Hmm, that's a very difficult web of ideas and comments to follow. Logically, even if the above is inflammatory or innacurate, it contains in it a kernel of truth if the premise of the Left Behind books are at all manifested in the game. The notion of the rapture exculding those mentioned (apart from the Catholics who are patently Christian...) is not at all problematic, as those groups would indeed be left over since they are not Christians. This is not armchair speculation -- it is working outward from the premise that all non-christians are left behind.

While the post at christiancadre mentions conversion in passing, the focus of all this nonsene seems to have fallen on the killing aspect of the game. Far more sensational and controversial, wrong, or uninformed as that debate may be. But what about the actual premise of the game? What about the fact that you as a player are rewarded for converting people, for convincing people to believe in something totally irrational and without any reasonable or verifiable foundation in reality? Reality. What about the obvious theme of the Christian persecution complex? What about the insidiousness of believing that one faith is superior to others, that there is only one right way to live one's life, that others must be persuaded of that fact or must be condemned forever? That you are a player who is rewarded for actively converting or saving people is a premise that borders on the xenophobic.

The reality of this whole debate is that if the original quote/article is even remotely true, that is, that the premise of converting people in a post-rapture New York is verifiable, which apparently it is (since there isn't much debate on that point) and that the pro-game post have mentioned it as the focus of the game even, the entire point has been missed. Granted the original article could have been less sensationalistic and could have excluded the killing bits, I've no argument there. My argument is that the entire killing debate has overshadowed the much more important debate that should be taking place: is it appropriate to spread Christian propaganda through a video game that is predicated on the exclusion of a religious or racial group or groups? Of course exclusing non-Christians is such a broad category that n oone can truly claim that they're the targets of discrimination. But the fact remains: a game like this, killing or not, is rooted in a patriarchal religion that has constantly prooved itself to be xenophobic, homophobic, imperialistic, and generally intollerant of difference and diversity.

So I too am on the side that the original article, if it is wrong, has done harm--it has harmed the legitimacy needed to foster the much more important debate that must take place, the debate about the legitimacy of a game that engages in religious discrimination in a society where none is supposed to be permitted.