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<\/a>When I was younger, I loved playing \u201csimulation\u201d games. You could pretend to build an empire, a city, or an entire civilization. A Saturday could vanish before my screen as I raised my civilization \u201cNew Byzantium\u201d to prominence. If you wished to build a new entertainment center for your amusement starved citizens, you simply used a tool function to get rid of slums that had started to surround the houses.<\/p>\nSometimes I wonder if those enamored with socialism or unfettered big business played too many such games. The economic and social consequences in any of these simulations are very simple and the individual is of no importance. This is called \u201cgod mode,\u201d but it actually has nothing to do with being a god.<\/p>\n
If one is a god, in the Greek or Roman sense, one has the power to destroy and some power to bless, but never gets too involved with a city or civilization. Athens may be dedicated to Athena, but her care is limited as is her power. Make Zeus or Poseidon mad and Athena may or may not be interested or able to protect the city.<\/p>\n
Probably the name refers to the God of Judaism, Plato, and Christianity. This God is \u201call powerful\u201d and compassionate. He has nothing in common in terms of being with Zeus or the super-hero-like gods of mythology. They could exist and God exist. They could all cease to exist without impacting God. If they ever did exist, then God\u00a0created them and their combined powers could not \u201cdefeat\u201d God.<\/p>\n
And yet a Sim game does not have a \u201cGod mode\u201d because God\u2019s powers are limited by at least two factors that do not limit a player in the game: God\u2019s goodness and God\u2019s Will. The individual does not matter to a Sim player. He is a tool to the \u201cplayer-god,\u201d but the God of the Bible loves His children. God may allow bad things to happen to us, but this is for many reasons. These include pain that comes for\u00a0our good, hard times that are the free will of other creatures God loves, and the overarching good plan for the redemption of the cosmos. Other than \u201cwinning\u201d or having fun, the player-god has no such constraints. As an omniscient\u00a0Being, God faces the complexities of all the\u00a0free interactions of the all the free beings in the cosmos along with the\u00a0interactions of those free beings with the laws that govern matter and energy.<\/p>\n
Next to the\u00a0interconnectedness of one human act,\u00a0a pebble thrown into the cosmic\u00a0pond with eternal repercussions,\u00a0even the most\u00a0complex Sim game is nothing. God does not just act for the \u201cgreater good\u201d as a Sim player-god might . . . God acts for the greater good of all humanity, all the animal kingdom,\u00a0all of\u00a0His good creation, and the greatest good of each individual person in that cosmos.\u00a0He maximizes the good of the many and the\u00a0single person.\u00a0God cares for the sparrow\u00a0that falls as well as the President of the United\u00a0States. Next to the care that God takes before He intervenes, the\u00a0most\u00a0careful action\u00a0of a player-god is cavalier.<\/p>\n
Partly this is true because God is not playing games. The cosmos is real<\/em>\u00a0and the consequences of actions hurt. When I destroy their houses, my peasants would simply vanish after saying disgruntled, but amusing things.\u00a0Nothing can disappear in God\u2019s universe, because once it has existed, then it always will exist if only in the past He perfectly\u00a0experiences in His timeless state.<\/p>\nIt is for this reason I radically distrust gurus who try to manipulate life on either the right or the left.\u00a0Particularly to be distrusted are those who would make particular decisions for their community with no accountability\u00a0 . . . using god-mode. Distrust a pastor who intervenes all the time, the leader\u00a0who claims to value freedom but whose employees are micromanaged, or a politician who has a detailed plan or response to every event. We can\u00a0scarcely account\u00a0for the implications of the smallest things we do and so to be cavalier about the big things is foolish.<\/p>\n
We must distrust\u00a0business grown too big, government grown too big, leaders grown too big. The implications of each\u00a0decision are too great to be safe.\u00a0As bad for individuals is the\u00a0community (secular or religious) so ingrown and out of touch with\u00a0the rest of the world that the Big Man in that community can operate in\u00a0god mode with the community.<\/p>\n
Such systems are ripe for destruction and I would advocate their immediate destruction if I did not know that such revolutions are so large that they rarely do more good than harm! I am a conservative out of caution. When I am told: \u201cWhat harm is there in this social change?\u201d I often think: \u201cHow would any of us know in an interconnected world what this action will cause?\u201d When I am told: \u201cWe have done this for a decade and no harm has come.\u201d I wonder: \u201cHow will I know what harms this is causing now and in one hundred years?\u201d People are so sure of \u201cgood change\u201d and so forgetful when the harm follows.<\/p>\n
If we could show the entertainment of today to people in the our immediate past, would they be as sanguine about the little changes they allowed or would they be horrified? Are we not horrified? Have we become better people or more decadent?<\/p>\n
I know this for certain: we can ask these questions because we are free women and men and not Sims. We can choose. If there was a very powerful god and He was evil, I could choose to defy Him. God is good and loving and so He allows me to choose to reject Him.<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t go to a school, patronize a business, or attend a church with a leader who functions in god mode. For the love of the Holy, never vote for a man or woman who views you as a pawn in his or her game. You are free and real, not the sim of the Player. You are eternal and our present structures are finite and will be destroyed. There are rules to God\u2019s good cosmos and we should live by them, not because our goal is to \u201cwin,\u201d but because our goal is happiness . . . flourishing as individuals in a jolly community in the eternal City of God.<\/p>\n
I am a free man and not a sim.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When I was younger, I loved playing \u201csimulation\u201d games. You could pretend to build an empire, a city, or an entire civilization. A Saturday could vanish before my screen as I raised my civilization \u201cNew Byzantium\u201d to prominence. If you wished to build a new entertainment center for your amusement starved citizens, you simply used […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1007,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-apologetics","category-pop-culture"],"yoast_head":"\n
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<\/a>When I was younger, I loved playing \u201csimulation\u201d games. You could pretend to build an empire, a city, or an entire civilization. A Saturday could vanish before my screen as I raised my civilization \u201cNew Byzantium\u201d to prominence. If you wished to build a new entertainment center for your amusement starved citizens, you simply used a tool function to get rid of slums that had started to surround the houses.<\/p>\n