“Militant Atheists” Criticize Spore’s Religion
By Jonathan on Tuesday, August 12th, 2008 at 10:58 AM PST In Computer, Electronic Arts, Game Companies, Game Consoles, Game Platforms, Games, Games Industry, Nintendo, Nintendo, Portable
With it’s whole premise of a single-celled organism evolving into a creature and then a civilization, you’d think it’d mainly be religious groups that might be offended by the upcoming Spore. According to the game’s creator, Will Wright, though, it’s just the opposite. In fact, it seems the only religious groups voicing concerns are atheists, who are concerned about the inclusion of religion in the game at all (Spore’s civilizations can eventually develop religion in their culture). According to Wright:
“I think our bigger fear was that we didn’t want to offend any religious people; but looking at the discussion that unfolded from this thing, what we had was a good, sizeable group of players that we might call militant atheists, and the rest of the players seemed very tolerant, including all of the religious players.”
Wright also explained how the development team made an effort to treat the religious aspect of the game with respect. They also made sure not to fall definitively on one side or the other:
“We didn’t want to go too far down that path: we leave the whole creation of the universe question open,” he said. “Obviously as the player you’re coming in and playing something like a god, directing the evolution of a species, but we never really state who you the player are.”
I’d say if you’re making a game about building a civilization, it’d be a pretty big oversight to not include religion in some way. Particularly since every civilization in history has been influenced by religion in some form or another.
Via EuroGamer
As an atheist, I find this silly. I don’t see anything wrong with the inclusion of religions, it is likely any curious and intelligent species would come up with religions, right or wrong, to answer the big questions. These people complaining are being just as bad as religious people that get angry about fiction that contradicts their religion.
Sadly this is going to make people think all atheists are unnecessarily defensive about the subject.
“the only religious groups voicing concerns are atheists”
wouldn’t call atheiesm a religious group..
Atheism is a religion, whether they want to believe it or not, haha.
I believe in the baseball diamond, everything else is just theory and speculation.
Go Marlins!!!!
I wouldn’t call Atheism itself a religion, because a religion is a set of beliefs on the “cause, nature, and purpose of the universe”(Dictionary.reference.com). Atheism says that there isn’t a higher force, but doesn’t elaborate. But I would say that because almost everyone has some belief on the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, most, if not all, atheist could be considered religious. That’s just unimportant semantics though.
I thought we were supposed to leave the complaining up to the crazy religious people?
As a worshipper of the Flying Spagetti Monster, I am utterly thrilled that I will have a chance to integrate my religion into this game…
It’s not that religion exists as a social construct within the game…in Spore, religion GRANTS MAGICAL POWERS.
THAT’S the real problem.