Why angry Australian gamers want to ban the Bible

[cbayer]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2014/12/05/why-angry-australian-gamers-want-to-ban-the-bible/

By Ishaan Tharoor December 5


Copies of "Grand Theft Auto 5" for sale at an electronics store in the central business district of Sydney on Sept. 17. (Saeed Khan/AFP/Getty Images)

This week, the Australian franchises of Kmart and Target opted not to stock the video game "Grand Theft Auto V," which came out last year but was re-released for newer consoles in November. The move followed an online petition campaign with tens of thousands of signatures, saying the game "encourages players to murder women for entertainment." Critics of the game have long complained about its longstanding depiction of women as scantily clad strippers and prostitutes.

"We've been speaking to many customers over recent days about the game and there is a significant level of concern about the game's content," a Target spokesman in Australia said. "We feel the decision to stop selling GTA 5 is in line with the majority view of our customers."

But Australian fans of the Grand Theft Auto games — a blockbuster series that allows gamers to play out all sorts of gangster fantasies — are fighting back. A new petition in response to the recent ban calls on Target to remove another incendiary item from its shelves, one which also "encourages" the murder of women for entertainment. What is it? Read an excerpt of the petition to find out:

This is The Holy Bible. This book means that after various sex acts, readers are given options to kill women by stoning her unconscious, setting them on fire, cutting off their hands, and killing their children!

One of many fan passages on In The Holy Bible depicts woman being set alight for having sex"And the daughter of any priest, if she profane herself by playing the whore, she profaneth her father: she shall be burnt with fire." (Leviticus 21 ).

This misogynistic book literally makes a game of bashing, killing and horrific violence against women. It also links sexual arousal and violence.

Just knowing that women are being portrayed as deserving to be sexually used by men and potentially murdered for sport and pleasure – to see this violence turned into a form of entertainments is sickening and causes us great pain and harm.

more at link

[DonCoquixote]

1. BRAVO!

If you were to ban any books or artworks for sheer amount of suffering, you would have to ban: The Bible, The Koran, the Torah, and the Communist manifesto, all works that say "because we have x opinion on whatver God is or isn't, we have a right to kill those who disagree with us."

[cbayer]

2. A few questions.

Do you think that these stores choosing not to carry this game is a justifiable position?

Do you think there is a difference between the stories in the bible, koran, torah and communist manifesto (that one seems rather random to me, but whatever) and this game in terms of there being some redeeming value?

Do you think there is a difference between not carrying a certain book or game and banning that book or game?

[DonCoquixote]

3. ok,i see your bluff and raise you

Do you think that these stores choosing not to carry this game is a justifiable position?

Only if they genuinely do nto wish to sell violent games, not just avoid games that have made a name. In other words, in many video games, you wind up killing people, GTA was just more honest, and in many cases, very anti violent as it the story makes many violent people look pathetic, insulting them even as you play one of them. It's not like the latest "we r americans and we kill for justice" games that are war porn.


Do you think there is a difference between the stories in the bible, koran, torah and communist manifesto (that one seems rather random to me, but whatever) and this game in terms of there being some redeeming value?

Yes, the ones in the books I mentioned explictiy call for killing people. They present it as the HIGHEST MORAL GOOD POSSIBLE. In the GTA games, you have to step back and see that for all the power a lot of the miafia hoods and corporate bastards have, they are just one button push from beign wasted themselves.

Do you think there is a difference between not carrying a certain book or game and banning that book or game?

In theory yes, but in rpatice now. When people get a game banned, that means they know that a store can yiled to pressure. You give the inch, they take the yard, until they use that same pressure to dominate whatever the hell they want to.

[cbayer]

4. Not sure why you would call it a bluff.

The petition was clearly a spoof to make a point, which was pretty well done, imo.

I played this game once and found it vile. I would never spend money on it.

And I do think there are differences between historical and sacred texts and popular culture. The first can and should be read in the context of the time. The second set the current mores. My concern about some of these games is what they do to girls and young women.

At any rate, I'm not a fan of banning anything, but I do think that certain things merit restrictions.

Merchants should yield to pressure at times. If a local store were selling t-shirts with blatantly racist statements on them, I might organize the community to put pressure on the store to discontinue that line.

BTW, have you kept up with gamergate at all? Do you know what has happened to the women that have pushed back against video games which glorify violence against women?

[DonCoquixote]

5. if you read my journal

You will know the answer. I am wholeheartedly against the ma-children who do gamergate, which, like their MRA kindred, are weak insults to the very idea of manhood. However, the answer to them is not to dumb games down, especially as many of the people whoa re makimng viideo games with storng kick ass women ahppen to be storng, kick ass women prgrammers now, which is what really set the gamergaters off. However, if you dumb down games so that Jane Soccerman & Joe Sixpack at walmart will not have to read the loud clear rated M for mature sticker, you will will pave the way for general dumbing down of the populace, which, by the wya, willnot make them less vioent, but just morerecpetive to the games which are glorfied war pron that fpr some reason NEVER get banned (like call of duty, which is actually being used to train soliders on how to do thing like kill brown people)

[cbayer]

6. Haven't read you journal, but appreciate your synopsis.

I don't think we necessarily disagree here.

I hope you are typing on a very, very small keypad.

[DonCoquixote]

7. no, nuerological hand damage

but I will laugh at your jab just the same

[cbayer]

8. I have neurological foot damage. You should see me walk.

Wasn't a jab, more of a sympathetic comment.

[gcomeau]

14. A few answers

Do you think that these stores choosing not to carry this game is a justifiable position?

They're a private business, they can sell or not sell whatever they want.

And their customers can get pissed off or not pissed off at whatever reasons they are given for any given product being pulled off shelves if those reason given are hypocritical nonsense.

Do you think there is a difference between the stories in the bible, koran, torah and communist manifesto (that one seems rather random to me, but whatever) and this game in terms of there being some redeeming value?

Do we get to choose which stories? Because alternately the answer to your question is YES there is a difference there are stories in the bible (and etc...) that have more redeeming value... NO there is not a difference there are stories in the bible just as depraved, and YES there is a difference there are stories in the bible that are significantly more disturbing and depraved than anything you will ever find in a GTA game.

I answered your last question with my first answer.


Now a question back. Do you think there is a difference in the danger presented between one set of stories that market themselves explicitly as fictional entertainment with absolutely no guidance or expectation that a single person who exposes themselves to them should EVER EVER EVER go out and act on them in real life and a set of stories that are explicitly marketed as the ultimate guide to how to conduct your affairs in real life?

[Lordquinton]

15. You have to cherry pick the bad parts of the game

There is plenty of redeeming value, lots of moral tales, a strong showing of right and wrong, beautiful views, a beautiful, amazing world that you can get lost in for hours.

To try and make a comparison like that by starting from a dishonest point (that the game has no redeeming value while the books chosen do) really undermines whatever you're trying to say.

There is little difference between banning a book, and not carrying it if the trend carries on to other outlets.

[cbayer]

16. Well, in that case it has a lot in common with the bible.

I made no point about the game having no redeeming value while the bible does. Do you actually read what I have to say? Every thing in that post was a question.

I have no idea what you last sentence means.

[Lordquinton]

28. you did

"Do you think there is a difference between the stories in the bible, koran, torah and communist manifesto (that one seems rather random to me, but whatever) and this game in terms of there being some redeeming value?"

You implied that those works have redeeming value while the game does not.

As bd as the game might seem it never goes near the extremes of the abrahamic holy books, genocide is not to be seen anywhere.

I can't help your reading comprehension.

[cbayer]

29. Yes, because that is exactly what that question "implies".

When one asks a question about two things being different in terms of one aspect, they are saying that one has that quality and the other doesn't.

Reading incomprehension - together we can find a cure.

[Maedhros]

26. My son in law played an immense amount of GTA IV, which I observed.

Your claim that there is "plenty of redeeming value" is a bit of a stretch. Unless killing meth dealers, stealing their cash and using it to by a strip club is "redeeming."

I am adamantly against banning video games because of harsh content, but we should be honest about GTA.

[Warren Stupidity]

21. "the Communist manifesto" doesn't say that.

Perhaps you might want to read it some time.

[DonCoquixote]

23. oh how snarky

“there is only one way in which the murderous death agonies of the old society and the bloody birth throes of the new society can be shortened, simplified and concentrated, and that way is revolutionary terror."

You an split hairs and say that is technically not in the manifesto, but there is a reason marx stated it.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/11/06.htm

[Warren Stupidity]

27. You selected the communist manifesto

and you claimed it said something equivalent to

"because we have x opinion on whatver God is or isn't, we have a right to kill those who disagree with us."

That pamphlet does not say anything remotely like that. If you would like to substitute some other book or essay from Marx, fine, but again your new citation says nothing about what god is or isn't, it is about the uprisings of 1848 and the violent suppression of those uprisings.

Somehow there is this theory in the religion forum that facts and evidence don't matter.

[Cartoonist]

9. Private vs Public

I acknowledge that privately owned stores can carry what they like whether I agree or disagree with their choices. I propose no laws regulating them in this regard. That right there distinguishes me from the religious whackos.

Attempts have been made to censor books and other forms of art. They usually fail when they realize the wording of such bans would also include the Bible. The crucifixion is a sadistic and bloody account of torture. I don't play video games, but I doubt if they possess violence worse than nailing a man to a cross while he is still alive.

In my Catholic school days, we had a ritual called The Stations of the Cross. There were about a dozen different stops along the way. Each one dedicated to a specific horror, like the crowning of thorns to the whipping of Jesus. I think there were three seperate stations when Jesus was whipped. rug could confirm that.

[cbayer]

12. There are 14 stations, as your image reflects.

It is a catholic thing and the depictions, either paintings or sculptures, can be seen in many catholic churches around the world.

They depict the last few hours of christ's life. Interestingly, there are some traditional stations for which there are not biblical references.

The stations are used throughout the year in various ways but used most extensively during the weeks leading up to easter.

There is actually only one station which involves the actual nailing to the cross, which is, of course, a critical event in christianity.

I'm not familiar with book bannings failing because they would result in the banning of the bible. In fact, I've never heard of anything remotely like that.

I am also not familiar with proposed laws by religious whackos which would regulate what stores can sell and not sell.

In this case, the gamers are trying to make a point because they object to these stores not carrying this particular game.

[AtheistCrusader]

19. I feel like the word 'alleged' belongs in here somehwere..

[pinto]

13. I feel 1 difference is that GTA type games sensationalize and "normalize" overt sexism, violence.

The Stations don't IMO. Apparently crucifixion was a common, extremely brutal form of public execution in real life during that period.

[Cartoonist]

17. I think the "Stations" are worse.

The whole ritual was absurd in ways intended or otherwise. This was in my youth, so the memories are distorted with time. This was something that we were compelled to do, no "free market" concept here. We had to walk along the wall on which these images were displayed. At each image we had to genuflect and say a prayer. And this wasn't just once a year. I think it was a weekly thing. So each week we were forced to relive the torture, over and over again. Sick!

[pinto]

18. Get your "free market" comment in the context here. Yet we all had the choice to walk out.

So there's that, as well, awkward as it may have been then.

My experience with the Stations was primarily at Easter time. We'd "do the Stations" prior to Easter Sunday. Usually a Hail Mary and Our Father at each stop. Then we lit rememberance candles for friends and family in the alcove. Ritualistic, for sure, yet I never saw it as reliving the torture of execution by crucifixion. Never felt it was traumatic, per se, just a recounting and recognition of the written accounts. For what it's worth.

I was never forced to do the ritual, so we may have had different experiences with all that.

[Cartoonist]

20. I was an inmate at my catholic school

None of us had a choice to opt out of anything. I had to attend Mass Mon-Fri. I had to go to confession on Saturday. I had to recieve Communion on Sunday. I would have given up my comic books for the choice to walk out, and I was a believer back then.

Iguess I was more sensitive than you as a kid. I thought the Stations were gruesome. The thing that bothered me the most about the torture of Jesus was the Crown of thorns. While not part of the Stations as I recollect, the pain really hit home. I had no idea what having my hands nailed to the cross must have felt like because I never had nails driven into me. But I sure as hell experienced thorns. Even minor contact with my hands and legs was painful to me as a kid, especially when they stabbed my fingers. The thought of a crown of them being driven into my head horrified me.

Let's look at that for a second. Whoever made up this whole story had to be really sick. It wasn't enough that he had to carry his own cross and be beaten every time he stumbled, no, they had to drive a crown of thorns into his head, and then have a Roman stab him with his spear while he was up on the cross. You can tell this whole story is phony, because the Romans didn't let anybody take the body down afterwards. They let 'em stay up there for a while to feed the birds and act as a lesson to other enemies of Rome.

[trotsky]

22. What I find interesting is that...

The same people who think "Well *I* don't consider that violent or promoting violence" when discussing the stations, reject that as a response from someone talking about video games.

[DonCoquixote]

25. nods

No one ever got burnt at the stake because their mommy did not buy GTA at Wal-Mart.

[Odin2005]

10. I those edgy Gamers felt so euphorically enlightened.

I bet they are Gamer-Gate fuck-wits, too.

[edhopper]

11. Do you think

the gamers involved in that despicable behavior represents a big percentage of gamers? How large a percent?

[DonCoquixote]

24. broad brush

there are many gamers who frankly HATE the "gamergate fuck-wits" because they are trying to keep themselves big fish in a small ass pond. They see ladies making games and get all in a panic. But of course, use the board brush before actually doing research.