DMScott said:
About the only circumstances under which I interact with a stranger to the point that I learn they're christian is when they're trying to convert me. I've noticed that one tactic during such conversion attempts is to tell me the other things I'm doing "wrong", so D&D will likely be treated negatively.
I've had this experience as well (kinda). I knew a couple (5 or so) die-hard Christians back in high school, all whom knew I played D&D (or at least held an interest in it). Only one of them took offense, and that's most likely because she had several abusive boyfriends in the past, all of whom played the game. I asked, and she said that he opinion of the game had nothing to do with her religious faith, but rather that she concluded (by some manner of logic) that D&D turns good guys into abusive guys (which is of course false). She said that she was worried that I was going to turn into an evil woman-beater as well. After being assured by myself and everyone around her (while I wasn't exactly popular, I was well known to be a nice guy) that I was not, and an explanation of how all her ex-boyfriends were instead weak-minded 'playas', she changed her opinion about the game. And that was the only anti-D&D sentiment that I have ever personally experienced.
Now that I've related this little anecdote, on to my view of the subject at hand.
A bit of biography just because: I was raised by a conservative christian mother and an logic-minded agnostic father (Go figure, right?). Of course, since when a man gets married he looses his ability to have an opinion (in most cases), I was raised christian. Was Christian until approximately age 12, when I (as I prefer to say) "Started thinking for myself." and decided that religion is not for me, and I'm now Agnostic.
ANYway, one summer we were over at my maternal Grandfather's house in Ohio for a family reunion. Now, my grandfather is just about the most religious man you will ever meet, though he isn't a fanatic. He was sitting there on the couch watching his Three Stooges videos and chuckling like no tomorrow. I'm sitting on a couch on the other side of the TV reading through my 2nd edition Player's Handbook, and my granddad takes a look over and notices the book. Doesn't bat an eyelash. Actually asks me if he can take a look at it. As it turns out, he was interested in how the game had changed over the years, since his youngest daughter (my aunt Jackie) used to play when she was a kid, and he had read through the OD&D rules a few times to clarify a few things for her. Then he did this hilarious Jack Chick impression which had me on the floor laughing. Y'see, he can have really neat evil eye thing going on when he wants to and...well...you get the point.
I guess my point is that a religion is a religion is a religion. The tennents of the faith apply to how you live your life and various other things (varies from faith to faith). And while Christian policy doesn't exactly have the best track record for tolerance (see: Crusades, Witch Burnings, The Spanish Inquisition, etc.), one would do well to acknowledge that it is the few, the powerful, the Bishops, Cardinals, and the Pope who create and implemented these policies. Jack Chick simply took an enormously skewed opinion of D&D, decided to spread it, and found an outlet in the largest religious group America: Christians. As Americans scare easily, and the majority take religion seriously, this idea of D&D = EVIL BAD BAD NASTINESS took hold in a small minority of Christians, and since most who took this view were fanatics in the first place, this opinon had a loud voice, and got a lot of publicity.
Thus was the myth/legend/idea/image/thingy of the Anti-D&D Christian born.
