Atheism in games

[GrinningYMIR]

Movie? What movie? Do you mean the game cinematics? Dead Space 2 and 3 are also great games. I'm hoping there will be more, the universe has so much potential.

Dead space: Downfall

It's a cartoon that talks about the colony and the ishimura before the necromorphs. When they find the original marker and whatnot

And of course there's murder and mayhem and graphic violence

Watch it!

[AtDawnTheySquee]

Hehe, I remember in Castelvania for the DS there's a mission where you have to rip out the eyes out of a statue of the Virgin Mary. And after you did it blood would come out so it'd look like she were crying  blood.

[Riot401]

Borderlands series has SLIGHT atheist/anti theist stuff in it that i enjoy :D

[Solitary]

In Mass Effect Shepard says I have a little faith, and asks Ashley if she is a religious fanatic, and if she has a problem with those that aren't. Love that video game! Solitary

[RobbyPants]

Borderlands series has SLIGHT atheist/anti theist stuff in it that i enjoy :D

This was the example I was going to mention. The most overt example has to do with the respawn system. When you die, you are digitally reconstructed and reconstructed at the last save point. You are billed some money and the machine gives you a random message. Some of these are things like "afterlife, schmafterlife" or noting how you're really dead and you are now a copy of your original self (sort of destroying the notion of dualism).

[Shol'va]

I think more than anything the games have to do with the demographics, and teenage years are by and large those of rebellion against the establishment, which just so happens that organized religion is part of.

[Mr.Obvious]

This may not be 'atheism' per se... but still.
In the 'Tomb Raider' reboot you get a Lara Croft with a lot more character-depth and -development. There are supernatural (or at least unexplainable) powers at hand. Lara is skeptic, however, and for the longest time tries to rationalize what is happening around her. It's a great game, in my opinion, but I remember the first time I played it I was thinking 'oh, boy, here comes the message about accepting there are forces at work beyond our understanding'. The game's storyline makes it a battle between her rational side and what she's currently experiencing. And I felt like they were telling the player that personal experience trumps reason. But on playing it for the second time, I think I don't actually remember her giving up on this being an explainable phenomenon, she merely accepted that she personally didn't know and needed to adapt to the best of her options to survive.
Maybe this is a bit to broad, what do you think?

[Shol'va]

I think the game would be boring without that supernatural angle, so in a sense it's a necessary evil.

[Mr.Obvious]

I think the game would be boring without that supernatural angle, so in a sense it's a necessary evil.

True, true

[jannugimes]

I actually got more inspiration from Zelda: Ocarina of Time than I ever did from religion.

[Munch]

while i don't think it needs to be class as athiesm itself, there are more then likely many gaming characters who do fall under the category of a non-theist. Lara croft might be one since she's an explorer who uses rationality, any scientist in gaming would also likely follow this role.
It really depends on the setting itself the characters are in, while in a real world themed game you could play to the idea of it, in an rpg based game, like LOTRO, guild wars, wow, skyrim, all the magic and spirituality exists in front of you, so it stands to reason people would follow such magics as it presents itself in tactile often physical form, even gods do in fantasy genres.

Its really all down to the setting. God and every other religion is a myth, and games are often about myth making. Even comic books like marvel or dc open up to showing godly beings that exist, heck marvel even has its own version of god, http://marvel.wikia.com/One-Above-All_(Multiverse), so even in that kind of setting it doesn't gel with the real world.

Though I was happy seeing beast, one of my all time fav x-men, admit he's an atheist (not gaming related sorry, just had to mention it).

[frosty]

You want to know the best incarnation of "god" in video games ever????

FOR THE EMPEROR!!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18moPwvPkIQ

[Hydra009]

The Emperor is a good example of an atheist character.  His Imperial Truth was atheistic and the current religious zeal of the Imperium is based off of Lorgar's insistence that the Emperor was a god.

Additionally, some of the Mechanicum do not actually believe in the Omnissiah.  Techpriest Koriel Zeth is one such example.  Also, the extra-heredical Logicians seem fairly irreligious - its foundational text denounces the Ecclesiarchy's "tyranny of lies" concerning the god-Emperor but they don't seem to anything to do with the Dark Gods, either.  So put them up as a maybe.

[frosty]

The Emperor is a good example of an atheist character.  His Imperial Truth was atheistic and the current religious zeal of the Imperium is based off of Lorgar's insistence that the Emperor was a god.

Additionally, some of the Mechanicum do not actually believe in the Omnissiah.  Techpriest Koriel Zeth is one such example.  Also, the extra-heredical Logicians seem fairly irreligious - its foundational text denounces the Ecclesiarchy's "tyranny of lies" concerning the god-Emperor but they don't seem to anything to do with the Dark Gods, either.  So put them up as a maybe.

You can't deny that as for a powerful, ruling being he is the coolest.