At RealBibleStories.com, Sister Shirlee taken it upon herself to read those stories, relay what the Bible actually says, and introduce critical thinking-inducing discussion questions and commentary.

The stories completed thus far — much of Genesis — are written at a level appropriate to (fairly smart) children, but the stories and commentary are educational and entertaining for adults as well!

Jenny and I agree that this will eventually be a great site for secular parents to read through with their children. We’ve added their RSS feed to Paliban World to help us (and you) keep up when new stories are added.

Sister Shirlee has committed to at least one new story per week for the entire year. I’m looking forward to the next one!

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Many Christians are concerned by Twilight’s occult flavor; the male lead is, after all, a vampire. Don’t worry! These vampires bear no resemblance to traditional vampires, and are thus safe for Christian consumption. Indeed, there are many ingredients in this series which make it a tasty treat suitable for Christian children.

Recipe: Start with a 100+ year old immortal guy, who, we are well assured is very, very, very good looking, and sparkles for some reason. Add a female character so devoid of personality, substance and description that she can effectively serve as a Mary-Sue surrogate for the naive 13-year old girls (or 13-year old girls at heart) of the world. Stir in an abstinence obsession so convoluted and bizarre that it could only have been hatched from someone who has some serious misconceptions about sex, and then layer heavily with a abusive and unhealthy relationships. Bake for multiple printings.

Mary-Sue Bella is presented to us as superficially as possible right from the outset; not only does this demonstrate how a Christian should be — an empty vessel, waiting to be filled by God or by a Christian man — but the lack of meaningful description makes it easy for readers to place themselves in the story. As a good Christian woman should, Bella spends most of her time without a thought in her bland little head, just occupying space and waiting for someone or something to happen.

Christian Marriage Ingredient #1: Bella’s not a happy girl, since she hasn’t yet been filled by God or husband.

Before Bella has the chance to slit her wrists from boredom — or we have the chance to fall asleep — Bella meets Eddie. As soon as her man comes along, everything is sunshine and daisies. Godlike, he watches her all the time, even when they aren’t dating and he doesn’t have any justifiable reason to be anywhere near her. This is what is known as being ‘protective’. With a man now in her life, she’s safe from all harm, even actively rejecting self defense measures like pepper spray. I mean, who would need protection when you have an all powerful, omnipresent Man in your life?

Christian Marriage Ingredient #2: Your man — or God — will take care of you, so you don’t have to take care of yourself.

After an eternity of longing gazes and hack writing, they finally reach the point where we expect them to consummate the relationship like horny teens the world over. But they don’t, even though Bella really wants to! Edward remains firmly in control of their physical relationship, because he is a vampire the man, and that’s the end of the discussion.

So this centagenarian strings this teenage virgin along without even allowing her to kiss him. But it’s LOVE, readers say. It’s complicated! BULLSHIT. This has all the markings of Stockholm syndrome as well as emotional torture.

Christian Marriage Ingredient #3: The man should always remain firmly in control of every aspect of a Christian relationship.

In the second book (and movie), Edward’s benevolence is fully demonstrated when he unilaterally decides to leave Bella. Without a strong man to take care of everything, she literally shuts down. We’ve all been there, and written our fair share of emo poetry (or is that just me?). A “modern” person develops some self reliance and independence, and usually comes out a better person. Our role model? Hell, no! Emotional independence might lead to independent thinking, and men don’t like girls who think for themselves.

Bella’s luck improves when another man, Jacob, comes along to pick her up off the ground. Yes, she finds another creepily obsessed guy — this time, a werewolf — to stalk and watch over her.

Jacob introduces her to his family, which is full of other ‘normal’ relationships, including a fiancee who was beaten to the point of death by her werewolf man. But she LOVES him! Potentially fatal beatings are just one ingredient in the spicy stew that is love.

Christian Marriage Ingredient #4: Women should accept discipline from their men without question.

That’s not love, that’s abuse, and there isn’t a single person in the world that deserves that, and I don’t care how nice his pecs are or how much he really, really wants to fuck kiss you.

From this point, Bella and her female companions begin to refer to themselves only in relation to their man, in an implicitly subservient fashion (vampire girl or wolf girl). It’s very good that this was so prominently displayed, as all good girls should take their man’s name, and as much of his identity as soon as possible. Only women that don’t really love their men keep their own names.

Christian Marriage Ingredient #5: Women should think of themselves only in relation to their men (or, having no man, God).

It is almost certainly a coincidence that this book, written by a Mormon, makes the concept of waiting so central to the romantic plot. Millions of young women in our country are growing up today, receiving conflicting messages about their budding sexuality from all sources. Thankfully for the mental health of these women, Twilight has become the model for a proper relationship.

What’s Twilight’s message for young Christian women?

Their own physical, psychological and emotional needs should be completely secondary to their man’s, and that it would be utterly wrong and unnatural to pursue any sexual relationship that isn’t instigated fully by the man, or even to question or second guess his all-encompassing edicts.

Furthermore, the main reason that you should get married is to consummate the physical relationship that the man has been tempting (but never granting) you for years, and any deviation from this perfect, celestial model is indicative of a personal fault only on the woman’s part. These women now know that their main value as humans (or vampires) is to make babies, and the physical pain that results from this is because they are women. Most importantly, when they do finally become pregnant, it is vital to bring the fetus to term, even and especially when the woman’s life is in danger. After all, there is part of her man inside her that is worth much more than she could ever hope to be.

When you combine that with the quality of writing that you find in parts of the Bible, not to mention the warped moral messages contained therein, it becomes obvious why Twilight should be heartily embraced by every Evangelical family under the sun.

We’ve already seen what positive results this abstinence-only message has caused within the evangelical subculture, what with the higher birthrate among young evangelicals (like Bristol Palin), so the messages contained within the Twilight series could only be good for a Christian society at large.

He links to his blog, which displays an automated form letter from Twitter temporarily suspending his account for “reply spamming” as evidence that he was unfairly targeted for his views. In other words, sending a link to his own blog as a “reply” to not his followers, but to everyone he could find. Ayep, that there’s reply spamming. And apparently it generated complaints.

Sure, his account was reinstated, but when one is seeking persecution, facts aren’t too important. And we already know James has a problem with the truth!

Here’s a screencap of his whining, which was the first thing to greet me when I logged in today. Click thumbnail for a larger version.

And his blog post complaining about his temporary suspension can be found HERE. In part:

Well, I guess I know how Rush Limbaugh feels. This week I posted a blog piece supporting Rush and I received thousands of visits to my blog. I also engaged in probably one hundred ‘debates’ with people on Twitter about the whole Rush Limbaugh/NFL controversy. Today, I received the below message that I have been suspended from Twitter for one week. Obviously, someone did not like what I was saying in support of Rush. You will notice that my blog article was ‘re-tweeted’ 150 times by those that read it (not by me). I guess I am making some liberal at Twitter upset. Let’s make them really mad, please click on the “tweeted” button above and that will bring even more attention to this issue on their own network.

Suspended isn’t banned. An automated response to complaints isn’t persecution. Gay people getting married doesn’t invalidate your marriage. Oops, wrong persecution complex.

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Prophecy? Paranoia? Prison Planet brings us a film entitled “Invisible Empire: A New World Order Defined”.

Here’s the trailer. Enjoy.

No, I haven’t seen the movie. But Christians are worried . . .

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“No Gods or Kings, only Men.”

The game that follows is bloody, vulgar, vicious and proud of it, just as any Atheist would be.  Taking place in the underwater city of Rapture (which resembles a sort of 1950s Chicago in aesthetics) Bioshock pits you against the godless hordes of “splicers” that have taken the city over.  Succumbing as they have to the sin of Vanity, these poor virtual souls have undergone repeated plastic surgery procedures to make themselves much more beautiful, alluring, and ever more narcissistic.  The price they pay for their heathen ways is all too predictable, becoming blood-thirsty zombies bent on fighting you with meathooks.

Central to the story of Bioshock is the life of the man who built Rapture, and whose bronze statue greets us above the banner professing his Godlessness, Andrew Ryan.  Ryan, being not just Atheist but audaciously proud of this shortcoming, commands the splicers, runs the city with an iron grip and demands his people worship him as their savior, clearly in the pattern of Atheist role-model Josef Stalin.  Many factions still within Rapture are, naturally, opposed to Ryan assuming Godhood, but do not be too decieved by their intentions into believing that these characters are morally upright, as they only want Ryan out of the way so they may assume the power themselves.  Such is the naturally deceptive and murderous tendencies of Atheism that it would foster such behavior.

Another central figure to the game is that of the Big Daddy and the Little Sister.  The Sisters harvest “Adam,” a compound that facilitates genetic modification, from the bodies of corpses, and can be obtained from them to modify yourself, giving you amazing powers such as telekinesis and command over hornets.  The Sisters, though, are protected by the Big Daddies, and while they will not attack you unprovoked, can be killed with difficulty, at which point you are given the option to either “Rescue” the Sister, freeing her from Ryan’s control over her, and taking what little Adam she has on her, or “Harvesting” her, taking all the Adam she contains within herself and using it for your own ends.  This moral choice is a defining facet of Bioshock, and sas a great deal about who the player is at the end of the day.

All told the game is beautifully put together, the history and aesthetic detail of Rapture earning the game several Game of the Year awards when it was released in 2007.  Players fight their way through the game using various Firearms as well as Plasmids, sneaking by a room of enraged splicers, or having a long, drug-out battle with a Big Daddy, all capped with set-pieces that maximize the entertainment potential of the game as a First Person Shooter.  Play is versatile, allowing the player to choose how best to dispatch an enemy, but also whether or not to “Hack” turrets and camera systems to help in their fight, and whether or not to pick up stacks of money to purchase other upgrades and ammunition, just as you can choose to be electrocited, falling into a trap, or to easily disarm it.  The game is all about choices, and freeing you the player to make these choices as you play, liberating you completely in this environment, a theme which is brilliantly underscored all throughout.

I do, however, have two main criticisms of the game. The first of which is the ending.  Now, being a good Christian, I of course recognized the Little Sisters as witches immediatley, and as such, when the time came to chose, I naturally chose Harvest, destroying the foul creatures and absorbing strength from their dissipated arcane magic.  However, at the end of the game, it seemed to suggest that this biblical tendency of mine was somehow a negative, and portrays the player character, come the end, as a bloodthirsty killing machine.  Nothing could be further from the truth, of course, which is why I assume this is nothing more than a bug on the developers part, playing the wrong movie for following the path of righteousness.  As of yet, however, no patch has been announced to rectify this, but I rest assured that it is forthcoming.

The second complaint is that the theme can be a little confusing.  At one point false-god Ryan spends quite some time denouncing Altruism, and other soft, hippy, Liberal ideals.  I’m sure I hardly need say he and I are in accord on this notion, as Liberalness is, naturally, only the tip of the socialist/communist iceberg, and is why we must always look out for programs that promote the “welfare” of others. It is odd then that the game would do this, however, providing a Godless Atheist with otherwise perfectly sound political philosophy.  It’s almost as though it is trying to suggest that someone with clear conservative views could become a power-mad tyrant.Those minor quibbles aside, however, the game truly is a work of art, poorly polished though it may be, and I wholeheartedly recommend playing it.  Currently available for $19.99 for the PC, and $29.99 for the PS3 and Xbox 360.

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The God Delusion dropped to the #2 spot on the Atheist category listing once Comfort’s You Can Lead an Atheist to Evidence, But You Can’t Make Him Think: Answers to Questions from Angry Skeptics was released on Thursday to rave reviews.

Amazon customer reviewer Cynthia Perez sums it up:

It sure does make atheists angry when logical thought is introduced into the conversation – and this book points out exactly where the illogical arguments against the existence of God come from: an unwillingness to acknowledge that, IF there is a Creator, all of His creations are held accountable to Him!

C.R. Shearer chimes in,

Evolution is a dying religion, I implore you, don’t go down with the ship, be reconciled to God through the cross of Jesus Christ.

As for ShiftingSandy? Well, she even recommends yet another book to pair with it!

Recently read this with God vs. the Infinite Monkeys which, like this book, also uses logic and reason to dispel the myth that all logic and reason (and science) supports Atheism. Reason and logic is on the side of religion. If you read both these books (and every religious person and their children (God vs. is actually written for young adults) should read them in my opinion) you come away with the truth, a truth which does not require faith to realize, i.e., that the Atheists use flawed arguments and made-up conclusions to support their own belief system.

Who can argue with this logic? Christianity can replace the atheists’ “flawed arguments and made-up conclusions”, which they use to “support their own (ridiculous) belief system”!

Robin E. Cornwell tries to contest this point, but merely demonstrates the “eloquence” and “research” typical of a so-called atheist:

This book is so full of misleading rubbish, one doesn’t know where to start. Of course, it will feed into all the usual lies and misinformation that feed the frenzy of the religious mind. Don’t bother buying it…

Not one example is given in her review of the “misleading rubbish”. I can only assume she never bothered to read the book!

Comfort explains to us that atheists aren’t even real!

We don’t have to prove that God exists to the professing atheist. This is because he intuitively knows that He exists. Every person has a God-given conscience. The Bible tells us that this is the ‘work of the law written on their hearts.’ Just as every sane human being knows that it’s wrong to lie, steal, kill and commit adultery, he knows that God should be first in his life.

Comfort goes on to add that it’s simply not possible to believe in the God of the Bible and evolution (or Darwinism, as its worshipful adherents sometimes call it).

“They are diametrically opposed. There is no way you can reconcile Darwinian evolution with the Bible,” Comfort said during an interview Thursday with Christian Broadcasting Network.

Other books by Ray Comfort include God Doesn’t Believe in Atheists: Proof that the Atheist Doesn’t Exist and Intelligent Design vs. Evolution: Letters to an Atheist. He is also known for his famous video declaring the Banana the Atheist’s Nightmare, his website www.pulltheplugonatheism.com, and his most excellent and roundly praised debate with the Rational Response Squad.

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On the surface, Painkiller (Dreamcatcher Interactive) is not unlike many other First-Person Shooters; given the fundamental nature of the game and the overarching purpose (exploding Hell itself) one might be tempted to think this game fits perfectly in line with good, wholesome Christian values.  Tragically, nothing could be further from the truth, as the particulars of this game’s storyline demonstrate all too readily.

The story of the game opens with a traffic accident, as you, the per-regulation grim-faced trenchcoat-clad not-recently-shaven Daniel Garner have driven yourself and your wife Catherine headfirst into an oncoming Truck.  Death is instantaneous for you both; Catherine is taken into the loving embrace of God, as she has liven a true, Christian life.  Daniel, on the other hand, has presumably not surrendered his life to the Risen Lord, and so should by rights be condemned to an eternity of torment for such transgression.  Here, we come upon the heinous blasphemy the game indulges in, insidiously disguised as wholesome demon-shooting fun.

Daniel is sent to Purgatory instead of his rightly deserved Hell, and once there, he is tasked with murdering four of Lucifer’s generals to prevent a war between Heaven and Hell, and once completing this task, he is promised entrance into heaven.  Where, oh where to begin with such a wicked premise . . .

• First, Purgatory does not exist! It’s an invention of the heretical Catholic Church, never once referenced in the Holy Bible.
• Second, the idea of spiritual redemption through actions, or “works-based” salvation, has no basis in the Bible either. Jesus clearly says the only path into Heaven is to place faith in Christ Jesus as your Savior. We are saved through Grace, not Works! (Matthew 16:26-27, et al)
• Third, and perhaps most damning of all, is the very idea that God would want to prevent the ultimare conflict between Himself and the armies of Hell, as lead by Lucifer and the Antichrist. The very idea that God would oppose the Rapture and subsequent Armaggedon is utterly at odds with what the Bible teaches, and yet this video game teaches it as though it were holy writ!

Now, while this blasphemy is easy enough to spot for any true Christian and would otherwise be a simple matter to innoculate young minds against, the difficulty in doing so for any honest, professing Christian is the lengths the game goes to in order to entice players by being simply too entertaining!  While it has long been known that eviscerating the demons of hell has a powerfully cathartic quality (indeed, it will be most pleasant to do battle against when the Tribulation comes), the temptation of that otherwise righteous joy is compounded with the novel weaponry the game provides.  The chief weapon is the eponymous Painkiller, a sort of knife-gun hybrid that spins, shoots and retrieves its own blades.  The physics engine in the game combined with this sadistic skew on a Slap-Chop has given birth to a practice known as “corpse-juggling” wherein a defeated enemy is kept in midair by repeatedly firing the weapon at them.  Such a practice is amusing on its own, if only for the spectacle of a bouncing, tortured enemy of God, and yet the enticement is amplified further as the juggled-enemies drop golden trinkets, rewarding the behavior further.  The enticement potential grows even more with other weapons in the game, such as the Electrodriver, which fires shurikens and lightning bolts, and the Stakegun, which can pin enemies to walls with sharpened wooden posts before firing grenades at them.

How then is the right-thinking Christian to protect his family from the temptation to play such a game, available for only $9.99 over Steampowered.com, or worse, in a three-game package (Painkiller Triple Dose (Painkiller, Painkiller: Battle out of Hell, Painkiller: Overdose)) for $19.99 at Amazon? 

There is no simple answer, but the fight starts by spreading awareness of the game.  If you suspect someone you care about is considering playing this game or giving it to their children under the impression that it carries a good, decent Christian message about demon-killing, do everything you can to let them be made aware of the facts! Entertaining though this game may be, exposure to the perversions of Christianity which it contains may ultimately lead them along the road to ruin, depriving them of the unconditional Love of Jesus Christ in the hereafter. 

And really, what game could possibly be worth that?

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Created by Will Wright (of The Sims
fame), Spore is a single-player game which allows you to create your very own creatures. You can start at one of five levels: Cell, Creature, Tribe, Civilization, or Space. In other words, you can piece together a bacterium and see how it can “evolve” (through your divine intervention, that is) to something bigger, or start by assembling parts into a creature, then refining it. You try out different things, and see what works.

Sure, natural selection comes into play. If you design a creature that isn’t well-suited to its environment, it dies. Oops.

Some think that this means that the game is promoting the idea that God sat about trying different things, to see what would work. I can see where that idea comes from . . . however, I disagree. God has perfect knowledge, and thus did not have to try things to see if they work. People have imperfect knowledge, and can only guess.

That’s why creatures on earth haven’t changed much in the past 6,000 years! No need.

In Spore, do creatures “evolve”? No. They live or die based on how you have designed them. They only can “advance” when you take them into the design phase and change them; the program does not evolve new characteristics or change them into different kinds of creature for you.

One reviewer suggests how the game might be used as a witnessing tool:

After playing the game for a couple of hours, I sat down with the young man who’d let me use his copy and we spoke at length about the complexity of life and the difficulty involved in building even a simple simulated creature. We wondered at the incredible intellect God must posses to have designed even a simple, single celled organism, let alone humanity.

I agree, and recommend buying several copies to distribute at your next church function. Not only does it provide a wonderful witnessing opportunity, but the designer, Will Wright, is well known for his substantial contributions to good, Christian and Republican causes and political campaigns. In 2008 alone, he contributed $28,500 to the National Republican Senatorial Committee and another $28,500 to the Republican National Committee.

Do you think it was earmarked for Governor Palin’s wardrobe?

Check Spore out here!

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