boring... you don't have many options if you die after answering the first question with 'No'. But hey, it's a "Christian Simulator" and it's close-minded, so I guess it simulates their crooked reality very well...
29 May 2008 15:22
MrStray
This gets my nomination as the dumbest thing on internet.
I want to be the atheist! Being the christian sucks!
29 May 2008 17:18
George
This is very entertaining. I like winning by beating up atheists! The scenario was a bit too long. I don't like to think. I like to beat up all those who disagree with me, especially the ones that want to "reason" with me! Ha! Once you captured the absolute truth (no evidence or reason, it just feels right), then what's the point of arguing??!!!! There's got to be something wrong with them atheists....
Though at times (of weakness), they seem to be having more fun by using powers of their brains, such as logic and inquiry. If you excuse me, I'll go to flagellate myself, because I think the devil is trying to deceive me....
I rebuke theeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
29 May 2008 17:24
Helioprogenus
Do I have to be the one to always call Poe's Law on all of this nonsense? Well, in any case, I call Poe's Law. If this was intended to be a satirical dig on credulous believers, then well done, however, if this really was intended seriously, then may the winds of ignorance sweep upon your fragile little minds and draw you into the realm of BS for the rest of your life. You'll never know what clear thinking is, or reasoning -- gaining comfort in having lied to yourself so completely. I guess some people are happy bathing in ignorance.
Had to stop at question #2 because no answer was right. I have witnessed cancer cures and miracles, and I am confident that a cure is forthcoming. I won't stop praying for it just as I wouldn't stop asking my Dad for a bicycle when I was a child. Why isn't the cure here already? I don't know. Faith is not magic my friend. Why does one person win the lottery twice in his lifetime but another person never wins? By the way, we are not all as you described. There are many levels of Christianity just as there are many levels of development in all things. All are not the same. Those who rant and rave without logic or intelligence are actually not following the teachings of Christ. "Study to show thyself approved unto God..." "Feed the poor, clothe the naked, visit the sick and imprisoned." "Pray without ceasing."
Dear Commenters and Potential Commenters who may be unclear as to whether this is satirical, pro-Christian, pro-Atheist, have something to do with Poe's law, have nothing to do with Poe's law, or something else entirely ...
... you make me smile.
Whatever you do: don't try and find out what this site is ... about (possible clue).
bloglady said ... I have witnessed cancer cures and miracles
No, no you haven't.
bloglady said ... Why does one person win the lottery twice in his lifetime but another person never wins?
Please look up statistical probability online.
29 May 2008 18:46
John
I have been taken to some strange and wonderful places by PZ's links. This is one of the stranger and mos' wonderfulest. May I come back?
29 May 2008 18:57
chaos_engineer
Bloglady, check the possible answers again. Based on what you've posted, I think "It's all part of God's plan" is your answer to question 2, and "I don't know" is your answer to the follow-up question 3. I don't know how you'll answer question 4.
SPOILER: The winning strategy for the game is: "Ignore the question", "Yes", "Atheists are injecting cancer into the water supply", "Kick the atheist". (You get martryed, but the atheist winds up safely locked away in jail where decent people won't have to listen to his nonsense any more.)
29 May 2008 19:00
Christian
Prayer does work. It comforts the christian when he's clueless. It's an utterly selfish thing to do; that brilliantly has the excuse of being the opposite. Depending on your view, the answer will be yes or no. Yes, if it comforts you in any way to practice it. No, if you look at the external results.
BTW: My parents gave me my name. I stick with it out of honour to them; not because it fits.
29 May 2008 19:08
bobby
Is the scientologist level available. I feel i could take the high ground on that one cos at least the bible doesn't tell you to harassas critics cos they're going to hell.
29 May 2008 19:14
emme
Pure genius!
I really relished the 'evil smiling PZ's old pixel craziness' photo in one of the endings :)
Keep up the good work
29 May 2008 19:18
Luis Dias
Hey, you should have made a path where christian actually won but it would seem so ridiculously stupid that it could make a good laugh. I hate games where you're bound to lose!
29 May 2008 19:29
Anonymous
I'm an atheist, so I found this whole thing pretty embarrassing. Whoever wrote this has a pretty poor grasp of the Christian argument, and you know there's something wrong when you can't ridicule something as feeble as that without making yourself look even MORE foolish and ignorant.
29 May 2008 19:34
Atheist?
You're an atheist my ass, anon. Rather a closet christian, admit it.
29 May 2008 19:42
Anonymous
Hah, somehow I expected that response. I recognise that I can't prove it on teh intarwebs, but I am a genuine atheist; I just like to understand an argument before I refute it. The only thing that annoys me more than a stupid, unthinking Christian is a stupid, unthinking atheist.
After all, they have faith; what's our excuse?
29 May 2008 19:49
chaos_engineer
Anonymous, genuine atheists are friendly and helpful, and if they spotted misrepresentations of the Christian argument, they'd post an explanation about where the author went wrong. Complaining about mistakes without helping to fix them isn't atheistic behavior. Complaining about mistakes without even saying what they are is, quite frankly, troll-like.
Now, obviously the game has a lot of humorous hyperbole, and some of the options are just silly. But I think the core arguments are sound. Is there some option that you think should be added? If you've got a suggestion, then maybe it'll be added to a future version of the game!
29 May 2008 20:18
wcl
Prayer *doesn't* work! see
29 May 2008 20:33
wcl
http colon slash slash whywontgodhealamputees dot com
29 May 2008 20:33
Anonymous
chaos_engineer, point taken, although I can't understand where you get the idea that all atheists are 'friendly and helpful'; certainly, the tone of this page, while tongue-in-cheek, is suggestive of a certain level of contempt for religious people (something which I, even as an atheist, do not have).
As it happens, though, I do like to consider myself a nice sort of person so I accept the rebuke. You are right to point out that I did not explain what I see as the problems in the argument; I can attribute this neglect to a combination of (a) laziness and (b) a (clearly wrong) assumption that the flaws were self-evident.
I was, and still am, disinclined to write out a point-by-point analysis of the page (although with the length of time I've spent writing on the comments page, I certainly could have by now) but since your criticism was fair I'll provide an example, being the 'does prayer work?' question. It failed right from the outset, by treating prayer as some sort of magic spell, whereby you entreat God to do something and he does it (or not, as the case may be). Anyone, I would have thought, would know intuitively that that is not the point of prayer at all, or else just the fact that 'good things happen to bad people' would be an irrefutable disproof of God's existence. The game presents an idea of prayer that is not accepted by mainstream Christianity (whatever that is), and asserts intellectual superiority when it is shown to be flawed.
Even if we think of prayer in this way, however (I notice at least one commenter does indeed pray for cancer's end, so maybe I have underestimated the scope of prayer), there is the question of the so-called 'Divine Plan', which the game touches upon. This is the point at which the game really derails, however. First, it attempts to compare the acts of an autonomous human being (i.e. a crucifix stabbing) to genuine 'acts of God' (i.e. cancer) by asking whether aforementioned stabbing features in God's plan, even though free will is a well-established aspect of Christian theology. Then, this baffling oversight leads into a bizarre inquiry into who is 'deciding' what is in God's plan and what isn't. This is not going to make any sense to a Christian, who works on the assumptions that (a) God is Good and (b) God is Powerful, and who therefore can't help but percieve any bad (God-caused) thing that happens as part of a greater good. No one authority is officially stating 'cancer is part of the plan', because just the very fact that it's happening (and isn't attributable to man) means that it is.
I hope that made some sense; I sort of lost myself there because I re-write sentences constantly and I end up losing focus on the meaning. The thing is, almost everything in there was riddled with these sorts of problems and these, coupled with the condescending manner in which they were presented, suitably inflamed me to the point where the expediency and forcefulness of my criticism became greater priorities to me than its thoroughness or detail.
We need some sort of a counter-Poe's law for all the, pardon me, clueless eedjits who always pop anywhere people employ sarcasm with their twaddle about them possibly being creationists. D*mn it, you guys are so humor-deficient it's painful to watch.
Anyway, sorry about flaming, had to get that off my chest.
Oh, and Anonymous -- have you ever heard of an artistic license? You are analyzing this way too seriously. Do you need a great big, flashing "this is a joke, not a serious argument" banner to get it? Also, I laugh at your claims of being nicer than the author of the game. Not very humble, are we?
P.S. What is wrong with the commenting system here? It keeps saying "That comment seems a little short. Probably not worth adding it.", although I have over 100 words.
Edit: the system is broken alright. I had to remove the proper Unicode em dash to get this to show up.
30 May 2008 00:20
extreme atheist
Anontmous: You inadvertantly gave yourself away with that insane and obvious comment: "After all they have faith; what's our excuse?" You are a phony creep, and got a lot of freaking nerve calling yourself an atheist! Don't demean what atheism stands for by your phony prattle and just come out and admit that you are a demented religionist posing as a person of sound mind. To reiterate: my ass, you are no atheist. Stop pretending to be like your betters and stick to your insane and demented superstitious crap.
Anonymous, the question "does prayer work?" has nothing to do with how the believer knows/feels/thinks it should actually work
If you or "the average christian" thinks it works within god's plan on a spiritual non interventionist level or if it really works on a first come first serve basis does not matter, either it works or it does not.
The follow up question does try to define how prayer works and gives an opening for it working in other ways.
And in my immediate family I have devout catholics who will refrain from certain things (drinking, smoking...) because other family members got better after they prayed to their god and said that they would not do those things anymore if god made them better, to them it is crystal clear that that prayer really really worked (remembering the hits, not seeing the medical care, ...)
It is however pretty strange that a self confessed atheist would actually write "genuine 'acts of God'" ....
30 May 2008 12:49
John Phillips, FCD
Anonymous: Get over yourself already, it is meant just as a bit of lighthearted amusement, not theology 101.
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thatgrrl Hot Toast and Jam:Creative Tuesdays - › Itching to express yourself through other means than the writing and... http://tumblr.com/xfzh4nhes
faithx5 All the videos I'm favoriting right now are trailers for films playing at the Toronto International Film Festival.... http://ff.im/-pYX0q
science_book Recent Advances in Human Retroviruses: Principles of Replication and Pathogenesis - Advances in Retroviral Research. http://amzn.to/d23R4r
AJEnglish Rights groups sue US over kill list: Federal lawsuit says decision to put US-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki on a CIA ... http://aje.me/chZ3pO
Jason: thanks.
Pat: trust me when I say that's a good thing.
Looks like I'm playing the wrong side......
Don't be ashamed. All are welcome here.
Yeah, funny that.
You clearly are new to these internets.
Died at the first question because I answered it correctly.....heh
Though at times (of weakness), they seem to be having more fun by using powers of their brains, such as logic and inquiry. If you excuse me, I'll go to flagellate myself, because I think the devil is trying to deceive me....
I rebuke theeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
... you make me smile.
Whatever you do: don't try and find out what this site is ... about (possible clue).
No, no you haven't.
Please look up statistical probability online.
SPOILER: The winning strategy for the game is: "Ignore the question", "Yes", "Atheists are injecting cancer into the water supply", "Kick the atheist". (You get martryed, but the atheist winds up safely locked away in jail where decent people won't have to listen to his nonsense any more.)
BTW: My parents gave me my name. I stick with it out of honour to them; not because it fits.
I really relished the 'evil smiling PZ's old pixel craziness' photo in one of the endings :)
Keep up the good work
After all, they have faith; what's our excuse?
Now, obviously the game has a lot of humorous hyperbole, and some of the options are just silly. But I think the core arguments are sound. Is there some option that you think should be added? If you've got a suggestion, then maybe it'll be added to a future version of the game!
As it happens, though, I do like to consider myself a nice sort of person so I accept the rebuke. You are right to point out that I did not explain what I see as the problems in the argument; I can attribute this neglect to a combination of (a) laziness and (b) a (clearly wrong) assumption that the flaws were self-evident.
I was, and still am, disinclined to write out a point-by-point analysis of the page (although with the length of time I've spent writing on the comments page, I certainly could have by now) but since your criticism was fair I'll provide an example, being the 'does prayer work?' question. It failed right from the outset, by treating prayer as some sort of magic spell, whereby you entreat God to do something and he does it (or not, as the case may be). Anyone, I would have thought, would know intuitively that that is not the point of prayer at all, or else just the fact that 'good things happen to bad people' would be an irrefutable disproof of God's existence. The game presents an idea of prayer that is not accepted by mainstream Christianity (whatever that is), and asserts intellectual superiority when it is shown to be flawed.
Even if we think of prayer in this way, however (I notice at least one commenter does indeed pray for cancer's end, so maybe I have underestimated the scope of prayer), there is the question of the so-called 'Divine Plan', which the game touches upon. This is the point at which the game really derails, however. First, it attempts to compare the acts of an autonomous human being (i.e. a crucifix stabbing) to genuine 'acts of God' (i.e. cancer) by asking whether aforementioned stabbing features in God's plan, even though free will is a well-established aspect of Christian theology. Then, this baffling oversight leads into a bizarre inquiry into who is 'deciding' what is in God's plan and what isn't. This is not going to make any sense to a Christian, who works on the assumptions that (a) God is Good and (b) God is Powerful, and who therefore can't help but percieve any bad (God-caused) thing that happens as part of a greater good. No one authority is officially stating 'cancer is part of the plan', because just the very fact that it's happening (and isn't attributable to man) means that it is.
I hope that made some sense; I sort of lost myself there because I re-write sentences constantly and I end up losing focus on the meaning. The thing is, almost everything in there was riddled with these sorts of problems and these, coupled with the condescending manner in which they were presented, suitably inflamed me to the point where the expediency and forcefulness of my criticism became greater priorities to me than its thoroughness or detail.
Anyway, sorry about flaming, had to get that off my chest.
Oh, and Anonymous -- have you ever heard of an artistic license? You are analyzing this way too seriously. Do you need a great big, flashing "this is a joke, not a serious argument" banner to get it? Also, I laugh at your claims of being nicer than the author of the game. Not very humble, are we?
P.S. What is wrong with the commenting system here? It keeps saying "That comment seems a little short. Probably not worth adding it.", although I have over 100 words.
Edit: the system is broken alright. I had to remove the proper Unicode em dash to get this to show up.
If you or "the average christian" thinks it works within god's plan on a spiritual non interventionist level or if it really works on a first come first serve basis does not matter, either it works or it does not.
The follow up question does try to define how prayer works and gives an opening for it working in other ways.
And in my immediate family I have devout catholics who will refrain from certain things (drinking, smoking...) because other family members got better after they prayed to their god and said that they would not do those things anymore if god made them better, to them it is crystal clear that that prayer really really worked (remembering the hits, not seeing the medical care, ...)
It is however pretty strange that a self confessed atheist would actually write "genuine 'acts of God'" ....
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