Call of Duty Recruits

I was listening to the radio this morning and the radio host was prank calling a 19 year old boy from Burlington. The host told told the boy that he was a recruiter from the US Marine Corps, and that the Marines had been monitoring the gameplay of Call of Duty 4 online. He told the boy that his stats from playing the game stood out substantially, and that the Marines wanted to recruit him. The boy was very excited to hear that he had been singled out and he showed interest in finding out exactly what he was being offered. The host continued to tell the boy that he was a perfect candidate to work in a special operations unit in the Marines. He explained that the boys would travel the world killing people for the good of his country. The boy wasn't discouraged by this, and he continued to ask specifically what weapons he would have access to to carry out the tasks before him. I turned the radio off before I was able to hear the conclusion to this conversation.

I found it very disturbing that a video game has been so influential on this boy. Influential enough that it had actually made him numb to the fact that he wanted to kill people without any motive. I find it even more disturbing to know that he is one of many people who emmerse themselves in video games, and he probably isn't the only one with such a readiness to murder.

I obviously don't believe that everyone who plays video games is affected by them like this boy was, but it scares me to think that there are people who completely lose their ability to separate a fictional game from reality. I think this is especially prevalent at Champlain College, and it only takes a brief walk around campus to see that some students think they're living in Middle Earth.

To many, video games have become a kind of a religion. People worship the games for hours each day, and they can even play in a community of people that enjoy the same games, much like a church congregation. Video games control the way many people live their lives. They affect the exercise people get, the friends they make, the sleep they get (or don't get), and many other aspects of daily life. Muslims pray five times a day, and many people play video games five times a day. It's not a stretch to see the similarities that video games hold to religion, and the only thing we can do is hope that our current Champlain College students will design good, moral games for future generations to play. My fingers are crossed.

Bueller, Bueller, Bueller

I found the controversy about Ben Stein speaking at UVM’s commencement very interesting. To me Ben Stein had always been nothing more than the teacher in Ferris Bueller’s day off



I was surprised to hear that he was very active in science (although many disagree), and he had even made his own documentary, Expelled, about intelligent design. After hearing about the controversy I thought I would watch the movie to see what had everyone so upset. Here’s a clip from the movie.



I like that Ben Stein is questioning the norms of society and presenting an argument to a topic that is anything but certain. Growing up I always believed evolution to be true because it was taught to me as if it was. In middle school and high school science classes my teachers taught evolution as if there were no doubts about it, and looking back I think that was wrong. I have no idea what should be taught in schools, but to me teaching evolution isn’t far from teaching religious views on creation. Evolution seems to work perfectly in a society that has a constant thirst for answers. How did we come to be? There was a big explosion out of nowhere and then we evolved from single celled organisms. Tada. That answer seems to be much more satisfying than responding with “no one knows.”

I had my quams with evolution before watching Expelled, and I don’t agree with everything Ben Stein says in the movie either, but it’s refreshing to see people questioning the way things are instead of being content with the theory of evolution.

The Secular and the Sacred

I am interested in what direction this class will go this semester. It seems like the two core classes this semester are designed to teach us why we should become atheist socialists. At first glance I expect that the Secular and the Sacred is not going to give us a well rounded view of religion throughout the world. Instead we'll get the Richard Dawkins' delusion. I think it is important to be familiar with all the aspects of religion and I hope we aren't going to be spoon fed the brilliance of atheism while criticizing every other belief system.