[PastorDon]

I must agree wholeheartedly with Daughter: most of the games of this genre are pretty attrocious. GTA is of a class all to itself, and it's telling when the entire premise of the game rests on committing crimes -- you cannot "win" the game without killing, raping, and beating people. In fact, you simply get extra points for being viscious. GTA San Andreas, the latest incarnation of the game took it even further, and got raised eyebrows and bad reviews even from the normal players of such genre.

Research has shown that the endorphins released by your brain during the commission of such acts during games like this are the same endorphins released during the actual commission of those acts. Thus, at least for the chemical part of the brain, it's actually doing the crimes. This is disturbing on a number of levels, but just the concept of a child or teen playing a game where they committ murder and rape as a normal course of the game should horrify us.

I have a friend who has an addition and demonic influence in his life because of such games, and unfortunately is not interested in being delivered whatsoever. He works and then comes home to play on his X-Box or computer for 4-6 hours each and every day, and has even gotten into the bill money envelopes that he and his wife keep to buy $60 or $70 games. Most of the games that he plays are either violent, or occult-based, such as Warcraft. His wife has unfortunately "give-in" as this is a part of what she must deal with in her marriage, and even told me recently during a counseling session that she "doesn't even pray much about it anymore". And this type of situation, in one form or another, is happening again and again across the country, and the world.

So, in answer to your question, the games are not only trash, but I believe wholeheartedly that they are one of Satan's tools for not only distraction, but tearing us away from His presence. It has always been my theology that since sin cannot abide in the presence of God, to enter closer and closer in, you must continually slough sin from you like an old sin. The purer you become, the closer you can draw (this is an entire thread to itself for this issue). With such games instilling such "virtual sin", hatred, and violence in our generation and that of our youth, is it no wonder that they continue to drift farther out of His presence. God hasn't moved ...

As Always,
In His Eternal Service,
Pastor Don