God of War III - an interesting anti-woo vehicle

[Senexis]

So I was playing God of War III this afternoon (yes WAS, instead of painting), while my son watched.

Who's that?
What's this?
Why are you killing this guy?
What's that city?

For those who don't know, the GoW series is set in Ancient Greece and uses the classical Greek Religion as a backdrop. The Olympians and Titans are characters, and several feature prominently.

What a brilliant anti-woo device.

"Well son, that dude there screaming across the sky in a fiery chariot is Helios, who the Ancient Greeks believed was the sun - that he'd ride his chariot across the sky and that was the passing of the sun from morning to night."

"But... the sun's out in space."

"Yes, I know. These were primitive people, who didn't really know better. So they made a lot of crazy things up. See those Centaurs there? That was their first stab at understanding men riding horses, which they hadn't seen before. So they immediately thought they were monsters."

"That's stupid."

"Yeah, well... so are all those gods and monsters and fairies and things, really. Good fun and very creative, but to actually believe any of them are real is, well, very crazy. As for the city, these ancient people thought the gods lived very high up, on top of the tallest mountain, called Olympus. It's a bit like the idea the Jews and Christians had a couple of thousand years ago with heaven being up in the clouds"

Small steps, taken often. I've already got to compete with The Wiggles and Rugrats with their woo-peddling. I just need to keep reminding him.

And a healthy dose of Dad's derision in the mix: So heaven, where exactly is that, then? Up in the sky? Did the astronauts wave as they passed it on their way to the moon? Have I flown past it on my way to Europe or America? Did you see it when you flew to Melbourne?

[simonecuttlefish]

What a wonderful way of pointing out the horror that GRE (general religious education) presents to contemporary religions. I think GRE should be compulsory, and start out with the most ridiculous number of laughable ancient god mythologies first, (which many kids will find way cooler than contemporary gods anyway, while still realising they are just fairy tales), and then move on to the the contemporary ones, so they can be seen in their actual context, with all the packaging having previously torn off by "obviously stupid" mythologies :)

YAYY! I was looking for a kids book project. This might be it. Thanks!

[sjd3]

Nice way of trying to tell them the truth, I always think that if I were to have kids when i'm older how hard it would be to try to get across to them that there's no such thing as God, and how to tell them this, but seems like you're doing a great job of this :)

[Somnambulist]

Good work.

Incidentally, my fundamentalist brother is addicted to the God of War games. My Dad would always say, "you know these things aren't real right?" when we were kids and playing video games.

A couple of times I said "are you serious Dad? They're not?!" He got angry.

He never took away our video games though... I owe a lot of my questioning of faith to playing Final Fantasy series (especially 7), and the game Xenogears (so much direct criticism of religion in that game). The end boss is called Deus, and is the genetic progenitor of the species. You fight him using really cool anime-style mecha. There's also a massive sub-plot involving the "Ethos" selling earth-dwellers to a police state in the sky, which converted them into food as part of the "soylent system". One of the characters joins your party after leaving the church. Your party also continually finds more and more archaeological evidence to discredit the ethos.

[DanDare]

Sounds like a must play game :)

[Aldaron]

The Wiggles ... with their woo-peddling

The Wiggles peddle woo? I think I've missed something, somewhere...what gives?

[Aldaron]

Well, there you go. Didn't know that.
My son loved The Wiggles when he was little, and we had no hint.