Demonic Doom?

To understand the various elements that may cause offence you need to know the story within the Doom3 universe.

The story of Doom 3 surrounds the discovery of ancient ruins underneath Martian soil. Tablets found at these sites record how an ancient Martian race developed a form of teleporter technology. They realized an important fact all too late, however; the use of the teleporters opens a passageway from Hell to Mars. Quickly invaded by demons, this alien race created and sacrificed themselves to a weapon known as the Soul Cube. This cube, powered by the souls of almost every being of this alien race, was used by their strongest warrior to defeat and contain the demons in Hell.

In the Doom3 universe there is a region somewhere out there that contains hellish entities that are determined to ruin and destroy life. And only by acts of extreme self-sacrifice and bravery, can the denizens of hell be overcome.

This story does not conflict with the belief that Jesus died to take away the sins of the world His suffering (his self-sacrifice) reconciled us to God. Jesus took away sin, not by placating some anger in God (but by absorbing and transforming sin.)

So, no arguments between Doom and Christianity there then!

The UAC, discovering the Soul Cube and the warnings, used them to invent the same teleporter technology. Discovering that they opened a gate to Hell, scientists decided to explore further (encouraged by the head scientist, Malcolm Betruger), sending teams in and even capturing living specimens from the realm at great loss of life. The portal experiments also had strange and disturbing effects on the Mars City research facility where the experiments were conducted. Scientists and workers, unaware of the nature of the work being performed by Dr. Betruger and his team, frequently reported strange phenomena and unlikely industrial accidents. A general sense of paranoia and fear spread throughout the facility, leading many workers to request a greater Marine presence and/or weaponry accessible by themselves.

Betruger then took the Soul Cube into Hell and apparently made some kind of deal with the creatures there. Under his direction the demons again invaded Mars, confident that the only key to their defeat lay safe in their hands. Their attack left most of the Mars City population either dead or zombified slaves. Most marines who survived the first attack were wiped out by the demons and the undead Mars security forces in a matter of hours.

This reminds me of the story of one doctor Faustus who signed a pact with the devil.

The devil promised:

to serve Dr. Faustus for as long as he should live,

to provide Dr. Faustus with whatever information he might request, and

Never to utter an untruth to Dr. Faustus.

The Devil agreed to these particulars, on the condition that Dr. Faustus would promise:

at the expiration of twenty-four years to surrender his body and soul to the Devil,

to confirm the pact with a signature written in his own blood, and

To renounce his Christian faith.
Having reached an agreement, the pact was drawn up, and Dr. Faustus formalized it with his own blood.

Henceforth Dr. Faustus' life was filled with comfort and luxury, but marked by excess and perversion. Everything was within his grasp: elegant clothing, fine wines, sumptuous food, beautiful women--even Helen of Troy and the concubines from the Turkish sultan's harem. He became the most famous astrologer in the land, for his horoscopes never failed. No longer limited by earthly constraints, he travelled from the depths of hell to the most distant stars. He amazed his students and fellow scholars with his knowledge of heaven and earth.

However, for all his fame and fortune, Dr. Faustus could not revoke the twenty-four year limit to the Devil's indenture. Finally recognizing the folly of his ways, he grew ever more melancholy. He bequeathed his worldly goods to his young apprentice, a student named Christoph Wagner from the University of Wittenberg.

Shortly after midnight on the last day of the twenty-fourth year, the students who had assembled at the home of the ailing Dr. Faustus heard a great commotion. First came the sound of a ferocious storm and then the shouts--first terrifyingly loud then ever weaker--from their mentor.

At daybreak they ventured into his room. Bloodstains were everywhere. Bits of brain clung to the walls. Here they discovered an eye, and there a few teeth. Outside they found the corpse, its members still twitching, lying on a manure pile.

His horrible death thus taught them the lesson that had escaped their master during his lifetime: to hold fast to the ways of God and to reject the Devil and all his temptations

Back to the Doom story..

One man, the marine who the player controls, survived that attack and fought his way through the facility. He learned that Betruger planned to wipe out the reinforcements that were on their way and use their ships to take the demons to Earth and conquer it. He also learned of the Soul Cube, and the portal to Hell where it was held.

Betruger used the teleporter technology to transport the marine to Hell, where he hoped the hordes of Demons could defeat him. The marine fought his way through them and defeated The Guardian of Hell, a gigantic, blind demon which uses smaller creatures named seekers to "see". With the Guardian of Hell defeated the player took the Soul Cube back through the teleporter to Mars, where he learned that while his actions had made Betruger unable to use the teleporter technology, a natural portal to Hell had been opened at the site of the alien ruins. There he used the Soul Cube to defeat "Hell's strongest warrior", the horrific Cyberdemon, and seal the portal. The ending scene shows the sole surviving marine being rescued by the fleet, and Betruger reincarnated as a dragon-like demon called the Maledict.

Within the Doom game-universe hell is real, and demonic beings exist and when they teleport in they enter at a space marked with a pentagram. As you make your way through Mars base you find bodies crucified upside down in mockery of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross…Your mission is to save mankind but never once do you receive any help from the other side….err…God!

But before I deal with that…who is this devil guy anyway?

In modern Abrahamic religions and other various mythologies, Satan is generally viewed as a preternatural entity who is the central embodiment of evil.

The teaching of the Church on this topic is found in the decrees of the Fourth Lateran Council (cap. i, "Firmiter credimus"), wherein, after saying that God in the beginning had created together two creatures, the spiritual and the corporeal, that is to say the angelic and the earthly, and lastly man, who was made of both spirit and body, the council continues:

"Diabolus enim et alii dęmones a Deo quidem naturā creati sunt boni, sed ipsi per se facti sunt mali."

("The Devil and the other demons were created by God good in their nature but they by themselves have made themselves evil.")

Here it is clearly taught that the Devil and the other demons are spiritual or angelic creatures created by God in a state of innocence, and that they became evil by their own act.

Most societies have some concept of ‘witch’. The shaman or ‘Witch-doctor’ represents witch as useful member of society. The shaman journeys to non-physical realms where he or she intervenes on behalf of the community. In some societies witches are regarded as malign people their hearts blackened by contact with demons who work for ill, spreading misery and death!

Usually the danger was seen in an organized conspiracy led by the Devil. Or the concern was witches causing harm (maleficia) through spells: raising storms, killing people or livestock, and/or causing bad luck. The authorities then pursued an investigation that often included secret informants and torture to acquire information and confessions. Finally, convicted witches were often executed. Some hunts involved only a few condemned, others might exterminate hundreds.

The idea that there are non corporeal creatures, demons and angels (made entirely from ‘spirit’) is pretty difficult to prove either way. But humans have been taking this idea seriously for millennia.

New theories of cosmology describe multiple universes and multiple dimensions that give the universe its structure. However, the concept of a Multiverse is not new. Ancient Sanskrit and Chinese texts discuss the Multiverse.

There is an idea that the 3D world is something like a holographic projection created by innumerable overlapping fields producing a virtual image of and by their interactions. These fields are generated in a number of dimensions. If several dimensions coexist then all objects and beings in three-dimensional reality must also exist in several dimensions.

In short, it isn’t impossible to believe that a Hell realm may exist and that beings there may, under extraordinary circumstances, cross over into our realm.

The Doom universe fits in with a scientific view of the universe (all be it a fairly mystic-scientific version at times) but never once does anyone in Doom mention God or Jesus Christ.

The sole reference to Christianity is the inverted crucifications.

Back to the spawn point, the pentagram.
Or what’s in a symbol!

Every eight years the path of Venus (the planet) describes a pentagram.

Inanna/Ishtar was the first Goddess to have the Witches' Pentacle as Her sign. Ishtar the Sacred whore isn’t very different to Venus, Godess of love…Venus the morning star is also Lucifer.

So, it looks like the pentagrame is a symbol of Lucifer and non-christian morality and this is why it opens the gate to let Hell beings through?

Lucifer-Venus has nought to do with darkness, and everything with light. When called Lucifer, it is the "light bringer," the first radiant beam which destroys the lethal darkness of night. And the neo- Pythagorean understanding is that that the five vertices of the pentagram represent the four elements with the addition of Spirit.

But the Doom pentagrames are upside down…

Because the Satanic pentacle is almost always presented upside down, or inverted, with a single point facing downward.The adoption of this pentacle as a Satanic emblem is quite recent, dating only to the latter half of the twentieth century.

This glyph is a representation of "Black magic," symbolizing the triumph of matter and individual desires over religious dogma- earth over an illusory promise of heaven. The centre of a pentagram implies a sixth formative element - love/will which controls from within, ruling matter and spirit by Will

But we all know from watching “The Devil Rides Out” and other early hammer Horror films that the witch has to stand inside a pentagram and raise a cone of power…only the pentagram keeps the witch safe inside the circle!

OK, well not in Doom. A pentagram in Doom represents a portal, a place where the border between worlds is thinner than elsewhere.

Basically the way the pentagram is used in Doom is not particularly Christian, anti-Christian or even pagan.

But Fear of the pentagram and indeed fear of anything considered in the 21st century to be ‘Satanic’ is a characteristic of certain Christian groups; tarot cards, ouija boards, Dungeons and Dragons, and horoscopes are considered to be “dabbling with the occult” and it gets worse..heavy metal music, literature, and Hollywood’s enticing portrayal of Dracula, sorcery and witchcraft cause people to become fascinated with the potential power it could bring. Their subconscious begins asking, “What if there really is power available from the dark world?” And slowly Satan tightens the noose of curiosity around their neck.

At this point one begins to see how and why Doom could be dangerous. If someone sees a pentagram and begins asking questions, even though the implicit message within the game is that it is both possible and admirable to be a hero…and that self-sacrifice and courage will overcome evil…and Google will tell you about Neo-Pythagoreans and how Venus circles the sun..never the less the devil is sooo strong; you will fall into temptation of evil!

Like dangling a prize in front of us, Satan tempts us with the desire to know more. We begin renting more satanic movies and reading more occultist literature. Games that once were played for fun now take on a serious quest for more information. Our circle of friends begins to change as we are drawn to those of the same interest. These friends introduce us to practices, people and other levels of discovery. Slowly, gradually, ever so patiently the satanic spider inches closer. That which started out as innocent curiosity is now becoming a life and death struggle for the control of our soul.

If a person wants to escape the clutches of the demons, he or she must destroy all paraphernalia related to satanic worship! This includes all books, magazines, posters, comic books, videos, amulets (items worn for "protection"), and demonistic material downloaded from the Internet. (Deuteronomy 7:25, 26) Discard any paraphernalia that might be used in divination, such as crystal balls or Ouija boards. Also, get rid of music or videos that feature satanic themes.

Obviously I consider such ideas to be feeble minded and rather silly because I have no evidence to the contrary. And as I live in a world where religious freaks feel justified in blowing themselves and others up in the name of God I’m not convinced that God and the Devil are not the same thing…i.e. belief in god leads to a lamentable tendency to shuffle off personal responsibility and acts as an opiate dulling the fear of death!

These beliefs about the Devil being out to get you are held by the sort of dads who rage about Marilyn Manson videos. They are the male version of your mom worrying that you won’t get a girl-friend/boy-friend because you wear odd socks.

So back to Doom. There is no God in Doom…Doom-Guy does not fall to his knees and prey, no one mentions God at all. God simply isn’t relevant…unlike the shot-gun….

And there’s the rub.

In Doom it is fun to kill things. Admittedly all the things are horribly carnivorous and up to no good. I imagine that if you happen to be a Jain or a Buddhist you may have to think a little deeper than your average Christian before you take aim or quit the game. Even though God wrote Do Not Kill on one of those stones Moses brought down off the mountain, as far as I can see, Christians don’t have any religious reasons not to kill non-human things.

The original Doom game sparked controversy throughout a period of school shootings in the United States when it was found that Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, who committed the Columbine High School massacre in 1999, were avid players of the game. While planning for the massacre, Harris said that the killing would be "like fucking Doom" and that his shotgun was "straight out of" the game.

This isn’t a good reason not to play the game, it seems to be a more logical reason than simply saying ‘The Devil might get you’ but it is just as feeble minded. The message is ‘Don’t play violent games because you may forget that killing people causes real pain…’ In psychological terms, habituation to scenes of violence and an introduction to other twisted individuals is just around the corner…in other words, the devil will get you…one way or another.

Back to the point, is Doom a Christian game?
Well almost. What stops it being Christian is simply the fact that God is totally absent from the equation. As an atheist this seems fair enough to me, God doesn’t exist and isn’t around to stop bad things happening. The Soul-Cube is more interesting element in the game because it represents self-less concern for others. That is always a a part of the Hero myth as told by FPS games, but making it an essential componant of the game (symbolically) is something new!

I don’t believe that Satanic imagery can act as a portal or that playing First Person Shooters creates psychopaths. If I was a Christian and did believe in Hell and the Devil I might play this game to show how much I disrespected Satan's attempt to rule the Earth.

I played Doom because it really is fun to see how scared an imaginary world can get me! I played Doom the second time on Nightmare level to prove to myself that I’m not a wuss and that I am that good! On marine setting I noticed that fear made me forget numbers, made me go almost blind with panic and that when it was Nightmare that I did much, much better because I got angry. And that in the end I rather liked the demons, I respected the Hell-Knights for being worthy adversaries and the programmers at iD for making me jump so often and creating such a beautiful game and AI. I loved the ghosts, the way they freaked me out but seemed to lead me to health kits of ammo. I loved the candles and the glowing pentagrams and the dark corridors and the disgusting toilets, I felt sorry for the hell beings captured by Betruger and dissected in the science labs.

So there you go!

The only thing I didn’t like were the cherubs. They made me consider that perhaps this Doom universe is a Gnostic world and that God is mad, bad and dangerous to know and that the only person one can trust is oneself!

Heh, the clue is in the font used on the Doom box, LoL!

The Gnostic Saviour does not save. Gnosticism lacks the idea of atonement. There is no sin to be atoned for, except ignorance be that sin. Nor does the Saviour in any sense benefit the human race by vicarious sufferings. Nor, finally, does he immediately and actively affect any individual human soul by the power of grace or draw it to God. He was a teacher, he once brought into the world the truth, which alone can save. As a flame sets naphtha on fire, so the Saviour's light ignites predisposed souls moving down the stream of time. Of a real Saviour who with love human and Divine seeks out sinners to save them, Gnosticism knows nothing.