Happy weekend, everybody.

Here’s a Wired article about new Christian videogames coming out. They all sound crazy, and you can laugh as loud and as long as you want at the idea of “fragging” your enemies by touching them with the Finger of God and praying for them.

But seriously, the truth is that Christians, however much they may be incensed by GTA or any other violent videogame, just won’t ever be able to make good videogames. No videogame trying to put across the tenets and belief in Jesus Christ will ever be good. Guaranteed. For two reasons, the second one being better than the first:

1) Games are an escape. Videogames allow you to do things personally that you haven’t done (or can’t legally do) in real life. Want to be the star player on a football team? Play Madden. Want to be Neo? Play the new Matrix game. Want to get in fights with police or shoot pedestrians? Play Grand Theft Auto. And you probably have.

But now think of a Christian game. The goal of this game wouldn’t be to win a football game or shoot up a lobby or drive over grandmothers. The goal would be to live a good life. And, hopefully, we’re all doing that already. The whole point of a videogame is to escape reality, and the whole point of Christianity is to directly deal with reality. That puts them at odds no matter what.

Now, this problem, admittedly, can be overcome. No one ever wakes up and says they want to be an Italian who stomps on turtles, but through the magic of gameplay, Mario is fun. So, technically, if they hired a good enough programmer, there’s a possibility that Christians could still come up with a videogame you might want to play. Until you get to reason two.

2) Videogames are fantasy. This is the same reason Christians can’t write Sci Fi. Because all good Sci Fi, while it may be about aliens or spaceships or all of the above, is really a commentary on the way we live in the real world. It’s irreverant, it’s idolic. You might even say that what good Sci Fi writers do– turn familiar things into unfamiliar things through imagination– is actually sacreligious in and of itself. God, who is all good and all powerful, has given us this world, so why would we need any other?

[You might say "Well, Mike, what about Left Behind? Here's a series of, if not Sci Fi, at least Speculative Fiction that is centered around Christian ideas. Here's a fantasy world that Christians have created, and find acceptable and bestselling." And then I would say, "Well, sure, they find it bestselling, but they actually haven't found it acceptable-- Christian leaders have recently called out the Left Behind series for presenting the Revelations as sensational and not exactly what God intends for the end of the world. They consider Revelations to be much more cleansing and positive than the Left Behind authors portray it to be." So there.]

Same deal with videogames. They’re worlds of fantasy, playgrounds of action or sports or rolling katamari balls around or what have you, but they are all really reflections of this world, imitations of the world we really live in.

And if you place God, or anything about Him in a videogame, what you get is a poor substitute for what Christians believe He really is.

That’s why it’s a joke whenever a videogame lets you use the “finger of God” to pray and convert somebody instead of killing them. Christianity (and most religions, of which Scientology isn’t one) deals with reality, deals with the idea that there are fantastic things (a loving God, an eternal life) in this very world that we live in. And when you try to put those fantastic things into other worlds, what you’re doing is creating idols of them. Lesser versions that are represented as tools or powerups or special moves. That’s putting the videogame before God, and we all know what God thinks about “putting other gods before Me.”

Disagree? Think Christians can make videogames or that some people do want to be Mario? Speak up.

Cloney

Lassielike

Fidoclone

Injectey

Frankendog

Mr. Abomination

Stemmy The Stem Cell Dog

Almost A Dog

The Dog God Hates

I’m telling you, Susie. The other day, I saw Amanda chewing down on a steak, and then afterwards she ate an egg! Fried! Doesn’t she know?

Doesn’t she know that the Atkins Diet is totally over? I mean, that low carb stuff? That’s like definitely three, maybe four months ago.

Didn’t you hear Dr. Atkins is dead? Apparently the guy who was telling us all not to eat carbs and stuff had major bongo health problems. And the Atkins company? The one who was selling all the Atkins branded stuff? Yeah, they just filed for bankruptcy yesterday.

For real, Susie. If you’re still on the Atkins Diet, you’re a total square. Eating bread is in and gorging on high protein foods is out, way out.

Did you hear about Mary? Someone peeked in her locker when she was closing it, and they saw a frying pan in there. A frying pan! Can you believe it? She’s probably been loading up on proteins, and then burning them off as quickly as possible, so that she can drop to a lower percentage of body fat. What a loser! Totally?

All right, let’s go be cool and eat some bread, because carbs, Susie, are back in! For the moment, anyway. I just saw Paris Hilton on TV the other day, chowing down a baguette. We are going to be so hip when all the other kids see us with high carb foods! It’ll be sweet!

What’s that? You’re worried that we’ll get fat eating all those carbs. Don’t worry about that, Susie. Diet fads may come and go, but fortunately binging and purging never goes out of style.

The computer is working. If only I could get my brain to do the same.

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