Holidailies Day 10: Living In A Fantasy World

I was derping about the interwebs today, just scrolling through my Facebook feed and I came across a post that caught my attention. It was a post from one of the admins of a page that I've been following for months now, that posts some great material on Fantasy/Sci-Fi fandoms. The post was as follows:

"'I just read yet another article about how games, especially fantasy MMORPGs and RPGs are making kids worship Satan and fake gods, as well as become latent homosexuals. 
Oh yeah, I had forgotten I was a lesbian as a result of playing such games. Lol, silly me.'

I posted this on my personal account just moments ago and: 

a) I'm not actually gay. That was sarcasm, huehuehue.
b) This is completely and utterly wrong.

Sexuality is not a choice and yes, games may influence some aspects of a person's life, but it sure isn't forcing kids into worshipping a certain deities.
It was a religious man who wrote this. A religious man who says that fantasy is the seed of evil that should not be allowed to grow.

I just can't even breathe right now. I am so mad."

Now let's just let that take a minute to let that sink in. Fantasy games, like World of Warcraft and Skyrim (MMORPG and RPG respectively), are making (MAKING) kids worship Satan. Oh, and become latent homosexuals. Which actually doesn't make sense to me. Wouldn't it be making kids act homosexual? As in an active participation in homosexual practices? That's not what latent means. It could be stirring up latent tendencies, and transferring them to active practices. Sorry, that's my English nerd coming out. Back to the point. These Fantasy games are obviously, in this guy's mind, the cause of all evils in the world. Including Satan worship (which if you research it doesn't actually include a lot of worshiping Satan. It's a kinda humanistic tradition, in fact). 

I didn't even ask to find out who it was that said this, who wrote the article so I could go look it up, or anything. I don't even need to, because these are not new sentiments, and they're definitely not only held by a small group of narrow-minded people. There are widespread beliefs, maybe not spoken about, but certainly held by a LOT of Christians and, frankly, it annoys the crap out of me. Why? There are two reasons: One, because I think (after years of careful study on the subject) that they're completely off base. Two, because with this so called culture war, they're effectively alienated a huge group of people, including every person of my generation who has ever played a video game. Which is a solid majority. Or everyone who has ever read books like Lord of the Rings or the Chronicles of Narnia (which were both written by Christians, or had you forgotten?). It's like this huge outcry that Christians have made into broad sweep denouncing books and movies that people put their lives into. And then they wonder why they all hate Christians.

Meanwhile, you have people like me who are on both sides, so to speak. What do we do when we love to play Skyrim but really hate to be accused of worshiping Thalos (the god of the Nords, for those who haven't played) or the Nine Divines? Or, worse yet the Daedra. Not pleasant creatures, overall. I definitely wouldn't want to worship them, especially since, you know, I love Jesus. 

The people who get into these things are often people who are highly creative, highly imaginative, and just by reading these books, playing these games, or watching these movies, can create their own worlds for themselves to exist in when life gets tough as it is wont to do. Great people, amazing people. I know so many of them. And I know so many of them that can't stand religion, and frankly, who can blame them? As much as I love Jesus, I'm definitely not a fan of most religion as it is currently practiced. And if they're connecting religion with Jesus, no wonder they're not likely to ever step foot in a church. Especially when there's a good chance that when they do they're going to get told that as soon as they get Jesus they're going to have to give up all those things in their life that are a part of how they grew to view the world. 

Fandoms... Fandoms become a part of you. I can't even imagine what high school would have been like if I hadn't had Lord of the Rings or Pirates of the Caribbean. Or any of the Tamora Pierce books that I devoured repeatedly (I'm actually re-reading one of her books now). Or if I'd never read Harry Potter, one of the most hotly contested Fantasy series of my lifetime. If you're in this world, chances are you're not accepted in most other areas of your life, and the acceptance you find is heady. And actually, being completely honest, after being in the Church my whole life, I found greater acceptance in fandoms in high school than I ever had before. Now, part of it was connected, as I finally found Christian friends who had the same interests as me. But I also found websites where I could chat on forums, role play in chat rooms, with complete strangers who were made familiar by the fact that they identified with me on one major area. As the internet grew, that place of acceptance did too, and if people wonder why I spend so much time on the internet, I tell them the truth. It's where I find my people, more often than not. I can go on Facebook and scattered between the real life updates of my friends are the fan pages that I follow, some of which I'm active enough commenting on that I've developed acquaintances with some of the admins. 

If the Church can't offer the same level of the acceptance to people like me, there are some things that are seriously wrong with how we're dealing with people. I finally found a church that did, and it was like "oh yeah, this is how it was supposed to be my whole life!" It's amazing! But so many other churches don't function like that, so there's still an issue. I'm not going to go into a whole dissertation on why Fantasy is a perfectly acceptable thing, and an amazing thing in fact. This post is already really long. I'll attack it later this week, possibly. I'm just going to say this:

If you're a Christian, your first and greatest commandment is to LOVE. Love God, then love others. For the record, others includes everyone who thinks that ComiCon must be a pretty good representation of heaven. Because you know what? Jesus made them, just like He made you. He also loves them, just like He loves you. And just in case you hadn't guessed, viciously attacking the very things that a person builds their life around is not a very loving thing. It doesn't matter if you agree with them. I don't agree with a lot of people, including you. I still love you. I still listen to what you have to say, and I do my best to reply in a way that is not derisive. If I fail, I'm human. I try to do better next time, instead of pretending I meant to fail and doing it over and over again to prove it was intentional. When you attack them, I'm the one who goes in and prays that my example can assure them that not all Christians are like that, and that Jesus certainly isn't like that. If you could help me out every once in awhile by being the example yourself, I'd be much obliged. Thank you, and have a blessed day.