why would you rely on contradictions of your own statements, to try and debunk atheism, which is in itself a contradiction, as religion asks for a respect of others beliefs. And there is no redeeming quality to this, even as a game or a statement
Reviews for "Metanoia"
Propaganda that fails to be engaging is just singing to the choir. Consider that the opening storyline is self contradictory ("rare opportunity" involving "accept this message that is really commonly present in your culture"), and then follows up with "you now must believe in what I say because otherwise torture!" Well, your message is pretty much designed to fail to get through. Never got past that point, incidentally, because I could see that this was going to be "Christian author attempts to proselytise to what he *thinks* Atheists really think." You can't expect anything to happen when you threaten people with a bad thing that they don't think exists.
tl;dr: learn how your opponents actually think before you construct arguments against their views. You *might* have some success that way. Otherwise, this shit's just you jerking off into flash.
First off, the intro, it is unnecessary, poorly executed, generally nothing but a waste of time, and worst off, boring, if you are going to put something like that in the game, it can't be boring don't forget that the people you most want to play this game are already hostile towards you, as you are attacking there core beliefs in a pretty hostile fashion.
Second, get rid of the clock, and don't punish people for making the 'wrong' choose. If you do these things, they will just start saying what they think you want to hear, especially since if they don't they will probably have to sit through that stupid intro again, and this isn't what you want, you want them to give there honest answers, so if they are 'incorrect', you can correct them, the way you have your game structured right now, you need them to be honest with you.
Third, just a tip, but you might be going about this backwards, almost anyone willing to play a game like this is probably going to be confrontational by nature, that means whatever you present to them, they will probably want to tear holes in it, so instead of fighting your audience, and building your case against them, give them an opponent, and let them create your argument for you, this is what successful games of this genera do.
Forth, you are arguing against atheist, so a good time to stop would be when they acknowledge God. This is not only because that is what you advertised the game as, and going over is, in some ways, a betrayal of the trust we put in you, the game creator, but because anything beyond that is another argument. Putting two arguments together, and presenting them as one just serves to weaken the whole thing considerably, so keep separate arguments separate.
Fifth, your argument has some pretty big unstated assumptions in it, now to be fair to you, these assumptions are easy to miss, but the problem is you need to understand them in order to make your argument, because the ones you are arguing either are aware of them, or have made a different assumption, now I'm going to take a few stabs in the dark as to what they might be, first off, you assume that every event has a cause, that the universe must be here for a reason. This is understandable, but others may think that the universe was just caused by some completely random event. Second, you assume that knowledge, and facts are conserved, that is that they can't be created, I would like to counter this assumption by making up the detention for tautaliterinisum: the belief that the word tautaliterinisisum exists. You can absolutely know that this word exists, and that it means what it does, despite the fact that knowing it has absolutely no impact on the anything, and nothing has any impact on it, third, you assume that the abstract can not exist without there being an abstract entity to support it, that ideas are substantive, and must exist in some physical way, but this is not necessarily true, just as definitions can stand on there own wait, so can logic, and math, if spiders have 27 eyes, and all beings with 27 eyes are blind, then spiders are blind will always be true, sorry, I'm not sure if that's a non-sequester or not, it's a hard idea to put into words. Now I don't know if you assume any of these, and honestly, even if you did, I still think you would need more assumptions to go from absolute true exists, we know some things, and logic is absolute, unchanging, and immaterial to God is real, but making these assumptions certainly helps, and as many people won't, you need to factor that into your game. How do you get from that point A to that point B by the way?
In a debate, it is always critical to respect your opponent, hard as that may be to do, do not assume they are dumb, or ignorant, and while it is probably true that you know some things that they do not, always assume that they have things to teach you as well. When you fail to do this, it is to everyone's detriment, especially yours, as you surrendered a chance to learn. After all, if you do not open your mind to them, why should they open theirs to you? And when neither side listens, well... nothing useful happens, really... And never underestimate the power of questions either, when you don't understand something, it gives you an opportunity to learn, and it forces your opponent to give an answer, their attempts at which might show them that there argument rested upon nothing.
Let's be honest here, the author relies on the flaw of Newgrounds that allows the author to respond to a comment but they can't comment back. So all he has to do is make up something then there you go he win's right there without any real argument.
As for the gameplay itself, gave me a good chuckle that the author thinks that Athiests would want to go to heaven. Even if heaven exists I wouldn't want to go there. Why would I want to go to the home of someone who hates gays, the people who help to keep the ever growing population of humans in a controlled amount.
eriko123 responds:
"Let's be honest here, the author relies on the flaw of Newgrounds that allows the author to respond to a comment but they can't comment back."- Well, I didn't know about that flaw. I was really looking forward to read all the responses. Instead of accusing me of cowardice, why didn't YOU suggest to engage in the general forum?
"So all he has to do is make up something then there you go he win's right there without any real argument."- If you think I "win" by making up something, then it means you don't use your reasoning to get to logical conclusions. And there is no point for you to mention it, since I'm going to "win" anyways.
"As for the gameplay itself, gave me a good chuckle that the author thinks that Athiests would want to go to heaven. Even if heaven exists I wouldn't want to go there. Why would I want to go to the home of someone who hates gays, the people who help to keep the ever growing population of humans in a controlled amount."- Atheists want to go to Heavens because they are not really atheists, they are professed atheists. You need to ask yourself: "How can I tell right from wrong?" Why? Because, it doesn't make sense for your worldview to suggest hating gays is wrong. I mean, I would agree with you, but I can account for what is right and wrong. You are just borrowing from MY worldview. By the way, if you believe there is a need to keep the ever growing population of humans in a controlled amount, why don't you sacrifice yourself for the benefit of human kind?
Siiiigh. All right, time to go through the logical flaws.
"He does not wish that any perish". So this all-powerful being has created a world where people are tortured through random accidents, where they get diseases, where people kill each other and are never punished...If "He" were all-powerful, why wouldn't he just let everyone live forever? No, I guess "He" wants us all to jump through hoops and arbitrary rules, for "His" own amusement.
"You have to choose to serve God. But you can't." Then...what's the point? Why am I even playing this game?
I went through and I accepted the existence of logic and such, but I occasionally saw these hellish flashes of all these winged people menacing me. Disturbing. I thought those were the RIGHT answers. Anyway, that's probably just a bug or something, it's not important.
"The only way Absolute truth, knowledge, and logic make sense in the human experience is through the existence of God." Uh...What? Whaaat? I can't figure out the "logic" here. See, we know the universe exists, and we use logic to figure things out about the universe. But why does that imply the existence of an invisible sky wizard watching our every move and judging us on arbitrary rules? We don't know where the universe came from, but maybe it just...happened? Just because the universe has a certain order, as in like physical laws, it doesn't mean it's all controlled behind the scenes by some being.
See, it would be EASY to believe in God. It would be very comforting to imagine that there's some plan behind everything. It's HARDER to imagine that there isn't really any point. It's harder to decide to care for others, to help the sick and the weak, to make the world a better place, NOT because some superbeing told you to, but because you decide it's the RIGHT thing to do.
And yet, the more you learn about religion, the more it becomes obvious that it's all a reflection of human desires. I mean, basically Jesus said "We should forget about all the rituals and decorations and just focus on being good people", and then Paul came along and said "This Christianity thing is nice but it needs more rituals and decorations", and nowadays Christianity is all megachurches and huge donations and oppressing homosexuals...Sorry, I prefer to focus on HELPING people.
Speaking of which, after seeing my gravestone (but I thought it didn't MATTER if I died?), there was a quote from the Christian Bible. Why wasn't there something from the Koran? Or the Talmud? Oh, right—out of ALL the religions in the world, ONLY ONE is "proven" by "logic"...yeah, right.
eriko123 responds:
""He does not wish that any perish". So this all-powerful being has created a world where people are tortured through random accidents, where they get diseases, where people kill each other and are never punished...If "He" were all-powerful, why wouldn't he just let everyone live forever? No, I guess "He" wants us all to jump through hoops and arbitrary rules, for "His" own amusement."- It is curious how you intended to point out logical flaws and ended up exposing your own.
First, who says the "accidents" are random? The might be caused by neglectful drivers.
Second, in the real world people are punished for killing other people. Just read a newspaper or watch the news.
Third, Fallacy of Irrelevant thesis. The fact that bad things happen is irrelevant to the Omnipotence of God. Furthermore, by what standard can you tell good from bad in your worldview? Also, God doesn't have to bow down to your demands just because you don't like what's going on around. After all, He IS God and you are not.
Fourth, "No, I guess "He" wants us all to jump through hoops and arbitrary rules, for "His" own amusement."- Aren't you just jealous of God being God? Are you saying it is wrong to be arbitrary? Then , you shouldn't arbitrary say He want us all to jump through hoops.
Fifth, ""You have to choose to serve God. But you can't." Then...what's the point? Why am I even playing this game?"- You know, quotations marks have the simple task of recalling the exact words from another source. When you add or substract words from the original text, when discovered, it tells us you might be trying to lie about what was said. Now, the original text is: "Now, you must change your mind about God in order to be granted entrance to Heavens. But to tell the truth, you can not do it. In other words, you are incapable to choose to serve God and keep your promise. Nobody can. It has to be given by God. And that's why you are here."- It means, God produces the repentance in the people hearts by his mercy. The point is: You might not be one of the chosen for repentance. God gave you the opportunity to interact with this game and still, you are fighting Him.
Sixth, "I went through and I accepted the existence of logic and such, but I occasionally saw these hellish flashes of all these winged people menacing me. Disturbing. I thought those were the RIGHT answers. Anyway, that's probably just a bug or something, it's not important."- Come on, now. To dislike the game for your own reasons is one thing, but to lie in order to discredit it, is low. If you choose the Right answers you will get nice soothing images. If you choose the wrong answers, then you get the disturbing images. But, now that I analyse it, It seems you cannot tell the difference between an artistic despiction of an angel and a demon. The angels and doves are the only figures with wings in the game.
Seventh, "See, we know the universe exists, and we use logic to figure things out about the universe. But why does that imply the existence of an invisible sky wizard watching our every move and judging us on arbitrary rules? We don't know where the universe came from, but maybe it just...happened? Just because the universe has a certain order, as in like physical laws, it doesn't mean it's all controlled behind the scenes by some being."- Yes, you figure things out about the universe using logic, but you cannot account for it. In an evolutionary/materialistic worldview(where the physical is all there is and the universe happened by chance), where do you get an abstract, inmaterial, and universal laws of logic?
Eigth, "See, it would be EASY to believe in God."- That's because everybody believe in God. Rom. 1:18-21.
Ninth, "It's HARDER to imagine that there isn't really any point."- If it's HARDER, it is because you are imagine it.
Tenth, again, how do you tell right from wrong without God?
Eleventh, "And yet, the more you learn about religion, the more it becomes obvious that it's all a reflection of human desires. I mean, basically Jesus said "We should forget about all the rituals and decorations and just focus on being good people", and then Paul came along and said "This Christianity thing is nice but it needs more rituals and decorations", and nowadays Christianity is all megachurches and huge donations and oppressing homosexuals...Sorry, I prefer to focus on HELPING people."- Remember what I told you about quotation marks and being arbitrary?
Twelveth, "Why wasn't there something from the Koran? Or the Talmud? Oh, right—out of ALL the religions in the world, ONLY ONE is "proven" by "logic"...yeah, right."- Yes, whether you like it or not, only the Bible is the Word of God and the truth. And that is why you reject it.