Neon Genesis

In fairness to Hollywood films, I think we have seen some popular culture entertainment try to strike a balance between presenting an action-packed film while at the same time condemning the actions of killing others. For example, the Batman movies are action films but Batman on principle never carries a gun and refuses to kill criminals and goes out of his way to save their lives even if by all legal senses they might deserve death. The X-men movies also always portray Magneto's efforts to free the Mutants from persecution by killing all the humans as a negative action and one can draw parallels between Professor Xavier's actions and MLK Jr.

So they believe in the second amendment but not in the first?

I have to agree with Norm on one point. I think l would much rather have people express their love for guns through virtual guns rather than real ones. I also feel like we as a society are too quick to blame tv for our own faults and failures to raise children with the good values we want them to have. Norm, I'm curious about what you think about the Charlie Brown cartoons. On the hand, as someone who was bullied all through school, I always enjoyed them. On the other, Charlie Brown does seem to treat bullying as entertainment though it's not especially violent. And I still want to know why this author is blaming the ACLU

The author of the article specifically brought up ordinary men who play video games (why only men? women play games too) which he admits has no consequences on anyone else, then suddenly he brings up a complety unrelated person that kills someone else, as if he thinks either all killers play video games or else he must think video games somehow cause violence. But he offers no proof or explainiton for this link. There was a story awhile back about a woman who attacked her husband for not voting for Romney. Since the violence occurred after they voted, does that mean voting for the president causes violence and that we should stop voting less an already mentally unstable person that just voted attacks her husband? I still want to know why he's blaming the ACLU for the shooting.

I do feel somewhat conflicted about my video game purchases this year. On the one hand, I've never played a first person shooter before and Call of Duty Black Ops 2 for the Wii U looked really cool and I was impressed by the graphics. On the other hand, I would feel somewhat guilty buying a shooter game, at least so soon after the shooting.

What I've read is that in the case of violent video games at least, violent video games don't have an effect on anyone other than people who already have a mental disorder.

Is there any evidence that violent entertainment causes violent actions?

My suggestion is that I think evangelical Christians need to change the language of their theology to place more emphasis on the grace of God than on violence and sacrifice. We have seen a trend in that with modern praise worship placing more emphasis on the love of Jesus than on violence and sacrifice but evangelical Christians continue to over-emphasize the death of Jesus over the life and teachings of Jesus and they need to move away from this language of sacrificial theology.

In relation to violent culture, I think it is important to consider pro-violent views in religion. Much of evangelical Christianity heavily promotes violence as a holy act. All the classic hymns have very violent and graphic lyrics about fountains of blood and praising the torture of Jesus as a holy sacrifice. The language used by many evangelical Christians during communion places a high emphasis on blood sacrifice as a virtue and images of hell are always portrayed in very graphic and gory images to scare people into following the beliefs of the preacher. Most evangelical Christians also seem to try and tone down the anti-violent teachings of Jesus and in some cases they use the teachings of Jesus to justify war. Yet while evangelical Christians have no problems judging Hollywood, few of them will ever rethink the pro-violent language in their own theology. I'm not quite sure what the point in bringing up the ACLU is in the article.

If the only way to have an objective moral compass is if you believe in an objective moral law giver, why is it that Christians can't agree with each other on what is moral and what is immoral? There are some Christians who believe homosexuality is immoral and there are some Christians who don't believe it is immoral. They're both reading the exact same bible but they both have widely different interpretations of the exact same verses. If belief in God is the only way to have an objective moral value system, then surely all Christians should be able to come away with the exact same book with the exact same moral value system, so why are they so different?

I think Tolstoy was also about following the spirit of the law over the letter of the law and he was against the idea of turning his philosophy into a religion more than anyone. Tolstoy said this about a dogmatic approach to his beliefs: I don't subscribe to all of his views myself but I think there is still a lot of merit to his pacifist worldviews.

But literalists also claim the old law was superseded by the death of Jesus at the same time. It seems to me that to reinterpret the teachings of Jesus as meaning something other than being a mandate for pacifism involves a lot of playing around with the meaning of the words when I don't see what else Jesus could mean when he says do no violence. If Jesus was really a practitioner of self-defense, surely we would have an instance where we would see Jesus fighting back in a violent manner but we never see him fight back against the Romans and he willingly gives himself over to the apostles. The apostle Paul also commanded Christians not to engage in violent responses to the Roman government. Jesus' teachings of non-violent resistance may be difficult to follow but Jesus is always clear in the gospels that his teachings are not something easy to follow so should we really be surprised by this? WWII is easy to cite as an example of "just war" when it's been so far removed from us that we don't have to feel guilty for any war atrocities done on the part of the Allies anymore. While certainly what Hitler and the Nazis did was horrible and immoral, the Allies were also guilty of immoral atrocities such as bombing thousands of innocent civilians in Japan in revenge for Pearl Harbor which was done in the name of "self-defense." "Self-defense" was also used as a justification for forcing all the innocent Japanese American citizens who had nothing to do with Pearl Harbor in immoral and unjust internment camps. Would these immoral atrocities have occurred if we had more voices in the government listening to the worldview of pacifism? Yes, Osama bin Laden should have had to pay for his atrocities against the U.S., but the U.S. had plenty of instances before the raid earlier this year where they could have captured him and brought him to trial but they let him go in order to go to war with Iraq even though there was no evidence or WMDs or that Saddam Hussein had any connections to 9/11 but the Iraq war was also justified by "self-defense." I think it would have made a much more powerful statement to the rest of the world if we had captured bin Laden and put him to trial than simply bombing him would have and the Americans who took to the streets to cheer for his death could have possibly put our nations' relations with the Muslim world at risk. Meanwhile, the U.S. continues to expand its militaristic imperialism in the name of "self-defense." The Bush administration tortured terrorist suspects regardless of whether or not they were guilty or had any important information and the Obama administration has continued to allow Guantanamo Bay to remain open. Bush wiretapped innocent civilians and the Obama administration has now expanded the president's powers to unprecedented levels where the president now has the power to assassinate any U.S. civilian that they declare is a "terrorist." The U.S. continues to torture Bradley Manning and is trying to immorally arrest Julian Assange for exposing corruption in our military. All this corruption has been justified in the name of "self-defense." And how many innocent lives have been lost due to America's continuing use of war drones in the middle East? I don't see how we can continue to use "self-defense" as a justification in modern times just because there may have been one or two instances in the past where it may have been a plausible worldview when in modern times it seems clear that "self-defense" is merely an excuse for continue to prolong war for greed and corrupt purposes.

I find it curious that as JosephM says, a literal reading of the teachings of Jesus would lead you to accept a pacifist view of Jesus' teachings yet most biblical literalists seem to be very pro war.

I saw a documentary about Bishop Pearson before on youtube called To Hell and Back that was very inspiring. You might still be able to find it on youtube.

But sometimes debates can become heated when they go on for too long.

Has anyone here taken Belief.net's religion quiz? I just took it and according to the site, it says my beliefs best line up with liberal Quakers which is interesting as I've never been to a Quaker meeting before but I have been interested and I have a great deal of respect for their pacifist beliefs. What are your results from the quiz?

I suppose it's because everything's been said that needs to be said and neither side is going to change their mind and so it's better to close the thread now than to keep going back and forth over the same arguments.

I still haven't read Spong's book on the after life (for some reason, my local Booksamillion doesn't carry it at all but they have his newest book on biblical scholarship oddly), but I recall reading in one of Spong's older books that Spong believes we live on but only in the sense that we live on in the memories of our loved ones who have been left behind. I don't know whether or not there is an afterlife, but I find the idea that we're all an accident of life to be more empowering and freeing than believing we were created to be inherently wicked and depraved people who must beg a supernatural magic parent in the sky in order to be good. I think the idea of life being accidental frees us to create spirituality as we want it rather than having it handed down to us through dogmatic traditions and strident creeds.

A Christian is merely someone who follows the teachings of Jesus. What it means to follow Jesus is open for debate but with over 35,000 denominations of Christianity in existence, it's impossible for anyone to dogmatically assert who is a real Christian and who isn't.

I do think Tolstoy makes a convincing argument though that "self-defense" has a long history of being abused by religion and government to justify immoral atrocities. It is my understanding that the Quakers have a long history of practicing non-violent resistance.

In light of the recent discussions on gun control, a really good and thought provoking book I would highly recommend reading is The Kingdom of God is Within You by Leo Tolstoy. Tolsty was a Christian pacifist who believed in responding to violence with radical nonviolent resistance. He was a contemporay of Ghandi and his book was a major source of inspiriation to famous Christian pacifists like MLK jr. Would anyone be interested in doing a book discussion on it?

Contrary to popular belief, it isn't true that California has the highest amount of gun violence. That honor belongs to Alaska, Montana, and Louisiana: http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Tough-gun-laws-linked-to-fewer-deaths-4145605.php The fact remains that you yourself admitted gun control laws in the UK were successful in reducing gun related violence so it is a non sequiter to criticize the gun control laws for something they were never intended to address. Furthermore, I think it's unrealistic to expect to find a one size shoe fits all solution that would magically erase all crime at once. The government has different laws for handling theft crimes than what they use to handle murder crimes so I don't know why you should expect us to have a one size shoe fits all law for all weapons-related crime. This is a straw man fallacy. The vast majority of gun control advocates are not calling for a total ban on all guns. The vast majority of gun control advocates support the second amendment and a citizen's right to bear arms. What we are calling for is reasonable gun control laws to keep guns out of the hands of irresponsible and dangerous users which you yourself claimed earlier in the thread to also support. Your analogy to cars and alcohol actually supports the gun control side more than it supports the anti-gun control side. We have extensive laws and regulations to prevent automobile deaths and we have rules and regulations to stop drunk driving and yet nobody complains about how these laws are suppressing our freedoms and everybody from all religious and political persuasions supports them as necessary to keep our streets safe. Why can't we apply the same amount of regulations and restrictions that we apply to road rules and drunk driving to gun safety?

The fact remains that after the gun massacre in Australia in 1996, they immediately passed stricter gun regulations and the nation of Australia saw a significant decrease in gun related violence. Why is the nation of Australia able to reduce gun related violence through regulation yet the U.S is unable to? I fail to see the point of pointing out that the gun control laws were unable to reduce violence in the UK for crimes they were not intended to reduce and I further fail to see why every single anti-gun control activist I've met always uses this exact same talking point when the UK is brought up.

Unfortunately, we'll never know that since the NRA has succeeded in defunding all research into gun violence.

How can you so confidently determine that an assault weapons ban would not have any positive effect on gun violence when all research into gun-related violence has been banned by the NRA?