Pat Robertson: Murder Committed In Video Games Is No Different Than Real Life Murder

from the everyone-is-going-to-hell dept

If you aren't a certain Christian denomination or a zillion years old, you may not be too familiar with Pat Robertson . Minister Robertson is the man behind, which is apparently still on the air, as well as the Chancellor of Regent University, a former presidential candidate, and an author. Amongst his other accomplishments was incorrectly predicting the end of the world in 1982 (though that is the year I was born. Hmm...), praying away hurricanes, calling for the assassination of Hugo Chavez (for Jesus!) and basically indicating that most natural disasters and terrorist attacks of late come strictly as a result of all our sinful ways, which is to say acting in any way Pat Robertson didn't specifically tell us to. That last bit should now be taking on an epically more terrifying hue of fear, given how Robertson recently answered an emailed question on his television program



Holy shit (get it?). Should you be unable to see the embedded video, the question asked how sins are assessed in video games. Robertson answered by quoting The Nazarene as saying that lusting after a woman was the same as committing adultery (Yay! Thought crime!). Building off of that, Robertson suggested that "that's a virtual sin, if you play one of those [violent/salacious] video games" before gleefully stating he's never played a video game in his life. Then, to drive the point home, he brings up Grand Theft Auto and says "if you murder someone in cyber-space, in a sense you're performing the act whether you like it or not."



Hoo-boy. Here I was, going about my day, looking up obscure trademark and copyright stories while thinking up penis-jokes, all the while I had no idea that I've committed more murders than Stalin. And I did it gleefully. And it isn't just murder I'm guilty of either. Think of the number of animal abuse charges that could be leveled at me for all those turtles I stomped on in Super Mario Bros., or the genocides I've committed in Mass Effect. And, yeah, I've played GTA too, and you don't even want to know the stuff I've done in that game.



If all these are sins equal to their real-life counterparts, there's got to be a terrorist attack or tsunami bearing down on me at this exact moment. Or, perhaps we shouldn't be asking the elderly and willfully ignorant how they assess what we do in video games. Otherwise, we'll just get the same responses we've received about nearly every other form of entertainment before they became commonplace.

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community. Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis. While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: murder, pat robertson, sins, video games