I found a excerpt online written by a fan of the series that relates well.
1 John 1:7 - But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin (NIV).
Since this is a translation (don’t quote me on this) from Hebrew to Greek to Latin to English with thousands of years of potential lost precision, allow me to reword this verse, while staying true to the original meaning:
But if we walk in the light, as HE is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and HIS sacrifice purifies us from all sin.
This is how I understand this verse: that by being good people, as Jesus taught us to, we will have a peaceful existence will those around us, and Jesus’ death really will forgive all of our sins. I think you will agree that my wording, while not literal, keeps with this meaning.
“My interpretation draws the attention to the Master Chief - Jesus Christ parallel. Obviously, HE and HIM refer to both of them. Master Chief’s sacrifice (his entire military career, losing his Spartan brothers, losing Cortana, potential death) will allow Humanity to achieve a lasting piece. And by following Master Chief’s morals: determination, bravery, fighting for what you believe in, never giving up, etc. Humanity will maintain that peace”.
If you also notice Tartarus is a reference to Peter 2:4. I see purple fluorescent energy shields… Apparently there contained fields of Hydrogen Plasma. There ships glow purple an we know it can be used as a fuel source. Hydrogen is the most abundant known element in the universe an appears purple an violet when Ionized. Bessel functions are mentioned in a halo novel along with Fourier series. These references to facts seem to enrich the sci-fi Halo universe making it seem more plausible. What have you noticed hinted at in game.
If you go in halo reach or halo reach in mcc either way.
Go to the sangheili character armors for pvp each armor set hints to a bible verse. I couldn’t tell you the specific verses for the life of me but they’re there.
I do love Bible references and i will say that you saying it probably has lost precision is inaccurate. We have very old manuscripts that are very close if not the exact same to what we have now. Lots of good Apologetics stuff out there if you want to look it gets really cool. I like the more technical side of it and the Answers in Genesis people are great for that. Mike Winger and Cross Examined are also great.
This may also interest you: Bungie also kept the Bible references going in Destiny if you go look there too. Its one of the reasons i stuck with Future War Cult in D1.
Jesus died because of a bunch of politics in a time when people were not in need yet acting selfishly (having great abundance but quarrelling and talking guile, for all your religious folks out there).
Jesus’s death was basically some dude who wasn’t lying telling people to stop being a lying sob and then being martyred for just being normal none sinning individual, and then he didn’t even die so wasn’t even a good martyre.
Again, while Religion and Fiction are often compared, they are not the same thing. Religion has, to some extent (politics aside) Historical context for human’s pre-silicon technology. Fiction is just made-up stuff about imagination.
Confuse the two (Fiction and Religion) at your own peril.
The UNSC is a fictional future version of humanity, one where the influences of the past will be present, but Halo is still just fiction and has no bearing on reality, other than making its player base seethe for various different reasons, so yes, the UNSC who created John-117 might have been religious with their choice, but only in the sense that this is a fictional Halo Universe where the best (and worst) of humanity in a fictional setting takes place.
This isn’t a good synopses. The mods probably wouldn’t let us debate this topic here but I would like to at least ask you look into this more from different sources than wherever you got this idea from as it is fundamentally incorrect.
As for the rest of your statement I guess i get what you mean if you are saying not to mix Fiction and Religion together. I would generally agree as references could be blasphemous/insulting at worst. I would say the same should apply to modern social issues as you are always going to offend someone and pandering to a group doesn’t do anything but alienate others.
At what point did I say this was Preaching or Gospel: it was meant to shut down the notion that a bit of fiction has any kind of “secret messages” in them and point out that the parrelells are because Halo is a fictional Universe based on our current one.
The point I made is that the universe of halo stems from a fictional one that we currently have today and Halo probably has all the religions we currently have.
Blasphemy implies I know the rules of blasphemy, know the holy scripture that I am directly defiling/perverting, and that I had some ulterior motive: it was/is a literal summary of what literally happened to Jesus based on my own personal knowledge of the topic as of 2022.
Your inability to put things in context is blasphemy, in my opinion.
I get what you were saying. I wasn’t saying you were actually committing blasphemy but i was saying that putting religion in games, especially real ones beyond small references, can end up as insulting. So it would be easier to just not have them in games especially when its not necessary.
To the second point i also understand you were just speaking from your knowledge of Jesus’ life. I was just saying its incomplete but figured the mods would shut anything down if i said more than that.
Jesus died for religious not political reasons. Pilot specifically asks Jesus if He is starting a new kingdom which would of been a political movement and Jesus basically says no. He was there to atone for our sins not to overthrow the Roman government so not a political thing. Some? Jewish people and their leaders at that time considered much of what Jesus said blasphemous as He stated He was an equal to God. They also didn’t like how He called out religious hypocrisy. It was also part of a divine plan to save as many people as possible (when the world was ready for a savior). This is a super brief summary and definitely doesnt capture everything but i would recommend reading the New Testament if you want multiple eye witness accounts.
The opiate that being able to commit any sin you want, because people like Jesus are killed, is a very specific narrative that I would love to see addressed with AI infused, spartan propelled vengeance in the Halo Universe.
There wouldn’t be any part of any halo in space that was not consecrated by the sheer dominant force of UNSC retribution at the thought that Jesus’s death was a “warning to others like Jesus” to allow sinners the misguided grace of thinking they could sin.
But that’s probably why I do not work for the Halo Francise.
Spartan-681 (an intentional play on the concept of picking on an individual, in cannibal form: “Six people ate one person”) and the GON (Geographical Online Node) AI would decimate those that enslave and conquer mindlessly knowing full well that they are sinning. There would be no corner you could hide under in the Halo Universe that would not relentlessly pursue a sinner until they were all part of the the GON network.
“It’s only a matter of time before you are GON” - Spartan-681
Out of genuine curiosity may i ask why you think this? Jesus is quoted to saying He did not come for a worldly kingdom and the religious leaders of that time are the ones who pushed for the crucifixion.
From a game point of view i would say i still prefer not to have any religion in there as i juat think its unnecessary but if they are going to do it I liked how Doom 2016 did it i.e. Hell and Demons = bad
They did use political systems to get Him crucified and the back then the Jewish people had a sort of theocracy so i guess it wasn’t just religious but i would argue the reasons were mostly religious.
It was the religious implications Jesus made that the Jewish leaders and some people disagreed with that caused them to want to have Him killed.
I would agree references would be fine. What i meant by not having it in games was to make it a central theme. The Covenant’s false religion in Halo CE-3 was a core theme which i find okay because its not real.
Also thank you for engaging in a respectful conversation. I wish you the best in your Halo endeavors.
You were either Jewish, Gentile, or Pharisee at the time of Jesus’s death… so I am not too sure what revelations you think are being made by making a statement like that: it applies to humans universally, especially in times when there is great abundance and the majority are “well off”.
haha it’s good to discuss things and question, I think the main point of this thread should be that the Halo Universe is fictional BUT is based on our current (or rather 2001’s) projection for the future, so will naturally have some references to things we recognise.
I should also point out that some Christians see links to the bible/religion like this and believe it is some kind of divine message from God and forget that when connections like this are seen that they “connect” because a human has intentionally made them connect or just happened to think the similar things to get similar outcomes. I use the analogy of humans being “neurons in a bottle” in that there are only so many thoughts, feelings, and experiences those neurons can have while in the bottle: if you have 2 bottles of neurons, it’s likely they might have overlapping thoughts as they are restricted by their interactions of the world via glass.
But yeah, that’s a bit deep, more references could be cool, but I doubt anyone will get away with including them in 2022… we are no longer in 2001…
I am not sure what you are getting at here at the end but Pharisees were Jewish, not a separate group of people. You were either Jewish or Gentile which just means non-Jewish.
Another thing to take into account is how the player preceives their character. If you gave the main characters a religion then you will make anyone not in that religion feel less connected to the characters. Outside of Halo 4 and 5, Master Chief has been designed for the player to see themselves in the character more than see themselves playing a very well defined character. I would argue thats one of the reasons Halo 4 and Halo 5 are the worst 2 Halo games.
It should be noted Dergon has only played reach and infinite so is likely unaware of all the context/nuance at play in your replies or OP’s reading of the information.
Im not sure how aware they are of the explicit links between Abrahamic theology/religion/faiths and the franchise.
Or even the overt examples like the flood, ark, john or arbiter as analogues to judeo-christian texts so you may have to be more comprehensive in response, than your already thorough posts have been.
For the sake of maintained clarity/intelligibility.
It is literally described in the bible like that. The difference between a “Jew” and a “Pharisee” is that the Pharisee is a zealot for their or their perceived groups personal sanctity while someone who is Jewish just happens to be a member of that faith. A Gentile is neither.
As androgenous male character, with stereotypically male stereotypes bar extreme toxic masculinity, in a game about shooting guns at aliens (they have big booty female Spartans in Halo 5 and everyone knows it).
Unless you have a clear vision that you narratively pursue, most game studios become bureaucratic nightmares where “the perfect shade of green” is more important than the storyline or gameplay: the thing Halo has not lost is the gameplay, which has remained pretty consistent throughout games, but the story is just horsecarp narrative that feels like a first version of the script that came from the writing table once everyone had democratically voted on it.
So my opinion is objectively unbiased, you should listen to me more @Moditor_026 , you might learn something instead of constantly telling people they are wrong even when it does not make sense.
Pharisees and Sadducees were still Jewish. I am still not sure of the original point you were trying to make by splitting them up though.
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This doesn’t make sense. What is the sentence after the colon refering to?
The point is Chief didn’t have much of a personality besides exceptional confidence. That allowed the player to fill in the emotions that weren’t directly presented. This is where overt religious references would alienate many players. And was there a reason you brought up Halo 5 female spartan physiques?
Having played every single Halo (except Spartan Strike and the Dave and Buster’s acade game) i know this is just wrong. Halo 4 is not even an arena shooter anymore, Reach barely is with its psuedo loadouts, and Halo 5’s advanced movement changes much more than many like to admit (because they want to say thats how all Halo’s should be going forward but thats another topic for another day [don’t want @Moditor_026 to have to read my Kirby analogy a 3rd time ]).
Infinite actually feels like a proper sequel to Halo 3 so there are quite a few Halo games that don’t play like Halo, for lack of better wording here.
Jews that “denied the resurrection” was a thing; I was talking specifically about the period before Jesus was democratically put on trial and murdered by majority vote due to the roman emperor killing a bunch of protestors to a proposed aqueduct project, an act for which the roman emperor did not want the information getting back to Rome so democratically sacrificed Jesus to “sate the masses”.
A member of an ancient Jewish Sect separate by the strict observance of written and traditional law, of which they believe grants them a superios sense of sanctity.
Grouping Pharisees and Sadducees is literally like saying Catholics and Protestants are the same thing because they are Christian.
You do not make sense, yet here I am tolerating you.
He literally is the stereotypical male without any major or unpersuadable negative traits. They lobotomised a man to shoot good and be strong, but he isn’t very unpredictable (received order from whoever he thinks is most authoritative, purses order until completion).
Oh yeah, every season of Halo Multiplayer has been a massive and drastic change to the way people play, just like Fortnite.
How did I overlook that!
It’s objectively a great game that is enjoyable to play, from “someone who has only played Reach”.
Never said you were wrong.
Any perception that I did would ironically be due to your bias haha.
The fact you havent played the 3 games whose references are core to the OP’s interpretation of the chief and whose entire narrative is based upon various readings of Christianity is relevant.
It doesnt make you less bias it makes you uninformed.
No it would be like saying Catholics and Protestants are both Christian, which is entirely correct.
A Lutheran is a Christian just as a Sadducees is a jew or a Kharijite is a muslim.
Not sure even CE was spoon. Although its nebulous at best to define arena shooters or halo itself.
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