Rather than a blistering attack on Spore's neo-Darwinist pro-evolution agenda and pollution of our children's precious bodily fluids — a post to the site today revealed it was in fact an incredibly elaborate Rickroll.

In a post entitled "Understand my beliefs please" the creator of the site laid out a scripture-heavy exegesis culminating in the following nugget of pure genius.

But the Bible teaches us that God was not done with man. For we were His creation and He then spoke to Noah in Genesis 8:21-27 after the flood. “21. The LORD smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: “Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood. And never gonna give you up. 22. “Never gonna let you down.” 23.”Never gonna run around and desert you.” 24. “Never gonna make you cry.” 25. “Never gonna say goodbye.” 26. “Never gonna tell a lie and hurt you.” 27.”Never truly believe anything you read on the Internet. There will always be cases of Poe’s Law.”

Poe's law, if you were wondering, states that "Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is impossible to create a parody of Fundamentalism that SOMEONE won't mistake for the real thing"

Kudos to you, sir or madam, although far from pouring oil on troubled waters you may only have inflamed further religious argument - the existence of that Rick Astley video being the best argument for Atheism Richard Dawkins never had.

Understand my beliefs please [Antispore.com via Dagbladet.no]

The site purports to be a protest against Spore and its 'attack on Christian values' and consists of several Creature Creator movies of Penis Monsters and other Spore grotesques, alongside posts about what the author claims is the game's pro-evolutionary agenda and corrupting influence on children.

Oh, and the fact that Will Wright is Evil.

Our first thought was "Ha! A clever satire on religious censorship and the intelligent design debate!" quickly followed by, "hang on, it's quite deadpan for satire, isn't it?"

I initially thought it might be some kind of quite funny, reverse-psychology marketing campaign.. but then I got to the bit about the Episcopalian Church being a 'perverted church' that endorses homosexuality and it seemed.. less funny.

The irony is that Spore is only nominally 'about' Evolution. If anything you as a player are an Intelligent Designer. Do you see? It is teaching the controversy!

Anti Spore -Resisting EA’s War on Creationism [Thanks to Scott Owens for the tip]

When religions engage in this kind of spin it always feels a little insidious and it’s this that the wider world objects to when they hear of products such as Guitar Praise and Zoo Race. Indeed, the following text, used at the end of the Zoo Race shareware demo, demonstrates just this:

“Buy the fun game that the big name publishers refused to finance or even show you. Why wait? You can do it, because you are a fun loving creation of God.”

Post Passion of the Christ, big name publishers are only too happy to publish and promote ‘Christian’-targeted content if there's enough money to be made. In the case of Zoo Race big name publishers refuse to finance it not on ideological grounds but simply because it’s awful.

As games writer Kieron Gillen pointed out at the time: “F**king big name publishers. We hate those guys too. Clearly, it couldn’t have anything to do with the glitchy animation, complete lack of physics, my-first-Quake-level geometry and the fact the whole thing is completely batshit insane.”

Considering religions have provided the inspiration for some of the greatest artistic works the world over — Christianity is no exception here — it's a little baffling that game designers wishing to cater to the Christian game consuming public can't do much better than knockoffs of big secular titles and/or something like Zoo Race. I suspect the (often hilarious) lack of quality or clearly 'borrowing' from big AAA titles is what gets most people's hackles up, and that it doesn't matter if it's a secular or religious game.

Guitar Hero Praise: What’s Wrong With The ‘Christian’ Videogame? [GameSetWatch]

Some researchers are convinced that repetitive play of violent games instructs kids in violence, making violent acts more likely. But others argue that video violence is a cathartic replacement for real violent crime, which has gone down since the advent of video games.

While the article does spend a great deal of time dealing with the issues of violent video games, calling out the usual suspects - Grand Theft Auto, Manhunt, etc., it also addresses the fact that there are constructive games out there like SimCity, social games that let you play sports like golf and baseball, and even games that are "just plain fun" like Guitar Hero. These are all titles you hardly ever see mention in writings dealing with the negative aspects of gaming, since so many choose to stick with the negative and forgo the positive completely.

Of course the article isn't without some more sensationalist speak, such as this tidbit from Pastor Kody Kirchhoff of the LiveWire Youth Ministries at Calvary Lutheran Church:

“Aside from the violence, obscenity and negative themes, the larger and greater problem lies in the fact that video games control many people’s hearts and minds, creating a monotonous, zoned-out new reality,”

But even an accusation like this is quickly brought into focus by the follow up.

“God, family and friends do not exist in many games,” he says. “Activities like camping, playing catch with Dad, swimming, or just being a kid have vanished.”

The man has a point. I seem to remember a lot more children outside playing when I was a kid. After school you couldn't throw a rock without hitting a child, a fact that used to make my after school times truly special. While I don't think video games are to blame for the lack of kids screaming at each other outside my window every afternoon, I do think they make a very convenient babysitter for parents who don't have time to play with their children and are too terrified by the concept of child predators to let their babies go outside unattended. If anything, the mainstream media - who often target video games themselves - are to blame, scaring parents out of their minds with special reports about the dangers their children face crossing the street every day.

I digress. This isn't about my opinion. This is about the opinion being distributed to Christian newspapers this month, and the final message from Center for Fathering CEO Carey Casey is one I can really get behind.

“Parents should place limits on children’s media use, including when, where, and how much they can participate. And we should be ready to address common myths that are often portrayed in the media: such as the myths that to be worthwhile you have to be beautiful, that money buys happiness, that sex is merely recreation and has no consequences, and that violence solves problems.”

Getting serious about gaming [ChristianExaminer Online]

Jesus Christ, game developers. What's the matter with you? You know, most of us gamers are just trying to keep our heads low as lawmakers and professional ambulance chasers do their damnedest to lay all of society's ills at our door. Yet what do you do? You go ahead and announce a game so rife with depraved acts of sex and violence that it's set to make Postal 2 look like Mickey's Magic Castle, featuring acts such as:

a) Racial genocide
b) Simultaneous masturbation/electrocution fetishism
c) Infanticide
d) Satanism
e) Incest
f) Disembowelment
g) Castration
h) Crucifixion
i) Pedophillia
j) Bestiality
k) Slavery

And the list goes on and on! Don't you realize Jack Thompson has already smelled the waft of class action lawsuit in the air and will delight in nothing better than suing the impudent scoundrel responsible for creating such a game, thus programming all our nation's children into Murder-Death-Kill machines?

Although maybe that's for the best. After all, in this case, it's God himself who is responsible for The Holy Bible: The Game on the Game Boy Advance, and if anyone's responsible for programming children into flesh puppets of perceived but non-existent free will, it's not gaming, but my main man upstairs, YHWH. Florian Eckhardt

The Holy Bible: The Game [Video Games Blogger]