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Introduction History of Video Games Skyrim Duke Nukem Dead Space 2 Saints Row 3 Mortal Kombat Call of Duty Gears of War 3 Dark Souls Fear 3 Pokemon Battlefield 3 Minecraft Contact GHVG |
Battlefield 3 War. The war in Iraq is such murky territory in the church and in the country. What are my feelings? While Islam is an evil and dangerous religion, whose followers are a threat to the country, common sense says that it is more important to save the life of an innocent man than to kill one who is guilty. Now that Bin Laden has been found and punished for his crimes, it is hard to find justification for the continued occupation of Iraq, if there ever was one to begin with. And even with complete justification, war is still a horrible thing, a sort of necessary evil. The distressing thing about today’s youth is that they don’t realize the full impact of war; they enlist with visions of grandeur and excitement. Skyrim glorifies domestic abuse. Duke Nukem glorifies sexual misconduct. Battlefield 3 glorifies war. The game plays out like an interactive advertisement for the armed forced and other branches of military. Along with the typical array of guns and explosives, players are trained to operate military equipment, including tanks, boats, helicopters, and jet bombers. Don’t misunderstand me; I respected the armed forces and those who put their lives on the line to defend me and my country. What I don’t respect is a mindwashing campaign aimed towards school kids nearing the age of 18, telling them that war is an adventure, gunshot wounds are a slight inconvenience, and leaping from buildings is safe and easy. Battlefield is made by EA, the same game company that made Dead Space 2. There are no babies found in washing machines this time, but everyone on Earth was somebody’s baby once. They were an infant whose parents rocked to sleep on so many nights. They were child whose parents fussed over tiny scrapes and bruises. They grew, matured, met friends and developed romances, went to school, learned to drive, struggled with some things and excelled at others. Then they were sent to war and many of them died. Their parents wept and their friends silently thanked God that it wasn’t them. Yet when you compile clips of this action and splice them together over intense music, it suddenly becomes a form of entertainment. Romans 14:19 Make every effort to do what leads to peace. The scary part is how real the game world is. When I got my first computer many years ago, I played a game based on the battle of Gettysburg. At the time I thought it was harmless, as I had assumed with Super Mario, and besides, the history of this country is important to learn. I think the reason I could play it was that the soldiers looked so unreal that their deaths were meaningless: it was as if one of my boys had scribbled over a stick figure. The trees were cardboard cutouts and the scenery was like a watercolor painting. But when I watched the video of Battlefield, I thought it was actual video footage at first. The trees look like the trees I see in the fields behind my house. The water looks like the creek the next township over. The man who is stabbed in the heart looks like one of my neighbors. He has a face. He has a face and players are mercilessly killing him. When we wrong someone, the more personal it is, the more difficult we find it. This is because we understand what sin is at a very fundamental level. I’ve comforted a few reformed criminals. A couple of the men I met were arrested for burglarizing homes. When they tell me their stories, they always start the same: as troubled youngsters lashing out by shoplifting at retail stores. It’s so much easier for them to steal from a faceless corporation. They are wronging somebody, somewhere (often many people,) but because they don’t see them or the results of their actions, they can muster the willpower to commit the crimes. As with any task subjected to repetition, stealing became easier for them until they were taking personal effects from the homes of their victims. The thefts transgressed from a distant crime to a very personal one. The most personal of all sins is the murder of another man. By our logic, if the more personal a sin, the more difficult it is to commit, then shouldn’t a soldier killing an enemy be the most difficult thing for someone to do? It is. Every soldier I’ve spoken too remembers the first time he’s pulled his trigger. More importantly, they remember the first time they’ve tried to pull the trigger. The act of ending someone’s physical life is so psychologically daunting, that many men choke up when the time for action comes. What games like Battlefield serve to do is facilitate the progression from killing online opponents to shooting living men, just like petty shoplifting progresses into breaking and entering. Starting on these paths is like getting an infection which slowly but steadily grows worse, and the cure for this infection is prayer. 2 Corinthians 10:3 For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. When I say God Hates Video Games, does He hate the scenes of destruction in the above video? Does He hate when tragedies like 9/11 are mocked and reproduced? Does He hate companies who try to portray war as fun so as to convince adolescent boys to risk their lives when they have no business on a real battlefield at all? Battlefield 3 is just one shade of the color of war; just as my Gettysburg game did not illustrate the tens of thousands who suffered and died, Battlefield does not depict the true depravity of international warfare. The ultimate contradiction is that while the game looks so realistic visually, it could not be further from reality philosophically. I would encourage any parent, whose boy is nearing the completion of high school and considering joining the military, to keep them away from games like this. They will be making a decision that affects the rest of their lives, and they should make this decision with a clear head, unskewed by advertising campaigns like Battlefield 3. Protect the Earth, don't play Minecraft |
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Updated 04/11/12
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