The Game of Life and the Death of Judeo-Christianity
In 1975 I bought my first computer, an IBM 5100, for $15,000 to automate the bookkeeping for my vending machine business. This was about two years before the Apple II was available for less than 1/10th that price. I got a book from the library on BASIC programming and started off writing my first program, The Game of Life.
The concept is very simple: take a grid that looks like a 3x3 tic-tac-toe board. Each cell can have a number of states, in the classical game of life there are two possible states, live or dead. Every cell interacts with its neighbours, which are the cells that are directly horizontally, vertically, or diagonally adjacent. At each step in time, the following transitions occur [from Wiki]:
1. Any live cell with fewer than two live neighbours dies, as if by loneliness.The initial pattern constitutes the 'seed' of the system. The first generation is created by applying the above rules simultaneously to every cell in the seed-- births and deaths happen simultaneously, and the discrete moment at which this happens is sometimes called a tick. (In other words, each generation is based entirely on the one before.) The rules continue to be applied repeatedly to create further generations.
2. Any live cell with more than three live neighbours dies, as if by overcrowding.
3. Any live cell with two or three live neighbours lives, unchanged, to the next generation.
4. Any dead cell with exactly three live neighbours comes to life.
Some examples of the game of life using different rules and graphics can be found here.
What made me think of this recently is a post I recently read:
Islamic Threat, 12 Jan 2007,
White Texans Turning MuslimI have some people in my own family who unfortunately converted to the violent and vile religion of Islam even though the belonged to a family with strong Christian tradition. In their case it was due to the fact that their immediate parents were not strong Christians, they actually mocked Christianity and never made any effort to teach their kids about Jesus Christ. Instead, they sent them to Islamic schools. They ended up joining Islam in America because they fell in love with Muslim women who would not marry Christians. Once you fall into that trap it is hard to get out unless you have a miracle.
Although devout Christians or Jews may in fact be very disappointed if their offspring marry outside their religion, they will not murder them in defense of honor.
So I thought to myself what would the game of life look like if we fill the cells with Muslims, Christians, and Jews and apply real life rules:
1. Any empty cell turns Jewish if it has at least two Jewish neighbors.
2. Any empty cell turns Christian if it has at least two Christian neighbors.
3. Any empty cell turns Muslim if it has at least two neighbors any one of which is Muslim.
and in case there are more than two neighbors:
4. Any empty cell turns into the religion of the majority religion of its neighbors, provided no Muslim neighbor is touching it, in which case it turns Muslim.
5. A Jewish cell dies if it has a Muslim neighbor.
6. A Christian Cell dies if it has a Muslim neighbor.
And just as in real life where a Muslim man or woman can only marry another Muslim at pain of death, here is what absolutely every game of life with these rules devolves into:
We have all seen maps like the following in films such as Outbreak and Ratcatcher where disease or vermin threaten to spread uncontrollably over the globe.
In actual fact, it is a map of the spreading disease of Islam.
When Western civilization allows Muslims to come into contact with its citizens, according to the rules of life laid down by Islam itself, it spreads Islam, not by the sword, but by marriage. The conclusion to the real live game of life is no different than the computer simulation.
Disclaimer: Islam is not the only religion that believes in "Convert or Die." I should mention that there are sects within other religions that are just as extreme as Islam:
ADL, 20 Dec 2006,
'Left Behind' Video Game Promotes Intolerance of Jews and Non-Christian FaithsThe video game, "Left Behind – Eternal Forces" promotes an exclusionary Christian theology that believes Jews and others must convert or be killed at the End of Days, according to an analysis of the game by ADL experts in interfaith affairs and PC gaming, who reviewed a copy of the CD-ROM released by Left Behind Games Inc., part of the multimillion empire of pastor Tim LaHaye, co-author of the "Left Behind" book series.
Photo credits to Tic-Tac-Toe Mosaic at top of post: Jewish Image: Flickr-User Tsefiya
