Great Moments in Philosophy: Aristotle, Aquinas and Sonic the Hedgehog

I can’t tell if he’s joking, but I don’t think he is as he appears to have put way too much thought into this (which is scary in and of itself):

Another victim of public education or daring philosopher king of the new millennium??¹

Juxtapose: likening the fictional (farcical?) elements of an imaginary, blue, anthropomorphic hedgehog borne of the minds of a few Japanese guys looking to sell video games to kids, to the sacredness of the world’s great religions–talk about absolutely, screamingly, desperate for something to believe in.²

Bonus level: read the comments at YouTube where you get the distinct impression that a sizable portion of the respondents, without irony or humor, seem to believe he’s really onto something profound with this discovery for the ages that’s right up there with Bugs Bunny’s contributions to duck hunting and Calvin and Hobbes’ contribution to mud flaps and urinating on Chevy stickers.

h/t: The Wanderer

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^{1 I’m going with smokes a lot of weed for $1000, Alex.
2 As long as it isn’t God or anything that could be construed as an extant, higher power, e.g. Dr.Robotnik (to hell w/ this Eggman nonsense!) good; Jesus bad.}

Jesus Christ: The Son of Man Becomes The Son of Slam

If you’re going to do ‘edgy’¹, you can do better than the KKK and Satan

I won’t hold my breath waiting for the version w/ Mohammad smiting infidels and apostates as that’s a good way to invite death threats, but this is sorta-kinda reminiscent of a chunky, Konami, beat ’em up. (If the creators had any balls–and actually wanted a really big audience–this game could be super-fun and not in a ‘crucifix in urine’ sorta way.)

I’m fairly certain CHI would approve of the lamb-into-wood-wielding-lion’s hands-on approach to sin. Hell (oops), maybe even the Knight, too.

And in other news, there’s also this: “New God game is Silent Hill for browsers, basically” which sounds…weird, but slickly-produced.

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1 It’s funny how often ‘edgy’ is tired, trite and clichéd, isn’t it? Kinda like the exact opposite of edgy, in fact.

GamePro: Mormonism Is A Lot Like a Murderious Space Cult

UPDATE: according to my logs, someone(s) from PC World (one of Dave’s employers) has spent an awful lot of time on this post today, so maybe someone could comment (or ask Dave to comment) and spell out for us what, exactly, he meant?

Pro-tip: sh*tting on peoples’ religion is a great way to get fired

So it would appear that Dead Space is getting a prequel in the form of a hot new science fiction novel from TOR. GamePro, expert gamers and, more importantly, Aquinas-caliber theologians, have the first word:

Evenson’s religious history as a former member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and a teacher at the Mormon-affiliated Brigham Young University (read more about that on his Wikipedia page) may play a vital role too, since descriptions of the book seem to indicate that it will reveal a lot about the game’s mysterious Church of Unitology.

Here’s what the quoted book description states:

“One of the most compelling storytelling aspects of Dead Space has been the Church of Unitology: its origins, power, and role in Dead Space,” says Tor editor, Eric Raab. “Writer B.K. Evenson gets into the terrifying aspects of mob mentality like no other writer today. This isn’t only a great story within the Dead Space universe; it’s a great novel on its own.”

I’m going to hope that this is just poorly-worded because he (the GamePro writer) seems to be implying that since the author used to be a Mormon and also taught at BYU (and was, ultimately, banished from the church), that that gives him special insight into a fictional, bloody-thirsty, space cult, populated by horribly-disfigured mutants bent on butchering all who oppose them. (You could maybe regress it a notch, cut out the Mormon reference, and say that because he used to be religious, and because he taught at a religiously-oriented school, that that gives him special insight into a fictional, blood-thirsty, space cult but, uh, yeah…that doesn’t really help.)

In fact, the only reasonable way to spin this is to say that the author’s experience of being drummed out of the church gives him speical insight into mob mentality which is a key element of Dead Space’s plotline, but to get there, you need a map, a compass, and some remedial writing skills. (I’m not even saying this is the case, but that this is the only way to spin this–a better way would have been to have left the dude’s ex-religion out of if it altogether like…every other post on this story today since the press release (and wiki) doesn’t give you anything like enough information to make this claim.)

And, for the record, I’m not a Mormon (or even a theist of any sort), so I have no ax to grind on its behalf, unlike Dave Rudden, whose ill-conceived hatchet job can probably be found in the DSM under “psychotic”…wait…DSM…Dead Space Martyr…OMG, Dave Rudden is a member of the Church of Unitology! The Marker! It all makes sense!¹ AIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!

H/T: The Nerd

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1 No it doesn’t but, then again, maybe it does to Dave Rudden.