Things I’ve Learned In Church | Entry #6: Videos Games Are Evil

If you like to play video games, you just might be destined to end up in hell!! Well, at least according to some churches I’ve been to and also these fine young men below explaining why they are bad for you.

 If you have already read our entry on “Top 5 Crazy Christians,” you will already be familiar with Dorothy Spaulding from the Club 36 show (video below). Dorothy and her guest explain that video games are demonic and especially that new Minecraft game!!

To get right to the video portion of the video forward the video 45 seconds in.

I know what you’re thinking….no real church pastor would possible take a stance like this. But actually, many do. And some really have a good reason to believe it. (whether or not they are right or wrong).

Mark Petric’s story

I was invited to a speaking event once for Mark Petric who was shot by own son over a video game dispute. (He also shot a killed the mother Heidi Patric). For a full read on the crime you can read a few of the articles below.

The short version is that the son, Daniel Petric (16), was home-bound from a recent illness and started playing video games to fill the down time. He started to get hooked on Halo-3 and when his parents found out they took the game and locked it in the gun case.

About a month later Daniel found his dad’s key to the gun locker and retrieved the game….as well as a 9mm. He went down stairs where his parents were and told them, “close your eyes, I has a surprise for you,” and then…….. he shot his parents up. He damaged his fathers skull and jaw while also putting him in a coma. His mother sadly did not survive the indecent, being shot multiple times in the chest and head.

The trial focused on the addictive nature of the video games and it “warped” Daniel’s mind to the point to where he did not know the real world VS video game world.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Petric

http://www.truecrimereport.com/2011/06/teen_daniel_petric_murders_mom.php

Now, after hearing the initial story in the news I was heart broken for two reasons. 1) for the family and 2) for all those poor kids who got their video games taken away after this story hit the news. I think it was a great tragedy.

Can video games be blamed for murder?

Simple answer, “NO!”

I don’t care who you are, if you are mad enough to kill you parents at age 16, you have deeper issues than video games. I won’t deny that video games can be addicting, but so can eating, sports, music, and the list goes on. But do they really break people from reality?

I remember playing the pants off of Mortal Kombat on the Sega Genesis (it was a hot item then) when I was younger, and never once did I think ……

“mom, you’re about to get finished!”

Never, because I was at least semi-stable as a kid.

Daniel was obviously not stable, nor did he have a healthy relationship with his parents. Whether or not his parents thought that the relationship was good, Daniel obviously didn’t. In fact, he valued Halo-3 more than the lives of both his parents.

Columbine Incident

Who all remembers the shooting at Columbine, in Colorado? That crime was specifically linked to students who played Doom and then one day their parents took the games away. Just like Daniel, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold decided it was time to play the real thing, inside of the school!

Researchers concluded that allowing them to become addicting to the alternate reality that Doom created, where they could take out their aggression on virtual people, was deadly because taking that away caused a crisis, since they no longer had that outlet. But what about the kid’s home and school lives?

What about the simple fact that those kids were actually victims? Well at least one of them was a victim. The other once was just a pure ego-inflated narcissist. But in both cases, violence was bound to erupt, even if video games had no part to play in it. Things like this have been happening long before video games existed.

Conclusion on evil games

So, what can be said about video games? If you have an addictive personality, you are going to get addicted to something. If it is not video games it will be another thing.

Now, on the issue of being demonic; I think it is actually possible for a game to have demonic elements in it. It could be symbols, ideas, or even just the theme. But that in itself does not make it evil.

If simply looking at Satanic images or symbols can cause harm then many American’s would already have issues because they are all around us. In movies, games, and music.

Would I let my kid play games with symbols in them like the one above? No I would not. Not because I fear they would kill me but because I don’t want to promote anyone or anything that thinks symbols like this is cool. It’s not cool. It’s not edgy, daring, or anything else. It’s just dumb.

A mother’s input

Here is what one mother of 6 has to say about games….

For more about this and to see her blog, visit the link below!

http://momof6.com/on-my-mind/are-all-video-games-for-kids-really-evil-this-mom-doesnt-think-so/

Your thoughts or comments are welcome below