Okay, so, people look at violent games and say, “Its just a game, it’s not real,” They shoot people, cause property damage, engage in illegal activites (within the game).
Take for a moment, the idea of a dream. In the dream, you shoot someone. In the dream, you damage infrastructure, in the dream you do somethin terrible.
Don’t you feel a sense of responsibility for those things when you wake up? At some level the dream felt so real, that your conscience reacts.
So, in games, I gun down clones, or mutants or whatever. However, at times, it bothers me. Shooting monsters, mutants, robots, that’s fine. But I don’t like Call of Duty, or Black Ops, or whatever. I can do without blood and gore in my games. Having said that, I play Warframe, which can be violent. So I’m not immune or saying I’m better than anyone. But it does concern me. If a horror movie can affect your heart rate, a happy ending your mood, what are these games doing to our cognition, our personalities?
Videogames hard wire your brain. I know from experience gamers forget to eat, sleep less, some even let their personal hygiene slip. It’s like how smoking takes away a person’s appetite. Similar thing, I’m sure.
So, what I’m saying is: Don’t deal drugs, or murder innocent NPCs, or whatever. God will hold us accountable for what we allow in our hearts.
“God is not mocked. Whatever a man sows, that shall he reap,” I’m preaching to myself here, too. Sin in a virtual environment can damage the heart. Think about lust. “If you look after a woman to lust after her, you have already committed adultery in your heart,” So, if you commit <vice> in a game, at some level, you’ve done it in your imagination, and are to some extent culpable for your actions.
I know this is not going to be a popular article. But there’s truth in it, and that’s why it needs to be shared.