I think if culture is so immersed in violence as something glorious and noble, that it invades most every facet of entertainment, then it follows that violence is going to seem more and more a practical and obvious solution to perceived threats. Why is this sort of fundamentalism with its inevitable conclusions into violence appealing at all? Some people may be drawn to it due to forces totally outside of anyone's control, others may be right on the edge, ready to fall in as soon as they recognize violence as something culturally palatable.
Thats the thing, BattyMan, no one really knows what would set someone off. In certain cases it may very well be the videogames that gave them that final push, but it most cases, people who know nothing about what they're blindly arguing against blame something thats easy to blame. In this case, because certain videogames display violent acts towards other people as something that should be done and doles out rewards for doing so, its the easiest scapegoat for someone to latch onto. In my opinion, Ive seen images on the evening news which were a lot worse than some games contain. But the news is a publicly accepted form of information distribution, so censoring the news would go against our freedom of speech. Movie, music, books, its all there, but because we interact with games, thats why these people think they influence us in those types of ways. Did they ever stop and think that maybe games are outlets for certain people, and playing games where acting violently toward other people is the main aim may actually have stopped a lot of people from going that extra inch and acting out because games let them vent their anger? Probably not. This may not be the case with 90% of the population, but its a very possible variable in a large number of other possibilities. Sorry, Im ranting again. Im just get very aggravated by peooples closed-mindedness when it comes to things like this. Also, just to clarify on my OP, when I said "Its an extremely minor fraction of the population that are influenced by videogames," I meant influenced towards violent tendencies. Should have stipulated further, apologies.
This, most video game related studies have actually proved this. People's aggression actually decreased after they were done playing because they vented it during the process of the game. It's like punching a pillow. Is the act violent, yes, but its just a way to let off steam in the moment so that anger doesn't build. I'm sure everyone here has had a bad day then loaded up their favorite kill everyone game to unwind. Until there is a direct case of someone seeing something in a video game and then doing that thing they saw in the video game with no other possible explanations then video games just cannot be blamed for anything. There are too many extraneous variables.
As much as I hate to agree with Hotpokkit. This. "...stuck a feather in his hat and called it macaroni." While the Oslo Killer claimed to be a christian and apart of a christian fundamentalist group, they had perverted the Bible and its teaching for their own use. That in itself is directly contradictory to the Bible. Some people have been comparing him to a Muslim terrorist, but it's difficult to justify that. Within the Kuran, Muhammed teachs about killing infadels and holy war. Now a Muslim terrorist can commit an act of terrorism and it would uphold a tennat of the Kuran. There's no such as a Christian terrorist, because to commit an act of terrorism doesn't uphold anything in the Bible, it goes against it. People don't say they are believers, they act as believers.
i think the use of the word terrorist is inappropriate because he's not part of an organisation, so there isnt a fear of an ongoing threat.
Terrorism is the act of doing something to cause terror or fear in your enemies. A terrorist commits an act of terrorism. There is no rule that says a terrorist must belong to an organization. Many do because what a terrorist believes will often align with others that think the same way but I wouldn't say branding a guy who committed an act of terrorism a terrorist is inappropriate.
definitely a grey area here. usually there is a visible cause that terrorists support. in this case it's a bit strange, because he's been called a madman by his lawyer. though someone must be the first, like 9/11.
God hates fags, god hates cripples, god hates Islams, abortion clinic bombings, funeral pickets, the banning of public dancing: no matter how hard you resist it, if someone is influenced by the beliefs of a group, they are apart of that group. And if there's one thing the bible teaches, it's o.k to kill someone if you don't like the person you're killing. Discovering your own personal interpretation of the bible is contradictory to the bible? I forgot, the bible isn't subjective, or open to interpretation at all. It's the word for word literal truth as intended by god himself.
For the most part, I agree with you but haven't all Christians perverted the Bible and its teaching for their own use? Most of the time, there's no harm in it. I just don't understand how it's all that different. Didn't the Christians go on crusades to take control of "Holy Land"? There are countless other examples but that's not the point I'm trying to make at all. When I think of fundamentals of a religion, I think of the basic principles on which the religion was founded rather than what the majority of the current population believe in. Don't take this the wrong way. I'm not trying to bash your religion or anybody's for that matter. I was trying trying to explain what I interpret as christian fundamentals. I was probably wrong in my interpretation but I felt it was necessary to explain myself after further research.
Not to mention the whole dark ages. Catholic church has killed far more people than Islamic extremists have or will ever kill.
.wat Ignoring the rhetoric, yes if you're a Christian then yes you would take the Bible as God's word. I'm not taking it the wrong way, because at this point in time I'm not a believer. I'm only stepping in to correct some mis-understood thinking. I would agree that the Bible has in many cases been twisted for the benefit of leaders. I wouldn't say all Christians or even Christians either. Look at what the person is saying, compare it the Bible. If it's contradictory then I would say that person is acting outside of their faith. I think the same should be applied to any ideology. If someone is twisting it for their own use then they aren't apart of it. I just know a lot about the Bible, so that's why I've spoken up about it. I don't like it when any group of people are maligned or generalized because of a few rotten apples. As for the Westboro Baptist Church, I would say they are a cult. They have placed the word of their pastor above God's word. Within the Bible it states that their is no equal to it and if anyone places their word above God's word then they are a false prophet/cult, etc. I realize that a lot of people lump the WBC in with mainstream Christianity, but that's incorrect. Much of what non-christians associate as Christianity isn't Christianity at all. A few rotten apples have spoiled the whole so to speak. As for the Crusades, I would 100% say that the Church or rather participants of the Crusade were most certainly acting outside of God's will. (Again, not asking you to believe, but rather understand the difference.) Also, want to stress this point. People act on what they believe. So if people claim to believe in something, but act another way they're either manipulating the religion they claim to be apart of or just go with the flow and have no real convictions.
I'm going to laugh my ass off if it says that he used Halo to plan these attacks. This guy is only trying to piss us off. It's very unlikely that he used video games to plan his attacks, unless it was some ultra-realistic game like Operation Flashpoint or ArmA.
Anders is as much a far-right fundmentalist conservative Christian as those who blow up abortion clinics because in their mind, they're "saving babies". As anyone who has read his manuscript can attest, Anders Breivik drew inspiration from the bible when he murdered over 80 teenagers because he thought it would help protect the white Christians of Europe against Islams.
And yet that would contradict the Bible. I wouldn't label him as anything other than a madman. You're right, he's as much a Christian as people who blow up abortion clinics. They're not.
The bible contradicts itself all the time. Killing is both admonished and encouraged, and while it's pointless to argue the semantics of whether or not believing in and following the bible is what makes someone like Anders a Christian (Read: yes) it's pretty clear it's where he drew his xenophobic convictions that led him to shoot down civilians. He didn't do it because he saw it in a video game and thought it would be "fun".
we're deviating from the fact that breivik attributes video games, and that -paraphrasing - modern warfare 2 acted as training for his mision. video games weren't the inspiration for his acts, they were formed from a concoction of extreme beliefs brought on by his experiences in life, like many extremists. (what's odd is he is from a middle class liberalist family). similarly, he attributes christian beliefs to justify and analogise his actions. Now many of these beliefs that justify killing in religion are near identical to those in other religions*. religion in politics is seen to be a right wing characteristic, and xenophobia typically stems from those views imho. *islam - jihad (struggle - use of violence is justified if you are oppressed), christianity - many old testament verses. Religion can be where people draw their xenophobia from, but there are plenty of places where religion condemns such a thing. As i said before, it's really down to how people are raised and their experiences in life that may shape their beliefs. It's been reported that breivik would often have confrontations as a youngster with pakistani youths nearby in his neighbourhood. However, his choice to kill his own countrymen in an attempt to spark a war on islam, and furthermore surrender, makes it appear to me as a madman's work, because it really shows no logic to what he wanted to achieve and how he set about to achieve it.
So what exactly was his plan? I've not found anything that tells that. I know he wanted to try and influence governments to become strictly monocultural (he commended the Japanese on not having many people from other races living in Japan) but I don't know the rest of what he wanted.
lol not like Spain and Sicily were ever conquered by Muslims right or the Armenian genocide ever happened or Haj Amin al-Husseini joined forces with the axis or the Zoroastrians were ever oppressed or 17516 Islamic terrorist attacks have happened in the last 10 years Scarecrowxavier once again exposes how ****ing stupid he is by labeling him as "far righ", this guy was center right, this is what a far right person looks like
Oooook, we've gone on a very big digressionary tangent here. Though religion did have a lot to do with Anders attack, the point of this thread was to anticipate the reaction of him mentioning a videogame in his manifesto. You are right that they weren't the inspiration, but thats how its going to be seen in the public eye. Because a videogame was somehow involved, it must be the videogames fault, right? Who cares about direct evidence given by the perpetrator himself, its all Modern Warfare, and other violent games, faults. Right?