Wednesday, February 14, 2007

D&D, Part Deux

A gaming friend sent me back to the anti-D&D site for more "enlightenment":

http://www.chick.com/articles/frpg.asp

Wow. A very detailed criticism. But, see, there is a real difference between "detailed" and "thorough," between seeing the details of something, and really caring to make distinctions, or understand another person's point of view, or concede that someone else might be right. This really comes out when you click the "Catholicism" link on the left of that page, or when you click around some more and come to the sections on "Islam" or "evolution." Double wow. I completely understand why my father grew to hate me because of my Christian faith (though he was as misinformed and bigoted as the creator of the website), when I read stuff like this, and I despair over our chances as a species to survive or thrive (let alone do something as grand and noble as grow closer to God), when I see a Christian thinking that it is God's mission for him that he "prove" that the majority of Christians are not, in fact, Christian. And "prove" that the 2nd largest world religion is even more in error than all those misled papists. And "prove" that science is wrong. I guess I missed those parts of the Gospels (perhaps because so many of my teachers were Catholics, or even [gasp!] Jews). I think my feelings are best summarized by the speech of T. E. Lawrence in the movie version of his struggle against tyranny and ignorance:

"So long as the ____s fight tribe against tribe, so long will they be a little people, a silly people - greedy, barbarous, and cruel, as you are."

Fill in the blank with any number of groups (yes, the original was "Arab"), and the quotation is just as apt. And yes, yes, I realize the guy on his anti-D&D, anti-Catholic, anti-Islam, anti-science webpage isn't advocating fighting anyone, and I am heartily glad for that, but he does believe that only his "tribe" knows the way to Heaven, only his "tribe" knows God's will. So long as someone thinks that about his faith, then his faith is silly, little, and barbaric, even if (thankfully) it refrains from outright cruelty and violence.

2 Comments:

Blogger food4thoth said...

Kim,

Jack Chick forms the worst of not only Christanity but of humankind. His spread of lies and hypocisy only serves to demean the religion he purports to serve.

11:48 PM  
Blogger KPaffenroth said...

Well, we could only call him a hypocrite if we were sure he was playing D&D on the sly. But yes on the demeaning part. Again, I don't feel angry, so much as just sad and less optimistic for our future.

12:07 AM  

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