One of the things that I think most kids talk about when it comes to video games isn’t what the game actually presents. Rather, their inability to distinguish between imagination and reality turns said video games into something wonderful and exciting. You know what I mean if you grew up with them – who hadn’t heard the constant debates between one console or another? Perhaps you participated in such arguments with equal vigor!
Life can turn harsh sometimes.
After a lovely meeting with two of my new church’s pastors in which most of my concerns were addressed for church membership (I call that a big high five), I had to put my cat to sleep. Apparently, he stood on the precipice of death and probably only could last two more days at most. Heartbreaking stuff, to say the least.
The real trouble with this world of ours is not that it is an unreasonable world, nor even that it is a reasonable one. The commonest kind of trouble is that it is nearly reasonable, but not quite. Life is not an illogicality; yet it is a trap for logicians. It looks just a little more mathematical and regular than it is; its exactitude is obvious, but its inexactitude is hidden; its wildness lies in wait.
– G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy
In sum, then, the problem as described in the earlier entry is two things: games are closed systems, and life is an open system. A closed system is, simply put, more fun because human beings easily perceive the inner workings of something designed by fellow human beings. Open systems like life in general and Christianity often do not provide the same sort of “thrill” just by the nature of their existence. That doesn’t mean that God has no plan, but the divide between God and human makes that a difficult notion.
Truth, of course, must of necessity be stranger than fiction, for we have made fiction to suit ourselves.
– G.K. Chesterton, Heretics
One of the primary reason that Christians often don’t like video games, or won’t even entertain buying one, comes down to one simple idea: God designed us to live a real life, not a fake one. An understandable goal, of course; nobody wants to see any Christian sitting in a room all day playing a video game, right? That’s not very Christian in the opinion of many. A relationship with God Himself should take precedence over all else.
I understand this opinion, and confronted it for many years, and in a way I am still haunted by it. No, not THAT question: should I play video games? Rather, this question: are video games just more exciting than real life? Does that mean real life is, gasp, boring? Maybe they just don’t want us to see it when we play video games? Not necessarily! But let’s contrast them both and see what develops.
