[QUOTE="muthsera666"]No. Anyone who passes on a game because it features a religion different from his or her own has serious issues. Should we not read books from other cultures because they don't believe what we believe? Why is the Japanese religion of Shinto (spirits residing in objects) any less valid than Christianity in the West (Jewish zombie)? I was Christian for a while, but the church I attended stifled my cultural exposure, and I'm glad I quit. Now, I can enjoy looking into other cultures and ways of interacting with the world without the judgemental nature of the Church telling me that something is wrong because it is different.Euaggelistes
I do not want to go too far off topic, but to answer your question, one would be valid and the other not if one were true and the other were not. For example (this is not an attempt to proselytize rather an attempt to show how one religious understanding can invalidate another):
Jesus claims to be God. That claim is either true or false. If it is true than any religious belief which held that it was false would be invalid. As God Jesus claims that there are no other Gods. If this is true than any religious belief which professed the existence of other gods would be invalid.
The question should not be what one believes but rather what is true.
And what is the best way, in the real world, to determine that something is probably true? By ruling out the alternatives. For this we use science (and historical methods). Unfortunately, it can't tell us one iota about one-off events that defy the established behavior of things. This leaves every religion and every belief system that includes "miracles" high and dry, with regard to sufficient evidence to justify belief in the system. Furthermore, knowing what we do about conscious beings, it makes no sense to think that there could be a mind without some sort of brain or similar structure. We also know enough to safely infer that many things in many belief systems are false, including the Genesis creation stories (there are two) and the story of the Noachian flood.
The first point above is exactly why there is no real difference between creating a religion for use in a game and depicting a real one in a game. As such, if the ESRB had some descriptor for religious content, for it to be fair, it would need to be slapped on the box of even games that had religions created specifically to be included in them (such as in Final Fantasy X), since people could always adopt that religion in real life... and there would be no way to tell if the real-world one were any more true than the one from the game.
I think this is ludicrous. If the ESRB were forced to do this, where is the justification for them not doing it in every other case where there are "supernatural" entities in games, such as the benign Luigi's Mansion? Why wouldn't they also need to do it even in every case where a metaphysical view were presented in the game? Or would it only count if the term "god" (note: not "God" or "Christian/Jewish/Muslim god") were used, and if so, why? This is a very slippery slope, and it could result in an extra ESRB notification on so many games that it would just be insane. Why not just tolerate the fact that the game takes place in a mostly fictitious universe? Also, exposure to these different "supernatural"-inclusive game universes is pretty much just like living in the religously pluralistic world that we live in. If you want notification due to religious content, do you ask people what their belief system is before talking to them? Or will you not talk about belief systems with anyone who's not of your own?
What about religous people who have no problem with not having this notification? There are probably entire religions full of people who wouldn't/don't mind. Is it ok for the ESRB to cater to some over all the rest?
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