No surprises here, really. It's never been above religionists to use bribery (the whole "heaven" thing for example) or a relaxation of their supposed inflexible gods-given morality to attract new members A lot of churches and religious organisations forbid gambling (eg the Salvos) but many others hold raffles and bingo nights to keep people coming. Religious types are always the first to protest at the newest violent games, but here's a cult drawing young people in with free FPS sessions. Come for the kill, stay for the sermon!
This reveals that the less relevant religion becomes, the more desperate (or some might say "inventive") various cults get to recruit young people. They know full well that getting people while they're young and credulous is the only way to keep a cult afloat. It also reveals that marketing strategy has to follow the first law of nature - evolve or die out - regardless of what the product is.
Hope I was on your "they will reply" list Racer If not - surprise!
A : "I'm a born-again christian!"
B : "How come then?"
A : "Well, I got to play Halo 3!"
Ridiculous, they must be really desperate to recruit members by letting them play FPS games.
That's something I noticed with religion. Some religions try to make people to join them by promising a heaven or a second life, or 'care for the poor', or 40 virgins when they blow themselves up.
40 virgins isn't as good as they make it out to be though, one or two virgins is nice, but after the fifth or sixth, you want her to reach around and tickle your balls.
It's against the EULA - I'm not for suing people, but those churches should have the books not just thrown at them, but fired at them with a nitrogen cannon.
@ Hank : LOL... yeah I figured you'd have something to say
You know, the last time I went to church, not counting my father-in-law's funeral, was about a year ago. This place is dying. I was the youngest person there and I'm over 40. I can understand churches wanting to reach out to younger people, but for most of them, I think it's too late. The fire went out and the brimstone melted away. At least here, in the United States, about 1950, the churches views on morality and whatever was beginning to be considered too constraining and backward by the mainstream. By 1980 they almost succeeded in totally alienating the young people in this country by doing almost the same thing that Islamic societies are doing. everything that is new and unknown is instantly decided as being evil, immoral or fattening.
I just find it totally bizarre that they use THIS as a recruitment tool. What happened to intramural sports?
Speaking of weird, do y'all think they have i.pod casts of sermons at some churches?
The church I used to go to has pod casts. I stopped going when they tried to convince me that condoms had little holes in them to lets the AIDS through.
To be honest it's nothing new, There's been christian servers in America's Army for years, before that they used Ghost Recon. I'm actually quite surprised but relieved they haven't found racing sims.
Another reason it's no surprise is products like this: camouflage bible. Yes, that's what it says. So, when you're hunkered down in your hide, protecting the fatherland and prayin' for that big ol ten-point buck to wander in front of your scope, the commie snipers don't pick you out by spotting your big red Gideon's
I used to believe, so I understand why people do. I'd always questioned some of the things I was told though (privately, for the most part). At 15 I started to question it properly until I realised that, for me, religion was unnecessay and irrelevant. But that's just me, and my problem isn't with people who choose to believe. It's with people who behave as if religious belief isn't or shouldn't be a matter of choice and seek to impose it on everybody around them by any means necessary, including bribing children with free games (and other less inocuous methods). I believe people should always be free to work out for themselves whether to subscribe to a faith system, instead of parents/community/school etc. telling children they're Muslim/Christian/Moonbat as soon as they're born and leaving them absolutely no say in the matter.
Its a bizarre and tacky move by the church, and a little surprising for me that they're actually coming around on video games so soon... I thought they'd remain a steadfast symbol of the decadence of modern culture for awhile longer yet. The thing I want to know though is how they're contextualising the game within their good vs evil formula for salvation. The good guys (the Master Chief ) are obviously the churchy folk
<pause>
but who I wonder are they casting in the role of the villian? Muslims? Non believers? Smokers? Corporatists? The armies of Satan? Gays? Fat people? Aliens? Huh?
Those games are already plot stupid, no kid takes them seriously- turning them into modern parables or biblical interpretations and sitting down with the youth to mull things over seems really awful and creepy to me. Its a game for <ahem> Gods sake!
Anyone ever heard of 'the Electric Hellfire Club?' Highly satanic band; which is offputting indeed, but they have a great tune called 'Hypochristian' which I think is quite appropriate for this situation. I love the hypocrisy apparent in all religious groups. It's quite amusing, really.
I can't, for the life of me, understand why the churches try to lure people into their cults. Isn't that against the religion?
The money man, when you go to church you should give 10% of your weekly wage to [s]the church[/s] God as a way to humble yourself. You see, it turns out good is very poor and needs all of your money, and because you give money to [s]the church[/s] God, he doesn't have to pay tax on that money.
[edit: some how that would have been more impressive is strike through worked >.<]
To be honest its not exactly a realistic game, what bad habits could you pick up from it? If anything the players are the ones teaching the game bad habits! (see evidence below)
It's a central tenet of some cults that you spread the word and get bums on seats (Jehovah's Witnesses & Mormons knocking on my bloody door at 8 on a Saturday morning, for example - guess they didn't see the goat's head nailed to it). All over the third world, where in some places you can easily get people to come to church by just offering to feed them, are various brands of missionaries still doing "god's work" and spreading the word like it's the year 1700 (some make the retarded mistake of trying to get converts in places like Afghanistan and end up paying for it in blood). When I was younger and "between careers" I was in a state-sponsored job-hunting program which involved some volunteer work for what I thought was a normal, respectable charity. Turned out most of this volunteer work involved folding and addressing mailouts for an evangelical christian organisation (Assemblies of God, some pentecostal faith-healing tribe, quite powerful too). I had a look through some of their "literature" to find an article headed "How To Be An Effective Soul-Winner". Needless to say I didn't take kindly to being exploited by some cult on the request of my own government.
Anyway, "soul-winner"? What were these people on? How many of them are there and what approximate yield should my tac-nuke be to destroy them all?
Bud is watered down frozen gnats piss. Why the hell would anyone drink it. At least go for Fosters, which is frozen gnats piss. To think you can buy Bud Lite, how the hell do you get lighter than that? What is it just frozen water?
Lawl, sux2bu. Local offies rule, they always price match each other. Which means cheap beer for me
I bet that song would be cool if they would've had halo 3 back then (I dunno why, but I keep visualizing that guy and three of his buddies performing that song on the roof of a building somewhere)
For the record, if I do drink then I drink Fosters. Never from a can, always a proper pint otherwise it tastes even worse than Fosters normally does. But most of the time I make do with a strawberry milkshake, gets me wasted.
Hankstar you should of put some cocain in the envelopes and told them it was 'soul powder'. Imagine that, a church full of drug addicts...oh wait hang on a minute
If not - surprise! 
