Religion is a part of life. If you want to make a game realistic, you have no choice but to include it. Including all the potential hypocrisy and simplicity of behavior it would entail. It's certainly not required, since there are plenty of games that don't feature eating, sleeping, sex, friendship, careers, hobbies, or brushing your teeth. Still, it's pretty much the elephant in the room at this point.

Actually, there's a Watchdog websites that keeps track of the persecution throughout the globe: http://www.persecution.com/
If it's happening, it's there. If it's not there, then it's probably not happening. Yes, most Western Christians cry wolf, but most Westerners are pretty soft as a matter of course.

The fact that you have three "cornerstones" to a philosophy of disbelief pretty much puts you in the religious category. Honestly, I'm not really sure I see any fundamental difference between your foundation and the "Soviets" you criticize (history lesson notwithstanding).

Then you should be really pissed that the anti-theists stole your word and that you don't have one anymore.

You mean like how every WW2 game is AO because of the Holocaust oven scenes? Or how Civ 4 got AO because of the non-stop Greek orgies? Or perhaps we're just being silly.

The Bible has some hard stuff in it because life was generally pretty crappy 3000 years ago. People got cheated, robbed, raped, and murdered just like today. Politicians lied, the rich exploited the poor, the powerful exploited the weak just like today. There were foolish people, wise people, violent people, peaceful people, mean people, kind people, and every other kind of people that you have today. None of this really lends itself to video games because its just life. Worse, the whole point of the narrative is to highlight the deus ex machina, which makes for a pretty poor game.

Still, the reality of that little strip of land the size of New Jersey is that it has seen more war than any other place on the planet. Its people really were besieged by foreign armies and forced to resort to cannibalism and worse. Its neighbors really did resort to child sacrifice to appease their gods. The Jews remember these things, not because they were the good old days, but so they can look back and be grateful that they have endured throughout the millennia. The Christians do not focus on these things, not because they are cherry-picking the Bible, but because they focus on Jesus ushering in the Kingdom of Heaven that obsoletes all the screwed up ways people have tried to live on this Earth that led to so much horror in the past.

I always wondered why they listed the blood type for the characters in Street Fighter. Now I know. Thanks Slashdot!