I just remembered a conversation I had with a college professor friend of mine several years ago around this time of the year. We were drinking coffee at Starbucks of all places - I don't drink coffee but I am such an accommodating person - and we ended up talking about religious indoctrinations. My friend is a semi-agnostic, semi-Christian and he asked me why I chose to become an atheist. I explained to him about my childhood, how religion never made sense to me even when I was a child. I was told by my parents that those who were not of the same religion would go to hell and my mind even back then went straight to the thoughts of people who were born in places where religions may not exist... Like the amazon jungle for example. Yes, I was quite an informed child but it didn't take being an adult to figure out that I was living amongst other people with different belief systems than that of my own family. I thought that it was not fair that just because you were born into a family of that particular religion that you get a chance to go to heaven because if you were born in a family with another religion - and I was sure then that the other religions claimed to be the true religion as well - that you would automatically go to hell if you die before converting. Of course, what could a child do living under his parents' roof and I had to suffer through my family's religious ways until I was old enough to get the heck out of there and leave that life behind.
Is this thing as dangerous as any religion's "holy book"?
During this whole discourse, I mentioned that video games - those oblique Japanese role playing games in particular - could have some importance in developing every child's mind about religions because they offer a great insight into the whole "origin" mythos that generally mimic how things work in real life. Most often, these games would address a community's understanding about their way of life and how that very faith ends up being something that could destroy them. Sometimes, the games reveal the secrets behind some made-up yet familiar ideologies and how those beliefs only truly benefited the evil doers who created them. The example that I used was Xenogears for the PlayStation and how it incorporates biblical references into its rather "blasphemous" overall storyline. I told my friend that I believe that in this world, they will always be people who would be looking for supernatural answers to why we exist and without any sort of religious belief, they would go into utter lunacy (or they would just end their misery by offing themselves) without something concrete to believe in because they couldn't cope with a truth where life actually bears no significant meaning outside of being alive itself and that an afterlife does not exist. But, exposure to the portrayal of religions in video gaming may help people clearly see the mechanics of real life religions from the perspective of someone on the outside looking in. Oh my friend was not happy with all of these things. He snapped and quickly told me that having a child playing such video games when say, he or she is born into a Christian family, is in a way, a form of indoctrination because you are trying to convince the child that your parents' religion is false and that there is another explanation out there. I explained to my friend that it is not a form of indoctrination at all. In fact, being born into a family of any religion is a form of indoctrination but the alternate views that are being shared by the video gaming media are not. I gave him this comparison: Take a religion, any religion - they each claim to be "the truth" and you cannot question their validity whatsoever (you may even lose your life by doing so). Take any religious ramblings either for or against theology in any video games - they claim to be fiction and they are open for discussions and they are certainly open to individual interpretations.
How come the births of organized religions were not synonymous with the birth of human sentience?
In the end, my friend still couldn't see it. I know it was his semi-Christian self not allowing him to see pass a certain threshold. Still, that's the way he wants to live his life and that choice is of course his. As I stated before, many people need religion to maintain a sort of order within their daily lives and a portion of them need a reason to do the good things in their lives. The bottom line is, as long as they do good things, then I am fine with that assuming that they don't try to impose their religious view upon others. The problem with religion is that many countries are under its spell and some even dictate that you cannot legally abandon the religion that you were "born with". Look, religion is not hereditary. It is a in fact, a choice. Just think about all those people who have died before the existence of your chosen religion. So they all just go to hell or whatever form of punishment that religions could devise just for being born into this existence prematurely? I don't think it is right for parents to indoctrinate their children with their religious view and it is not right to have classifications based on religion or the lack of. Indoctrination is a powerful tool and many are just not strong enough to get themselves out of that state of hypnosis. I think it is great that video games are there to perhaps help neutralize some of the effects of indoctrination. They help in freeing the mind with their robust, flexible database of information but no, they are not a form of mind control themselves.
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