Thursday, May 22, 2008

Anti-Indoctrination Game

My idea for a game goes as follows. The world must be rid of unrealistic beliefs. Christianity is a massive system that operates on indoctrinating young children. So I feel that as a rational being, that is capable of making rational decisions, children should be given the same opportunity.

As a player you will seek to provide children with books that emphasize critical thinking and science, rather than reading fiction/quasi historical books in the bible that emphasize faith. In this game faith is what loses the player the game. So there is a varying bar running on the bottom of the screen which measures a children’s faith versus their rational knowledge. How is this done?

You, the player approach a classroom which houses young students of impressionable age. In side the classroom is also a faith based individual that is preaching the “word of God” to students that ask for it. The students have the freedom of deciding which person they want to listen to, but all of them start with a blank slate. Upon first arriving in the classroom you will present a number of facts that coincide with scientific data that is applicable to children of their age group, such as animals change colors in order to survive from being attacked from predators, this is the concept of natural selection. You also present them with the concept of the strongest surviving in nature and the evolutionary process throughout the course of history. On the other hand, the Christian will present the child with stories which speak about how humans arrived on the planet and why there are different races that inhabit the earth. Their stories will have no credence and be based strictly on fairy tale stories from the bible.

After each group is done giving their introduction the children will then ask questions. Based on the level of difficulty selected at the games start, the amount of children which ask questions will appear. As far as this is just a simple online game, there will not be a significant amount of detailed processing that can be done by the children, but the goal will be of the player to present the children with solutions to their questions. For instance if the child asks why Hurricane Katrina occurred, it will be the goal of the player to drag an article out of your briefcase on global warming and place it on the child’s desk. However if you do not get to the child in time, the Christian will vomit onto the child the words, Sin, homosexuality, fornication, and gambling.

I feel this game adequately represents the real scenario that has been occurring throughout history. I am targeting Christianity here, but it doesn’t stop with them. Every major religion seeks to indoctrinate children at young impressionable ages. This is a sickness that has been spread throughout our history of human beings. I am not opposed to literature and old literature, but I am opposed to pseudo science, and presumptive individuals that think they know, what is not known. The fascinating part about our place in history is that there is so much that we do know currently, we are tapping the resource of knowledge that is tangible and empirical to research and observation, everything else is fairytales and a detriment to our civilization and community as we have seen it.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Perhaps the fairytales exist to help that who refuse to rationalize their own lives. Those of us who can take the world as it is (for face value) do not have to use religion to hold the place of rational thought. The concept of getting to the child first and expounding the importance of critical thinking is indeed vital. Adults who were raised placing immense weight on the shoulders of religion as a personal necessity to explain the world, were most likely brought up in that type of environment. HOWEVER, I do believe it is essential to the existence of humans to have a faith based support structure. Some people are just not capable of dealing with the psychological ramifications of a world and all its complexities. Religion thus plays a vital role in sustaining the baseline of most culture. Now, I am not saying that religion is entirely guiltless of incredible destruction (See Middle East, etc.), however it does serve as a place holder for logical thought. Personally, I believe the world will see a gradual decline in religous foundations as time progresses and more science-based answers are available. There will still be those who cling to religon as a foundation in the presence of stark science.

Nice post.

KD