idle banter: May 2006

Left Behind: the game

There are some pretty strange things on the net. Some good, some bad, and some just plain weird. Falling into the last category is this game- LEFT BEHIND : Eternal Forces.

Wage a war of apocalyptic proportions in LEFT BEHIND: Eternal Forces - a real-time strategy game based upon the best-selling LEFT BEHIND book series created by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins. Join the ultimate fight of Good against Evil, commanding Tribulation Forces or the Global Community Peacekeepers, and uncover the truth about the worldwide disappearances!
...
· Conduct physical & spiritual warfare : using the power of prayer to strengthen your troops in combat and wield modern military weaponry throughout the game world.

· Recover ancient scriptures and witness spectacular Angelic and Demonic activity as a direct consequence of your choices.

So, a Christian-themed game that they are hoping might get a 'T'rating (suitable for those older than 13) where, amongst other things, you get to shoot unbelievers and the 'lukewarm'.

An LA Times article has this to say:

One of the series' authors, Tim LaHaye, said the game had the potential to communicate ideas such as salvation to people who might not think of themselves as particularly interested.

"We hope teenagers like the game," LaHaye said. "Our real goal is to have no one left behind."

Thoughts?
(I'll throw my 2 cents in a little later)

relatively speaking

I remember once using the analogy of aircraft navigation: the electronic navigation systems used to refer to one or more beacons (whose positions were known) in order to calculate position, speed, direction etc. Modern technology probably uses GPS to determine these things, although the analogy holds: it's the certainty of a reference point that enables a calculation of your relative position.

is the analogy true of our lives? what is your "reference point" in the journey of life?

dating system awry

I hear a lot of people blaming global warming for how late the rainy season has come/stayed this year. I reckon global wamring is a farce. Instead, it is due to a faulty Roman dating calendar system. They buggered up when postulating that a year's cycle had 365 days in it. So, I reckon they're at least 1 days short, which explains why our seasons are awry ... after a couple thousand years, summer will seem later and winter later as well.