“You are what you eat” – yes, but you don’t eat video games

Fox News reports on two different video games released on the same day, one from Lightside Games focusing on Jesus’ life and the other being the demon haunted Diablo III, a product from Blizzard Entertainment.

The timing was not lost on Brent Dusing, CEO of Lightside Games.

“Both games immerse the player, and you are what you eat,” Dusing said in a statement. “While one game goes one direction, ‘Journey of Jesus: The Calling’ players walk in the Messiah’s steps, in an authentic experience of Israel in Christ’s time.

Diablo III sounds like Buffy the Vampire Slayer turned up to eleven, an adventure pitting a “barbarian, witch doctor, wizard, monk or demon hunter” against the fiends from Hell with the fervent hope that the “good” guys will triumph.

Journey of Jesus is free to Facebook users, so it probably will get a lot of play – by those who already claim to be Christian (whether they dutifully follow Christ’s footsteps or not). I suspect it’s going to be of little interest to people from other religions so wouldn’t be a useful tool for converting them. And the atheists who try it will probably try to pick it apart as they play, not use it as a means of learning any real history about that era.

When I was younger, I thought there was something to the notion that violent video games make people violent but then I came around to the notion that people who already have a proclivity towards violence are the ones more likely to be interested in playing those games. Research is starting to swing that way, too.

What the research does show, in a nutshell, then is this:

Teens who are already angry or aggressive likely should be limited in their playing of violent video games
Teens should not play M-rated games
Girls especially should not play M-rated games
Video game is an important social development interaction for boys. Parents should keep this in mind when taking such time away from them in punishment.
And of course, all things in moderation. Playing a video game for 6 or 8 hours straight is unhealthy behavior at any age.

I’ve played my share of “shoot ‘em ups” and I’ve yet to become a violent offender. That’s anecdotal, I admit, but still true. I’m not much of a gamer anyway. The Man loaned me his old Nintendo and I still can’t get Mario past the first few levels. I like puzzle games, or board and card more.

I never play the games on Facebook but for kicks I signed up for the app so I could try it out. I decided to play as a woman and already I’ve cut a bunch of wood, picked a fight with a Roman and witnessed Jesus getting baptized. Whee. What childish fun. If I play again, I’ll update you on my progress.

Student willing to ruin school career over Jesus T-shirt

From CBC:

A Christian student suspended from a high school in Nova Scotia for sporting a T-shirt with the slogan “Life is wasted without Jesus” vows to wear it when he returns to class next week.

William Swinimer, who’s in Grade 12, was suspended from Forest Heights Community School in Chester Basin in Lunenburg County for five days. He’s due to return to class on Monday.

The devout Christian says the T-shirt is an expression of his beliefs, and he won’t stop wearing it.

“I believe there are things that are bigger than me. And I think that I need to stand up for the rights of people in this country, and religious rights and freedom of speech,” he told CBC.

Swinimer wore the same shirt to class for weeks on end, the article goes on, but teachers and students were starting to feel like it was less a message about personal beliefs and more like a passive attempt to convert the entire student body. As Nancy Pynch-Worthylake, board superintendent, put it –

“When one is able or others are able to interpret it as, ‘If you don’t share my belief then your life is wasted,’ that can be interpreted by some as being inappropriate,” she said.

Swinimer was too wrapped up in his own feelings of persecution to see it that way, though, and was willing to risk losing the rest of his school year over his shirt. I was curious about what other coverage this story had and found CBC’s update. The school board has reconsidered.

Swinimer called the board’s decision “awesome” and said he will be wearing his T-shirt to school on Monday.

“Some people say you’re not supposed to have religion in school. Well, every other religion is in that school and they constantly put Christianity down,” he said.

I don’t know what he means by that. Is he saying his school looks the other way while kids from other religious backgrounds blatantly insult the Christian kids, or did the school make the decision to be less Christian-centric and open things up to more secular events like winter festivals instead of Christmas parties?

Pinch-Worthylake said the board will use this incident as a learning moment for everyone, adding that it is time to move on.

“We’re going to be working with students around how they can express their religious views and other views appropriately, and how we work together when those views may be interpreted or misinterupted by others,” she said.

“So, the focus is off the T-shirt. Whatever T-shirts come to school on Monday with personal beliefs will not be an issue for us.”

And that might help with whatever perceived slurs Swinimer claims are hurting li’l Christian feelings, too. Personally, I think he still needs to be taken aside and reminded that school hours are for class work, not proselytizing. He’s going to waste his life if he doesn’t care more about getting a good education and it won’t matter how much love for Jesus he has if he can’t get a good job as well. I expect this story will follow him for years and there will be places that will not hire him – not because he’s Christian, but because he comes across as arrogant, self-centered and willfully ignorant of the fact it’s perfectly acceptable to not be Christian.

Another final resting place for Jesus found

I say another because I experienced something akin to deja vu. There was a news report in 2007 about the same thing around the same time of year as now. James Cameron’s “Lost of of Jesus” aired near Easter. You’d hardly announce this kind of thing in June, obviously. It simply must be mentioned while people have Lent to follow and Easter candy in the aisles to tempt them while shopping.

Archeologists think they’ve found a likely tomb. The one Cameron’s film focused on was found in Jerusalem in 1980 and this doesn’t seem to be the same one. The article says it was found in 1981 but was left mostly undisturbed at the time on account of Othodox Jews being opposed to the work the archeologists wanted to do. James Tabor and his team applied for permission to reopen it a couple years ago and

stumbled upon a coffin bearing engravings inside a first-century Christian tomb in Jerusalem which they believe could prove that the site is the final resting place of Jesus. The burial chamber located below a modern condominium building has been dated to before AD 70, so if its engravings are indeed early Christian, they were most likely made by some of Jesus’ earliest followers, the excavators said.

Using a remote-controlled camera connected to a robotic arm, the excavators found that one of the limestone boxes, also known as ossuaries, bears an inscription in Greek that refers to “Divine Jehovah”, raising someone up.

Another box featured an image thought to be a representation of Jonah and the whale. This was apparently a common decoration on early Christian tombs. Both Jonah and Jesus were in their predicament for 3 days.

Researchers expect their findings to “become controversial.” Well, duh. They aren’t the first to claim they’ve found it and I doubt they’ll be the last, either. I expect there will always be people who seek physical proof of biblical tales to legitimize continued faith in those old stories and allegories. It’s one thing to believe you’re right. It’s another to know you are. Historical proof would go a long way toward bolstering a faith under what seems like constant fire from the dedicated atheist camp. Here it is! Here He was! Stop telling us we’re delusional! I don’t know if they’ve found the tomb Christ’s body would have laid in. It’s interesting to find a tomb anyone from that era would have been in. It’s interesting to learn about how people’s remains were honoured, whether they were actual sons of god or not.

Art dedicated to the Olympics is one thing, but Jesus statues?

I caught wind of this via New Humanist yesterday. The 2012 Olympics are being held in London this year. It’s been suggested that since Rio de Janeiro is hosting the next one, it might be nice if London pays homage to the giant Jesus statue overlooking that city by setting one of their own on Primrose Hill, in one of the posher areas of the city.

The logic of that baffles me, too. Sure, make note of the next host in some grandiose way if they want a show, but can’t they do it in a way that isn’t going to promote a religious icon? The Olympics encompass more than Catholic and Protestant athletes, after all. It’s for all creeds and nationalities (or at least the ones that have the money and/or facilities required to get athletes trained and fit enough to enter).

ArtLyst, a London art magazine, has an article about this. Turns out Brazil’s government would be forking out the money to build it. I find that interesting.

The proposal goes before Camden’s Town Hall planning department in February. The original consultancy was employed by Brazil’s tourist agency who held a public meeting to display the designs and this project was chosen as the most representational of the nation. People living in nearby Hampstead and Belsize Park have called the idea kitsch and completely out of character with the local Georgian and Victorian architecture. Some local residents have commented; “It may be quite upsetting and threatening for the non-christians and non-religious of us, out here.” But my favourite comment was; “This idea can only be described as a proposal for an outrageous act of ‘landscape holiganism’. If erected I only hope Banksy defaces it as soon as possible.”

And I add a link to Banksy’s website in case you’re as clueless as I am.

The short article then quotes a few people from the Friends of Primrose Hill committee, including chairman Malcolm Kafetz’s comments to the Camden New Journal regarding the move. He thought the location was a bad choice. For him, the statue would add nothing of worth to an area already popular because of its view and because he doesn’t think it’s representative of England or the Primrose Hill area itself. Others are willing to at least hear the proposal and find out if builders intend for the fiberglass installment to be permanent. If it’s a limited time only thing, they might let it pass.

Lib Dem councillor Chris Naylor said he wasn’t sure a 30ft statue of Christ with his arms outstretched was quite what the area needed. He added: “If they want to put something on the hill I think they need to get some more original ideas. This sounds a bit like some marketing brainstorm which hasn’t been thought through.”

Camden New Journal reported that some emails had been obtained where residents had been told to keep the proposed plan hushed up so it could be revealed later in a big media splash. Unfortunately for the planners, there were some leaks. Then again, did they actually think it’d be possible to keep something like this a secret?

Judging by the Journal article, it sounds like it’s not a definite Go anyway. The Brazilian Tourist Board and Camden-based designers See Me, Hear Me, Feel Me Ltd. have to fill out applications like anyone else, which leaves a bit of room for requests to be later denied. We shall see, I guess.

Montana Jesus statue “days away” from answers

Answers to what? Questions about the rightness of having religious iconography on federal land. The painted concrete statue has been a feature at Whitefish Mountain Resort for decades but recently the Freedom from Religion Foundation pointed out the Christian nature of the display and reminded the state’s Forestry Service about the need to keep church and state separate. (I wrote about this before.) The Knights of Columbus commissioned the statue back in ’50s to commemorate WWII veterans and requested the design pay homage to religiously inspired monuments in Europe (albeit, in my mind, achieved in the tackiest possible way). KOC obtained a special permit to place it on the land and FFRF put their complaint in when they did because the permit was up for renewal. From the Watertown Daily Times:

The controversy with the statue arose when the council last fall filed for a 10-year renewal of the special-use permit for the statue to use a 25-by-25-foot plot of land. The council initially was rejected because of concerns about the statue’s religious nature violating the U.S. Constitution’s establishment clause.

“It’s been there for 60 years, and it didn’t bother anybody,” Mr. Glidden said. “Now it’s bothering somebody.”

He has no idea how many people it might have bothered during those 60 years. It could have bothered dozens or even hundreds of people but none of them were in a good position to protest. As FFRF and organizations like them grow, it gets easier to fight against government-sanctioned religious displays. Easier in terms of rallying public support, at least. Winning the cases is not that easy. People think tradition is reason enough to keep pro-Judeo-Christian icons in place. Never mind how wrong it is for a secular government to promote any religion, let alone one above all others…

Nationally, the statue has seen opposition from atheist group Freedom From Religion Foundation, but it has strong support from Christian groups American Center for Law and Justice and the Liberty Institute. U.S. Rep. Denny Rehberg, R-Mont., also sent a letter to forest officials in support of the statue.

“Any time you’re talking religion, you’re going to have that reaction,” said E. Wade Muehlhof, a public affairs officer at Flathead National Forest.

KOC is trying to get the statue relabeled as a historic landmark, which would make its place in the world a lot more permanent. The Forestry Service has had thousands of letters to go through that cover all sides of this issue but within the next couple weeks, they’ll be making the final decision on the statue’s future. I’ll check back.

Old news — well, not news, but Jesus on a sock at least

Or rather, wrinkles on a sock that the owner thought resembled Jesus. Obviously the media had to be told all about it, with a picture to prove it’s a miracle vision.

From the Daily Mail article:

It is reminiscent of one of Christianity’s most significant relics.

But unlike the Turin shroud, this image of Jesus’ face was found on a sock among items of laundry in Kent.

And it’s a wrinkle easily shaken out, not an image painted on a piece of cloth by hucksters aiming to fleece a populace.

Sarah Crane, from Orpington, was stunned when she hung her laundry out to dry and discovered the face of Jesus staring back at her from a crumpled sock.

Miss Crane was so impressed by the clarity of the face she even built a shrine to the sock.

No offense, Miss Crane, but really? I hope that’s a bit of a joke and you’re merely pretending this is actually an important discovery. I can’t tell if the other picture presented in the article is a reenactment of her reaction to the “miracle”, or if she truly marvels over the way the fabric crinkled when it was hung to dry.

“I immediately took some pictures to show our family and friends – they all thought it was hilarious.

‘We think it’s a bit of a sign – but for what we don’t know.’

It’s a bit of a sign all right, a sign of a person desperate for a bit of media attention. No wonder she contacted the Daily Mail. I get the impression they’ll print anything, no matter how daft.

Miss Crane said she began making a shrine to the sock, but when she moved it, some of its delicate creases fell away and the image is now not as clear.

‘But you can still just about make out his face,’ she said.

Never occurred to her to buy some spray starch first, I guess. That would have set the fabric long enough for her to get it framed in a shadowbox…

‘Unfortunately, it’s not quite good enough to donate to our local church, but our friends have all been round to see it.’

Again I say, I really hope she’s joking about that. This is fun to make fun of, but I know there are people who take these kinds of “signs” seriously and if she’s not careful, she’ll wind up with pareidolia-believing tourists invading her yard, intent on getting a glimpse of the new fabric Jesus. Wouldn’t they be disappointed over such a ruse?

New way to get ahead – cut one off a Jesus statue

Beats me why anyone would want one, but whatever. That’s what happened in Boston.

(via CBS Local)

The Rev. Jack Ahern of Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta at St. Margaret’s church in the city’s Dorchester section says when he arrived at the church Sunday morning the statue’s head was lying on the ground in pieces and the statue had been knocked off its base.

Ahern tells The Boston Globe the statue was right next to the sidewalk and people used to touch it for inspiration as they walked past.

He says the statue is beyond repair and there has been no discussion of replacing it.

I’m sure the community will rally around and help them commission another one at some point. Quoting CBS Local, quoting the radio:

“It’s so disrespectful. There’s no respect any more,” a parishioner told WBZ NewsRadio 1030 Wednesday.

“I wonder how people are raised with the lack of morals, that they would even think of doing that.”

Can’t say for sure it was done by people lacking morals. They might be people who are nice to their parents, always say please and thank you and would never rob, cheat, or lie. For all we know it was really an “act of God” that will jumpstart a cavalcade people announcing their miraculous healings just because they walked by the pieces of the thing and now claim to be cured. Then the pieces will get collected as first class relics and others with even worse morals will break up pieces of plaster to sell to people as second and third class relics at exorbitant prices and fleece the really gullible believers…

Or it was just petty vandalism by idiots who’ll brag about it on Facebook and be caught by tomorrow.

–
Edit Jan 27/12 — New article about incident with headline “Boston police seek mystery witness in beheading of Jesus statue at Dorchester church” and my very first thought was, “Finding God’s not going to help them solve this…” Well, it was funny at the time. Actual news is that police have lost track of someone who claims he or she has information and want that person to step up and tell them more.

A return to the classics: reading Billy Graham’s mail

And being new into 2012, do you want one guess as to the content of this letter? If you guessed, “If the world’s really ending this year, does that mean Jesus is coming at last?” give yourself a cookie.

Q: Do you think Jesus will come again this year? I’ve heard people say that the world is going to come to an end in 2012, and I’ve wondered if maybe they have some inside knowledge about Jesus’ return. — Mrs. E.H.

Some credit to Graham for his answer, though. He reminds readers that the bible never specified a date. Then he blames interest in the Mayans for causing the whole “end is nigh” kerfluffle.

Most of the “predictions” claiming the world will come to an end in 2012 aren’t based on the Bible, but on a calendar from an ancient civilization that actually ended hundreds of years ago. Most experts deny that the calendar even says this — but if it did, why should we believe it instead of the Bible? Jesus warned, “No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven” (Mark 13:32).

I found an interesting article from 2010 noting research done at UC Santa Barbara about the Mayan calendar and the technique used to sync it up with our own Gregorian version. The people responsible may have gotten it wrong. Mayans excelled at astronomy, often using Venus as their point of reference, which allowed recent scholars to do the same.

Although GMT uses several sources of astronomical, archaeological and historical evidence to correlate the Long Count with our modern calendar, Aldana has cast doubt on the accuracy of some of the astronomical evidence interpreted from ancient Mayan artifacts and colonial texts.

One of the key events described by Aldana is a battle date as set by the ruler of Dos Pilas (a Maya site in the current geographical location of Guatemala). Ruler Balaj Chan K’awiil chose this date by the appearance of Chak Ek’. According to Johan Normark, researcher at the Department of Archaeology and Classical Studies at Stockholm University, Chak Ek’ “used to be believed to be Venus but in another study Aldana believes it is a [meteor].”

The author of the piece explains that Gerardo Aldana estimates the “end date” might be 60 days off because of this and other discrepancies. It still doesn’t mean the world will end just because the Mayans didn’t count any higher, of course. There’s no reason to believe the bible’s selling a true upcoming world event, either. Smart of the writers at the time to not pick a definite date to throw in, though, unlike other doomsday authors.

Back to Billy:

Why is Jesus’ return important? For one thing, it gives us hope — hope that someday all the evils of our present world will come to an end, because Christ will rule in glory. It also assures us that God — not Satan — is in control, and someday (as the Lord’s Prayer says) His Kingdom will come, and His will shall be done on earth as it is in Heaven.

He then asks if people are ready to accept Jesus, so we’ll skip that part.

Hope is good, but I think action is better. There are ways we could improve the world now. We wouldn’t have to wait for some future date when someone else might sort it out. If I may pull out a Terry Pratchett quote from one of my most favourite books, Hogfather:

“the phrase ‘Someone ought to do something’ was not, by itself, a helpful one. People who used it never added the rider ‘and that someone is me’.”

Which is my point. It’s a lot easier to sit there hoping Jesus will come down and sort it all out than it is to figure out ways to fix things now and get busy fixing it. I think people who look forward to Christ’s return aren’t necessarily the best people to leave in charge of things that need doing. I think people who do what they can to improve the world even if they think Christ will take over eventually have the right idea. People who do what they can to improve the world because they know there is no savior on the way are also on the right track. It doesn’t matter if Jesus comes tomorrow or he doesn’t. We have to live here now.

Old news: maybe some Christians should be Paulines instead?

Or whatever followers of Paul would want to call themselves. I ran across an extensive list of quotes collected in an article of faith outlining how Paul’s writings (plus those who wrote under his name for their own cross purposes) created a faith that ran in a different direction than whatever it was Christ intended. I’ll just pick a few:

Leo Tolstoy, a devout Christian and probably the greatest Russian writer ever, writes in “My Religion:” “The separation between the doctrine of life and the explanation of life began with the preaching of Paul who knew not the ethical teachings set forth in the Gospel of Matthew, and who preached a metaphisico-cabalistic theory entirely foreign to Christ; and this separation was perfected in the time of Constantine, when it was found possible to clothe the whole pagan organization of life in a Christian dress, and without changing it to call it Christianity.”

This I like. Consider Christmas and Easter. They’re two high holidays for Christians yet so much of the pageantry around both events comes out of earlier pagan traditions. It must have been so much easier to encourage pagans to become Christian if they could still celebrate those times of year with evergreen and eggs.

H.G. Wells, famous English science-fiction writer, observes in “The Outline of History:” “It is equally a fact in history that St. Paul and his successors added to or completed or imposed upon or substituted another doctrine for- as you may prefer to think- the plain and profoundly revolutionary teachings of Jesus by expounding a subtle and complex theory of salvation, a salvation which could be attained very largely by belief and formalities, without any serious disturbance of the believer’s ordinary habits and occupations.”

What did Christ want his followers to do? Repent? Follow the ten commandments? Be more Jewish and keep the sabbath holy? Ditch the folks and the money and wander around telling everyone you know that the end is nigh? Harper’s has a great article done in 2005 about the Christian paradox and why people don’t agree on this. Totally worth a read.

Carl Jung, the famous Swiss psychiatrist, wrote in his essay “A Psychological Approach to Dogma:” “Saul’s (Paul’s name before his conversion) fanatical resistance to Christianity was never entirely overcome. It is frankly disappointing to see how Paul hardly ever allows the real Jesus of Nazareth to get a word in.”

Too busy with his own ambitions and dreams, I suppose. And what’s resulted from this are guys like Tim Tebow, who behaves totally opposite of what Christ preached for his followers during the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 6:5 – “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full) and prosperity preachers and the like.

One more, since I earlier linked to a write-up I did about one of the man’s books:

Bart Ehrman, American New Testament scholar and Professor of Religious Studies at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, writes in “The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture:” “What did the historical Jesus teach in comparison with what the historical Paul taught? Jesus taught that to escape judgment a person must keep the central teachings of the Jewish Law as he, Jesus himself, interpreted them. Paul, interestingly enough, never mentions Jesus’ interpretation of the (Mosaic) Law, and Paul was quite insistent that keeping the Law would never bring Salvation. The only way to be saved, for Paul, was to trust Jesus’ death and resurrection. Paul transformed the religion of Jesus into a religion about Jesus.”

And rather than emulate the man as described in the gospels, some tend to worship their idealized version of a god, a god who – amazing, isn’t it? – thinks just like they do. Paul started it, and many have continued in that vein since. If Jesus actually did come back to earth, incognito, let’s say for fun, would he recognize himself as described by followers now?

A move that surprises no one – Jesus statue not moving

I thought the headline, “Disputed Jesus statue stays for now” was going to refer to the Whitefish war memorial/kitchy Jesus statue. It’s fine to be wrong, however. This story winds up being an update about a completely different Jesus statue I’ve written about before so it’s all good. Vietnamese immigrant Tuan Pham took yard decorating to a whole new level when he decided to place a seven foot high Jesus statue in his yard, on a platform that raises it a further 10 feet. While most St. Paul, Minnesota, Christians probably applauded the man for being so obvious in his devotion, the thing was and still is in violation of zoning laws, being placed too close to the edge fo the bluff overlooking the Mississippi river The city is slow to do much about it, though.

Pham bought his bluff home in 2007 and planted a Lady Liberty statue out front. He added two sets of leaping dolphins, a Virgin Mary, a St. Joseph and tropical fish. The Jesus statue, however, has been the subject of the city’s attention since November 2010 when the city received an anonymous complaint about it standing too close to the bluff.

Pham received a letter from the city telling him that the Jesus statue violated the city code that forbids development within 40 feet of the bluff that drops sharply off the back yard.

The Zoning Board denied his appeal as did the City Council, but Pham hasn’t heard from the city since and he’s not eager to move the statue, which sits on a reinforced 10-foot base of concrete and steel.

If he does hear from the city at some point, he’s willing to bring a lawsuit against them. Americans love their lawsuits.

Council Member Dave Thune represents the ward in which Pham lives. Thune contacted the city’s zoning department early last week, but did not hear back before the Thanksgiving holiday.

The city hasn’t given up. “Oh, no, no,” Thune said. “Really, it’s a pretty important zoning issue as well as the bluff preservation.”

Just as Pham isn’t on a property rights crusade, Thune said he isn’t out to chill free speech or religion. “We don’t want to have statues of religious or political figures on the bluffs,” he said.

If they want to sell it as a conservation issue, then they’d better check all the properties along the bluff to see who else they can penalize for breaking zoning laws. Otherwise it does look like they’re picking on him specifically because it’s a Jesus statue.

He can have whatever he wants in his yard, obviously, and I’ll agree that zoning laws can get a bit ridiculous and overly specific. There was a story I’d found out of Florida where a cross that hung on a woman’s garage was 2.5″ too tall according to the rules set there, either by the town itself, or just the neighbourhood she lived in. There weren’t enough details to know for sure. Give an inch and they’ll take a mile, though, right? Isn’t that how that old chestnut goes? Have to be completely anal over the little things before big things go overboard…