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Role Playing (Games) It's funny. Laugh.

Winning Souls In World Of Warcraft 141

Posted by Zonk from the have-faith-in-the-Light dept.
Steve Rock writes "Many of us have heard about the various ways in which real life and massively-multiplayer role playing games intersect, which usually involves the exchange of in-game characters or items for real life money. Well apparently religion is spilling over into World of Warcraft." From the article: "We meet under the docks in Booty Bay for a bible study every Tuesday night."
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Winning Souls In World Of Warcraft More

Winning Souls In World Of Warcraft

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  • Also from the article (Score:3, Interesting)

    by McKinney83 ( 687821 ) on Sunday January 16, 2005 @02:33PM (#11379946)
    "I doubt any of them play sports so you can pretty much guess that there are lots of gay boys and fat little pale-faced Wiccan girls on the servers who hate themselves and escape into virtual characters so they don't have to deal with their pathetic lives."

    • They left out the fact that those gay boys and fat little pale-faced wiccan girls have credit cards (or at least a job to buy prepaid cards).

      I highly doubt those described characters would want to piss away $20/mo (or whatever it is) to escape their pathetic lives in a video game. More than likely, they would escape their lives in something like Counter-Strike Source for a one-time cost, or simply use Alcohol (if they're of age), or just spend the $400 on a gun.

    • If you don't agree to accept their religion, they use their character to kill yours. Hmmm...that seems to violate both the old and new testament. Old Testament - Thou shalt not kill.
      New Testament - Love thy neighbor as thy self.

      They protest about being stereo typed but they offer up a pretty grim stereo type of gamers that isn't even accurate. Stastically speaking, the average gamer is 23 year old male with a life who likes to game to blow off steam.

      I personally like to game. I scuba, rollerblade,

      • Once again, just so we can have this from the top:

        THIS IS NOT REAL

        This is just another trolling article from landoverbaptist.org, a site that is very anti-christian, to a point that many, including myself would consider far beyond satire. So if your offended by anything the article says, that was the point, and you fell for there little game, please don't take for granted that people are what they claim to be in the future, especialy not online.

        • Re:Very Un-Christian Behaviour (Score:4, Informative)

          by slaker ( 53818 ) on Monday January 17, 2005 @10:54AM (#11385637)
          Having spent more than a little bit of time on that site, living in a place where such unctious Jesusland behavior is an accepted norm, and given the attitude of offense certain people take at the particular flavor of satire, all I can say is,

          If you look at that site, and cannot instantly tell that it is meant to be humorous, you completely and utterly deserve the mockery and scorn of everyone else who can.

          The authors of that site have a very valid message that is delivered very effectively. If you're offended as a xtian, why don't you take some time and convince those xtians you know who DO act like that to stop behaving in the ways that landoverbaptist lampoons?

          Remember while you're being offended at someone who can make fun of your religion, that the evangelical xtian community didn't get upset when Jerry Falwell blamed 9/11 on gays and feminists, and George W. "Born Again" Bush has in the past publicly described the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as "Crusades". These are not exactly folks with shining ideals of tolerance and goodwill. Kind of makes me think that "people are what they claim to be" is only true if you START from the point of view of Landoverbaptist, at least as far as evangelical-types go. If you feel that their humor is in poor taste, just remember that those on the other side feels much the same way about you.
          • How is this any less offensive than anti semitic crap? It is clearly a lie and is presented at least on Slashdot as the truth. I will admit that when I read it I was very ticked off when I read it thinking what total freaking losers why the hell are they giving Christians a bad name.
            "f you feel that their humor is in poor taste, just remember that those on the other side feels much the same way about you."

            I think that Nazis and the Klan are evil as can be. I guess I should remember that there are Nazis and
            • Do you understand the difference between parody and hatred?

              Do you understand that everything under landoverbaptist is a very subtle dig at some attitudes in desperate need of exactly the treatment given there?

              The very fact that some humorless evangelical can't tell the difference between Landoverbaptist and the real, scary kind of evangelical rhetoric suggests to me that perhaps some of that scary rhetoric needs to change.
              • " Do you understand the difference between parody and hatred?"

                Yes I do. But this article was not presented on Slashdot as a parody. Do you not understand the difference between parody and hatred? One is intent. If someone put up a parody showing all Muslims as terrorists would you call it a parody? Sure the south park guys got away with it but they did it using puppets. This really looked like a news article and the way it was linked was linked in Slashdot was misleading. If you think otherwise take a look
          • It's not satire, it's one giant troll. That you believe evangelical christians weren't upset with Jerry Falwell's comments following 9/11 shows exactly the willfull ignorance that allows sites like landoverbaptist.com to be seen as real by those who want it to be. In this case I realy don't care what the other side feels about me, I care that I've given them no legitimate reason to feel that way.
          • I seriously spent an hour on this site, and I COULD NOT TELL if it was serious or not. I was laughing my ass off for 20 minutes straight. It is one of the funniest things I have ever seen. The entire thing seems so incredibly serious, but then they start talking about how you have to kill your parents, and how to steal their credit cards andwhat not. It's beautiful.

  • Funny, but... (Score:5, Informative)

    by tyoob ( 195338 ) on Sunday January 16, 2005 @02:34PM (#11379952)
    Everything on landoverbaptist.org is crap, of course. I'd hate to think anyone's going to take this seriously.

  • I thought Landover Baptist was satire, right? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by bartkusa ( 827611 ) on Sunday January 16, 2005 @02:35PM (#11379955) Homepage
    ...I mean, it is, isn't it?

    Please?

    • Yes, it is. I'm surprised the editors didn't catch this.

    • Re:I thought Landover Baptist was satire, right? (Score:5, Funny)

      by Ayaress ( 662020 ) on Sunday January 16, 2005 @04:16PM (#11380570) Journal
      Yes, it is. The other day, when the Tsunami fish story got up, I submitted this exact same story just to see if it would go through (although I included the site's "free PS2" giveaway page as a sort of tip-off that it was fake for the industrious reader). I was actually relieved an hour later when I saw the "Rejected" tag on the submission. I guess I shouldn't have been quite so relieved, since they only rejected me because somebody else had already submitted the story.

      Just look around the site, and it'll eventually become very clear the site is satire. Though, I should point out that my local news paper (which has as much journalistic integrity as the Sun) referenced it's christmas "evil toy" list, and also a particular (very loud) Baptist priest in my city supposedly uses it to prepare his sermons. I suppose that makes it either good or bad satire, since it can be hard at first glance to tell wether or not it's for real.

      On a related note, this sort of thing does actually happen. A couple years back in Dransik, there was a player known as Bob the Warrior. He dedicated half his in-game time to saving people's souls, wether they needed it, wanted it, or not, and the other half to trying to convince rich players to give him Rune armor before it corrupted their souls. He never accomplished either, but he did manage to become one of the most hated people in the game to that point outside the guilds FU and AoS.

      He was even more obnoxious than the ficticious guy in this story, to the point that he couldn't even leave town without being followed by somebody who he'd angered with the intent of killing him. My guild at the time was a neutral trading guild and generally avoided the major guild wars, but even we listed him as KOS.

      He eventually accused me of persecuting him for his faith, demanding that me, all my guild mate and everybody we've associated with be permanantly banned and all their items given to him (with such a small game, this effectively amounts to 90% of the server population) and when the facts of the matter came to light (chat logs, screenshots, etc), he ended up with an IP ban and was never heard from again.
    • I'm so relieved.
      I started reading this and was laughing my head off, then I panicked and wasnt sure.
      Ive heard that there are some americans who take religion very seriously but surely that couldnt be this bad!
      It could jsut about have been real
      • Ive heard that there are some americans who take religion very seriously but surely that couldnt be this bad!

        In my early 20's I got a case of what a friend of mine likes to call AOC(Adult Onset Christianity). And speaking as a former victim of this horrible mind virus I can say that they can very well be this bad and much, much worse.

  • Congratulations (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 16, 2005 @02:36PM (#11379960)
    Congratulations, you've managed to post a troll site on Slashdot.

    If you look at the content on this site, it's either obviously fake or belongs to a cult, none of what they have posted is even remotely close to any church I've ever been to.

    I suggest deleting this story and forgetting someone ever submitted it.

  • Hilarious (Score:5, Informative)

    by rogueuk ( 245470 ) on Sunday January 16, 2005 @02:36PM (#11379962) Homepage
    That whole web site is hilarious. Apparently not too many people realize it's a joke..as seen here [jesussave.us]
    • Wait, that jesussave.us website isn't also a joke? Unless it's two satire websites calling blasphemy on eachother to create more satire...
      • You guys are quicker than I thought ;-) I wasn't sure if anyone would figure that out
      • Yes, it's about equivalent to the Hydrogen Hydroxide [armory.com] anti-anti-DHMO page.
        • That web site is an abomination! It should be banned! Hydrogen Monoxide has killed over 100,000 people THIS YEAR ALONE.

          It should be banned, plain and simple. It is too dangerous in the hands of untrained laypeople.

          • Re:Hilarious (Score:3, Insightful)

            by dougmc ( 70836 )

            Hydrogen Monoxide has killed over 100,000 people THIS YEAR ALONE.

            Hydrogen monoxide? You mean dihydrogen monoxide, also known as hydrogen hydroxide?

            I believe the death toll you're referring to is over 200,000 people now, but it can't be purely blamed on DHMO -- large amounts of monosodium chloride was also found on the deceased, for example.

            Also, when you say `this year alone', you should be more specific. You mean in the `previous 365 days', right? Not `2005 so far' ...

    • Re:Hilarious (Score:4, Funny)

      by malakai ( 136531 ) * on Sunday January 16, 2005 @04:01PM (#11380463) Journal

      Look at the ad on the bottom of that JesusSave.us site: http://www.preparingdaughters.com/ [jesussave.us]
      "PreparingDaughters.com, Dedidcated to building up Godly young ladies. *Now With Recipes!*"

      Jesus H. Christ, they're cooking their children! These sickos must be stopped.

    • No, it's not hilarious, it's actually pretty lame. The kind of stuff that was too dumb to make it into a college newspaper.

  • LOL (Score:4, Informative)

    by HotNeedleOfInquiry ( 598897 ) on Sunday January 16, 2005 @02:41PM (#11379982)
    Great troll, and slashdot fell for it. I actually believed the website until I came to this line: "I have a hot-key macro that broadcasts, Jesus Loves You! Please Love Him Back or He Will Burn You in Hell! PM Me if you want to learn more!

    Of course, to recognize the troll, it helps to have been a fundimentalist Christian in one of your past lives...

    • Re:LOL (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Ayaress ( 662020 ) on Sunday January 16, 2005 @04:22PM (#11380604) Journal
      I'm not sure if the Baptists in Saginaw are a breed apart or not, but that sort of speech isn't that unusual at all. The only way I can distinguish this site from any of the pamphlets that gets stuffed in my door jam every Sunday morning is the free PS2 giveaway in the sidebar and the WWJD thongs.

  • In other news from the site... (Score:4, Funny)

    by HotNeedleOfInquiry ( 598897 ) on Sunday January 16, 2005 @02:50PM (#11380027)
    Sign your kid up for Vacation Bible Gun Camp [landoverbaptist.org]

  • Please tell me that people know this is satire (Score:5, Informative)

    by Meiyo Neko ( 567270 ) on Sunday January 16, 2005 @02:53PM (#11380043) Homepage
    If one were to actually take a glance at the Terms of Service Agreement [landoverbaptist.org] they would have noticed, "The Landover Baptist Church is a complete work of fiction. It is a satire/parody."

  • Umm, humour? (Score:4, Informative)

    by mrpuffypants ( 444598 ) * <.moc.liamg. .ta. .stnapyffuprm.> on Sunday January 16, 2005 @03:01PM (#11380091)
    I really hope that everybody realizes this story is a hoax...

    Landover Baptist is the same 'church' that sells Jesus thongs and other terribly funny stuff.

    The same guys that run Landover Baptist also do WhiteHouse.org [whitehouse.org]
    • First the Bizarre Deep Sea Fish [slashdot.org] story and now this one. What's /. coming to? Now, where's the story about a three headed monkey sighting...
    • I'm glad they posted it. I haven't laughed this hard in a long time. This site is hilarious heheheh

    • They also promise a free PlayStation 2 if you accept Jesus as your saviour.

      "If you've never heard of Jesus, He is an invisible cloud-dwelling deity (infinite lives!) who loves you very much and wants nothing more than to give you a free PlayStation 2!"

      http://www.landoverbaptist.org/news0104/ps2.html

  • I was pretty pissed off as I was reading this. Something in me called bullshit when the derogatory terms were used, but I wouldn't put it past some people; I've met individuals so mislead that they pulled the same kind of shit around me. Still, if that was a joke, I'm not laughing.

    • Re:Satire or not... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Ayaress ( 662020 ) on Sunday January 16, 2005 @04:53PM (#11380807) Journal
      It's a joke on a particular facet of the Christian community. Your in the same boat I am on it: There are so many people who actually act like that that it's not immediately clear wether or not it's a joke.
      • There are so many people who actually act like that that it's not immediately clear wether or not it's a joke.

        And that is what makes it so good. It makes it so clear to see how dumb many of the beliefs of fundamentalist christians are.

  • Now imagine if we'd be able to gather all religious hypocrites in one game, give them an interactive bible and call it Heaven Online. Jeremiah 13:37.. Thou shalt not bother others with your twisted beliefs! "hm, is this right?"
    • Maybe this is what you're looking for: Holy Land MMORPG [wired.com].

      The ultimate goal of the mmorpg is to help rebuild the Temple Mount (in real life) and bring about the apocalypse.

      From the article:
      "Players navigate the narrow streets and bustling marketplaces trying to uncover and decipher Christian, Jewish, and Muslim scriptural clues relating to the end-times. They can choose to kill each other, but they won't be able to move to the next level if they do. The goal is to unlock the secret that will induce the

  • Gotta love the adverts.. (Score:3, Funny)

    by euxneks ( 516538 ) on Sunday January 16, 2005 @03:42PM (#11380318)
    I saw this on an advertisement in the article:

    WWJD Thongs [cafepress.com]

    Absolutely Classic.

  • There really is a WoW Christian Guild, named God's Peons [www.toj.cc]. They are a chapter of the Tribe of Judah [www.toj.cc].

    The best part of the ToJ webpage is the FAQ about why Mormon's can't join [www.toj.cc] the Tribe.

  • as stated already (Score:2, Insightful)

    by ptrangerv8 ( 644515 )
    why was this even posted?

    normally I don't bitch about the stories posted on /. but c'mon - this is a well known satirical site....

    I almost bought it untill I saw the link..

  • Next Slashdot will accept WWN submissions too?

    (For the uninitiated, google for weekly world news)
    • Onion! I want to see /. reporting on Onion stories next. :) As an aside, this bit: "All the money I make from selling occult items to unsaved gamers, I auction off on E-bay for real cash...", if any of this were true (which it isn't), would be a violation of Bnet TOS and would get little Billy's account suspended post-haste. Heh.

  • the best part of this (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    the best part of this is how all the /. christians take this opportunity to tell us how un-funny all this is. hits a little close to home eh?

    my advice - try to take yourself a little less seriously folks. just because somebody is picking on your choice of imaginary friends is no reason to ignite a flamewar here on slashdot.

    oh wait, yeah it is. flame on, children of jesus! your gullibility shall know no end!

    • Re:the best part of this (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      To be clear, the author of landoverbaptist is active in atheist communities, performs as a humour bit at atheist conventions, and intends his website to promote the ridicule of Christianity.

      Whether satire should be considered socially acceptable depends in large part on the intention of its creators.

      If an anti-semite were to create satire portraying jews as being greedy and having distinctive facial features, we would not consider this acceptable.

      I would venture to say that under no circumstances should

      • Re:the best part of this (Score:1, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Whereas it's obviously socially acceptable for Christians to condemn non-believers to an eternity of pain and suffering in the sulphur filled pits of hell.

    • It would be alot more funny if so many people didn't think it was real. It's difficult to discuss issues with people when they're views of your religion come from sources that are not real at all. If they would put a large banner on there site that said, NOT REAL, it could be considered a joke, but as it is now, the purpose is not humor, but to riddicule christianity, and leave a poor impresion of it on those who don't realize that it is fake.
  • I find it hard to take them seriously when they start out by insulting the people who play the game, referring to us as lonely low lifes that are either gay or fat. My they have an open mind. I also like how they admit to spamming the general chat with their message of "God".

    It's also hard to take them seriously when there is an ad on the bottom of he page for a thong that says "What would Jesus do?".

  • Time for a can of whoop ass (Score:3, Funny)

    by Bruha ( 412869 ) on Sunday January 16, 2005 @06:19PM (#11381347) Homepage Journal
    " Billy has what gamers call, a Level 57 Undead Priest with Holy Focus. "I'm also in one of the largest Christian guilds on our server," he says. "I think the reason so many people are open to hearing about Jesus in the World of Warcraft is because the majority of people who play the game are lonely kids who don't have any friends. I doubt any of them play sports so you can pretty much guess that there are lots of gay boys and fat little pale-faced Wiccan girls on the servers who hate themselves and escape into virtual characters so they don't have to deal with their pathetic lives. When they hear that someone loves them, even if it is just the Lord Jesus Christ, they always want to hear more!""

    I'd love to see this jackass. I mean I spent 5 years of basically hell in the military protecting his damn free speech rights and whatnot and just to hear someone like this who claims to be a Christian spew forth crap like that just plain pisses me off.

    I think he needs to be eyeing his purity a little closer than saying were a bunch of moon faced wiccan fags with no friends.
    • Okay sure it's a fake site..

      But there are asses in the world like the guy they make out in the story. You have to look no further the white house.
    • Mate you mention people sterotyping about others yet you yourself stereotype when you claim that majority of people are fat lazy and friendless losers. I myself is a professional soccer players and have great social life yet also enjoy playing these kind of games in my spare time.To be honest i dont understand why we have to get religion involved in games as many people may get offended from this and it really stops being a game when religion is involved. So in my opinion DO NOT involve religion in games as
  • Mods This article really should be removed. If it were anything other than an attack on religMods, This article really should be removed. If it were anything other than an attack on religion I'd keep my mouth shut, but it is a fake story on an anti-Christian site. Not news which as the slogan says news for nerds.

    What annoys me more is just how easily people like to pin this type of ignorance on Christians. Do some people really act like this? Unfortunately yes. Does this mean all do. Goodness no. T

  • I'll get modded down for this... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Wyatt Earp ( 1029 ) on Sunday January 16, 2005 @09:40PM (#11382373)
    But, this is exactly why I won't pay for /. Crap editing, dups and crap submissions. This is /. not Fark. If we are going this far with /, where are the Boobies links?
  • Landover Baptist has been sticking it to the conservative Christians for years. It has some of the best ongoing gags and indepth satire on the internet. I'm surprised any thinking person would consider the articles on their site seriously.
  • I was fished in big time by this article. I didn't notice the landoverbaptist URL. I read the first paragraph and went, er, OK, an undead priest, sure. It was 2/3 of the way through before I stopped chuckling and went "oh, er, joke on me." :|
  • Wait, this is from Landover Baptist? That's like the Christian version of the Onion. This is pathetic, who posted this as real? Get a clue, man.

  • Oh, the complaints (Score:3, Informative)

    by jgoemat ( 565882 ) on Monday January 17, 2005 @05:17AM (#11383962)
    When I first read the snippet, I thought "Here may be an insightful article on the intersection of religion and virtual reality games." Then I clicked on the link and saw that it takes you to the Landover Baptist Church website. Check out some more articles from them:

    You guys can tell that this is a satirical web site, right?

  • Is a joke. Seriously. Its managed by an anti-christian group as a joke. Don't take anything seriously.
  • Okay, so it's a farce. Although I seriously wasn't sure until I came to this point in the article:

    I think that when Jesus said in Mark 16:15, Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature, He knew that True Christians(TM) like me in the future, would be called into virtual worlds where we'd be witnessing to gnomes, trolls, night elves and all sorts of other creatures.

    I knew that sounded a little weird so I checked Mark 16:15 out and this is what it really says:

    He said to them, "G

  • Laugh about this [bash.org]. Maybe offtopic but anyway funny :)

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