behind has a different idea of what is Christianity and what is being a good person than some members of Dakka do. Okay. Considering the source material for Christianity, and its history, I would honestly be very surprised if that was not the case. I mean, it is based on a book full of terribly silly stories that we are (sometimes at least) supposed to be taken as allegories, but allegories of what is left at the discretion of the readers. What else to expect?

What about the Book of Eli? I remember that movie being terribly stupid because of how the Bible was supposed to give people some kind of super-power to control other people. Any cult leader knows you do not need a Bible to do that. And apart from that, it was just an inferior Fist of the Northern Star with not a figment of anything vaguely Christian about the main character.

**LordofHats**

I honestly believe there are no 'good examples', just 'better than other examples.' The X-Files for example explores belief (and be extension Faith) but to really draw any religious discussion from it requires a lot of looking for what you want to be there and stretching death of the author a bit farther than it's meant to be taken.

**Manchu**

Try either of the movies I mentioned earlier. As far as novels go, The Power and the Glory is an excellent story about religion.

**LordofHats**

Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
So basically, Left Behind has a different idea of what is Christianity and what is being a good person than some members of Dakka do.

Well not even that. The specific theological group that the series was written by and for, is a very vague group. Dispensationalism is very common, but Preludial Dispensationalism is very niche. And even they largely disliked the series, though not for portraying them as donkey-caves oddly enough, but because it got their theology wrong. So really, Left Behind has a different idea of what Christianity is and what is being a good person than nearly every Christian on the planet, including the group who's beliefs its supposed to portray. The racism and fervent anti-catholicism are just window dressing

**Manchu**

TBH faith does not have to be hard to portray. Even otherwise terrible films have managed to get it right. For example, the throne room scenes from Return of the Jedi are all about faith (if not also religion). No one can seriously accuse Star Wars or subtlety and yet we have in RotJ (a movie also featuring living teddy bears) an authentic depiction of faith.

**H.B.M.C.**

Point of information:

Was it ever stated that the Reapers created life in the Mass Effect series?

The Leviathans created the Reapers, and the Reapers are just Ultron writ galactic. There's nothing especially unfathomable or God-like about them.

**Torga_DW**

Thats a good point. As i understood it the reapers merely 'reaped' what was growing naturally - they just shaped their development once they reached a certain tech level.

The thing about the OP is it starts by talking about god, and then finishes talking about a higher power. Reapers were a higher power for sure, but they were never considered as a god or god-like by anyone but themselves.

As for dragon age, well i haven't played the recent one but in the first two the links to 'the maker' and religion in general were all supposition. There was a black city in the fade (which is like the warp, and shaped by the dreams/emotions of people and it's denizens) and there was a story that the city used to be golden. There's a religion associated with that, but at the end of the day (for the first two at least) it was only just stories.

And therein lies the problem with religion. Without some form of demonstrable existance of god, it's just a story.

**SilverMK2**

Sooo... because something is powerful it must be god? And because something is powerful and is therefore god it is best just to submit to it rather than fight?

Ok.

Regards "religion and faith in video games and the media" - what exactly are you wanting to see? Most of what those external to faith see is the external trappings and the actions of those who profess those faiths and religions. Hell, most of what people who believe in those faiths and practice those religions see is the external trappings and the actions of themselves and fellow believers.

Very few people take a deeper look into their faith; I would say people like Manchu are a rare exception rather than a common example of the average religious person.

So in a game or film, a surface of "religion" or "faith" is all that is required to fulfill +90% of most people's appreciation and expectation of religion. Like most things where you are not studying for many years, a limited contact time means that impressions form the main mechanism of conveying information, tone and so on.

I mean, would Assassins Creed have been more fun if before you had to kill a priest who was busy humping a bunch of prostitutes and living a life of luxury as the people scrabbled in the dirt to find enough to eat you had to sit through hours of informational crap about the beliefs, practices and dogma of the Catholic church?

**LordofHats**

SilverMK2 wrote:
Regards "religion and faith in video games and the media" - what exactly are you wanting to see? Most of what those external to faith see is the external trappings and the actions of those who profess those faiths and religions. Hell, most of what people who believe in those faiths and practice those religions see is the external trappings and the actions of themselves and fellow believers.

Very few people take a deeper look into their faith; I would say people like Manchu are a rare exception rather than a common example of the average religious person.

So in a game or film, a surface of "religion" or "faith" is all that is required to fulfill +90% of most people's appreciation and expectation of religion. Like most things where you are not studying for many years, a limited contact time means that impressions form the main mechanism of conveying information, tone and so on.

Unfortunately I agree with this, and that makes me a little sad on the inside.

**Melissia**

Mn, maybe that explains the GTA sex scenes then.

**Gitzbitah**

Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
Manchu wrote:
The first step, I think, it to realize that faith is not a kind of opinion or fact claim.

Faith is not a fact claim? Lots of religious people seem to disagree.
.

there are so few occasions to use the wisdom of George. Oh, and in response to the Sampson superhair/silly debate-

**chaos0xomega**

They give Bioware far too much credit, go read some Lovecraft and then get back to me.