Talk:Portrayals of religion in pop culture

Humongous
This is a simply humongous subject. You might want to narrow down your scope. AMassiveGay (talk) 20:16, 26 April 2016 (UTC)
 * The large homosexual might be right -- an article on "religion in video games" would also be cool (especially if you were willing to find videos of the content). 14:21, 28 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Yep. Narrowing it down to 3 different pages may be better: video games, movies and TV.  I can think of a ton just off the top of my head. Petey Plane (talk) 14:41, 28 April 2016 (UTC)]
 * Sure, ill move this to the video games article. Bubba41102The place where you can scream at me 19:00, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Also i am going to create a literature article as well. Bubba41102The place where you can scream at me 19:10, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

In case no one yet noticed
The nice thing about most religious portrayals is that you get to see what life would be like if religion was real to began with. You get to see learned clerics and theologians summoning angels and casting fire, Jedi lifting objects with the mind, etc. It's a rather stark contrast to the real world. In a way, by portraying religion as clearly real, the authors and artists of these works are (probably inadvertently) emphasizing how fake the real life religions are. Sadly, most believers are well fortified with cognitive dissonance, and can enjoy these works without noticing this. Lord Aeonian (talk) 20:08, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
 * i think most depictions of religion in video games are merely examples world building within the games. Any resemblence to real actual religions is superficial at best because of the shit storms that would occur if they were not. In assasins creed 2, set in the real world (kind of), its the catholic church that is depicted, and get to knock the shit out of the pope. Tellingly, you dont kill him despite all that he had engineered within the game. I wonder if thats a step the makers balked at making? And of course, with games depicting gods and demons and magic as actually existing and openly interacting with the world, it is difficult see what they can tell us about religion in the real world.AMassiveGay (talk) 23:22, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
 * I don't think you're right about that... from Bible games 1, 2 and 3, to The Zoo Race, to The You Testament, there's a lot of content. And these are just the crazy Christian games (for the record: all made by actual Christians!). Reverend Black Percy (talk) 23:33, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
 * i'm not !ooking at anything that opens in youtube. I am going to guess they are not mainstream games made by any major publishers. I have no doubt there are plenty if independent and niche titles out there that can and do say interesting things or just flat out crazy things, but big mainstream games with mass appeal - not so much. AMassiveGay (talk) 00:03, 30 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Do me a favor and just sneak a peek at the above which opens in YouTube. Lmao. Reverend Black Percy (talk) 00:37, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

Mission
I'm kind of wondering about this mission status of this.--Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 19:52, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
 * On one hand I think articles like these can increase readership because list articles are popular on the internet. On the other hand I believe that the line between religion, philosophy and political ideology is pretty thin. So this article could open the floodgates for other list articles like politics, philosophy, crank ideas in pop culture, etc. My stance is to have articles about specific entertainment products like we have now, for example like this one where you need to put some effort into making the specific article worthwhile and missional instead of like this article here where people will argue if certain pop culture depictions are even interesting to add in the first place. 08:27, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

Merged
Back into one. 00:28, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

Off the top of my head
Magic: The Gathering has the Orzhov guild, who are basically an ultra-authoritarian church that deliberately tries to keep their followers mindless and without a will of their own, and in video games, the entire plot of Final Fantasy X revolves around a church that is secretly creating an endless cycle of death and destruction to appease what is essentially an evil god. Final Fantasy Tactics also has one of the more nuanced portrayal of the intersection of religion and politics for its genre and era. If I'm feeling amibtious, I'll try to integrate these thoughts into the article, unless someone more eloquent beats me to it. AcidTrial (talk) 15:07, 2 May 2016 (UTC)