Halo In Church Points Out ESRB Flaws
Posted by
Zonk
on Mon Oct 15, 2007 02:47 PM
from the all-in-a-twist dept.
from the all-in-a-twist dept.
The recent controversy over church groups making use of Halo 3 to attract young men to their services continues to be a subject of debate outside of the fan press. GamePolitics notes that the debate is indicative of flaws in the ESRB's system, and in mainstream culture's understanding of those ratings. "When you look at it like that, it's hard to blame those who criticize bringing Halo into sacred space. For the most part the critics are not gamers and have no concept of the vast difference between Halo and GTA. All they know is that the games share a common M rating, a designation assigned by the game industry itself, theoretically for the protection of impressionable youth. For the uninitiated it's only logical to assume the content must be of a similar character as well. As someone who has played both, I'd argue that there is a world of difference between Halo and GTA."
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Churches Use Halo To Spread the Word, Raise Eyebrows 474 comments
The New York Times has a lengthy look at an unorthodox way to spread the religious word: Halo 3 multiplayer matches. Churches across the country have adopted 'Halo Nights' as a way to get kids together in religious centers and church basements. "The alliance of popular culture and evangelism is challenging churches much as bingo games did in the 1960s. And the question fits into a rich debate about how far churches should go to reach young people. Far from being defensive, church leaders who support Halo -- despite its "thou shalt kill" credo -- celebrate it as a modern and sometimes singularly effective tool. It is crucial, they say, to reach the elusive audience of boys and young men." Just the same, the use of the game is raising concerns among some onlookers. GamePolitics reports that many faith communities are heavily debating the issue.
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Rating systems (Score:5, Insightful)
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Right, it's like comparing Knocked Up [imdb.com] with Halloween [imdb.com]. Both R rated films but worlds apart in context.
Re:Rating systems (Score:4, Interesting)
S-ex (S1 no naughties/S2 rear naughties/S3 front naughties/S4 You betcha, it's porn)
D-rugs (D1 OTC(tobacco?)/D2 Prescrip/D3 "intro drugs" MJ/D4 Anyone order a meth-lab? Cocaine?)
G-un Violence (G1 War, History, no blood/G2 Blood, no impact shots/G3 body parts/G4 chunks)
C-omedy (C1 Mickey Mouse/C2 someone actually funny/C3 mild language/C4 Bob Saget)
I know. It looks a bit complicated. But think of the store shelves. Start high rated at the top and work down to the kid stuff.
Of course the ratings panel would be "S2-D4-G2-C2-..." but they could get stylish with it.
Read the bible lately? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Read the bible lately? (Score:5, Interesting)
Nah, it only gets a T rating [amazon.com].
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Re:Read the bible lately? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Violence over rated (Score:5, Funny)
Also, the use of the truck promotes both inactivity and CO2 emissions, so the character should deliver the water from a bike, wearing a helmet and wrist, elbow, and knee guards of course. If you run a stop sign or ride on the sidewalk, it's an immediate game over, and you have to ride slow enough that your riding partner, a slightly retarded child with a heart of gold (of indeterminant ethnic minority status) can keep up with you so the buddy system stays intact.
You only have one cup that everyone drinks out of so as to minimize waste; a mini-game sterilizes the cup with antibiotics between uses. Points are scored for each person served, but taken away for not keeping your heart rate up, not wearing a flag lapel pin, supporting the iraq war, or passing a breast cancer donation box without throwing in some change.
Re:Read the bible lately? (Score:5, Insightful)
Back in the day, before water purification techniques or even the understanding of what got a person sick and what didn't, wine was safer to drink than water. The wine they drink was also much less alcoholic than the wine we drink today. When Jesus turned water to wine as stated in the bible, think of it more like turning warm tap water to a cold soft drink or something along those lines.
And on the topic, there's a reason that movies give a basic reason for the rating. When I see an R rating for "Violence and adult language" it's different than if I see an R rating for "Nudity and extreme sexual content." The whole concept of a unified 5-slot rating system to classify offensiveness is completely intractable. The specific reasoning is much more useful to me, but nothing will ever trump parental involvement. Play Halo 3 for an hour or play GTA for an hour and you'll get a pretty decent, not complete, opinion of what the games' content is.
Re:Read the bible lately? (Score:5, Informative)
"and the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine. He did not realize where it had come from, though the servants who had drawn the water knew. Then he called the bridegroom aside 10and said, "Everyone brings out the choice wine first and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink; but you have saved the best till now.""
John 2:9-10, NIV
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It was at a wedding reception - a party, the kind of party people drink alcohol at, not for hygenic pur
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Rationality (Score:2, Interesting)
It does not seem rational to me to expect consisten
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Still out of place... (Score:3, Interesting)
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It's actually "thou shalt not murder". Murder is the unrightful termination of a presumably human life. Killing during war, self defence, or execution
Re:Still out of place... (Score:5, Informative)
You're trying to pretend there is a difference between killing and killing a killer, or that it's somehow OK to kill during war. I don't really have any strong believes in anything but I have very strong morals on this topic.
Killing is Killing and it's bad to kill people!
Your morals are irrelevant to the translation of the word. You may believe killing a cow is wrong but it doesn't effect the translation of exodus.
If you investigate the history of Judaism and the early Christian churches you'll find neither religion does not agree on your view of "killing". Both outline circumstances where killing is morally correct. Some off shoots (modern and ancient) of Christianity might be more to your liking but it does not change the original word used int he 10 commandments.
Re:Still out of place... (Score:5, Insightful)
Many of which are morally reprehensible to any modern civilization.
Translating the commandment as "murder" turns it into a really impotent commandment. As long as the people already had a concept of "wrong" killing and "right" killing, then telling them "wrong" killing is wrong is pretty useless. The history of western civilization should prove that some stronger language was warranted.
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It should be pretty commonly known these days that "Thou shalt not kill" does not apply to war according to religious leadership. And since Master Chief is at war with the aliens, it's all good.
Personally, I think it's great. Now we all get to teabag us
"Murder" not "Kill" (Score:4, Informative)
Sometimes when looking at a translation dictionary you get the impression that one word translates precisely into another word. That is not true, the two words may have vastly different connotation. Also, connotations may change over time. I am no biblical scholar, but I believe that it has been well established that a more accurate translation of the ancient Hebrew text refers to "murder". not "kill".
Also, the concept of just or defensive wars is well established in most Christian churches. The Old Testament clearly approves of warfare.
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Jack Thompson, is that you? It's nice after all the screams of "Doom didn't teach the Columbine shooters to kill" we get some jackass who's trying to use a moral out
Congregations have always been social networks (Score:2)
Keep in mind that congregations do more than worship, there is a heavy social component as well. Historically they
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Yeah I don't really have a comment, I just wanted to do that. :)
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Also, I'm pretty sure c
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But a bit where David is readin
Yeah Halo and GTA are different! (Score:3, Interesting)
In Halo, you just run around listening to profanity on your headset and trying to get headshots.
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Actually that's not that all much different from having church sponsored paintball outings...
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Certainly violence isn't something especially anathema to most religions, and certainly the games aren't exactly
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One size fits most, but there w
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Suggested this myself (Score:5, Insightful)
And I agree with the summary that it only seems strange to those who don't know about gaming, and while I can understand their initial confusion, I'd hope that after an explanation and (at most) a demonstration, that they'd see that. For the most part, I've run into very little concern about these type of things from anyone (and yes I'm going to stereotype) who was not under 65 or so in our church. But I think it's our part as gamers/geeks/fill-in-your-term-here to explain away the FUD that some people seem to spread.
Not every place in all churches are sacred space. (Score:3, Insightful)
I will be honest I have never played Halo. I have played Quake and Doom, and the later generations of those games. I am more into the Age of Empire type game and yes all of the above should not be played in the chapel.
For the rest of the Church well. I know that this is a radical idea but isn't that really up to the church and or the congregation of the church? My church tends to be more into the basketball and volley ball type of church activities and I don't think that I would be thrilled with video games in church but then that is my church and my opinion. Other churches have different ideas.
Seems sort of strange to even be discussing it since frankly it is none of our business.
How is this different from movies? (Score:4, Insightful)
There's a wide range of stuff that's considered "mature." Some of it is mindlessly gory, some of it seriously handles mature topics.
That's not to say I buy the premise that Halo 3 is a great fit for church life. Maybe it's "Die Hard" instead of "Grindhouse," but that doesn't make it a good fit.
Nothing new here (Score:2)
Why is Halo rated M in the first place? (Score:5, Interesting)
Heck, most of the things you're killing are aliens or, online, Spartans who are encased in full-body armor with no skin visible.
Personally, I would have rated Halo 3 as a T, not an M. And personally I think it's even on the tamer side of T.
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ESRB should be used by parents. (Score:5, Interesting)
The ESRB rating tells you what is there. Some parents and church leaders will decide to not allow M rated games. Others will look at the descriptors and prohibit certain games based on that. But this shows that the system, properly understood as a tool that informs parents and responsible adults, is not flawed. What is flawed is the idea that some regulatory body, whether mandated by government or not, is responsible for what children and teenagers see and experience in video games today. That responsibility should always rest on the parents.
So when churches play Halo (Score:2)
Outrage (Score:2, Troll)
Isn't Halo in Church Ironic? (Score:3, Insightful)
Am I the only one who sees irony in that *churches* are playing this game?
As an unbeliever, I find the irony both rich and oddly disturbing.
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Well
Re:Am I the only one? (Score:4, Funny)