3/17 first person response

In Juul’s article she talks about several different aspects of time when concerning video games. First she talks about play time and event time. Play time is the time that takes place in the game to start and finish it. For example, in adventure games play time starts once the player begins the game and ends when he or she beats the final boss. Event time is where the game takes place. This could be the future, past or present. She also mentions that play time is often repeated for certain tasks. An example I can think of this is when one must beat a boss in a certain pattern to continue. This could be compared to coming of age rituals in which one must do it a certain way to gain new recognition of their status before he or she can move on to the next stage of life. Juul also discusses the idea of real-time and turn-based abstract games. Real-time games are ones such as World of Warcraft that take place in a constant movement of time. Turn-based games could be ones such as chess and checkers in which the players make a move and the opponent then gets his or her move and the original player has to wait until he or she can go again.

All of Juul’s terms made sense to me and didn’t seem like anything new to me. I played video games a lot growing up and I understood all of this without classifying games into specific types of games based on time. It makes sense to classify games in these ways, it is just weird for me to think about games being classified as a medium of study.

Response to “Jesuits say take word of God to Second Life”

The short article by Robin Pomeroy is about the Jesuit movement to take the word of god to the game “Second Life.” A Jesuit academic, Antonio Spadaro urged people to explore the world of online life. He says that multiple religious groups have built virtual temples and synagogues for members to pray at. He even states that one Muslim prays daily in the virtual world.

For me this article was nothing new to the virtual world of religion. Since last year I’ve been reading articles about Christians, Buddhists, Hindus and more moving to the online for religious ceremonies. The only surprising fact to the article was the fact that Robin mentions how all sorts of pornographic material is available in second life and Jesuits should be willing to explore this new virtual world instead of shy away from it. Does this mean that religious groups are wiling to live side by side with taboo traditions in the online world? Will this side-by-side community spill over to real life if Second Life takes off? It will be interesting to see what the future holds.

2/25 reading summaries

For today’s readings a woman named Vesna argued the importance of community in our social studies. In today’s world she stated that people are coming together in a much bigger community through the world’s interconnected markets, the internet, and other examples. She put a strong emphasis on time in a literal and biological sense in her article. When talking about time in a literal sense I believe Vesna was trying to see that people frankly have never had enough of it to accomplish all their desires. What do we do to fix for this lack? We come together as a community. People learn certain tasks and help the community with their jobs while other people do different tasks to accomplish all the goals. This argument made perfect sense to me as it is how our society works. Another part of her argument I followed was the shift in artwork and music that has occurred over time. In this new age a picture may be simply uploaded to the internet as well as music. This makes it much more available to the public and changes it by making it part of a larger community in whole. This was quite interesting to me since we talk about this all the time with religious scriptures. If a song was once on a CD and ripped to the computer is it still the same? In my own opinion it can be better because it’s harder for that file to get corrupted than it is for the CD to get scratched. However is anything lost in this transfer? I frankly don’t know. The same can be said about artwork. In any case both of these examples come back to community and how they are now able to branch into larger ones.

After finishing Vesna’s article it as time for the return of Durkheim!!!! I first found out about Durkheim in religion and culture and thought back to him how often we used him in categorizing religion based on rituals and community gatherings. It’s very easy to see how he fits in with the community discussion. He begins his article with a discussion of the sacred and the profane, or subsequently everything holy and everything not.  This of course made me think about to Eliade and the ideas that he explained in basically this exact format. For me this essay was the return of two of my favorite thinkers. Anywho, Durkheim continues to discuss how everything could be sacred or could be profane based on the people and one is studying and what their culture believes. I found this to make complete sense. For example if one considers many Native American tribes they would say a lot of land is sacred as opposed to Christians. Another interesting theory that was Durkheim brought up was gods dying when people don’t believe in them. I’d finish but the fire alarm is going off.

“all hope abandon”

The article about “All Hope Abandon” was a very well articulated and scholarly explanation of IF games and specifically the game “All Hope Abandon.” It’s a game in which the user or PC starts in the middle of a lecture by a theological professor. The user can type various commands such as yell and think, but only certain ones will work as the article describes. Within the game religious overtones are everywhere. Quotes from the Gospels, adventures in hell and more fill the interactive fiction. After establishing what “All Hope Abandon” is Eve compares the game to that of the New Testament. He says that they share qualities, for example the game quotes biblical text just as the New Testament quotes the Old Testament.

After reading the article I played the game and found it to be very frustrating, but true to Eve’s article. I managed to get to hell and wonder about, but never got past picking up a knife. The religious overtones were very present whenever I just thought or walked about, but I personally didn’t get into it. Regarding the second half of the article comparing the biblical texts to the game I found to be quite a stretch. I understand that Eve was saying that it had religious tones and each draw upon previous stories, but I found this to be more of a coincidence than some that directly related the two. However, I don’t know if this was because I was playing a game. Does playing a game take away the religious experience? I feel that a truly religious experience can’t be had virtually, but is this just because I’m not use to this? Will this comparison be more acceptable in the future?

2/11 reading summary

In the readings for today from “First Person” there were scholars trying to reconcile where video games fall in the categorization of story telling. One author compared them to novels and films in terms of story. This argument showed that games have a narrative structure to them, but not in the way a novel does. In a game one can change how the outcome of a story will occur based on game play. “The Sims” is used as an example here as a game that allows the user to not necessarily follow a narrative, but will create one through their choices of what a player does. However, it is noted that some aspects of the game are predestined. For example all games have certain things that must be completed for them to move forward or certain actions can only lead to death.

 I found the readings to give numerous explanations of what a game can be thought of when it comes to narrative and story structure. Some scholars show similarity to movies and books and others show differences. Overall I find games to be a unique area when considering narrative. In my opinion there is no clear definition since some games such as World of Warcraft are never ending and story keeps revealing itself. As opposed to God of War in which the player must complete certain task to move forward in the game. I think narrative games should be given their own category in which there are subsections since they’re inherently different than novels and film.

Summary of “Surfing the Indranet”

This article was about a techno hippie living in California off solar power panels and windmill energy building a virtual Buddhist temple. It was done as a conversation between the Daybreak (the hippie) and Erik (the reporter). Daybreak explains to Erik different Buddhist texts and how they can be related to the internet in different ways. One I found particularly interesting was a Buddhist metaphor for the universe being like a sea of connected mirror jewels and when you look into one jewel you look at them all. Daybreak uses this to liken it to the internet. He states when you look at one page on the internet it is merely one jewel that is connected through which you’re looking at them all. He continues with more deep meaning ancient texts and metaphors that Erik doesn’t seem to buy into. At the end of the article Daybreak shows Erik the demo of his virtual temple. He wears 3D glasses that project the temple off the screen as a realistic vibrant palace filled with deities, animals and insects. Erik uses a joy stick to walk about the virtual world and bows at certain temples to enter. Upon entering one temple the demo ends and he’s brought back to reality. After this Daybreak tells him to leave and never contact him again. He changes his email, destroys the demo, chases Erik out without saying goodbye, and the article ends.

 I found this article to be very intriguing and confusing. At the beginning Daybreak seems to be nothing more the a devoted worker to the the cause of translating ancient Buddhist texts, constructing virtual temples and spreading Buddhist philosophy. I liked his ancient metaphors and quirky way of life. The connected jewel metaphor I mentioned above was the most fascinating to me. Once the article reached the virtual temple/palace thing Daybreak had been working on I wanted to experience what Erik saw. He wrote it in such an awestruck manner of the vibrant colors and elaborate detail that he even mentions that the tea Daybreak gave him may have been drugged, to which Daybreak neither confirms nor denies. I wanted to experience what Erik was seeing and was hoping by the end of the article he would provide a link or something to this place. However, I found that the article ends abruptly and oddly. I didn’t understand why Daybreak refused anymore contact with Erik or why he chased him off. It makes me wonder if there really is a Daybreak and what he’s doing. Why did he abandon his work? What was the virtual Indranet really like?

Summary of “Israeli Rabbis Teach Religion via Mobile Phones”

The very brief article I read was about Rabbis in Israeli using their cell phones to answer questions from concerned Jewish students. The article focuses on one Rabbi name Aviner who receives about 3000 text messages a day and responds with saying such as “proper” or “forbidden.” Some conservative Rabbis find this practice to be improper, but liberal Rabbis find it good to be in constant contact as do the text messengers. Aviad, a High School student is quoted in this article saying that he finds the new technology very helpful to his generation.

  I found this article quite interesting. I had no idea Rabbis were using text messages to stay in touch with their followers. It’s reasonable to think that as the times changes spiritual teachers must stay up to date with technology, and as far as answering a question or two I see no harm. I just wonder, will cell phone soon broadcast sermons like TV does?

Summary of “Finding God on The Web”

The Times’ article I read by Joshua Cooper and Ramo-Chama was about religious institutions making their way to the internet. The piece started off by using a chapel of monks in New Mexico using the internet as their only way of communication. They’re miles away from any telephone, power lines or any sort of civilizations at all. Yet, surrounded by desert the monks use one little cell phone to connect to the internet and start a web page. I found this little starting point to be quite entertaining and interesting. From here the article jumps to examples of the Vatican, Jewish synagogs, Buddhist temples and many other religious traditions making the leap to the world wide web. People from all around the globe are finding the net to be a new way to explore beliefs they never would have been open to before. An example of an Egyptian girl who was exiled from her family for becoming a Christian found a way to share her pain through posts. The article also shows how a radical Islamist and fundamental Jew may have lively conversations through posting on sites. After providing numerous examples of how the Internet is changing how religions functions the writers take the reader back through time to show how technology has also aided religion. They start with Egyptians and early Jews using parchment to write down their beliefs and traditions. We are then taking to Gutenberg and how the printing press made it possible for the bible to be replicated much quicker than hand copying all of it. It was even explained how this invention made it possible for Lutherans to save their religions since they could produce books faster than the Vatican could burn them. From here we go on to ministers using the radio to spread “the good word” and how that eventually spilled over to film and television. Once brought back to the current age of the media the article ends speculating what future inventions may hold for religion.  After reading the article I found myself thinking I didn’t learn anything new at all. It wasn’t the writers’ fault that I took Religion and Culture last year and already knew that these issues were taking place. If someone didn’t know that religions are making very popular websites it’s a great article to start out with and shows how they can be used for an individual’s benefit further that just posting. One example showed how Jews may e-mail a site and have their e-mail inserted into the Western Wall. However, I wished the article went more in depth with their research. No mention of virtual temples and prayer were present, and I find this issue very interesting. I hope more specific articles may come out as the issue becomes more well known and real questions can be drawn by the general public. 

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