BioShock Infinite's religious themes led dev to consider quitting

@JunglemanchiId except that shits were given if you actually bothered to read.

@powerdesignkid SOunds like he's been the subject of many revisions and last minute rewrites. Because that always makes for the best characters, right?

@7Days13Nights Wait, really? Most of America is religious. We don't mind gore and violence either way. It's fundamentalists you're talking about.

@7Days13Nights

I don't know what your trying to get at.

@Dradeeus Actually...you totally can choose to walk away if you want to. If a something is making you extremely uncomfortable in your work environment you can leave if you want. No one can force you to work for them.

@Angelsoft717 "an obnoxious atheist" Andrew Ryan?

@moncealyo ...You do realize that writers tend to have to develop and design characters that are impossible to relate to... Imagine the kind of person you'd have to be to really be able to relate to say, Andrew Ryan. This is a really ignorant statement to make -- stuff like this is the whole reason why writers do research and study history/lore before delving into a project. Even still, it is a difficult thing to do -- hell, even when you CAN relate to a character they can easily end up being poorly developed because you're so engrossed in your own stake in their ideals. Seriously, don't pretend like your limited knowledge of the writing process has anything to do with your desire to be a cheapskate.

@moncealyo Give me a break....

@Atragon Django and Draedeeus missed your tone, Atragon

@Atragon Pretty sure the new floating Bioshock city, WITH religion, isn't gonna be great either.

@Atragon While I doubt Andrew Ryan was religious, Bioshock has nothing to do with religion until Infinite.

@Prats1993 I think you will be disappointed. Since most christians even fundamentalists aren't extremists and thats what its tackling. It'll be controversial but far enough removed from everyday polotics that I doubt it will offend unless you are thin skinned.

@petez34 Believe it or not some games cover topics that are deeper than shooting zombies.

@matrixman2k

"How on earth did a theory ever pass of as a fact?"

Just because we still can not explain the mechanism of gravitydoesn't mean it doesn't exist. The same goes for evolution. While there seem to be many theories about the details of the inner workings of evolution it is a fact that it exists.

Any scientists among reading this may correct me if I'm wrong.

And yes, Darwin's theory was used to support a lot of pretty f*cked up ideas. But that doesn't mean that he was wrong. The same goes for Karl Marx, by the way.

But I guess in the end I wasted my time because you seem to be a creationist. And even if evolutionary theories might not be able to explain everything properly I'm okay with that. It's still better than the ridiculous story you find in the bible. I agree with you in one point: Scrutinizing ideas, no matter how established they are is a good trait. You win, even if you just end up agreeing with it, because now you've understood it. But I seriously doubt that you really confronted evolution as a phenomenon without any prejudice. You only read books that support your own view or you read meaning into what people say that really isn't there.

For example: Harun Yahya is an islamic outspoken creationist. That's what wikipedia says, at least. So please, do yourself a favor: if that subject is really important to you read something about this from someone who is not biased.

@matrixman2k

Not to offend or anything, but it doesn't seem you quite get the theory of evolution. We have common ancestors with gorillas, but it doesn't mean we came from the gorillas. Let's take two hypothetical different "tribes" of our ancestors and try to simplify. One of them leaves near fruit trees and have plenty of that to survive, no predators literally chasing your tail, and the need to be protected from the cold with hair. The other one, lives in a jungle where the tail was nothing more than something a predator could get, the climate was hotter, and fruits weren't as plenty so we needed to hunt for food. One of them evolved to grow hairier, an evolved tail for balance to get to higher trees and the ability to need only fruits to survive. the other one eventually lost it's tail (because the ones that had would die before they breed) his hair, and now need protein in its system instead of only fruits.

Of course this is an hypothetical situation, but just to exemplify how two species can coexist and have the same ancestor. The theory of evolution has some gaps, because we do not have 100% of evidence, but those are filled with predictions, and a great number of those predictions were found to be true, and most of the theory is pretty solid, those gaps are mostly details that are missing.

@matrixman2k A word on Darwins, evolution and primates: Nobody just looked at Darwin's theory and left it as is. It's now known that men are cousins of primates, we do not come from them. The two races come from a fish that split into two different genetic branches. The roots are similar, but not parented. Research is also being successfully done in tracing back the evolution of a chicken, resulting in primitive, fanged chicken embryos. Research in the theory also explains our lizard brain, our tailbone and our appendix. It also explains why we now face so many eyesight problems and other handicaps, because we have no excluded ourselves from the normal cycle of evolution through our way of life: the "weak" no longer die because they can't survive. There's something you have to understand about theories, they're not just hypotheses. A scientific theory is the explanation of a natural phenomenon through repeated and precise observations and facts. Theories change as more facts are discovered, obviously, but that's the point of it. So, I would tell you, practice what you preach and do your own bit of research.

@matrixman2k Nailed it.

As a christian who plays games, offensive themes are nothing new. Anyone who has played an RPG can tell you that most developers think Christians are sheep, and the shepherd of the flock can be easily swapped out for Mother Theresa, or any genocidal dictator. In real life, it doesn't work that way.

I think it's great that they discussed it as people, and not from some ideological corners or in an angry notepad letter. I also liked that Ken is smart enough to know the limitations of his own encounters with religion as a difference in perspective, without making it sound insincere (although I'm not sure the words 'extremely religious' was a great choice).

The concept that we could be wrong should never be ignored, but it shouldn't be assumed for others either. I look forward to being shaken next month to some degree, when this game hits shelves, because after all, I could be wrong... If someone finds a body in that grave, all bets are off.