Of Games And God

Video games are big business, generating billions of dollars annually. The long-held stereotype of the gamer as a solitary teen hunched in front of his computer screen for hours is inconsistent with the current makeup of a diverse and vibrant gaming community. The rise of this cultural phenomenon raises a host of questions: Are some games too violent? Do they hurt or help our learning? Do they encourage escapism? How do games portray gender? Such questions have generated lots of talk, but missing from much of the discussion has been a Christian perspective. Kevin Schut, a communications expert and an enthusiastic gamer himself, offers a lively, balanced, and informed Christian evaluation of video games and video game culture. He expertly engages a variety of issues, encouraging readers to consider both the perils and the promise of this major cultural phenomenon. The book includes a foreword by Quentin J. Schultze.

According to the reigning competition-driven model of evolution, selfish behaviors that maximize an organism’s reproductive potential offer a fitness advantage over self-sacrificing behaviors—rendering unselfish behavior for the sake of others a mystery that requires extra explanation. Evolution, Games, and God addresses this conundrum by exploring how cooperation, working alongside mutation and natural selection, plays a critical role in populations from microbes to human societies. Inheriting a tendency to cooperate, argue the contributors to this book, may be as beneficial as the self-preserving instincts usually thought to be decisive in evolutionary dynamics. Assembling experts in mathematical biology, history of science, psychology, philosophy, and theology, Martin Nowak and Sarah Coakley take an interdisciplinary approach to the terms “cooperation” and “altruism.” Using game theory, the authors elucidate mechanisms by which cooperation—a form of working together in which one individual benefits at the cost of another—arises through natural selection. They then examine altruism—cooperation which includes the sometimes conscious choice to act sacrificially for the collective good—as a key concept in scientific attempts to explain the origins of morality. Discoveries in cooperation go beyond the spread of genes in a population to include the spread of cultural transformations such as languages, ethics, and religious systems of meaning. The authors resist the presumption that theology and evolutionary theory are inevitably at odds. Rather, in rationally presenting a number of theological interpretations of the phenomena of cooperation and altruism, they find evolutionary explanation and theology to be strongly compatible.

'Like an episode of Black Mirror written by Stephen King' John Marrs, bestselling author of The One 'Immersive, claustrophobic . . . addictive' Guardian Win and All Your Dreams Come TrueTM! ;) Charlie and his friends have entered the God Game. Tasks are delivered through their phones. When they accomplish a mission, the game rewards them. Charlie's money problems could be over. Vanhi can erase the one bad grade on her university application. It's all fun and games - at first. Then the threatening messages start. Obey me. Mysterious packages show up at their homes. Shadowy figures start following them. Who else is playing this game, and how far will they go to win? As Charlie looks for a way out, there's only one rule he knows for sure. If you die in the game, you die for real. 'Smart, propulsive and gripping' Harlan Coben, #1 Sunday Times bestselling author

Craig Detweiler's collection of up-to-the-minute essays on video games' theological themes (and yes, they do exist!) is an engaging and provocative book for gamers, parents, pastors, media scholars, and theologians--virtually anyone who has dared to consider the ramifications of modern society's obsession with video games and online media. Together, these essays take on an exploding genre in popular culture and interpret it through a refreshing and enlightening philosophical lens.

A God for the Twenty-first Century. Does life have any meaning or purpose? Does God exist? How can you reconcile a loving God with cruelty and suffering? This book makes the radical claim that the universe is literally a game of God. One purpose of the universe is for God to enjoy the vast array of experiences that God, as an unlimited being, cannot experience: life and death, joy and pain, beginning and end, fear and hate, happiness and sorrow. In order to have a realistic experience of limitation, God must forget that She-He-It is God. The universe is a game in which God forgets His-Her-Its identity and in the process of playing remembers who She-He-It is. We are not separate creatures who are victims of existence. We are expressions of God experiencing limitation and overcoming it. We are God in disguise. Human suffering comes from the erroneous belief that who we really are is our personality, or ego-identity. Our lives are a constant battle for the survival of a mistaken identity; we spend most of our time either flighting from reality or fighting it. Love and transcendence lie in the cessation of survival behavior, in the acceptance of reality (what is). Love is the experience of unconditional acceptance of what is. With a cartoon on every left-hand page illustrating the text on the right, formatted like poetry, these ideas are presented in a light and humorous manner. Tim Allen says, "If you really have your shit together, read this book." (From the suggested reading list in his bestseller, "I'm Not Really Here.") Oprah called it, "A great book about God." This is a revised edition of the 1993 book, which reflects the latest thinking of the authors and includes some new cartoons.

The president of New York University offers a love letter to America’s most beloved sport and a tribute to its underlying spirituality. For more than a decade, John Sexton has taught a wildly popular New York University course about two seemingly very different things: religion and baseball. Yet Sexton argues that one is actually a pathway to the other. Baseball as a Road to God is about touching that something that lies beyond logical understanding. Sexton illuminates the surprisingly large number of mutual concepts shared between baseball and religion: faith, doubt, conversion, miracles, and even sacredness among many others. Structured like a game and filled with riveting accounts of baseball’s most historic moments, Baseball as Road to God will enthrall baseball fans whatever their religious beliefs may be. In thought-provoking, beautifully rendered prose, Sexton elegantly demonstrates that baseball is more than a game, or even a national pastime: It can be a road to enlightenment.

It's Dangerous to Go Alone! Take This!Whether you are taking up the sword in the Legend of Zelda for the first time or unleashing the energy sword in Halo for the hundredth time, together we will explore the world of gaming and unlock secrets and mysteries from the Bible along the way. From gaming's biggest blockbusters to obscure titles that will stretch your gaming knowledge, we will leave no stone unturned and no barrel or crate unbroken as we hunt for meaning and truth in both the Word of God and the world of video games.

THE LIFE OR DEATH GAME CONTINUES. Warterria is still in full effect. Many have passed away and new faces have taken center stage. But the suffering and struggles within the game has remained the same. However, the humans aren’t out of the fight yet. With a new fiery passion to avenge those that have been lost to Warterria so far, Rift tries to use the clues left behind by the fallen to find a way for the remaining players to survive. However, with the gods’ immense power looming over and the chances of death at an all-time high, humans uniting is proving to be more than difficult. Can the humans rally together to find a nearly impossible alternative way to survive or will Warterria continue to be played exactly how the gods designed?