| Pope Condemns Violent Computer Games |
|
The first computer games I played were Pong and Tank Battle back in the 1970’s. Both games were addicting and both had appalling bad graphics. Pong’s graphics were two lines for the sticks to hit the square ball flying across the screen. Tank Battle, well, they looked like tanks but you still had to use your imagination. In the 1980’s I was a teenager playing games on the Atari 2600 and Mattel’s Intellivision. The graphics improved but they still weren’t that great. The artwork on the box usually look nothing like the game you played. Most of the games were arcade and adventure games with silly but fun themes. Over the years, computers improved with both the CPU (the machine’s brains) and graphics. If you look at games today, they’re indistinguishable from computer animation. When not showing people, these graphics in many of these games seem very realistic. This is great for games like the many car driving games. The graphics seem so real that it’s like your actually flying a car. This is a good way to learn the hand-eye coordination for driving a car, that is if you buy the steering wheel interface for your computer. But there is a dark side to these great advances in computer technology. Violence and pornography can also be realistically depicted in these games. The start of the first person shooters was Castle Wolfenstein, which soon lead to the highly successful Doom series. The violent graphics from these games are mild compared to what is seen today. The problem with these games is that children are playing them. If I was a teenager now, I would probably be playing them. Game makers have no problems selling these games to our youth. How often do stores ask for ID from kids when they purchase an R rated game? There may be ratings on the box warning about violence, but how many parents actually take the time to read them? This is a serious problem because children’s minds are being desensitized by the violence in games. You don’t need these elements to make an exciting game. The games from the 80’s relied on a good story and didn’t need violence to make sale. On January 24, Pope Benedict XVI released “Children and the Media: A Challenge for Education” which referred to violent or sexually explicit games as a “perversion” and “repulsive”. The Pope wrote about the importance of parents taking a proactive role in helping their children to be able to reject these games: “The role of parents is of primary importance. They have a right and duty to ensure the prudent use of the media by training the conscience of their children to express sound and objective judgments which will then guide them in choosing or rejecting programmes available.” Parents need to teach their children Christian values. Sadly, many parents aren’t able to do this because they don’t understand these values themselves. What is important is the need to not just to read the Bible, but to study it and the doctrines of our faith. If we teach our children what is right and wrong, they will be able to make their own decision in rejecting immorality and sin. So dust off your Bible. Open it to the Gospel of Matthew and start reading. Be the kind of parent and leader that God put you here to be. |
