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Rated: E · Article · Religious · #1947847
What I feel about the "subliminal message" in the Dead Space video game.
If you hadn't played Dead Space yet, I suggest you try it. Its a very interesting video game. I want to discuss the obvious subliminal message in the video game though. I find it a very interesting topic that many people do not seem to notice or comment on.
For those of you who never heard of Scientology or Unitology(fictional religion look it up in google) I suggest you read up on those topics before reading this article and compare the two religions. One is fictional and one is an official religion.
As I watched my brother play through Dead Space, I noticed that there was a religion in the game called Unitology. I thought that seemed strange, because it had a name that reminded me of a religion I had heard of in real life, Scientology. Neither name seems like the name of a religion, but more of an academic discipline or professional career, like psychology.
When I first heard of Scientology I became very interested in it, and I would read up more and more on it and watch youtube videos on what followers of this religion had to say about it, also what the critics had to say about it. I remember reading the website and learning about what they do, and what they believe. As I learned about it from their point of view and from the point of view of others who say that it is a crazy religion I ended up deciding that it is not for me. No offense to them, but even if I look at it purely from their point of view it still isn't something I want to pursue.
What I feel, is that the creators of Dead Space more than likely are a critic of Scientology. If you look at some of the books advertised for the fictional Unitology religion in the game they look very similar to scientology books and advertisements. Even if you compare the fonts of the letters used. Unitologists are the enemy in this game, they are crazy, rabid zealots that are willing to fight to the bitter end.
If you look at what the critics of Scientology have to say, you will see that that is exactly how they view scientologists as, crazy rabid delusional religious zealots. What I find interesting is how the creators managed to bring up a fictional religion that anyone who is familiar with scientology could instantly look at this fictional religion and think, "scientology spoof". Even more interesting is the fact that scientologists couldn't dare say that this game mocks their religion without first recognizing the similarities, and doing so is just not a good thing for scientology! If a scientologist were to point out how similar this antagonistic fictional religion was to their own, it would end up making their own religion look bad. Because this fictional religion, I feel, does point out many faults in the religion of scientology and what could happen if followers went to far to spread their beliefs. Of course, I do highly doubt it would be as extreme as the video game makes it out to be, there would be no flesh eating necromorphs im sure.
Anyway, because this fictional religion does such a good job at being so similar to the real thing without it really being "Scientology" it really opens a person's eye in a way toward scientology. Many people may play Dead Space before they hear of Scientology and as a result have a certain bias against scientology when they first discover it is a real religion!
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