"Threatened by eternal torture" is not how religion is performed or ingested today. It's much much more casual these days excluding extremism in the Middle East. The debate I'm putting forth is in regards to religion in general, which is faar removed from Middle-Ages and Medievel times that you harken back to with words like "eternal torture" Also, I'm interested in stimulating conversation regardless of devil's advocate or not.

@Pokoko: Well I'm not sure of your age, but I would say that from 18-26 is pretty impactful for both users and non-users, meaning it's lack of use and/or use has a big effect compared to being outside that age range. Below it and FB&Co. is pretty useless as you interact face-to-face with friends at school/work/clubs/home, and above it one's lifestyle, imo, become more serious and focused to the point where casual friends have no time unless they are in close vicinity just as it used to be in highschool/middle school (due to work, family, etc.)

"atheists" from what i've experenced are some of the most fanatical believers and followers that i've ever seen. it makes their constant desire to bash people who have a religion all the more ironic to me. the truth is that this stems from a flaw that all people have, even if it doesn't push you to pursue a religion it can push you to pursue some other type of irrational belief - like the ideology that men and women are the same baring influences from their environment

Hell is still part of Christian belief for most christians.  If you think that eternal torture is something that only applied in the middle ages, then you really haven't been paying attention for the past thousand years.  

You should consider the way it impacts people's lives. "Eternal torture" makes sense during those ages mentioned because it dictated life to the point that people could be executed if they wrote sacreligious things, protested, and even more so the music form that time period was specifcally devoid of major and minor chords because it would inspire too much emotion, just as sex was considered too emotionally expressive.

You're looking at the issue too literally and "factually." Yes, Hell is an unchanging fact of the Christian belief system. But how it is viewed and consumed is not. Religion is so much more lax today, I find it very plain to see. Hence the argument I'm putting forth. Religion is growing weaker, but gaming, as a general act of society, in-sync with other forms of entertainment, is growing to the point where it is beginning to adopt many sociological elements of something traditional and pattern-like, like the concept of Religion.

*sigh* ...

Atheism is not a believe. So,.. "most fanatical believers" is pretty much wrong. As there are blacksheeps in christianity, islam and everwhere else, be it religion, societies or whatever, there are also idiots who push atheism way too far. Those are called militant atheists. Atheism has no doctrine. It teaches nothing. It's just a position. Therefor that actually has nothing to do with atheism itself, even if those people are promoting atheism in an agressive way.

I'm not sure where you're from, but the fire and brimstone form of Christianity is still alive and well, and Islam is still growing.  

There is no supernatural aspect to gaming, no consequences for gaming or not gaming, no gaming missionaries, no wars being fought in the name of gaming, nobody turning to their local 50th level palladin for guidance in life, nobody claiming gaming could provide the answers to all of life's mysteries, nobody suggesting that we teach our students that animals evolve when they get enough experience in battle instead of through natural selection,  nobody going to spread the gospel according to Kratos in Uganda, nobody saying that you shouldn't use condoms to prevent aids because it would offend Palkia, nobody claiming that a candidate is unqualified for office if they don't play games, or if they play on the wrong console, nobody praying to Hylia for guidance, no organizations that will kick you out for not playing games, nobody trying to tell you who you can or can't marry based on the tome of eternal darkness, nobody claiming that we needn't worry about global warming because the Earth is just going to be invaded by reapers anyway, nobody claiming that natural disasters occur because we've offended Viridi, nobody who wants to deny access to healthcare because of the Doom Marine, etc.   

Unless you take an INCREDIBLY broad definition of religion (like anything people do that they really like), then there is really no way they are remotely the same.  And if you take such a broad definition, then basically anything becomes a religion, to the point where the word loses all meaning.

It's really just not worth engaging him on this.  Trust me on that.

Everything is fictitious except for the truth so you could lump many things together including tv, movies, soaps, gaming, religion, insanity, novels, music lyrics etc. There are close to no people that think gaming is real but religion is self-delusional for many often denying the facts to protect their chosen believe. Using your imagination to accept a gaming virtual world is real so you can interact with it and get enjoyment from it is not the same as denying reality and the evidence so you can accept fantasy over the real world. Gamers don't re-interpret the real world for their own agenda as part of their gaming life.

There are similarities, but not strong enough to really consider them similar, I think.

i'm saying that in the void that religion generally fills in some people i've noticed that many atheist place beliefs that are just as irrational as those of religious people

beliefs that at times ironically are quite similar such as utopianism

the ultimate point i'm making is that this thing that atheists do in trying to separate themselves from religious people as being more rational or whatever is oftentimes absolutely baseless

if all relgion died tomorrow  the flaw in people that makes them pursue irrantional beliefs to begin with is not going to disappear and rationality is itself a relative thing anyway

Fair enough, plenty of examples to boot. Yeah, it's probably not there yet, not as wide-reaching, not as consequential or impactful, not nearly as elaborate. Nevertheless, and I'm not trying to "win" any argument persay, religion is slowly evaporating imo and gaming is growing as an arm or leg of a more secular holistic form of entertainment by which people express themselves very fanatically and impactfully (The music, the fashion, the geekdom, the fan art, the forums, the annual GDCs, E3s, Comic-Cons, etc.). 

Perhaps religion, encompassing many different branches(upon further branches - Christianity-Catholicism), would not be equal to gaming as gaming would be, as I just put it, an arm or leg (a branch) of something more fundamental. Not sure if that is sports as a whole, or entertainment as a whole. But that "whole" is what I'm referencing when I talked earlier about a sort of account system by which one automatically takes part in as a requisite to participating in a general entertainment community, one that would be virtual a la Miitomo with expressive avatars and the like reflective of their entertainment preferences.

But yeah, it's probably not there yet. However, this is what I see in the future, and culture, especially those facets rooted in technology, is generally exponential.