God in the machine: video games and religion
If he were alive today, what might Heidegger say about Halo, the popular video game franchise? What would Augustine think about Assassin's Creed ? What could Maimonides teach us about Nintendo's eponymous hero, Mario? While some critics might dismiss such inquiries outright, protesting tha...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Book |
| Language: | English |
| Subito Delivery Service: | Order now. |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
West Conshohocken, Pennsylvania
Templeton Press
2013
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| In: | Year: 2013 |
| Edition: | Online-Ausg. |
| Series/Journal: | Acculturated Ser
Acculturated |
| Further subjects: | B
Religion and science
B Video games - Religious aspects B Computers Religious aspects B Artificial Intelligence B Electronic books B Theological Anthropology Christianity B Robotics |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (Aggregator) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Parallel Edition: | Erscheint auch als: 9781599474373 |
| Summary: | If he were alive today, what might Heidegger say about Halo, the popular video game franchise? What would Augustine think about Assassin's Creed ? What could Maimonides teach us about Nintendo's eponymous hero, Mario? While some critics might dismiss such inquiries outright, protesting that these great thinkers would never concern themselves with a medium so crude and mindless as video games, it is important to recognize that games like these are, in fact, becoming the defining medium of our time. We spend more time and money on video games than on books, television, or film, and any serious thinker of our age should be concerned with these games, what they are saying about us, and what we are learning from them. Yet video games still remain relatively unexplored by both scholars and pundits alike. Few have advanced beyond outmoded and futile attempts to tie gameplay to violent behavior. With this canard now thoroughly and repeatedly disproven, it is time to delve deeper. Just as the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan recently acquired fourteen games as part of its permanent collection, so too must we seek to add a serious consideration of virtual worlds to the pantheon of philoso-phical inquiry. In God in the Machine, author Liel Leibovitz leads a fascinating tour of the emerging virtual landscape and its many dazzling vistas from which we are offered new vantage points on age-old theological and philosophical questions. Free will vs. determinism, the importance of ritual, transcendence through mastery, notions of the self, justice and sin, life, death, and resurrection-these all come into play in the video games that some critics so easily write off as mind-numbing wastes of time. When one looks closely at how these games are designed, at their inherent logic, and at the cognitive effects they have on players, it becomes clear that playing Cover -- Title -- Copyright -- An Invocation -- Contents -- Introduction -- Chapter 1: Thinking inside the Box: Game Design, Glory, and the Search for God -- Chapter 2: A Ballet of Thumbs: What We Do When We Play Video Games -- Chapter 3: The Sweet Cheat: The Utility and the Ecstasy of Breaking the Rules -- Chapter 4: The God Machine: On Being and Time in Video Games -- Acknowledgments -- Notes -- Index. |
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| Item Description: | Includes index. - Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (ebrary, viewed March 19, 2014) |
| ISBN: | 1599474506 |