Religious Gaming Part 2

For those who suggested I was harsh in my comments about Priestville, I offer this thought-if they really wanted to tackle the abuse issue head on, they could have kids in the game and logic that those who try to abuse and/or cover up are demoted or booted from the priesthood and those who don't abuse and turn in abusers get rewarded-they could then sell the code to the vatican in the hopes that it would install the same features.

A new essay on Religion Dispatches Will God-Gaming Alter the Bible? also discusses the phenomenon of religious games from an interesting perspective: the limitations that must be placed on them to please believers.

Discussing the game The Bible Online: Heroes, Rachel Wagner points out that like fanfic, Bible games need to be games of the gaps that limit themselves to the pockets of time and events that aren't mentioned and that don't impact the canonical events. After all, we can't have a purple emu named Zeke tearing down the walls of Jericho before Joshua gets there.

Likewise Moses can't open a strip club in Midian and tell the Israelites to bugger off. In either case it's no longer a game about the Bible, because the story is then contradictory to the original. Not mentioned by Wagner, but likely nonetheless, is the fact that believers would in no way want to encourage imagining "alternate" stories that might give the weak in faith the idea that god didn't write all of these events in stone with his pinky.

There is also the problem of conforming to believer's expectations-the wicked shouldn't win by being wicked. Unlike D&D, where multiple alignments and approaches to ethics are possible, each of which fares better or worse depending on the campaign and DM in question. Or in the case of Priestville, what happens if the most holy character at the time of the next papal election is being controlled by a woman-how will catholics deal with that? Trying to implement woo in an online game only highlights just how woo-ish it is.

Finally, Wagner could have also pointed out how these game limitations also speak to the limitations in the religious ideas of "free will" and "intelligent design" two real world example of religious thought stifling and less than thorough reasoning, but lets hope lots of the faithful end up pondering them as they try to pray and play at the same time.

Calgary microchip 'talks' to brain cells

The microchip actually "listens" to brain cells as you can read below:

CBC News - Technology & Science - Calgary microchip 'talks' to brain cells

So where do you see technology like this going? To help sufferers of disease? To tell police when someone is about to commit a criminal act (a whole new kind of supervised release)? To test for undesirable thought patterns in the populace (kinkiness*, anti-social thoughts**, wanting to vote against the Supreme Leader)?

How should the potential benefits of a technology be measured against possible abuses of the same technology?

*kinkiness is always acceptable here.

**I'm sure theocracies would line up to buy the "A" chip to root out unbelievers in their midst. (In Canada it would be the "Eh" chip).

Thank you, that means so much!

I shop for people year round. Work permits lots of opportunities to travel and I'm always keeping my eyes open when I'm in new places to find gifts to celebrate those special times in the lives of people I care about. Sometimes a bit of local art, the perfect book, or for that person whose emails have been filled with computer-related complaints, a RAM upgrade.

Whatever the gift, it almost always results in some variant of the phrase "it means so much". Music to the ears for those of us whose gift planning goes beyond a trip to Costco to pick whatever is cheap and available.

But it raises an interesting point: neither the art, the book nor the RAM were produced with the intention of being a gift from my friends or family, I didn't participate in their creation-how can they"mean" something to the recipient?

That's the secret believers and (some) philosophers don't want us to grasp-objects, actions, events, etc. can all be invested or infused with meaning after the fact. And for we humans, that meaning is just as "real" as any claimed "objective" or "ultimate" meaning that others attempt to assert on the basis of their belief system.

Believers who will assert repeatedly that "it's only the meaning that God gives that counts" don't seem to take the logical step of either a) claiming that the specific flowers in the bouquet they bring home were chosen by god from the dawn of time to celebrate that one particular event (raising the question as to why god couldn't have taken a bit of his flower choosing time to cure cancer or plant some more food for the starving) or b) acknowledge that the flowers have no "real" meaning and show up without them (see related material under "job had it easy").

Believers through their daily lives acknowledge that we finite, mortal humans can invest meaning in objects and actions.Let them try to explain the inconsistency of also claiming absolute, objective meaning for things. We nontheists can enjoy the seemingly magical act of transforming words, deeds and objects into conduits of meaning, simply through our own choice to invest them with meaning-meaning that can support our ethics, charitable inclinations, efforts to achieve justice and simply showing others that we care.