Video Killed......No One

Hi.

My name is Alessia.

And I play violent video games.

Now according to recent pundits and talking heads, that statement alone should have you running away from me screaming in terror and ducking for cover.  According to these same pundits and talking heads, the statement above also relegates me to being an insane, mentally unstable person, who loves guns and killing children. 

Let me just start off by saying that I hate guns. I'm terrified of them, which I think is the ACTUAL point of a gun.  It can end your life in a fraction of a second. And I'm pretty happy being that whole "alive" thing, so I make it a point to stay as far away from real guns as possible.  (Much to my husband's dismay). 

Notice I said "real guns".

Now on the flip side, you get me the BFG 9000 (that stands for Big Fucking Gun in the DOOM video game series) and I will gladly blast everything that has a pulse within 100 feet of me.  Yes, even cute puppies and kitties.

Why, you say?  BECAUSE IT"S NOT FUCKING REAL. That's why.

I am so fracking tired of the folks that come out after a tragedy such as Newton or Aurora and blame the "violent video game industry" for these horrific acts.  Video games are not the cause. Mental illness is the cause.  People who can't discern reality from fantasy are mentally ill, they don't become mass murders because they mastered the eviscerating finishing moves in Mortal Kombat.  (Oh, and FYI, I've played MK since its inception in 1992 and NEVER ONCE have I ripped anyone's spine out, launched harpoons from my face, or turned anyone into ice only to smash them to bits and disintegrate them.)  A mentally ill person will discern violence from anything.  Wasn't it David Berkowitz, the Son of Sam killer, who claimed his neighbor's German Shepherd was talking to him and giving him orders to kill?  Did anyone blame Pong for his violent crimes?  Was slapping a 16 bit ball across a screen the cause for his wrath?  Was Pong even invented when the Son of Sam was shooting people at random?  (Let me check: YES! Pong was developed in 1972, Berkowitz acted out in 1977). So there!  Did anyone blame the violent video game Pong for the Son of Sam's crimes?!?!

No.  They blamed his mental illness. 

Are we getting dumber or more paranoid?  Why can't people acknowledge that crazy people exist and need help, rather than try to point the finger at what they think is the cause.  In the 80's it was heavy metal that was blamed.  Remember when Judas Priest was on trial because some idiot kids decided to commit suicide and one of them "missed" and ended up blowing half his face off and surviving?  Yes, it was totally Judas Priest's fault for creating such eeeevil hits like "Turbo Lover" and "Hell Bent for Leather".  Hell, if anything, the gay undertones should have made anyone want to strap on some boots and a corset and find the nearest fetish party, but no Cletus shoots his face off and Judas Priest is blamed. 

 

 

What about the Dungeons and Dragons scare that had parents confiscating 20-sided dice and pewter wizards from the hands of their innocent children for fear that "witchcraft and wizardry" would lead them to "teh devilz" and suicide? 

The fact of the matter is, I come from a generation that grew up with video games. As a child, I held the Atari 2600 and the Colecovision in my little hands and jumped over crocodiles, swung from vines, and dodged cobras in Pitfall. I jumped barrels and avoided fireballs all in the hopes of saving the princess from a fierce gorilla in Donkey Kong.  I strutted about as I defeated Zaxxon, and helped save the world from evil terrorists (with my brother, of course) as freedom fighting Contras.  And naturally, I've evolved as my game systems evolved.  I went on quests for Zelda, I fought vampires and Dracula in the far off land of Castlevania, and I landed on the planet Zebes and defeated the Queen Metroid. 

And then, I got my first taste of blood. Zombie blood, that is, when I first visited Raccoon City and stocked up on ammo, honing my talent for the "head-shot" and making sure I was always within an arm's length from danger.  War games ensued (though I don't much care for them because I suck at first-person shooters), followed by hand-to-hand combat with worthy opponents who would dismember me (or I them) at the drop of a hat (or command by Shang Tsung).



On and on, the list is endless of the games I have played and creatures I have killed.  Whether human, alien, robot, ghost, undead, vampire, zombie, dog, cat, monster, or any other living creature, I have killed it.  Sometimes, the kills are clean and simple. Other times, brutal and gory.  Sometimes, I've kicked people off of cliffs, beaten them to death with a baseball bat, run over them in my Camaro, or stolen their money and fled the police.  I executed a hit for a Mob Boss once and then beat up a hooker just because I felt like it.  One time, I even killed my partner.

Sounds terrible doesn't it?  I'm a violent person, aren't I?  I'm sick in the head, right?

Not quite. 

You see, there's something sane people know and understand that mentally ill people don't.  Reality is not fantasy and vice versa.  I would NEVER in a million years do any of the things in video games in the real world because DUH how stupid do you have to be?  Ok Ok Ok, I admit, that if the zombie apocalypse were to visit my actual front door, I would shoot them in the head, but that's just a big "if" and not likely to happen (famous last words, right?)

And yes, I will fully concede that sometimes people use violent video games as an excuse for their behavior. Case in point, the Black Hawk pilots who used civilians as target practice and who could be heard on their coms laughing and joking about how it was just like "Call of Duty" and "Medal of Honor".  I would post the video here, but it really is too disturbing. Google it. You'll see.  Even in this case, I don't blame violent video games for their behavior.  They're soldiers in a war.  You can't tell me that a mental break is out of the questions. And in no way am I excusing their behavior of claiming they were insane, but psych evals of our soldiers need to be improved as well as the length of their tours and re-ups, but that's a whole other blog post all together.

So what have I been trying to express in this disjointed blog?  Basically, to the talking heads and pundits, quit placing blame where it isn't merited.  Violent video games are not the reason why people shoot up schools and movie theaters. A failed mental health system is.  A failure to diagnose, to care for, and to keep caring for people who have severe mental issues is to blame.  Not Duck Hunt, or Mario Kart, or Final Fantasy, or Resident Evil.  If that were true a HUGE part of Gen X'ers would be rampaging killing machines.  Instead, we're 30-something year old moms and dads who revel in the 30 minutes they get after bedtime to hold that Xbox/Playstation/Wii controller and save the world.

Reality Bites

With the recent violence in Aurora and Wisconsin, the secular community has once again come under attack for our godlessness and our insistent stance on separating church from state.  Congressmen and women have claimed that "god is angry" with America because the "atheists" have taken "god out of schools and our lives".  The always jovial and friendly televangelist Pat Robertson, you know, the guy who spews this kind of crap constantly, has now blamed "satanic atheists" for all that's going on.



Lovely right?

And, of course, the Twitterverse and Facebookland are filled with the whole "it was probably an atheist that committed those crimes because they don't have any morals or ethics and they eat babies and hate god and punch old ladies and kick puppies and think killing is awesome".  Maybe not in so many words but that is the general gist of the comments and conversations I have been witness to.

The most common statement I have come across lately is the "how easy it is to be an atheist because you just don't care about anything and don't have to worry about god judging you".  To this statement, I cry a loud and resounding "BULLSHIT".  Being an atheist is fracking hard and trust me when I tell you that I have tried with every ounce of my body to "believe" but simply cannot find the logic behind it.

"Ha!"You say. "The atheist wants to believe because deep down they know there is a god!" No. Sadly, deep down inside I am 99.999999999999% sure there isn't.  There reason I try to believe is because, face it, reality bites sometimes and I don't have the lovely cushion of security and comfort religion provides.  When a 6 year old is gunned down in a movie theater I don't have that "she's with Jesus now" mentality.  I have reality telling me that a 6 YEAR OLD is dead and her parents will never see her again. She will never grow up. She will never have a boyfriend, smile, eat, play, hug or kiss anyone, and she will never have the luxury of being alive that everyone seems to take advantage of.  The theist has the blissful advantage of being sad for this tragedy, but then actually believing that this little girl is now crowned with a halo and fluttering around Heaven with Jesus and all of her dead relatives and pets.  Her parents are comforted in their beliefs that when they die, they'll "meet up" again and everything is hunky dory.  How nice.  Really, I don't mean that in a snotty way.  There is no snark behind that statement.  To have that belief that someone you love is "waiting for you" in the next life, makes these horrible things well, a little less horrible.

Let me tell you. If one of my children were killed or died of a disease or something horrible like that, I would die myself.  Because, as an atheist, I don't have that belief of them "watching over me" or "in Heaven" or that I will "see them again".  My reality is that my child is gone.  Forever.  And I will never, ever, ever, be with them again.  So when tragedies like Aurora and Wisconsin happen, or I read about a baby with terminal cancer, or children starve to death, I'm not thinking they are in a "better place". I cry because they are dead and gone forever.  And that is a hard pill to swallow. A very very hard pill.

There have been only a handful of times that I tried very hard to put myself in the place of a religious person and try to "believe".  The biggest one for me was my grandmother's death.  I couldn't fathom that one minute she was here and the next not.  I would give both my arms and legs to see her for just 5 more minutes.  The theist has the comfort in believing that they actually will. The reality that my grandmother is gone forever is devastating, even after almost 20 years.  Death, at least for this atheist, is terrifying, and I don't want to face it.  The reality that my life, my parents' lives, my children's lives, my husband's life and all the lives of the people I care about are fragile and temporary frightens me to no end.  There are nights I wake up out of a sound sleep so afraid that I am going to die that I can't fall back to sleep.  It's horrible. 

It frustrates me to no end when people say they are "living for the next life".  Why?  Life is so amazing and wonderful, why would anyone waste it waiting for the afterlife.  It boggles the mind.  And it frustrates me even more when I'm told I "have it easy" with "no responsibilities or consequences" for my actions because sky daddy doesn't exist.  That's a scary statement.  It implies that the speaker is only decent and good because they fear repercussions from "god".  That, if in fact they did not have god in their lives, they would be on murderous rampages.  How absolutely frightening.

So let me tell you, an atheist doesn't have it easy.  Apart from being blamed for all the crap that goes on in the world, blamed for corrupting the childre, and moral fibers of society (I think we are tied with gays and lesbians on that one), blamed for being "intolerant" and general "meanies", we also carry the huge burden of seeing things as they really are.  There's no "he's dead but...." in our little world.  There's no "satan", causing people to do evil.  There's no "god's will", determining who lives or dies. There's no notion that we are this amazingly special creature created in the image of a deity who rule the planet and the Universe.  As the amazing Bill Nye, the Science Guy said, "I'm this guy standing on a planet. Really I'm just a speck. Compared with a star, the planet is just another speck. To think about all of this, To think about the vast emptiness of space.There's billions and billions of stars.Billions and billions of specks".



It's pretty humbling to be a speck.

But reality as an atheist isn't all doom and gloom.  I have the wonder of the Universe to marvel at and realize how absolutely amazing it is to be here at this moment right now.  The landing of the Mars Curiosity puts everything into perspective on how marvelous it is to be a human being.  No deity or supernatural forces needed.  Reality may bite when dealing with "the hard stuff", but in the end, it is really awesome and it is what makes this little trip around the sun so much more worth it.  I don't have the promise of an afterlife running around my head.  I have the promise that this life is all of I've got and I've got to make it worth something to myself and the people around me.  What a waste to do otherwise.