Possible reason why fundies hate Dungeons & Dragons

[derby378]

Just started reading George Lakoff's Don't Think of an Elephant! now that ginbarn is done with it, and I just realized something:

James Dobson's "strict-father" model of family and society requires strict obedience to a central moral code or authority in order to be considered moral and good. Agreed?

Now, just take a look at the rules for D&D. What Dobson claims to support falls within the alignment of "Lawful Good" in terms of one's own worldview. Then you've got "Chaotic Good" which stresses individual freedom and self-determination and "Neutral Good" which basically states that we should all treat each other with kindness and justice regardless of the details. Some Lawful Good types cannot stand this concept, even if everyone in the debate is considered "good." (You're just not the right kind of "good" we need for our orderly society, you do-gooder, you.)

So, whaddaya think? This book's shaping up to be a hell of a read.

[liberaliraqvet26]

1. that is a great book...

and this theory is used by Rev. Wallis in God's Politics also.

[bullimiami]

2. well theres chaotic evil which well desribes buscho.

[Domitan]

6. I think lawful evil is more like it

given what a tight and organized cabal they are. Serial killers fit the chaotic evil mode better.

[Deja Q]

14. Lawless evil. There's no law when they don't obey their own.

[Terran]

39. I think Neutral Evil

They'll do anything, try anything, whether it's within the law or not; and they don't care, as long as it works for them.

[CrownPrinceBandar]

3. That's why Paladins don't play well with others........

If a Pally is true to form, he will not tolerate and will often seek to quell any deviation from what they consider to be good or lawful (from their standpoint). Thusly, like Pallys, Dobson and his ilk have a huge problem with the way the world is these days because they want to see black and white in an infinitely gray world.

[donco6]

4. Yes, I think you're right.

I think it's related to the difference between ethics and morality. RW fundies point to morality (outside source - law) as being the guiding principle for all things. Others rightly point out that morality without aligned personal ethics is just so many words on paper. When your personal ethic allows you to ignore morality, morality becomes meaningless (think of Jimmy Swaggart and the call girls).

Even James said, "Faith without works is dead". If your personal actions don't align with what you say you believe, you really don't believe anything.

[HawkerHurricane]

15. By your acts they shall know you

I love how so many fundies want to force ME to follow thier code to the letter, and keep getting caught violating it.

[donco6]

17. "I'm not perfect, just forgiven."

This is the excuse they always give when they're caught. It makes me barf. And, if there is a God, I'm sure He's heaving as well.

[Geek_Girl]

5. The Reason why Fundies don't play D&D

Is because they are morons who believe when you play D&D you actually cast real spells and consort with demons. These are the same kind of idiots who protest Harry Potter because they believe this nonsense.

[Bluerthanblue]

8. Bingo-

when i was a fundie, i used to have my kids listen to "Odessey" tapes- stories on tape from Dobsons focus on the family- (geez i feel like a jerk admitting this)

one of the tapes was a story of how dangerous it was to 'play with the occult' It featured a boy on a sleep over, going 'along' with the gang and getting sucked into evil.

i've had alot of regrets- leaving the cult i was in is not one of them-

[NAO]

11. How did you come to de-convert?

I was raised in a fundie family and sincerely believed it until I was about 19. At that time I came across the writings of Thomas Paine (The Age of Reason) and Robert Ingersoll.

That cleared things up for me. I have recently read Don Barker's "Losing Faith in Faith" - his story of de-conversion.

It is very interesting to me how people get sucked into believing Fundamentalism (unless they are raised in it) and more importantly, how they get out of it.

***

Robert Ingersoll's "Why I Am Agnostic"
http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/robert_ingersoll/why_i_am_agnostic.html

Thomas Paine's "The Age of Reason"
http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/thomas_paine/age_of_reason/index.shtml

***

The Freethought Zone
Science and Reason Over Religion and Superstition
http://freethought.freeservers.com

Freedom from Religion Foundation
http://www.ffrf.org

[Bluerthanblue]

18. long, sad, terrible,

embarassing, and twisted story-

quick answer, continuing to be a submissive wife would have killed me, and was a terrible experience for my children. i took them to friends, and prepared to die, fortunately those friends saw the truth- it took alot of time, love and care from some pretty terrific people to help me understand that i was never 'going to be good enough' for my ex, for the world, for my church (bad things don't happen to 'sinless' people there)- but that that wasn't what Jesus is all about anyway-

i'm still working things through- i haven't stopped believeing in the teachings of Jesus- just in the distortion, and hatred his name is being used to cover alot of bad, power hungry people.

[lolly]

28. Sorry to hear that, Bluer

Hope things keep looking up.

BTW, isn't it impossible to believe in the teachings of Jesus AND in the teachings of Right Wingers? The two seem mutually exclusive to me. So keep believing!

[kliljedahl]

7. Going on vacation next week

I think I'll pick it up. When I'm not fishing, I'll be relaxin' & readin'. I've been meaning to pick that book up, but you just gave the the kick I needed. Thanks.



Keith’s Barbeque Central

[derby378]

25. You're welcome!

Just finished the first chapter - looks like the next chapter takes on the Schwartzenegger phenomenon in California. I'm already getting plenty of food for thought as it is - this book is pretty cool.

[NAO]

9. Fundies hat D&D because they consider it "witchcraft" playing with demons

Fundies hate D&D because for them it is not a fantasy role-playing game.

D&D describes the actual world view and everyday beliefs of Fundamentalist Christians. They think demons are real and that spells are real and that Satan uses these games to draw children into his sinister lair and away from the Lord Jesus Christ.

This is the same reason they condemned the TV show "Bewitched" when I was a child growing up in a Fundie church. They condemn Harry Potter for the same reason.

For fundies, these are literal realities, not just imaginative play.

[derby378]

26. I thought about that, too...

...but then I considered the possibility that using the occult was nothing more than a "shore story" concocted by the leaders of the Religious Right for use by the hoi polloi, simply because drawing attention to D&D's multifaceted view of "good" could threaten their monolithic, monochrome view of morality and split the ranks.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

27. In their eyes, ANYTHING that competes with their ideology is evil

They're like the Islamic fanatics who burned a library because if the books were contrary to the Koran, they were evil, and if the books were not contrary to the Koran, they were superfluous.

[derby378]

34. Not just ANY library...

The Library of Alexandria, to be exact. They used the fires to heat the Sultan's personal bath.

[Geek_Girl]

32. It's so scary how these people think

nothing is based in reality. They really are the stupidest people on the planet.

[1monster]

10. Ask a psychologist about those concepts of "Good" and he/she will

tell you about the different levels of ethical development.

To put it simply:
Lawful good is the earliest stage: Don't do it because Mommy and Daddy say it is bad or it is against the law.

Another stage is the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

The higests stage is relative. Some "goods" are better than other "goods" and some "bads" are terrible, while other "bads" are not so bad. The situation and circumstances determine just how bad is bad and how good is good.

It is peculiar that the higest stage of ethical development is one villified by the religious right as moral relativity.

[Kitsune]

12. Bah, D&D. Exalted!

In which the gods overthrew the more-than-godlike creatures that actually built the universe (and made the gods to run said universe) so that they could play the Games of Divinity, and in which there are so many gods that a sizable minority of them are, in fact, unemployed!

[malmapus]

13. Whenever I took those "tests" that would tell you your alignment

I always tested Chaotic Neutral with slight tendancy toward evil :(

[wuushew]

16. Online character alignment test

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dnd/20001222b

[Geek_Girl]

35. Wow this is the 2nd time I've taken

one of these tests and it turned out Lawful Good.


O8)

[GreenArrow]

41. "Neutral good"

here, which is funny, since the odd times I've played DandD, I always chose neutral alignments.

[IrateCitizen]

44. As I suspected -- Chaotic Good

It was always the easiest alignment for me to play while growing up.

Now, however, the character I am currently playing is a Lawful Good cleric -- a rigid, uncompromising, overzealous follower of Heironeous who stops to pray after everything that happens during our adventures. Sometimes it's a bit of fun playing somewhat out of character from yourself....

[starroute]

19. D&D forces people to make moral decisions and be accountable

You can play chaotic evil -- which tends to lead to other party members getting fed up with your self-serving and treacherous behavior and eventually leaving you to your fate. (Or, if the entire party is chaotic evil, to them all backstabbing one another to the point of mutual annihilation.)

You can play lawful good -- which tends to result is things like trying to take large, ungainly monsters prisoner and hauling them home with you -- and which is also likely to leave your fellow party members slightly irked at you, even if they survive the experience, and ready to ditch you at the earliest possible opportunity.

Or you can find a balance of qualities that actually works in game-terms and leads you to make decisions that you're willing to stand behind no matter what the outcome.

Fundies don't like the idea of people making choices. It goes against their entire "sit down and shut up" philosophy of life.

[Cleita]

20. I didn't read the book and have never played "Dungeons and

Sragons, but my first thought is that maybe the fundies need there own game, "Heaven and Hell".

[kiki]

21. Feel like a good laugh?

http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0046/0046_01.asp

[NAO]

22. I wish there were "Chick Tracts" for Freethought, Agnosticism, Rationalism

I wish there were something like "Chick Tracts" for Freethought.

Religious Superstition Threatens to Destroy Civilization (Again)

The Religious Right is really OUT OF CONTROL and is exerting a greater and greater influence on our society. They are flexing their muscles in the political process, the economy and our entire culture.

Let us remember that the first time Christianity spread rapidly and gained control of the government (from 200 - 500 AD) it resulted in the utter collapse of Western Civilization and ushered in 1,000 years of darkness, superstition, ignorance and suffering.

Finally, after a millennium of Darkness, mankind began to see the Dawn of The Age of Reason and The Enlightenment. Humanity recovered some dignity, science was freed from the chains of religious superstition and real progress began.

The Constitution of the United States of America was one of the crowning achievements of The Enlightenment, being a document for the Establishment of a government that did NOT MAKE ONE SINGLE REFERENCE TO "GOD". With the establishment of the United States, government as well as science was freed from the domination of religious superstition.

Now, every day in the news there is some story about how the religionists are exerting their influence. Radical Clerics like James Dobson and Jerry Falwell get air time on network news. Religionists are organizing and boycotting businesses that do not adhere to their version of personal morality.

The specter of religious superstition is once again casting a frightening shadow over our world. The ghosts and demons of the Dark Ages, once believed to be banished forever by Reason, are again haunting our culture. Christianity destroyed civilization once before - it could happen again.

***

The Freethought Zone
Science and Reason Over Religion and Superstition
http://freethought.freeservers.com /

Freedom from Religion Foundation
http://www.ffrf.org /

Secular Humanism
http://www.secularhumanism.org /

Secular Web
http://www.infidels.org/index.shtml

Thomas Paine's The Age of Reason - Online
http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/thomas_paine/age_of_reason/index.shtml

Complete Works of Robert Ingersoll - Online
http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/robert_ingersoll/index.shtml

[Plaid Adder]

23. In general, fundamentalists hate fantasy...unless it's theirs.

Liza has a cousin who's married to a fundamentalist Catholic. The cousin is pretty religious so they mostly see eye to eye on things, but they are split on the Harry Potter issue. He thinks the HP books are fun and harmless. She thinks they oughtn't to be allowed.

The basic problem with fantasy from a fundamentalist point of view is that it plants the idea in people's heads that there might be other possible ways for the universe to be. Fantasy usually takes place either in a different universe or at a different time and it almost always involves some kind of magical or supernatural element which is not easily reducible to the God/Satan dichotomy. The idea that you could build a system of good and evil around something other than the Judeo-Christian God and the Bible (and most fantasy does deal with good and evil to some extent) is not something fundamentalists want their children exposed to, for fairly obvious reasons.

Then there is the literalism issue, which is why fundamentalists can continue to have a problem with, say, the Chronicles of Narnia, where the spiritual/magic system actually is based on Christianity. What makes you a fundamentalist is insistence on what you believe is the literal meaning of your sacred text. A real diehard fundamentalist not only doesn't believe in fantasy, s/he doesn't beleive in metaphor. The world must literally have been created in six days (though before the creation of the sun and the earth it's anyone's guess what a 'day' really would have been). Revelations is not visionary symbolism, it's a literal description of the end of the world. Fantasy translates the real world into something altogether more fabulous (in many senses of the word), and to 'get' fantasy you have to be willing to enter into someone else's imagination and, to some extent, to read metaphorically. This is a problem for people who believe that the universe is tightly bound by the possibilities contained in their personal, literal reading of the Sacred Text.

Of course, the _Left Behind_ books continue to sell in their hundreds of thousands...but those are OK because even though they're fantasy, the spiritual & moral system is based on Christianity, or rather a particular strain of apocalyptic Christianity that emerged in the US in the 19th century and is regarded by many other Christian denominations as a complete load of horseshit, excuse me, doctrinally unsound.

Oh well,

THe Plaid Adder

[LeftyMom]

24. Intention only matters if you're a fundie

since D&D charachters aren't fundies they're all evil, even the most well behaved of them. After all, they worship other gods, so to sympathize with them or try to enter thier mindset is eeeeeeeeevvvvvvvvvviiiiiiiiillllllllllllllllllll. The whole system is set up so there's no linear path to follow, no one true way, and we can't let people think like that!

I don't really care for the D&D allignment system, I prefer the nature/demeanor system from the Storyteller games (V:tm etc.) Fundies would really hate that, since it's kind of based around the idea that intention is multi-layered and most people lie to themselves about or just don't understand thier basic nature and motivation. Introspection is bad, you know, being complicated doubly so.

[Telly Savalas]

29. Fundies weren't aware of Ari Fleisher's +2 ring of media control

If they were, they might have a more positive view of the game.

[Chokey]

30. Fundies don't know enough about D&D..........

To even know what alignments are or what they mean.

All they know is that their copy of The Watchtower or Chick tract says that it teaches sorcery and the existence of other gods, and kids lose touch with reality and die tragically in their fantasy.

I haven't heard about fundamentalists bad-mouthing D&D for over 15 years, anyway.

[sam sarrha]

31. if you have to ask..you been playing tooo long...

[alcibiades_mystery]

33. Chief competition for nerdiest kids in school prize?

:shrug:

[zarberg]

36. I grew up with those far-right Christian parents . . .

I grew up with far-right Christian parents, and even after leaving for a liberal college (with a liberal major), I had my sister convert to an even more fundamentalist Christian church. I wanted to play D&D in high school because some of my geek friends played. I had to tell my parents it was "Star Wars Role Playing" because I knew I wouldn't be allowed to join in otherwise. It's not that they opposed the game, but my mother believed the news stories and hype that Dungeons and Dragons led people down a slippery slope to Satan-Worshipping.

I personally think that these far-right Christians oppose RPGs (and D&D specifically) because of fear more than anything else: the stigma from the early 80's is still there.

[derby378]

38. Welcome to DU, zarberg!

And yes, I think fear is a motivating factor in all of this.

[Larkspur]

37. I wouldn't label Dobson, "Lawful Good." That's Al Gore.

I'd label Dobson and the Xtian Zombie brigade "Lawful Evil." Fascists are Lawful Evil types.

[derby378]

40. Actually...

The OP read, What Dobson claims to support falls within the alignment of "Lawful Good"...

[GreenPartyVoter]

42. Role-playing and witchcraft ares sins. That's what the trouble is.

[ComerPerro]

43. Its an interesting analysis you have, but I don't think its why

they hate D&D.

However, I think it is a description of why they hate us, put in D&D terms.

Is that what you meant?