It's round-up time again! Yeagh! Yeagh!

It’s been a long Hellatus (sorry, Supernatural fans), but I’ve been active on Twitter that whole time. Surprise

I’ve decided that a good way to keep content on the blog might be to round-up the week’s tweets in a blog post (which then gets re-tweeted. Ha-HA!). Here goes:

* Wikipedia Bans Church of Scientology | Wired.com

* Police tell cafe owner: Stop showing Bible DVDs, or we will have to arrest you | Daily Mail via @IanGBlack

* Google makes 5 Dead Sea Scrolls searchable | CNN Belief Blog

* Petition on White House website asks for investigation of Scientologists | Beliefnet News

* Torah Games? Bringing Torah to Life Through Game Design | State of Formation

* Thich Nhat Hanh is now a 3D Animated Comic Book | SF Gate via @walterm

* Woman read son’s religion paper minutes before slaying husband, tech expert testifies | NY Daily News

* British police give partial apology, say cafe owner can play Bible videos | Beliefnet News

* “Ha! Face of Jesus shows up on used Nintendo ES system. Kotaku has pics. Owner says: answer to ‘What Would Jesus Play?’” via @godwired

* “Bizarre video game based on a psychotic retelling of the near sacrifice of Isaac: ‘The Binding of Isaac’” via @godwired

I also realised I had some draft posts hanging around, including one I thought I’d lost. Stay tuned for more stuff soon!

Blogger Jago Constantine's avatar in Second Life

The Iran National Foundation of Computer Game (IRCG) is an industry body that, in 2007, established a self-regulated ratings system for videogames. Unlike in Australia where the Classification Board, an arm of the Federal Attorney-General’s office, regulates media, the Iranian Entertainment Software Rating Association (ESRA) seems to follow in the footsteps of the US Enterainment Software Rating Board (ESRB). Of course, all media in Iran is regulated by the Ministry for Culture and Islamic Guidance, so I imagine the idea of self-regulation is an attempt to meet the government half way.

What’s especially interesting about the ESRB, however, is the way in which they’re trying to position themselves as the rating system for the Islamic world. The IRCG and ESRA are sponsors of the upcoming 2011 Dubai World Game Expo (30/11-3/12/11) where they will have an exhibit about the rating system. The way they tell it, this is their first step towards Islamic world domination (although I wonder if something was lost in the translation from Farsi to English).

The system itself breaks down like this:

ESRA team
The research project of ESRA is managed by Mr. Majd and run by a research team of 17 psychologists and 8 sociologists. This research project is done at National Foundation of Computer Game and started in 2007 in 5 phases.

In rating, ESRA considers 4 characteristics in rating computer games
1. Physical – motional characteristics
2. Intellectual – mental characteristics
3. Emotional characteristics
4. Social characteristics

The age groups are
• The first rate (Kids) +3 years old
• The second rate (Childhood) +7 years old<
• The third rate (the beginning of adolescence) +12 years old
• The forth rate (the second half of adolescent) +15 years old
• The fifth rate (adult, single) +18 years old
• The sixth rate (adult, married) + 25 years old

Content descriptions
The seven content descriptors are:
Violence: The display of violence is when a behavior displayed to harm someone or something, ranged from destroying the belongings and making the unanimated things out of order.
Tobacco and drug: Watching the use of drug and tobacco in games can lose the internal-social taboo of not using it for the addressees.
Sexual stimuli: Sexual diversity, sexuality out of social norms, etc can end to the social and physical harms related to the sexual needs of the addressees and his/her social situations.
Fear: Fear is an internal feeling based on insecurity and not the lack of trust to the atmosphere, which leads to chronic stress, conservative behaviors, etc in social atmosphere.
Religious values violation: The violation of religious values is in accord with the Islamic principles. Two of the important elements of it are as follow:
1. The violation of the basic principles or religious believes (the howness of the display of the heaven or hell),
2. Sacrilege the holy places (sacrilege the mosque, church)
The social norms violation: Using the vulgar words and the uprightness behaviors which lead to breaking the social norms are among the social harms that the kids and the adolescents become familiar with.
Hopelessness: This content in games is related to a kind of feeling where the gamer have to do or not to do something which makes him/her feel sinful.

Panorama
The desire of ESRA, in a better way, its panorama is to achieve a place where it can be able to define the best age for each computer game. The best age during it, the game has no psychic and behavioral harm and helps the growth and the development of the addressee.
ESRA organization, in National Association of Computer Games, is going to continue its activities having two aims:
The first aim is to continue the studies and researches. Using the new perspectives as communication science, educational science and social psychology, designing the criteria and the new harmful scenes, classifying and distinguishing them were among the important research activities besides getting literacy for it which was designed and programmed in 5 research phases in guide map of ESRA.
The next aim was about the executing organization of ESRA. Taking film and extracting the contents of game, analyzing the gameplay, considering and defining the proper age group for each game were among the activities of this phase. Training human force of experts, who are responsible for this aim, is a difficult and expensive task, achieving which need using all capacities.

It’s interesting that they break down adults into a 18-24 and 25+ brackets, and amusing that they say “Sexual diversity” is something that should be regulated: it’s not surprising that they’d say so, just that they’d use such PC language to express it. I wonder if that shows a more liberal leaning in the IRCG.

Luke Plunkett ‘A Ratings System Just for Islam‘, Kotaku (30/11/10)

Alan Berning

Trying to clear a bottleneck of stories I haven’t posted on. Mea maxima culpa.

Heidi Campbell ‘Can an online community be a church ? IRS says “No”!‘, When Religion Meets New Media (24/8/10)

Joshua M. Z. Stanton ‘Cyber Dialogue: The Future of Inter-Religious Engagement‘, Patheos (6/9/10)

Eli Yishai ‘Shas minister shuts down online payments on Shabbat, holidays‘, Haaretz.com (14/9/10)

Matthew Razak ‘Fallout Online viral advertising moves to religion‘, Destructoid (18/9/2010)

Reuters ‘Vatican Bank head in money laundering probe–sources‘, FaithWorld (21/9/10)
Vatican probably the only place in the world that allows people to use ATM’ s in Latin.

Mollie ‘Code name Esther‘, GetReligion (1/10/10)
The Biblical connection of the computer worm that got through Iran’s Digital Veil (that’s what we’re calling it, by the way).

Reuters ‘France charges man for burning, urinating on Koran‘, FaithWorld (5/10/10)

Randall Munroe ‘Online Communities 2‘, xkcd (5/10/10)
You can see “Religious Blogs” in the lower right-hand corner, east of the “Sea of Zero (0) Comments” and southwest of the “Blogosphere (Core Region)”.

tmatt ‘Bible-toting bullies with webcams?’, GetReligion (5/10/10)
and in the same vein
Jeff Kunerth ‘Religion plays different roles in cyberbullying debate‘, Orlando Sentinel (5/10/10)
as well as
Erica Brown ‘Outrage at humanity’s use of technology‘, Washington Post (7/10/10)

Elizabeth Drescher ‘Gen X, Gadgets, and God‘, Religion Dispatches (8/10/10)

Reuters ‘Brazil “values voters” go YouTube against prez hopeful Rousseff‘, FaithWorld (8/10/10)

Phew! That’s broken the back of it. Some more tomorrow, then we return to our regular programming schedule.

Austrian nationalists the Freedom Party recently hosted flash game Moschee Ba Ba (Bye Bye, Mosque) on their website. It has since been taken down, but the site still shows the basis of the game: a stylised skyline of Styria province. Apparently minarets (some complete with muezzins) would periodically bob up for the player to shoot down. A notice now graces the site that translates (roughly) to:

Dear visitors

Due to the banned political influence of our enemies this game has been forbidden by the Austrian Justice!

Now you decide on 26th September…

(Apologies to all Austrians, I’m sure there’s all sort of nuance lost.)

A political ad from the lead up to the Swiss referendum

Aside from the Swiss referendum on minarets last November (see above), this stems from a more recent Austrian debate sparked, in part, by Anas Schakfeh, one leader in Austria’s Muslim community, who said that he hoped for a future in which a mosque with a visible minaret would be in each of Austria’s nine provinces. The game originally ended with the message:

Styria is full of minarets and mosques. So vote for Dr Gerhard Kurzmann and the Freedom party on 26th September so that this doesn’t happen.

Styria currently has no minaretted mosques, so this statement must refer to the ‘near future’ depicted in the game, but the player is obviously left to infer what they wish.

via ‘Far-right anti-mosque video game triggers outrage in Austria‘, Reuters (1/9/10)

(C) FIAA GmbH

Rumours of a Bible MMO have been greatly exaggerated. The Bible Online: Chapter 1 – The Heroes looks to be less than its source material might promise. Players assume the role of Abraham and (somehow) his descendants; this last being perhaps the most interesting feature mentioned. I’m not sure how they could incorporate that into the MMO-sphere, but I’d be interested to see how they did (the screenshot above may give some small clue).

I had initially hoped for a Sword and Sandal epic in glorious 3D, but so far we have what looks like a particularly insipid RTS. I get that you can play it online, but I’m not sure that makes it Massively Multiplayer. Apparently RPG elements will also feature, but these are not yet represented on the rather barren website.

One should not imagine The Bible Online to inhabit the same space as juggernauts such as World of Warcraft, or even smaller residents such as Warhammer Online; rather, it belongs to the surprisingly large but still unexplored (by me) world of free, browser-based MMO’s. Publisher FIAA have two other games on the market: FPS Operation 7 and traditional, fantasy RPG Kalos War. FIAA are situated in Germany, so perhaps the information on their website holds up better in their native tongue, but descriptions of Kalos War – itself incorporating Judaeo-Christian history and mythology in an interesting manner – include the following:

The elders of the Presbyterian Vanadin El Lathir of the Elf lost the Holy Sword that was kept in a secret place. Worried that this may break the current truce, Vanadin and his companions began to trace the whereabouts of the secret mark.

The Bible Online‘s site contains much less information at the moment, although it appears news bureaus were issued with a press release of some sort. This garnered attention from the boys at Penny Arcade, who (although they seem to have mistaken Genesis for Exodus) responded in the expected manner.

via Jerry “Tycho Brahe” Holkins ‘Remove Sandals 0/2‘, Penny Arcade (30/8/10)

Returning from an Xbox 360-enforced hiatus (having gotten one just after Christmas), it’s entirely appropriate I finally post the following story (and no, it’s not about alien religions in Mass Effect). Aaron Linne from Christian company LifeWay has developed a multimedia Bible app for the Xbox 360: Bible Navigator X.

The move from printed to digital text is hardly a revolutionary one (especially for this blog) but its location on the Xbox 360 is particularly interesting from a social point of view. Gamers are a strange bunch, and the multiplayer gamers who can find Bible Navigator X on Xbox Live are more known for their head-shots and trash-talking than their bible-thumping.

The video also features the initially-innocuous but rather stunning admission from Linne: “I’m more comfortable with a controller in my hand than I am with a book in my hand.” I hardly see this sort of thing as the next step in religious evolution, but the jump he’s made over the keyboard and mouse is conspicuous by its absence. I also wonder how many gamers have those gamepads with keyboards…

Photo courtesy of Atlas Obscura

Apologies to Msrs Diamond, Yauch and Horovitz.

David P often links on Facebook to places he’s discovered on Atlas Obscura, a site dedicated to weird and wonderful travel destinations around the world. One of these was the Museum of the Holy Souls in Purgatory, in Rome, which displays a number of bibles, prayerbooks and other items that have been seared with handprints apparently belonging to souls suffering in Purgatory.

Dissatisfied with the dearth of intercessory prayers from their loved ones, these souls burn their mark into items belonging to their friends and family as a reminder to remember their service to those lost. There’s something altogether creepy about this stuff, if only the placement of the thumb in the above image. That thumb isn’t opposed at all!

Of course, one can’t invoke Purgatorio without also invoking Dante. The prodigal David P has promised a post on Visceral Games’ latest marketing stunt for Dante’s Inferno, so lets hope he’s able to deliver.

Claire Soares ‘Souls Stuck in Purgatory Send Signals To Rome‘, Reuters (16/8/02)

'The Stoakes-Whibley Natural Index of Supernatural Collective Nouns', by David Malki of Wondermark

That’s right. The WORST kind.

David P posted this a few weeks ago on Facebook, and I’m only just now getting around to posting it. Retrosexual David Malki has composed a list of fictional collective nouns for supernatural entities, and some of them are religious. I’ll let you work out which ones. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

I have one bone to pick with Malki, however, about some of his collectives. “A chimney of djinns”? Really? When the English ‘genie’ is so commonly known, which comes from the Arabic plural djinni?

It’s not all bad, though. I’m a big fan of “A solace of Babas Yaga”. As far as I know there’s only ever been one Baba Yaga, despite what some authors may assume. I also dig the pluralisation of the title, as in ‘Attorneys-General’. And let’s not even raise the hilarity of “An itself of Yahwehs”.

This also gives me an excuse to link to the blog of a colleague of mine, Fall of Mythos, which concerns religion and popular culture. In this post she discusses the various summonable deities in the Nintendo DS game Scribblenauts, which I’ve been dabbling in on-and-off myself.

David Malki ‘Supernatural Collective Nouns‘, Wondermark (30/10/09)

I’ve decided to keep all my posts on religion and videogames for my gaming blog, but I’ll link to them and make any further comment I think is more appropriately placed here.

I may be rather late to the party, but I’ve only just discovered “Buddha Mode” mods for gaming. Read all about it in my latest thrilling post.

Pitcure derived from:

And I can understand why. I’d totally tap that.

Cursed Mountain, due out in Australia some time this quarter but released in Europe on the 21st of August, takes place on the fictional Himalayan mountain “Chomolonzo”. Deep Silver Vienna (formally Rock Star Vienna) have set their horror story of Scottish mountaineer Eric Simmons’ search for his lost brother in the 80′s, an age before mobile phones and GPS technology, to heighten the sense of isolation and terror.

More important for our purposes here, however, are the Tibetan and Buddhist elements present in the game. Eric’s brother became lost because he interfered with a Buddhist artefact that sent him into the Bardo – a state in Tibetan Buddhism immediately after death but just before reincarnation that I’ve never fully wrapped my head around, mostly because I never read the Tibetan Book of the Dead properly – which in this game represents some sort of afterlife. This act brought down the wrath of the mountain’s goddess, and as Eric ascends the peak encounters vicious ghosts he can’t be sure aren’t just the fabrications of his oxygen-deprived brain. The main combat mechanic of the game apparently revolves around subduing enemies with a climbing pick and then performing exorcism gestures with the Wiimote and nunchuck.

I’m particularly intrigued by the developers’ understanding of Tibetan Buddhism. At one point in the game, a mountain spirit says toEric:

You think of Buddhism as a religion of peace. Did you never wonder why all our monks learn to fight?

Now, perhaps this is just one of those things I never learned about Buddhism, but as far as I know “all” of their monks DON’T learn to fight. I imagine they’re talking about the Shaolin Ch’an monks in China, but they’re pretty removed from Tibetan Buddhism. This conversation with “Developer Relations Manager” Martin Filipp sees him describe things as “Buddhist” things that are often very specifically “Tibetan”. They’re not all quotes, so it’s possible the journalist got the terms mixed up and glossed one term for the other, but a browse through the protagonist’s “diary” on the website suggests otherwise.

Scroll to the bottom of the page for a typically Internetian discussion of religion in the comments section.