Pope declares video games evil

[stray]

Game Violence -- It's equivalent to the pen when it touches paper for a writer. Or a finger when it touches a fret on a guitar. Anyone who takes it more seriously than that has problems that even 3 year olds have gotten past. It's not the games. Violence is just a means of interacting with the gameworld. Arguably, it's the most shallow means (I'd much prefer more Phoenix Wrights and Grim Fandangos in the gaming world), but it's not exhibiting violence so much as it just simple, easy to understand interactivity.

Sex -- Show me the sex games. There's not enough of them I tell you!

Oh, you mean Lara Croft's boobies? Big deal. Boobies are what makes the whole world go 'round. I, you, and the Pope wouldn't be here if there were no boobies. And depicting boobies is as old as civilization itself.

Sure, I wouldn't mind more Jades from Beyond Good and Evil, AI Feminazi SHODANS, Yunas, and Ms. Pacmans, but most game developers are basically still juvenile males (in mind, if not in body). Want to get rid of Lara Croft and DOA? Encourage more females to become game developers (or more sensitive males). It's pretty simple. Spouting off about "evil" and "OMG the children!" isn't going to do much good though.

[SurfD]

The man wasn't even trying to dictate rules for Catholics let alone the world.  He was expressing an opinion. 

Except that when it comes to the Crazy Christian Minoritys (you know, the ones with the loudest screams, and the greatest capability for harm) the Pope's opinion is "THE WORD OF GOD".

[CmdrSlack]

The man wasn't even trying to dictate rules for Catholics let alone the world.  He was expressing an opinion. 

Except that when it comes to the Crazy Christian Minoritys (you know, the ones with the loudest screams, and the greatest capability for harm) the Pope's opinion is "THE WORD OF GOD".

Except not, since the majority of the so-called crazy Christians aren't Catholic.

[NowhereMan]

And even then the Pope's opinions are only "the word of God" if they line up with teh crazy's opinions. See how many of them would tow that same line if the Pope decided gaeity was cool and women should be allowed to be priests.

[Sky]

A man whose job it is to teach tolerance, love and peace has a problem with violence and sex being sold as entertianment. 

Unless you believe in different make-believe. Then we kill you all unless you convert! Or maybe just bask in the glow of knowing we will go to the happy magical place while you burn and suffer for all eternity. Tolerance, love and peace my ass. The very core of the religion is exclusionist, borne from an even more exclusionist religion so they could encompass non-jews.

Yeah, sorry I can't contribute to such a stupid thread. It's what I do. Luckily I was dunked in the magic pond.

[CmdrSlack]

A man whose job it is to teach tolerance, love and peace has a problem with violence and sex being sold as entertianment. 

Unless you believe in different make-believe. Then we kill you all unless you convert! Or maybe just bask in the glow of knowing we will go to the happy magical place while you burn and suffer for all eternity. Tolerance, love and peace my ass. The very core of the religion is exclusionist, borne from an even more exclusionist religion so they could encompass non-jews.

Yeah, sorry I can't contribute to such a stupid thread. It's what I do. Luckily I was dunked in the magic pond.

EDIT -- Bah, no coffee = overreacting.  It seems sad that you get so up in arms about people's beliefs.  Seriously though, I guess I just don't get why it's necessary to vent bile on the idea that some people believe stuff that you don't believe.  I could give a rat's ass what others believe...so long as they don't vent it in a shitty way.  Heck, it was all I could do going to college in the Bible Belt to not flip out on the ridiculous fundies that tried to hand out food wrapped in tracts on the strip on a Saturday night.  It wasn't that they were trying to spread a message, it was that they would try to walk up to your car and bother you while you were, you  know, trying to drive and not run down pedestrians.

I never said the Pope did a GOOD job, just what his job is supposed to be.  Moreover, there hasn't been a crusade in hundreds of years, so that's a bit of a canard these days, bud. 

[Sky]

I liked the first version better :)

[CmdrSlack]

I liked the first version better :)

I didn't.   

Jeebus told me to change it.

[Trippy]

Unless you believe in different make-believe. Then we kill you all unless you convert! Or maybe just bask in the glow of knowing we will go to the happy magical place while you burn and suffer for all eternity. Tolerance, love and peace my ass. The very core of the religion is exclusionist, borne from an even more exclusionist religion so they could encompass non-jews.

Unless you are an Unitarian Universalist in which case you think everybody's going to Heaven! Whoopie!

[Tale]

[CmdrSlack]

When did the Vatican get a rodeo?

[HaemishM]

When the Boy Scouts came through.

[CmdrSlack]

When the Boy Scouts came through. 

FIFY.   :-D

[WayAbvPar]

When the Boy Scouts came through.

Well played, sir.

[Samwise]

Except that when it comes to the Crazy Christian Minoritys (you know, the ones with the loudest screams, and the greatest capability for harm) the Pope's opinion is "THE WORD OF GOD".

Except not, since the majority of the so-called crazy Christians aren't Catholic.

The majority of the so-called crazy Christians believe that the Pope (not the person so much as the institution) is evil incarnate.  Maybe if the Pope says video games are bad, the fundies will decide they're good!

(edit) Obligatory Jack Chick link.

[Paelos]

I'm guessing if I could speak directly to God with lovely conversational responses, I'd probably ask about things other than the current state of electronic entertainment.

If that sounds sarcastic, it is. Religious authority is between you and God. Don't let someone else take that away from you in the guise of salvation.

PS - I hate these threads.

[sleight yagami]

In light of this I've decided to declare the pope evil.

[lamaros]

This thread has proved useful. I no longer think CmdrSlack is an idiot.

The rest of you though. Aiee.

[stray]

Hmm? So you go around here thinking everyone is an idiot by default? Everyone starts at negative numbers, and Slack has the honor of being a "0" now?

[HaemishM]

That's not necessarily a bad starting point. Even at negative numbers, most of us will have the unwashed masses beat hands down.

[El Gallo]

I am completely open to the possibility that the widespread commodification of trivial sex and semi-sanitized violence in media I have consumed since infancy have made me a much different, and quite possibly worse, person than I would have been otherwise.  I don't really find that possibility personally threatening or intellectually out-of-bounds.  It may not be true, but it is at least plausible.

The whole "I am an adult and therefore am completely unaffected by anything that I recognize to be fantasy" line is premised on a naive psychological libertarianism that is incompatible with the underpinnings of an essentially communitarian religion like Catholicism, so he is hardly being inconsistent. 

[stray]

And yet, we see less appalling acts of violence than we did two or three hundred years ago. Our executions are highly sanitized, and more importantly, not met with public cheering. The French Revolution alone is something completely alien to behavior in the modern western world. People don't DUEL anymore. We don't sell and enslave other human beings. Etc..

I'd take the average Die Hard watching American over one of those crazy fucks any day. If the media is doing something bad to people, then it still isn't doing as bad as whatever the fuck those people were drinking.