Australian Christian Lobby argues against R18+ rating

@Aguiluz

i'd say his argument has some legitimacy to it, more so for the fact that he doesn't really use his religious beliefs to back it up.

His argument isn't legitimate at all. It's the same old "violent video games make kids crazy" argument. He's just a backwards, misinformed (if informed at all), douchebag who thinks he knows best about something he actually knows nothing about, because it doesn't concern him in the slightest. Any smart person already knows that games don't make people violent or crazy; being violent or crazy makes people violent or crazy.

Oh, me too man. I'm a total psychopath now that I've played these video games. Of course, listening to all that "rock and roll" music from the devil kind of prepped me for it.

@kurian thats not true. anybody is smart enough to realize that there is major consequences to it. the biggest one being your contience (however you spell it). just because you can play a game on tv where you are killing the bad guys, doesnt mean you can do it in real life. some people that play video games dont even know how to reload. theres a big difference between holding a controller and holding a weapon. ive been playing call of duty, medal of honour, driver, etc. since i was little. i dont feel the need to grab myself a 12 gauge and kill people because of it.

Don't forget about the comic books! It's just been a total progression more and more to becoming a psychopath!

Being unperturbed by graphical violence is a completely different thing from actually deciding to murder people in cold blood.

You see the factor stopping you from going to neighbor's house to kill him after his dog pooped all over your lawn is not you resilience against gore; it is your conscience, empathy and sanity. Not one of those is removed by playing video games.

Soldiers kill for two reasons, to defend themselves and because, ideally, they believe they are protecting their country and peers. Desensitizing them to gore has a purpose, it is to eliminate hesitation in the field. It doesn't mean they are being turned into cold-blooded murderers.

On the other hand, people that have murderous tendencies will find themselves gravitating towards those no matter if they play games, watch gory movies and/or decide to eliminate your neighbor's pet dog with prejudice. Only professional help can cure/alleviate/? their mental illness.

Society trying to pin their illnesses on one fad or another is just a weak effort to cover their eyes from reality and taking responsibility.

@Magius

Ssshhh! Stop talking sense! You're making these Christians look bad!

: )

How many people have died as a result of or for the name of Christianity?

@ashfurball: Anti-christian (or atheistic if you prefer) regimes kill with a greater deal of brutal efficiency with larger numbers of dead over shorter periods of time. Look at Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Hiro-ito, etc. I'm not defending the conservative Christian sect though, they should really realize that it boils down to personal choice...like whether you choose to injest the kind of material they find so abhorrent (not sure about spelling). Telling someone they shouldnt watch it, and telling someone they shouldnt be able to make it are two different things.

Secondly, yeah these violent video games are great teaching tools for how to kill efficiently. Between MW2, DarkSiders, and the God of War series... I'm running out of places to hide the bodies! Does anyone know where I can buy those shields they get in Halo though? These bullet wounds are starting to hurt.

There is so much wrong with that sentence, historically speaking.

Well those lions didn't do a good enough job of reducing the numbers.

@ Xenuxenu

The chance of you being taken seriously with that username is pretty much null.

unheard of!
heard of!
of
(of)

Anyone else hear that echo?

although its surprising the fact that hes affiliated with a christian group doesnt come through with his speech in fact if it hadnt said christian group most people wouldnt have known

sure making games more lifelike might act the same way as military simulations do to break down the willingness to kill someone but hey we live in a terrible world were people kill off next to nothing anyway i dont think its going to have a massive effect on peoples views tho

id be more worried about people who get an adrenaline rush from playing these games losing access and then going to a gun range or somewhere else to saitiate there desire

also by that logic laser tag and paintball should be banned

I oppose your opinion!

That's usually part of the application criteria.

This is why I come to joystiq :)

Yeah he raises a good point, but it's only part of the truth.

But at least he was rational I guess.

Actually, the army says that this generation of troops has no problems killing people. They say that new recruits generally come in requiring little encouragement to take down the enemy, which is definitely not how it was, say, 20 years ago, or even 10 years ago.

This guy is absolutely right, believe it or not. Violent videogames don't create murderers, like the press thinks they do, but they do desensitize people to gruesome violence. Thing is, movies and tv shows do the same thing. The army also says that, once it's time for soldiers to go back to a normal life, it's much, much harder for them to do so than it was for troops that had to be trained to kill.

This is something that gamers have to admit to themselves: playing games where you shoot people in the face makes the idea of shooting people in the face less unthinkable. It doesn't make you want to go shoot people in the face, but it does make it easier to do so when required to. This is coming from tons of non-media sources, by the way. ALL of my friends in the military play Halo, and most of them play other FPS's, and I've read multiple commentaries from drill sergeants and the like that say that gamers come in already willing to kill, while non-gamers tend to need to be trained to do it. The non-gamers also have a much easier time turning it off.

Now, I think that Australians should have the right to play violent games, but I think that it's a matter of free will. Australia has a problem with letting its citizens do what they want (there are serious talks about internet censorship and Sandvine-y choking, they confiscate and crush cars after three strikes, etc etc), and not having an R18 rating is just one more thing they're dragging their feet on. It doesn't make sense, though, that someone could go see Saw there, but then not go buy the crappy Saw game if they wanted (if the Saw game was released down there, my point still stands).

FPS's, by the way, are probably my most played genre, so this definitely isn't a matter of me thinking there's something wrong with playing them. Even so, I'm sure I'll get downmodded pretty quickly for stating this opinion.

@Jeff
Way to think out a response. You're an efficient user of empathy. I do think that there is a certain amount of desensitization that happens, although everything inside me says don't give fuel to fundamentalist christians, but I'm totally being biased if I don't admit that.

On the other hand, the free will to choose commodities like video games (violent or not) or something as basic as Capn Crunch is such a necessary right to a democracy. To make the assumption that everyone is gonna cap someone if they play a video game is absurd just like it's absurd to think that everyone who drinks is gonna get really drunk, drive, and crash into another car.

Personally, I think that the +18 rating system is beneficial and eliminates most of the worry of having a young underdeveloped brain being over exposed to violence at a young age; although not all. The thing is, there aren't many things you can do about the loop holes of having someone under 18 getting their hands on games like this. All you can do is educate to the best of your ability, everything that happens after that is just circumstance.

But seriously, I'd rather play BFBC2 with people +18 and not with little kids who whine and who (admittedly) are better than me, lol...

So he has a PS3 then?
HIT THE DECK

He probably has a PSP Go.

nah hes got a Wii and Wii sports only. SSBB doesnt get shipped to mountains

I was just about to point that out myself.

South Australia was never a British convict colony.

the more you know

Knowledge is Power!!

Humor, ha...ha...

That's actually a common misconception. England use prisoners and debtors to colonize some places of Australia, but Australia was no moreso a prison continent than the US was-- England also populated their colonies in America the same way.

You can't argue with the fact that the world as a whole, due to various forms of media, has been desensitized to alot of violence nowadays. For example, look at society decades ago, and you never used to see the kinds of things we see on TV now. People acted differently and morals were much more enforced. I'm not saying things were perfect or anything, but generally it was a much more 'peaceful' place, at least in the media.

That said, I agree with you that people should generally be allowed to do what they want to do. If I want to play a violent game, that's my choice. If I want to go out and murder someone, that's my choice as well. I know full well the consequences of my actions.

Christians need to realize that people will do what people want to do. You don't show someone your religion is the best one by forcing people to conform to it. No, instead you show them that your life is better because of it by living it as an example.

As a Christian, I do my best to live my life for my Lord, Jesus Christ. Do I force that on anyone? No. Go rape and pillage or play violent games or cuss or whatever all you want. That's your decision. All I can do is show how happy I am living for Jesus, not shoving him down people's throats.

@SuiXide Joystiq, and the world, needs more people like you. I see these uninformed truthers come in here and start bashing Christians, and religion, and it makes me so mad I can't see straight. You, on the other hand, can form a cognitive thought and speak clearly.

I love you, man. Stay golden.

I will repeat it over and over, being desensitized to violence and/or gore doesn't make it any easier to kill people. Are you implying that we should be concerned with doctors becoming dangerous serial killers? How about policemen? War veterans? People that work at mortuaries?

Do not equate one with the other without thinking. Just because you can stand watching "Faces of Death" doesn't mean you will turn into a psychopath. People that end up committing murders are in an environment that either pushes them into it or have an already pre-existing propensity for it.

Nice post SuiXide. It humors me that some people think Christianity is some kind of powerful cabal that attempts to manipulate the public. Also, the Christians you hear about in the news often do not reflect upon the Christian population as a whole.

By definition Christians are non judgmental, open-minded and considerate.

@SuiXide

Actually you can argue against your first, unsupported 'fact'. That whole argument is based on a fallacy. It's nothing personal, but people blindly state that as common wisdom, when there is nothing to back up that sentiment.

There are tons of people that even watching gore in movies is enough to make them sick. There is a line in the psyche that you cross when you believe something is real. It is why people can like movies where something horrific is displayed, but that doesn't make them a sociopath. However the same person can watch a real beheading on the internet, and feel sick to their stomach. I am nearly the exact guy I just described. I sometimes like movies and games where someone is confronted with an abnormally violent situation. It is entertaining. However, I am a very sypmathetic person and when I know someone is suffering, I'm not entertained at all.

Please refrain from using this argument in the future and feel free to correct people when they use it.

Its weird how our deteriorating morality due to abhorrent videogames and media has led to a precipitous drop in violent crime over the past 10 years.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/01/AR2010010101829.html

I think you presume too much.