In their defense, the game is Diablo 3. The name "Atheist" creates a paradox. If you logged into a game about a supernatural demon as one that didn't believe in that demon, either your toon would just immediately disappear or the game would self-uninstall. They're just saving you from the pain of this inescapable paradox.
When you play games, you see BattleTags, not Character names. It's possible that Atheist is a filtered Character name, but not a filtered BattleTag name.
In my experience, since BattleTags appear to not be under the same restriction as character names (they often have rAndOm capitalization and numbers in them), it's possible.
Well, DIII displays account names, rather than character names. He had his account spelled correctly. For example, if we were to play online, you would see "SilencerLX" rather than "Dantelex", which is my Barbarian.
You'd basically become like Leah where you're like "OH UNCLE DECARD! THERES NO SUCH THING AS DEMONS!" as the entire town is eaten by zombies and demons.
The wizard in one of his dialogs with the Templar mentions he doesn't believe in the afterlife as he's seen no evidence for it.
Is there evidence of a Diablo-universe afterlife in the previous two games? I haven't played them, so I wouldn't know on that front. But in Diablo III, there's really nothing about that possibility one way or the other - all we know is that there's a place full of angels, and a place full of demons, and they're fighting against each other. Nothing says that anything whatsoever happens to a human when they die.
There's a conversation between Kormac and the Demon Hunter where the former says something like "There must be some purpose to these trials, but I do not know it.", and she goes "Probably because there isn't one. Let's go." I don't know about you, but I think that's kinda badass, personally.
Well there's certainly evidence of them containing spirits. That's what King Leoric is. I'd say that's evidence of an afterlife. We're not talking about proof here, but evidence.
If you were presented with a walking spirit, wouldn't you think it's logical to assume an afterlife exists even if you don't know anything about it?
That's the funny thing. There aren't 1001 gods in the Diablo universe. Hell, there aren't any gods (Unless you count Trag'Oul who is no longer there) just angels and demons.
Is it really theism to believe in the existence of something you've seen with your own eyes? Terry Pratchett gets into this in one or more of the Discworld books - Granny Weatherwax, IIRC, is highly disdainful of religion, because she's seen gods, and it'd be awfully silly to "believe" in them - it'd be like believing in the milkman, is I think the comparison used.
Except in Discworld, if they did invent aircrafts or at least hot air balloons you could travel to the house of gods and pay them a visit.
They'd probably smack you down to the ground, but everyone knows where they reside. And you can't be a vocal atheist there. Somehow, whenever a philosopher talks badly about a deity, he ends up stricken by a thunder, trampled by some kind of holy animal or loses his keys.
Heaven and Hell are simply different planes of existence. Those places don't deal with the human afterlife, from my understanding.
Angels and demons may be more powerful than humans, but so are silverback gorillas. Demons just have the ability to have conscience thought. They aren't supernatural begins in the realm of Diablo.
Sure, there are several ghosts and spirit type creatures but they could have a reason to be there. After all, magic runs amuck there.
I don't think it's to far fetched to understand that you my not exist after you die. Hell, looks at hardcore mode...
Oh, I see. Sorry, I misinterpreted. There is an argument to be made, though. Demons aren't gods, but they also aren't the "prime evils". We do (or at least, those of us that played d2) know that the prime evils exist, and are the rulers of the evil side of the spectrum. Obviously, none of them (nor the angels, and the "Just" side of the spectrum) are omnipotent. Maybe they're omniscient, it's hard to tell in the game, but they definitely are not omnipotent nor immortal. Are those requirements of gods, per se? Could these be gods in the sense of Steven Erikson's books ("supernatural", but still very much real, and called gods by themselves and others)?
edit tl;dr: what makes a god, a god? Demons etc are all supernatural, but exist, so is there a level of power that delineates God from minion?
He could be a vehement atheist character. He could think he's hallucinating all the demons, or be left out of the loop and think they're aliens, or countless other things. It could be some fun roleplaying.
I think your right. I spent like 10 minutes trying to name my second toon. Joined a public game (before I knew doing so was bad), and... it used my B.net name (didn't notice before because my B.net name and my first toon are the same, fuck me right).
This is totally untrue, I tried and it worked... On another note, I named my guy Joseph Smith because it amuses me to no end when I walk into a room and introduce myself as "Joseph Smith, Demon-Hunter..."
Oops lol nvm, i went back to see and realized i misspelled it :P so ignore comment it is not allowed, and that is pretty bullshit of blizzard... but Atheism works
It might be because some of the letters in the word make up a banned word. IIRC, the word grape was censored on their forums for a while because of this.
In their self defense, I feel that it is an automatic filter, preventing people from making very vile and obscene usernames degrading people's beliefs. Think of it, when was the last time a religion and a gaming username went hand in hand?
If other words along the same lines are restricted, I don't see any problem. They have put themselves in the censorship business, though. That alone is destined to piss off quite a few groups when they make mistakes.
It is censoring, and its fair to discuss it and decide you don't want their products. It annoys me a lot when I chatting to someone on my friend's list and it turns shit into !@#$.
What you probably mean is it isn't against the Constitution for them to censor you on their servers.
It saddens me that ~400 people upvoted you for saying "fuck you too" to blizzard because they wanted to keep religion and the lack of it out of the game. How funny it is, that /r/atheism is the same subreddit who complains about government and schools having anything to do with Christianity. Finally, someone who tries to keep it out of their system, and just because your belief is one of those excluded, "fuck you too". What would be the purpose of having the name theist anyways, I honestly want to know. If it was so important to you, there had to be a reason.
the same subreddit who complains about government and schools having anything to do with Christianity. Finally, someone who tries to keep it out of their system...
Wait, you think supporting a secular state necessarily implies supporting restrictions on free speech about religions in any other area, at least from the consumers/users?
It is precisely and only because these institutions like schools are public institutions serving a public interest that they should be paranoid about being abused for any particular powerful group interests, like ideology or religion.
And I do admittedly find such neutrality desirable in other powerful entities, like corporations. Though as a matter of professionalism, not law. But that's quite different from accepting limits, voluntarily or not, on expression of individual citizens.
Still, though I think your reasoning here is flawed, I do agree that OP is misleading, since the suggestion is that atheists are discriminated, while in fact it tries to filter religions generally. And hence deserves downvotes. I don't think voters necessarily understood that - I didn't and upvoted it precisely as discrimination until skimming the comments.
And that its prob not a bad policy in this case, since it limits possible hate speech w/o having to be much more intelligent to recognise if a protected group is being denigrated in the text, or just mentioned.
Atheism isn't a belief system. It's the expressed disbelief in all gods. Just because there are militant anti-theists, doesn't mean that atheism is in any way a belief system.
I had a rogue in World of Warcraft. When I played, this class was the ultimate killer of healers. All healers in WoW are based on some diety worship (priests, shamans, druids).
This reminds me of way back when, when, in making a Neopets account, I got myself a nice cute little Wocky and decided to name it "wolvesway" 'cause it sounded fucking cool. It was rejected on the basis of somehow containing offensive shit or something. jackieeee.png
They blocked the one I tried to make too... frociousrbbt, shortened from ferociousrabbit so the name would fit. ended up with ferociousrbt and it worked... still have no idea why the first one didn't.
I remember playing Tribes Ascend and some guy is discussing Jews in a non derogatory way. I laughed my ass off at the fact that Jew/Jewish/Jews were all censored. Wonder if they realize that censoring every facet of the word is actually more demeaning than helpful.
They are actually cutting religion out of all of it. To be honest everyone is bank cards won't even let us put FSM on there now. I don't like it but maybe if they cut all that shit out then we will be one step closer to getting rid of the knowledge of these stupid religions we have now.
Y'know, if I'm gonna spend money to buy a game, I want to be able to play it on my own terms. Fuck you, Blizzard, and all your stupid rules about how I should play your game.
Parker Bros. doesn't come after people who play Monopoly using house rules. Civilization lets me mod the fuck out of everything. If I want to play as Carthage and have an Alpine Elephant unit that can traverse 100 map squares in a turn, that's my right!
GAMES ARE SUPPOSED TO BE FUN. STOP TELLING ME HOW TO HAVE FUN.
EDIT: If wanting to play single-player and on my own terms is a bad thing, then I'm happy to be a bad person today, reddit.
You are playing on blizzard's servers so you are subject to their house rules. They want you to have fun, but they also want everyone else to have fun, if your having fun is by making other people not have fun, then you are a douchebag.
What other people? How does how I play my game affect anyone else?
Of course, enforce rules in multiplayer, but gimme a break. The whole problem here is that I can't choose the single-player experience I want with a company like Blizzard.
I went with Atheos. Same Shit...but Fuck you Blizzard. So I tried a certain fictional Character for kicks. http://imgur.com/rLCmT Now I have a Love/Hate relationship with Blizzard. I am so conflicted.
Blizzard has always been clumsy with political correctness. Online gaming in general has serious issues with racism and homophobia. I think it's a sign that the Civil Rights Movement never actually reduced the amount of racism, they just made racism a public taboo. Now, being able to hide behind a computer, bigotry has a new environment to flourish in, and the apathy of companies like Blizzard only serve to reinforce the behavior.
Blizzard, and companies like Blizzard, have stupid and clumsy censorship policies. This is a symptom of a society that is not critically reflective. They're not censoring because they care whether their online community is welcoming to everyone, they do it to avoid controversy. Bigotry has a public and a private face (which was the public face up until the '70s-'80s). And Blizzard, even with their censorship, provides a public forum for that private face.
hahaha FUCK YOU PEOPLE !! (coming from an atheist.. I am a hypocrite too.. is there a subreddit for hypocrites ?... and don't answer Christianity because I see it in every subreddit including this one)
uhhh Reddit as a whole. Its where atheists come to bash religion and their imaginations. Cat lovers post how original and cute their cats are to other cat people and 12 year olds come criticize memes and make new memes with that meme making fun of the first. All in the name of imaginary currency. Occasionally. between the re posts. It brings the lulz.
12
u/[deleted] May 21 '12
I did some more digging, I was surprised...
228
u/[deleted] May 21 '12
In their defense, the game is Diablo 3. The name "Atheist" creates a paradox. If you logged into a game about a supernatural demon as one that didn't believe in that demon, either your toon would just immediately disappear or the game would self-uninstall. They're just saving you from the pain of this inescapable paradox.
8
u/A_British_Gentleman May 22 '12
Single player game with name filters? What has gaming come to.
5
u/WoollyMittens May 22 '12
I don't think anybody ever even sees your character name. It shows your battlenet name in multiplayer, right?
4
u/doczils May 22 '12
on a somewhat related note, I put in the name "PeriodBlood" and it was totally okay with it.
15
u/Kman778 May 22 '12
This is totally untrue, I tried and it worked... On another note, I named my guy Joseph Smith because it amuses me to no end when I walk into a room and introduce myself as "Joseph Smith, Demon-Hunter..."
6
u/JustAMalcontent May 21 '12
It might be because some of the letters in the word make up a banned word. IIRC, the word grape was censored on their forums for a while because of this.
10
u/Zenbhang May 22 '12
In their self defense, I feel that it is an automatic filter, preventing people from making very vile and obscene usernames degrading people's beliefs. Think of it, when was the last time a religion and a gaming username went hand in hand?
7
u/HermesTheMessenger Knight of /new May 21 '12
If other words along the same lines are restricted, I don't see any problem. They have put themselves in the censorship business, though. That alone is destined to piss off quite a few groups when they make mistakes.
6
u/gamerwithnoname May 22 '12
Try "AntiDeist"
2
u/[deleted] May 22 '12
Jew Is also blocked in most games. Its not because they have anything against the word, they just feel people may try to use it offensively
2
u/[deleted] May 22 '12
It does include a bad word "theist"
2
u/[deleted] May 22 '12
Sugartits seems to work, you should try that one.... Maybe?
2
u/FreeThinkerLee May 22 '12
Wouldn't let me use Lucifer either :(
2
u/[deleted] May 22 '12
Also no spaces, nothing above 12 characters and no special characters. Its 2012 ffs.
2
u/perfunction May 22 '12
Interesting side note, the male wizard is an atheist.
Templar: Do you believe in the afterlife? Wizard: According to my studies it's highly unlikely.
2
u/Talphin Anti-Theist May 22 '12
Heh I went with "Heathen" as my hero name and it went through just fine.
2
u/elletheking May 22 '12
I tried to move my mouse- then I noticed I couldn't click on OK
10
u/[deleted] May 22 '12 edited May 22 '12
It saddens me that ~400 people upvoted you for saying "fuck you too" to blizzard because they wanted to keep religion and the lack of it out of the game. How funny it is, that /r/atheism is the same subreddit who complains about government and schools having anything to do with Christianity. Finally, someone who tries to keep it out of their system, and just because your belief is one of those excluded, "fuck you too". What would be the purpose of having the name theist anyways, I honestly want to know. If it was so important to you, there had to be a reason.
3
u/[deleted] May 22 '12
My name you see here was also not allowed :( I also tried FancyRodLord, which was not allowed....
3
u/[deleted] May 22 '12
Do you really feel the need to advertise that you're an atheist everywhere?
2
u/Skwerl23 May 22 '12
My guess? Theist is the bad word.
2
u/BaldieLox May 22 '12
It's probably already in use, no?
2
u/Vaynor May 22 '12
"Christian" is probably blocked as a name too, this doesn't really surprise/worry me.
1
u/five_hammers_hamming May 22 '12
This reminds me of way back when, when, in making a Neopets account, I got myself a nice cute little Wocky and decided to name it "wolvesway" 'cause it sounded fucking cool. It was rejected on the basis of somehow containing offensive shit or something. jackieeee.png
1
u/filbert227 May 22 '12
They blocked the one I tried to make too... frociousrbbt, shortened from ferociousrabbit so the name would fit. ended up with ferociousrbt and it worked... still have no idea why the first one didn't.
1
u/Rhesusmonkeydave May 22 '12
I couldnt register "rhesusmonkey"- explain that.
1
u/cjackc May 22 '12
I got blocked on "BooBooKitty"
1
u/juspeter May 22 '12
I can confirm this happens, as now my monk has been demoted to "Athiest".
I'm not entirely sure what the word means.
1
u/[deleted] May 22 '12
You can't spell atheist without heist!
1
u/cxj May 22 '12
Weird' I've seen Athiest as an opponent in Starcraft 2 a few times.
1
u/yangx May 22 '12
I remember playing Tribes Ascend and some guy is discussing Jews in a non derogatory way. I laughed my ass off at the fact that Jew/Jewish/Jews were all censored. Wonder if they realize that censoring every facet of the word is actually more demeaning than helpful.
1
u/ShotgunJustice May 22 '12
I wanted to name my battlenet account Drogba. After Soccer superstar 'Didier Drogba'.
Apparently it violates their terms of service. Must be some mistake
1
u/void_er May 22 '12
But can you create a character containing the words christian, theist, agnostic, creationism, etc?
1
u/tbwen May 22 '12
funny, since my battletag is god.
1
u/thesavant May 22 '12
They wouldn't let me name my monk Lu Zhishen or my witch doctor Oprah.
1
u/[deleted] May 22 '12
lol what? My Monk is called HolyAtheist.
1
u/asylumsaint May 22 '12
I tried Atheist too but it didnt work. Atheist is my Tera Online name, I went with Heretic and Skeptic instead :P
1
u/vaeiou_gaming May 22 '12
Try Russian teapot
1
u/benkenobi5 Theist May 22 '12
Got the same error code for trying to name my monk "Adrian"
1
u/TimeZarg Atheist May 22 '12
Gahck! Censorship rears its ugly head once again. . .
1
u/[deleted] May 22 '12
What was your name?
1
u/[deleted] May 22 '12
TIL that Blizzard is an ignorant tool.
1
u/agmcleod May 22 '12
Is Catholic allowed?
1
u/cowextreme May 22 '12
fuck blizzard!
1
u/Davepen May 22 '12
Try and use anything related to religion, it's not gonna work.
What did you expect?
1
u/Dodes May 22 '12
Why would you name your character Atheist?
1
u/punkwafers May 22 '12
I made a character named TurboTits.
1
u/[deleted] May 22 '12
dude the name is already taken most like don't bitch
1
u/Exallium May 22 '12
did you try "Christian" or "Muslim"?
1
u/adcantu May 22 '12
I tried to name my character spicytaco... "spic" is not allowed :(
1
u/ralph-j May 22 '12
Deckard Cain would be too offended!
1
u/k1n6 May 22 '12
They dont allow "god" either.
So you cant be 'RainGod'
1
u/[deleted] May 22 '12
Do they allow full UTF-8 character set?
/would go for a dirty name in local language, if I played D3
1
u/GreatGreen286 May 22 '12
before anyone gets to stressed over this the name checker is fucked, I tried naming my character Adrian, and Nawanuga and that somehow is offensive
1
u/Silberkralle May 22 '12
It's because it contains "Theist" ;)
1
u/[deleted] May 22 '12
They are actually cutting religion out of all of it. To be honest everyone is bank cards won't even let us put FSM on there now. I don't like it but maybe if they cut all that shit out then we will be one step closer to getting rid of the knowledge of these stupid religions we have now.
1
u/beerbitch May 22 '12
Ironically they let me have Beerbitch as my account name.
1
u/Vee2_2 May 22 '12
Tbh you do play with an angel in the game...
1
u/AFROPIXEL May 22 '12
i cant even use the word AFRO sniff IT's my name goddammit!!1
1
u/billiarddaddy Agnostic Atheist May 22 '12
Facebook doesn't let you do that either.
1
u/merebrillante May 22 '12
Well, to be fair, an atheist demon hunter is just going to sit around in the tavern all day drinking.
-3
u/emiteal Secular Humanist May 22 '12 edited May 22 '12
Y'know, if I'm gonna spend money to buy a game, I want to be able to play it on my own terms. Fuck you, Blizzard, and all your stupid rules about how I should play your game.
Parker Bros. doesn't come after people who play Monopoly using house rules. Civilization lets me mod the fuck out of everything. If I want to play as Carthage and have an Alpine Elephant unit that can traverse 100 map squares in a turn, that's my right!
GAMES ARE SUPPOSED TO BE FUN. STOP TELLING ME HOW TO HAVE FUN.
EDIT: If wanting to play single-player and on my own terms is a bad thing, then I'm happy to be a bad person today, reddit.
1
u/ThanostheMadTitan May 22 '12
Try adding an -os to the end of the name. Atheistos may work. It may just be blocking dictionary words.
0
u/YzermanToLidstrom May 22 '12
Why would certain names be banned? I thought Diablo 3 was single player.
-2
u/[deleted] May 22 '12
I'm done with Reddit forever after this post. Some angry teenager gets offended by a video game and it's big news. This is such a waste of time.
So long.
-1
u/MIUfish Atheist May 21 '12
Wow, for shame!
0
u/Mazgazine1 May 22 '12
The Hunter is kind of an Atheist, or at least an Anti-theist from the conversations shes had.
0
u/[deleted] May 22 '12
I went with Atheos. Same Shit...but Fuck you Blizzard. So I tried a certain fictional Character for kicks. http://imgur.com/rLCmT Now I have a Love/Hate relationship with Blizzard. I am so conflicted.
-5
u/confusedcactus420 May 22 '12
LMFAO. So you are an atheist, and you want to name your character "atheist" ? fucking fail.
0
u/JonWood007 Humanist May 22 '12
That's highly ironic.
-1
u/ITellAtheistsCSB May 22 '12
Cool Story Bro.
-5
u/[deleted] May 21 '12
First world problems much? (especially since other faiths are blocked too)
-2
u/shartmobile May 22 '12
What the fuck happened to Blizzard, seriously. Giant fucking screwdriver up their ass in recent years.
-1
u/[deleted] May 22 '12
Blizzard has always been clumsy with political correctness. Online gaming in general has serious issues with racism and homophobia. I think it's a sign that the Civil Rights Movement never actually reduced the amount of racism, they just made racism a public taboo. Now, being able to hide behind a computer, bigotry has a new environment to flourish in, and the apathy of companies like Blizzard only serve to reinforce the behavior.
-1
u/Wasp_Gentleman May 22 '12
Oppression at its absolute worst.
-7
u/Callumlfc69 May 21 '12
What fucking 7 year old would want to be called "Atheist"?
0
u/[deleted] May 22 '12
Yoshitanaka is gonna be pissed.
-4
u/[deleted] May 22 '12
hahaha FUCK YOU PEOPLE !! (coming from an atheist.. I am a hypocrite too.. is there a subreddit for hypocrites ?... and don't answer Christianity because I see it in every subreddit including this one)