This reminds me of the people who write fanfiction where characters “come to know Christ” even though the setting is one where Christianity would not actually exist.

Les, you repeatedly appeal to logic by pointing out that this is a make-believe holiday the Christians are trying to infect with their meme.  The problem is that if those people could tell the difference between make-believe and reality they wouldn’t be Christians in the first place.  The fact that they are already Christian implies that their willing-suspension-of-disbelief circuitry has degraded into rabid-defense-of-belief circuitry.

Their belief system is based, at the core, on the idea of persecution: man is being persecuted by the devil, Jesus was persecuted by man, Christians are persecuted by everyone who isn’t a Christian.  People who believe all of those things have accepted the feeling of being persecuted as a way of life… to the extent that they even feel it when they are in the majority and when they are the ones persecuting others.  You and I might see the WoW holiday as a light-hearted game, but many Christians are going to see it as an attack on the One True Holiday.  And within their self-reinforcing system of logic, they’re correct.

I know some ‘good Christians’.  But I know more who adopted the belief system because it was right up their street - i.e. it’s narrow, and twisted, and only one way.

This Stupid Evil Bastard community is hilariously predictable, especially when it comes to how dumb and evil the so-called “Religious Right” is.

Hey, try this on for size:

“The fact that they are atheist implies that their unwilling-to-believe circuitry has degraded into rabid-denunciation-of-belief circuitry.

“[Atheists’] belief system is based, at the core, on the idea of persecution: women are persecuted by men, poor people are persecuted by the rich, and everyone who isn’t a Christian is persecuted by the Christians. People who believe all of those things have accepted the feeling of being persecuted as a way of life… to the extent that they even feel it when they are in the majority and when they are the ones persecuting others.”

Sound familiar? Why is it so hard to accept that Christians may be people of goodwill?

Why is it so hard to accept that Christians may be people of goodwill?

Ok, sure, but how exactly does this relate to the situation under discussion, Brendon?

Why is it so hard to accept that Christians may be people of goodwill?

Good question, Brendon - and I know many Christians who are people of goodwill. (The ones at MrsDoF’s (Mennonite) church come to mind)

It’s the Christians who wear that label in cast polished diamond-studded gold in full-bling around their necks who seem a little short on good will.  With control of the executive, legislative, and soon the judicial branch, and tax-exempt properties all over the country, they want to force our educational systems to march to their drum, and insinuate their parody of Christianity into even commercial transactions that really have nothing to do with Christ as he is portrayed in the bible. 

They have committed identity theft on Christianity and not incidentally on the Republican party as well.

There are plenty of Christians that I accept as people of goodwill, but even some of them do bad things with perfectly good intentions. What is it they say about the road to Hell?

So if a nativity needs to be put into WoW, then other symbols of religious holidays need to go in to. Then you just have this mess that really doesn’t make any sense.

How about this “Gabrielle�, how about you just quit playing WoW during this offending time and return after the new year when all the decorations and such are removed? What in the world did you do during holloween when WoW was having that festival? That must have really been offensive you to.

Bah, it’s people like “Gabrielleâ€? that make me mute the general chat channel way too often. I can’t use ignore since there are way too many to ignore.

Brendon, you might want to look up the phrase ‘non sequitur’.

I think they need a menorah in WoW too!

*ducks*

Why is it I never hear about people of Jewish faith trying to get a menorah or a star of David placed in some State/Government property???  I’ve never heard anyone asking to say “baruch a’ta adonai” at the beginning of public school classes.  Not even in public schools in Borough Park in NYC.

Why is it I never hear about people of Jewish faith trying to get a menorah or a star of David placed in some State/Government property??? 

It seems to me that, as a whole, Jewish people are far more tolerant and mature than fundamentalist Christians (at least in the United States). I have a lot of good friends who are Jewish (one of which quite devoutly), and I have yet to hear any of them say or do something judgmental or self-righteous. It could be the fact that Judaism is far older than Christianity.

Why is it so hard to accept that Christians may be people of goodwill?

Because so very, very, very many self-described Christians are not people of good will.

There’s a simple solution to “Gabrielleâ€?’s predicament: Bankroll the development of a Christian MMORPG.

Why is it I never hear about people of Jewish faith trying to get a menorah or a star of David placed in some State/Government property???  I’ve never heard anyone asking to say “baruch a’ta adonaiâ€? at the beginning of public school classes.  Not even in public schools in Borough Park in NYC.

Because as (an apparent) non-believer you’re ignorant about all faiths.

Judaism is essentially a compact God made with the nation (by this it is meant “a people” or race) of Israel—the Jews. Jewish identity, at least in its orthodox meaning, is both racial (being a son or daughter of Israel) and religious (submitting to God’s law). One really doesn’t proselytize others to sign up to join one’s race. This racial exclusivity is why Judaism didn’t sweep the world despite a supposed 3000-year head start on Jesus.

(The Kabbalah fad is an interesting diversion. I got a real good belly laugh out of Sarah Silverman’s remark that “Kabbalah is a spiritual movement that comes from within US… Weekly.")

Christians, by contrast, are commanded to witness the Word of God. The New Testament (Acts 1:8; 10:42; Matthew 28:19,20) defines proselytizing others to be the essence of Christian belief. So they are doing what they believe God requires of them. There are others who would chop off your head because they think God has commanded that of them. When you think about your options, that copy of The Watchtower doesn’t seem so bad.

Christians, by contrast, are commanded to witness the Word of God. The New Testament (Acts 1:8; 10:42; Matthew 28:19,20) defines proselytizing others to be the essence of Christian belief.

In other words, Christianity is like a virus?

There are some rather disturbing ramifications, born out in history, to a religion that both claims to hold the sole Truth and has a mandate to proselytize.

A man-made fantasy religion being represented in a man-made fantasy gaming world?
Seems like a perfect match.

Seems like a perfect match.

That’s where you are wrong.

You would have to adapt a Christian theme to the World of Warcraft, which many Christians would consider a mockery. You just can’t please everybody…

Just because Christians feel they have a need to infect others with their binding beliefs does not in any way, shape, or form excuse such behavior. Such excuses (i.e. “god” wanted me to do it) don’t fly in the courts, and as everyday behaviors they likewise are childish and inappropriate. Hence why, on the whole, I find Jewish people (and Hindus, Pagans, agnostics, atheists, Rastafarians, Buddhists, Shintoists, Taoists, Wiccans, animists, etc.) far easier to get along with: they seem far more secure in their beliefs that they do not claim that “god” wants them to “witness” to others. Until fundie Christians grow up, they will be seen by me as nothing but deluded, insecure dolts. Period.

Sadie, have you accepted Darwin as your personal savior?

On a related note, I just started playing WoW under a free 2-week trial.  Now that I think I’ve fixed the hard crashing during gaming (both HL2 and WoW, seems the newest Nvidia drivers took care of it), I dare say I feel this is an MMORPG worth paying for.  I tried Anarchy Online a while back, but couldn’t get into it.  In WoW, it seems like there’s neither anything overtly wrong with it, nor is it just ‘blah.’

Yes, I’m a little slow in trying new PC games.

Why is it so hard to accept that Christians may be people of goodwill?

Why ‘accept’ anything?  It’s not like it’s a blind taste test.  “By their works ye shall know them”, according to their own book, and their works often reek of intolerance, ignorance, myopia, self-righteousness, and a hand-wavingly vague sense of reality.

This isn’t true of all of them, just ones like Brendon.  Sadly such behavior appears to be on the rise.  Let us pray that the Rapture arrives soon, so we don’t have to listen to them anymore.

Sadie, have you accepted Darwin as your personal savior?

Nah. I mean, the guy was a genius, and he was right-on, but personal savior? I don’t have any personal saviors. As a semi-Wiccan, you could say that the only thing I come close to worshipping is the Earth. And the Cosmos, as I like to see it. I do get a kick out of those bumper stickers that say “Darwin Loves You,” though.

Speaking of the “rapture,” if only it were a true event! Without fundie Christians and fundie Muslims, the world could very well be a far more peaceful place. Of course, fundies do come in all stripes…

Why ‘accept’ anything?  It’s not like it’s a blind taste test.  “By their works ye shall know them”, according to their own book, and their works often reek of intolerance, ignorance, myopia, self-righteousness, and a hand-wavingly vague sense of reality.

This isn’t true of all of them, just ones like Brendon.

Bzzt. Wrong—I’m not much of a Christian (I’m conflicted about witnessing, for example), and certainly not a fundamentalist Christian. But I bristle as much at “intolerance, ignorance, myopia, self-righteousness, and a hand-wavingly vague sense of reality” when it is aimed at Christians by hippies, druids, and secularists as I do when Fred Phelps is up to his tricks.

Christians aren’t the enemy. There’s something to be said for the societies they’ve built—immigration patterns tell us that English-speaking, Christian societies are the best on Earth. Not perfect, mind you, but less sucky than the rest.

I travel a lot. And although my circumstances make it possible to go business-class, insulated in good hotels, wherever I go I seek out how the common citizens live. Believe me, Americans have it great—and in large part it’s thanks to those dang Christians.

It is by no doubt a fact that christianity implies morale. For a large part at least, the ten commandments are after all moral guidelines, and largely good ones too. Christianity is the very fundament of our culture, too, already from a historical point of view, and of course from a moral point of view too. Although many people nowadays are no longer active christians, or christians at all, the moral values us agnostics (in my case) or atheists (like Les) in large parts overlap with the christian ones. Well, seeing how christian values both include “eye for an eye” and “if somebody hits one cheek, give him the other to hit” that isn’t exactly hard, but anyway.

It is another fact though that people who try to impose their own religious beliefs and reasons for moral behavior on others, despite the others actually already acting moral out of other motivations, are self-righteous and ignorant. I don’t accuse you of doing so though, of course.

Your perception of other societies however may be a little biased. I have an Afghan fiancé, and Afghanistan right now is a mess, as we all know. So is the Iran, and I know people from there too. It isn’t only a mess since the Americans went in and “saved” it, although that certainly did help. It’s basically a mess since the Americans helped the Taliban come to power. And yes, let’s remember, it was the christian American society that (no way this was because of purely political reasons, of course) wanted the fundamentalist radical and (already then) terrorist Taliban to reign a formerly free-er Afghanistan. You know why she lives in Switzerland now? Because this act from a proudly christian nation doomed Afghanistan, 25 years ago.

Well, that just was a tangent. Why do I bring it up? Not in order to bash at americans. But to show you something: The american way of life works, for America, for large parts of Europe (yep, despite a larger gap we’re still influenced a lot by your values, commercialism and interpretations of formerly european and african culture, interpretations to the extent that they have actually changed a lot and become your culture). It has a really hard time working in quite some other places though. Actually, they may mess up a lot of good things there, and did so in the past. And while we may perceive our own values as “better” than theirs, they’re not. They’re just different. There are large differences between Europe and America too, whether we admit it or not, one fine example of such a gap is the death penalty which I and a very large majority of Europeans condemn, yet a majority of Americans support.

Anyway, what does all this have to do with christians? Again, not much, it’s a tangent. Yes, our moral values are influenced by the christian culture. And yes, the christian religious values actually make sense. But that doesn’t prove christianity as a whole right in any way. On one hand, it’s perfectly reasonable and possible to act moral without being christian. And on the other hand, moral behavior doesn’t prove the existence of god (note how I write this like every other noun, since I don’t believe in any superiority of that word nor concept), which should be obvious.

And let’s get back to the original blog post: Christian moral behavior and christian beliefs of christian supoeriority does not in any way lay a base upon which World of Warcraft should include any serious pointers to said real-world christianity.

Brendan makes two mistakes.

First, at first glance he seems to gloss over the darker side of Christianity as practiced throughout history. By their deeds you shall know them…

Second, he mistakes correlation for causation. Whether or not “English-speaking, Christian societies are the best on Earth” is a matter of debate, but first it must be shown that there is something uniquely Christian that makes these societies “better”. To quote Martin Willet: The big lie of religion is that faithful people are the better people.

There’s something to be said for the societies they’ve built—immigration patterns tell us that English-speaking, Christian societies are the best on Earth. Not perfect, mind you, but less sucky than the rest.

Well, Brendon, that is of course a matter of definition and opinion- definition because I’m not sure what precisely you mean by “sucky”, and opinion because someone who flies business may well have a different opinion than someone who can’t afford to take the bus.  But by any number of standards- health care, criminality, percentage of population below the poverty line, quality of public schools and public transportation, the United States lags woefully behind most Western European countries, including the ones where English is not the first language, such as Austria where I live.  Of course, if by “sucky” you mean “having higher taxes for the wealthy”, I’ll agree with you.

Guido- what you said.  Nice post.

Because as (an apparent) non-believer you’re ignorant about all faiths.

Brendon, you assume too much.  You also prejudged me by assuming I was ignorant about ‘all faiths’, whereas I only mentioned one.  I guess you did not pick up on my subtle devil’s advocate approach to making more conversation.