andrew@orca.UUCP (Andrew Klossner) (10/01/85)
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"Thank you, Frank, for getting to the heart of the matter. The
main point IS (emphasis mine) the distinction between fantasy
and reality. The Bible makes many injunctions against the use
of witchcraft, sorcery, and such like. Christians who are
following the teachings of the Bible MUST NOT engage in such
activities."
The Bible makes much stronger injunctions against murder, but I don't
hear anyone equating D&D role-played sword deaths with real murder.
The analogy to D&D role-played magic should be clear.
Also, there is a school of thought which believes that, in the Biblical
injunctions against "suffering a witch to live", the word "witch" is
actually "poisoner" in the original text.
"The upshot of all this is that the narrow-minded
fundamentalists are concerned over the inclusion of spells and
ingredients which were taken seriously as coming from Satan in
the Middle Ages. They want it out."
The obvious solution is for such people not to play D&D. There are
plenty of role playing games, including D&D's predecessor (Chainmail),
which have no magic.
-=- Andrew Klossner (decvax!tektronix!tekecs!andrew) [UUCP]
(tekecs!andrew.tektronix@csnet-relay) [ARPA]