Reading between the (approved) lines

My favorite part of scripture readings at church is reading the verses immediately AFTER the chosen reading, which are invariably horrid. The reading ending with Isaiah 25:9 misses the wonderous bit in verses 10 and 11 about how the Moabites will be crushed into a dungheap, and EVEN THOUGH they spread out their arms like swimmers to stay afloat in the poop, STILL the Lord will smoosh them in deeper. A truly lovely picture of a loving God.

Or this week, the scripture was the bit at the end of Acts 4 about how the early Christians were actually as determinedly anti-Capitalist as a society can be, which is cool. And then it ended, and I kept reading the bit about Ananias and Sapphira, where God murders two people for being generous, but not generous enough. Because the Lord Almighty was Stalinist before Stalinism was a thing, yo. Still had a little Old Testament to get out of his system, maybe?

The first is less unsettling than the second - God may be disgusting and prone to stomping people who already are down, but at least isn't murdering them out of spite - but both are still definitely not high points for the biblical God. And yet more reason why anyone who claims their morality stems for a literal reading of the Bible is either full of (but not drowning in!) shit, or utterly insane.

The point of no return

I never played Spec Ops: The Line, but I did binge a few months ago on its TVtropes page, and I also read several articles and interviews about and with the developers. This is a game that took considerable inspiration from Apocalypse Now and its own predecessor, Heart of Darkness; unsurprisingly, such a pedigree resulted in a much darker and more self-aware take on the standard military shooter than is common.

What stuck with me was a comment made by one of the executives or produces from the company - one of the people whose job depends on making a popular and financially successful product - who said in an interview that the game was intentionally designed so that there would come a point where the only morally defensible option available to the player would be to turn off the game and stop playing.

I thought that a fascinating concept at the time, but having just read ALL the spoilers on TVtropes, I didn't feel the need to buy it and see for myself. But now I can attest to that phenomenon, because for the first time, I have shelved a video game because of my discomfort with what it is calling on me to do.