Nephus

"And you must be confusing Christianity with Islam."

Ah, hate rears its ugly head. No, you're confusing your grand infallible religion with the truth.

At this point, the history you've been taught in bible school vs the history that actually happened will begin to clash, and I have no patience to walk you through that, not that you'd actually be able to accept the discrepancies.

I think the Romans had it right though...
Too many Christians, not enough lions.

Hah, well it's been a long day and I couldn't think of a more similar group of hatemongers.

In all seriousness, full disclosure time:
Christianity is nothing more than the most successful cult in history. It came about during a time when many gods were worshiped, both nationally, locally, or even solely by a single family. Suddenly a young man stands up and claims that he hears the voice of a single god and gathers people around him who he convinces that this is truth.

Today a man hearing god is medicated and institutionalized. A man teaching a new religion that he just made up is a cultist, and if he attacks the existing religious status quo openly he is arrested. The only reason Christianity is no longer measured by this same yardstick is because they have infiltrated themselves in so many places of power.

Yes, this nation was 90% Christian 50 years ago... been doing great since then hasn't it? Poverty, starvation, disease, drugs, violence, out of control police force tasering anyone they please, government sanctioned torture...

Yep, did a great job there. Bravo! That's something we can all be proud about.

Well said. I too am a refugee of a church going family. Heck, even have a few ministers in the family as well! I'm glad to see someone handling this so well, but unfortunately I've placed myself into this little comment thread as the sole voice of opposition. Probably won't gain me any friends, but it's better than having only a Pro-Christian viewpoint spouted while claiming that it hasn't been an argument about religion from the moment those comments were entered. Belief is an important thing for a person to have, but there are many beliefs out there, and they are all equal. My personal belief is to check anyone who claims that theirs is the only right way to live and makes excuses for the failings that belief system repeatedly induces.

All that aside, bravo for your words sir.

@chrono

So using your same logic, the Nazi party wasn't that bad either. They restabilized a collapsing Germany and helped unite their nation with a sense of national pride. Nevermind those few misguided people who had some sense of control who used their positions of power to enforce their distorted world view, overall they did a lot of good right? Unfortunately we just remember them for the bad apples of the bunch.

Oh I'm sorry, in this day an age you can only say that about *one* group of people who have slaughtered those who don't agree with them, used the force of law to limit the rights of those who don't swear allegiance to their cause, and who go out to give aid to those in need, but only after they take up the doctrines of that group... and it isn't the Nazis. My mistake, I just got caught up in circular unreasonable thinking.

Doctrine of love and peace? Abortion clinic shootings and bombings... mercilessly beating to death gay teens, protesting the funerals of soldiers who sacrificed themselves in service of this country just because they happened to be gay, claiming that AIDS is a just punishment for sin, the crusades, the inquisition, the salem witch trials (during which only people who refused to confess were killed, so they only ended up murdering the most faithful Christians in their community... ironic eh?)

I could go on and on here with much documented evidence. Where's the peace and love in that? Yes yes, it was in each case only done by a small group of misguided people... but what is religion but a collection of small groups of people who argue about what it is they believe in?

If the message is so clear, then why are there so many different Christian churches?

Catholics, Protestants, Baptists, Southern Baptists, Methodists... this list could also go on for quite a while, and I haven't even scratched the surface of what's available just within the small city I live in now. All these peaceful and loving people got pissy and started their own churches to further their own agendas. With that many issues, it seems that exception IS the rule.

God is in heaven right now (or something equivalent to the idea anyway) and he's very disappointed.. I can tell you that for sure.

Having grown up in Southern Kentucky with a church that literally claimed that only members of that specific church were going to heaven, I can assure you that Christianity is more poisoned than people want to believe. Priests molesting children and having the church cover it up, baptist preachers telling their congregations that God told him he needs a satellite dish to see the evils of the world and taking up a donation for it (another church near where I grew up), guns being pulled out during an argument at a baptist convention in Louisville, families in my community who were beaten every night by a drunken bastard of a father/husband but because he went to church every Sunday they forgave him because God had and if the abuse continued it must be because God wanted it to as a punishment for their sins, a government full of men who have refused to create any sort of worthwhile environmental policy because the rapture is coming soon anyway and it won't matter... even Mother Teresa didn't believe in God for the last 50 years of her life according to new letters that have come out, and even when she still did, she believed that the people she was "helping" needed to suffer unduly in order to purify their souls.

Throw that in with our president, a self proclaimed religious fanatic, starting wars which seem to echo the Crusades and trying to amend our constitution to reflect his religious beliefs... I hate to say it, but the evidence is piling up here. It may not be all Christians who are causing these problems, but out of all the problems being caused it seems that Christians are causing more than their fair share. If all games are constantly in danger for what one fuckwit does, then why are these churches allowed to continue creating masses of people who feel they are above everyone else because they're imbued with some "higher purpose"?

I have a few Christian friends who live up to the doctrines of their faith, but all of them have abandoned the church. I've yet to meet a single one who was sitting in a pew every time the door was open who didn't have a skewed and quite dangerous view of how the world works, which they then impose on everyone they encounter.

To be completely honest, I despise Christianity for all the pain and suffering it has caused. This is not because some author or movie told me to, it's because I've seen with my own eyes what this religion has done even within the microcosm of the community I was raised in, much less what's happening on a global scale. So again, if Christianity isn't the cause, then why does so much of what I've seen end up being caused by Christians?

The Flood.

I don't know what it is, but they just freak me out something awful. I received Halo as a gift, and really hadn't been interested in it, but I gave it a try to be nice, and couldn't stop playing. I knew absolutely nothing about the game other than it was on some strange artificial planet, and despite some of the interesting twists and surprises, the only thing that absolutely freaked me out about that game was the flood.

Of course, I'm the kind of person who could tell you the detailed lifecycle of the Xenomorph from the Alien movies. So naturally, the first one I killed I studied for a while and I can seriously imagine what these things would do to someone in explicit detail during the transformation process. That's the stuff of nightmares right there. As I'm a broke college student, and my 2nd 360 is starting to act up a bit, this is just the thing I need to get a fresh dose of gaming goodness. So.. please pick me =)

Ok, time to resort to bribery. If you send me the faceplate, I'll send you a photo with my nekkid wife holding it. =)

I'd have to go with the whole "Madness? THIS... IS... SPARTA!" one, if for no other reason than the multitude of webcomics it caused. (http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=231 is my fav)

Well, call me crazy.... but I decided to play through Fallout 1 again a few days ago. I screwed up and went through everything too fast and am at too low of a level to handle the end-game, so I'm gonna do another playthrough to get to that part properly.

Here's what I've noticed though: The game isn't as magical as I thought it was. I've only played through the first one twice. The second one I've played through probably 10 or so times, but it's been years.

It reminds me of the time I saw G.I. Joe on late night Cartoon Network. My first reaction was: oh, they've made something like Sea Lab 2021 making fun of GI Joe! This is AWESO.... er... wait a minute... I remember this episode. Oh my god... did it always have this shitty animation? The same thing happened with He Man a few years earlier when a friend dug up a tape at a yard sale. It seems what we remember vs how it really was end up being two very different things as nostalgia kicks in.

That's not to say that Fallout is crap in retrospective, it's still pretty damn good, just not the grandiose thing I thought it was. The fact that Bethesda is actually trying to appease fans with things like VATS and a third person perspective (which had BETTER not be completely useless like the one in oblivion with the lack of a crosshair) bodes well. Sure, it might have a slightly different feel to it, but it's got to be better than the other console offering we've had so far. That was one seriously horrible game.

Now granted, Oblivion was pretty, but also lacked substance. I just couldn't get into it. I've tried twice now, and I just lose all interest before I get to the end. The simple fact that they're actually working on dialog and making real consequences to quests other than your current alignment being an issue... well it's a step in the right direction. I'm holding my verdict until we have some actual gameplay videos or a demo in our hands. If they botch this too badly, it could actually drag the company down with it, so I'm sure they're going to do at least a satisfactory job.