fayfreethinkers.com

DOUG
Sure, they're just doing unto others before they get it done unto them. Isn't that what Jesus said?

======================

March 6, 2006 issue - Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition: Christians are finally getting a high-caliber shoot-'em-up videogame of their own. Due out on PCs in the second half of 2006, Left Behind: Eternal Forces is the first game adapted from the blockbuster books by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins. Gamers familiar with the largely uninspiring and unprofitable history of Christian videogames will quickly notice two differences in Forces: the top-shelf design, which offers an eerily authentic reproduction of the game's Manhattan setting, and a level of violence reminiscent of Grand Theft Auto. The game revolves around New Yorkers who are "left behind" after the rapture. Players scour the streets for converts, training them into a work force to feed, shelter and join a paramilitary resistance against the growing forces of the Antichrist.

Read the rest here.

DOUG
The video game features an icon of some praying hands. You can click on the praying hands to give your character extra health or something like that. No kidding.

The official website of the video game is here:

http://www.leftbehindgames.com/

============

Jesus Loves A Machine Gun
It's the new "Left Behind" video game, where you maim and murder and hate, all in God's name. Praise!
By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
Wednesday, June 7, 2006

Are you a true believer? Do you just know deep down in your black Wal-Mart socks that every word of the Bible is the absolute literal truth and nothing dare be doubted and anyone who thinks that God is merely an ambisexual omniblissful bloom of moist divine nondenominational honeydew melon should be strung up by their small intestine and beaten with sticks sharpened by Mel Gibson's teeth?

Do you feel, furthermore, that human cretins like, say, gays and Jews and Wiccans and all those hippie weirdos with their iPods and low-cut jeans and easy laughter are a plague upon this fine and holy land?

Do you think that contemptible books like "The Da Vinci Code" are not only blasphemy, but that you should probably go out into the street right now and behead a few lambs and perhaps mow down some Taoists with a Gatling gun just to deflect its horrible notions of the sacredness of the feminine divine? You do?

Praise Jesus! Your video game has arrived.

Read the rest here.
===================

DOUG
Here's a screenshot:

My mother used to pose the question, "What does a sane person do in an insane world?" She may have been quoting someone, but I've never read the original - I've also never come up with a good answer. All I can say is, these people are dangerous - and don't seem to read any part of the bible that doesn't support killing anybody who disagrees with them.

Barbara Fitzpatrick wrote:All I can say is, these people are dangerous - and don't seem to read any part of the bible that doesn't support killing anybody who disagrees with them.

DOUG
Then there is very little off-limits to their reading.

Typical is Exodus 32 :
26 So he stood at the entrance to the camp and said, "Whoever is for the LORD, come to me." And all the Levites rallied to him.
27 Then he [Moses] said to them, "This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: `Each man strap a sword to his side. Go back and forth through the camp from one end to the other, each killing his brother and friend and neighbor.'"
28 The Levites did as Moses commanded, and that day about three thousand of the people died.
29 Then Moses said, "You have been set apart to the LORD today, for you were against your own sons and brothers, and he has blessed you this day."

DOUG
So they were blessed for slaughtering their own sons and brothers for having a different religion.

Unfortunately, you are correct that there is very little off limits to their killing in the bible. However, there are a few little nuggets ("Howsoever you would that men treat you, treat them likewise").

Barbara Fitzpatrick wrote:Unfortunately, you are correct that there is very little off limits to their killing in the bible. However, there are a few little nuggets ("Howsoever you would that men treat you, treat them likewise").

DOUG
Christians by and large pretty much ignore anything Jesus ever said about how to treat others. Just go up to Jay Cole or other loudmouth local fundamentalists and slap them. See if they offer the other cheek.

Barbara Fitzpatrick wrote:Unfortunately, you are correct that there is very little off limits to their killing in the bible. However, there are a few little nuggets ("Howsoever you would that men treat you, treat them likewise").

DAR
As you may know, this little nugget was a hand me down from the many others who came before JC. Regarding the *Golden Rule:

"Do not to your neighbor what you would take ill from him."
--Pittacus, 650 B.C.E.

"Do unto another what you would have him do unto you, and do not to
another what you would not have him do unto you. Thou needest this
law alone. It is the foundation of all the rest."
--Confucius, 500 B.C.E.

"Avoid doing what you would blame others for doing."
--Thales, 464 B.C.E.

"What you wish your neighbors to be to you, such be also to them."
--Sextus, a Pythagorean, 406 B.C.

"We should conduct ourselves toward others as we would have them act
toward us."
--Aristotle, 385 B.C.E.

"Cherish reciprocal benevolence, which will make you as anxious for
another's welfare as your own."
--Aristippus, 365 B.C.E.

"Act toward others as you desire them to act toward you."
--Isocrates, 338 B.C.E.

"This is the sum of duty: Do naught unto others which would cause you pain if done to you." (Mahabharata, 5, 1517. Around 300 B.C. The Vedic period of Hindusim goes back to 1500 BC.)

"Do not to others what you would not like others to do to you."
--Hillel, (Talmud, shabbat, 31a) 50 B.C.E.

And finally someone stuffs this little bit of divine inspiration in the words of Jesus:

"...whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so
to them."
--Jesus, 30 C.E., perhaps.

D.

Darrel wrote:And finally someone stuffs this little bit of divine inspiration in the words of Jesus:

"...whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so
to them."
--Jesus, 30 C.E., perhaps.

DOUG
Yes, you can find the Golden Rule ("Love your neighbor as yourself" and "Do to others what you would have them do to you") a few of times in the Bible. (Leviticus 19:18; Matthew 7:12; Luke 6:31; and Romans 13:9)

But the principle of killing everything that breathes is found far more often.

Deuteronomy 20:16
However, in the cities of the nations the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes.

Joshua 10:40
So Joshua subdued the whole region, including the hill country, the Negev, the western foothills and the mountain slopes, together with all their kings. He left no survivors. He totally destroyed all who breathed, just as the LORD, the God of Israel, had commanded.

Joshua 11:11
Everyone in it they put to the sword. They totally destroyed them, not sparing anything that breathed, and he burned up Hazor itself.

1 Kings 15:29
As soon as he began to reign, he killed Jeroboam's whole family. He did not leave Jeroboam anyone that breathed, but destroyed them all, according to the word of the LORD given through his servant Ahijah the Shilonite-

There are MANY more instances of genocide performed according to a divine directive.

Of course, God had set the example of allowing widespread slaughter:

Genesis 6:17
I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish.

If a book purporting to teach morals says on four occasions that you should strive to treat others kindly, yet two dozen times it says that you may slaughter whole nations just to possess their land, is it still a good moral guide?

Remember we have a nice concise collection of Bible atrocities listed on our website:

http://fayfreethinkers.com/bibleeducati ... ties.shtml

D.

I never claimed it was a good moral guide, just that it has a few nuggets of good stuff in it - which I am well aware weren't original. I once freaked a JW by saying that if I believed in the devil I would swear he wrote the bible and god managed to sneak in a few good lines in the hopes that the really moral people would find them. If you restrict a people's reading to one book - and the christian hierarchy spent its first millenium destroying everything they could get their hands on that wasn't "in the canon" - then the only way to get your message across is to sneak it into that one book.