Yesterday, my 10-year-old son proudly showed me a game he had found on the Internet recently:
http://www.crazymonkeygames.com/Gods-Playing-Field.html
My boy seems to think this game is hilarious. I find it pretty disturbing, and I have a pretty high threshold for such things. Clever parody of God is one thing (a la Monty Python), but this is outright sadistic and the message – that God is stupid, cruel and malicious – is deeply disturbing and not something I am comfortable with at all being aimed at my kids.
It feels awkward writing those words because as a card-carrying “liberal” and as a “post-denominational”, open-minded Jew, I generally feel it’s OK to question to anything and everything. This game however crosses a line for me, enough so that I wrote the following letter to the folks that run the site:
“I’d like to suggest you remove the games “God’s Playing Field” and “God’s Playing Field 2″ from your site. These games are not appropriate for children, and your site clearly is targetted squarely at kids. My kids love the games on your site and I would like to let them access your site, but if you don’t remove these inappropriate games I will have to block your site.”These sildenafil cheapest products are used for treating erectile dysfunction and normally receive millions of sales each year. However, the benefits from the fish oil fatty acids are very important for the man to make buy levitra no prescription sure that they take proper initiatives to get over the problem and not just on the cigarettes. If a person is able to overcome the risks of frequent sildenafil best price semen leakage problem and enjoy intense lovemaking with their females. That is why the demand of the drug is getting high. http://www.wouroud.com/process.php?ln=en brand cialis for sale
I’m sure they’re quaking in their boots. 🙂
I’m curious what other parents think of this issue in general, and this game in particular. Is it just me or is this particular game really over the top for a site clearly aimed at kids?
Seems like this game can prompt a good “meaning(s) of life” discussion – perhaps you should check out a book called “When Bad things happen to good people” or something like that (I haven’t read it myself).
Keep in mind that one of the most famous Python songs has the words “Every sperm is sacred, every sperm is great, when a sperm is wasted, God gets very irate.” – doesn’t that make God out to be some petty tyrant? (even though a theoretical 100% fertile man who’d impregnate every time would still leave millions of sperm wasted – only 1 of millions succeeds!)
I saw that you supposed to first watch the “God, my friend died” discussion before playing the game – and of course the combat arena is called “God’s playing field”. But of course, probably the most engaging part of this is just aiming and delivering the blow to the person/car on the field below – and it’s not hard to hit that person, a bit harder to hit the car – so does this teach kids that “you can escape a bad fate by driving away”? And is the pleasure of hitting the person/car any worse than our laughter watching “The Three Stooges”?
Something that I’m pretty sure has been missing from the monotheistic traditions of the Western world (at least as reaching most people) is that many things in our lives are random – good and bad, including winning the lotto, tragedies like car accidents, etc. Traditionally, in most religions, the sense was that a tragedy befalling you was somehow your fault, even if you led an exemplary life; while say a king must’ve deserved his power, even if he was an exceptionally evil man.
From my perspective, enriched by some years of effort through the Gurdjieff system (not far from Zen Buddhism or Sufism), we have to accept that life involves probabilities, and that life is a gift not to take for granted. And that everything in the universe, and ultimately even God, is subject to certain laws – yes, that last bit, “even God”, will anger a lot of “religious” folks – so be it.
None of this is all that easy to discuss with a 10-year-old, I’m sure! But you should weigh whether prohibiting the game will end up reinforcing the influence of the game’s authors instead of weakening it.
But best ‘o’ luck whatever you ultimately decide…
I’llYou might be interested in checking out the essay “Answer to Job” by Carl Jung. I have only read of it, but the point made about it was something along the lines that the God as depitcted in traditional monotheism is not really that ethical of a character, and certainly willing to kill, destroy most what He creates in floods and such even and put us little humans through some pretty torturous tests. Perhaps it is our job, as extensions of the Divine, to evolve the ethics of It All. An image of a “One God in the Sky” that hurls lightning bolts at his little creatures might be one that will lead (the right aged child) to question traditional, dogmatic presentations of the divine and seek their own experiences of same. But a 10 year old kid may or may not be ready for such stuff.
By the way, you ought to play this game all the way through. I found myself laughing pretty hard each time I bought a new weapon and got to use it for the first time. The rain of falling painos I found particularly hilarious. What does this say about me? About human nature? The stronger your weapons get, the more enemies you can wipe out in one fell swoop, and the more points you can rack up, thus enabling yourself to buy even bigger weapons, etc. Hint: Buy a tidal wave as soon as you can, increase your enemies significantly, and soon you’ll have enough for a nuke. A pretty funny and poignant cartoon comes on when you use your nuke. Have you played it through to this point? Those with 10 minutes to spare can get in on a new level of theological discusssion if you do so.
I think banning your kids from playing this is fine though, and it would be interesting to see what kind of discussion will ensue about the nature of the Divine (and the media) if when you do so. Asking the company to remove it? I’m not so sure about that, but I’m glad you have the time and motivation to express your opinion to them.
http://jmm.aaa.net.au/articles/4801.htm
This is a bit of Jung’s “Answer to Job” if you are curious…
Thanks Tim! Jung was always a bit hard for me to digest (perhaps a sign of literary gall bladder disease?), and the Book of Job, like many parts of the Torah/Old Testament, is filled with troubling issues.
Aidan did show me the entire game – he quickly figured out (or was shown) how to get to the nuke and showed me the cartoon of God being sent down his own elevator presumably to Hell.
I have to admit, this game is pretty darn funny – in a South Park sort of way – another example of great adult-oriented comedy that I love but would never let my kids watch until they’re ready.
The fact is, no matter how hard we try to shelter them, our kids are going to get exposed to all sorts of sick and twisted stuff at a much earlier age than we were. Thanks, Internet! I do worry about what affect this stuff will have on them (everyone reading this has seen Bowling for Columbine, right?), but ultimately they will have to come to grips with these issues on their own terms. Our kids (especially Aidan) have always been quite precocious about existential issues like “does God really exist and if so, why is there suffering in the world?”. My personal belief is that it’s critical for children to develop a sense of optimism and appreciation for the wonders of the Natural world. Evolution vs. Creation issues aside, Dori and I try hard to provide our kids with a fundamentally positive and benevolent view of the Divine. I think it’s possible (but pretty tricky) to do this without forcing a fundamentalist religion on them, but I do think some degree of simplification of the issues is necessary.
Speaking of South Park and Bowling for Columbine:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPBHtjZmSpw
Now THIS I might let my kids watch! 🙂
The Bowling for Columbine cartoon short is hilarious. I agree that sheltering the very young is a good idea – and I don’t know when I would show this to Karuna, now 7. Certainly not yet. I actually think with a little explanation about how “God’s Playing Field” is supposed to be making fun of people who believe God intentionally hurts people, it would warp her mind less than the Brief History of the United States, which while hyperbolic, is a little too close to the truth to just laugh away. I think it would give her graphic exaggerated images and raise questions that I don’t want to trouble her fairy-drenched, life is good worldview. There is a lot to be said for keeping this in place until the child grows out of it in their own good time. And returning to it after you get tired of the life is difficult and fairies don’t exist worldviews of jaded postmodern adulthood.