This is really written from a Christian perspective, and I'd like to ask for advice ideally from a Christian perspective too. Please don't be offended by this; I just want to do what's right by God and other people.
I'm trying to get rid of a Nintendo Gameboy Colour. I think I owned it since they first came out, and I would have been about 8 then. In its day, it was a good toy. It provided many hours of mindless entertainment during long car journeys and it was something I could do with my little brother, who also had one, that resulted in friendship, interest and cooperation rather than the usual fighting. This was especially the case for the Pokémon games.
But in later years, after I grew too old for it, the Pokémon games, and anime in general, became an idol. I would waste hours and hours of time over them which I should have spent doing needful things, and I sometimes got in trouble for neglecting important responsibilities. For seasons of my life, I would get addicted. I would play for between three and five hours per day. It would damage my relationship with God and weaken my faith. Then, when I completed the game, I got bored. Then a season would pass, I would pick up the game again and restart it, and become addicted again, until I got bored again. I've just today come out of my latest cycle of this and it has simply gone too far. I need to prepare myself for a new stopgap job; I don't have time to wile away my hours on this child's thing, and yet that is what I've been enslaved to.
This evening I destroyed the only Pokémon game I could find. I feel a little guilty because Pokémon Gameboy games are a retro item and are going for over £10 on eBay; I could have made a profit and given it to charity. But I wanted to protect others from it. Anime has a powerful, I would say almost demonic, draw on me, and I've heard that others get this too. I personally think it's the Eastern Buddhist/Hindu/pagan spirituality about it, about harnessing elemental forces, using psychic powers, channelling chi energy, having 'spirit' animals, honouring gods or spirits or creatures with god-like attributes, casting spells, obsessing over power, shunning 'weakness', and the like. The link between these elements and the obsessiveness isn't obvious, so I'm reluctant to apply the condemnation of anime across the board. But I do have a very addictive personality and a vivid imagination, I like to immerse myself into 'story worlds'; I'm the sort of person who likes to get at the heart of the philosophy behind things and generic laws and themes that govern all the things that take place. When you try to get into the heart of the philosophy and the 'world' behind much anime, you get something that isn't really all that Christian at all - and woe betide you if you let it get a hold on your affections so that it becomes an all-consuming obsession! All the anime I know seems to have at least some of this stuff behind it, and the more it has, the greater this intoxicating pull on my affections seems to be as I find my imagination being stimulated and excited by the conceptual make-up of the universe in which they belong. Not only do they lure my mind away from things of God, but their exotic, romanticised fantasy universe makes the real world and the true-to-life world order that God created look undesirable, which is more likely to undermine my affections for him and give rise to doubts, the longer I immerse myself in it. After indulging in anime, I am often led onto other sins - anger, selfishness, lust, greed, irresponsibility, callousness to the spiritual concerns of the world, further time-wasting. The proof in the pudding for me is the fact that over-immersing myself in anime worlds is never a spur to me to do good, right, responsible, God-honouring and people-loving things. Basically I destroyed the game because the sorts of people who buy retro Pokémon games like that are usually people who are addicted. I just didn't want it to harm anyone else as it has harmed me.
But now that I've destroyed the offending game, I still have this Gameboy console and a load of accessories that I accumulated over the years. Judging by other eBay sales, I might be able to get £30 for the whole lot, and as long as my nerve doesn't fail me at the last minute, I would be really happy to donate that to help the Iraq churches because I'm unemployed and looking for a job, and I don't have much money to give (the employment situation for over-qualified, under-experienced university graduates in my specialism in Britain is dire; I've been searching for over 6 months even in spite of my church praying for me. Because I live in my non-Christian parents' house and cannot afford rent or bills, they have claimed rights over the use of my money and have forbidden me from tithing or donating money to charity, except to 'sponsor' friends for doing things or buying goods from charitable organisations. They have access to my bank accounts, and there is only so great a proportion of my money that I can spend in this way before they will start to get suspicious).
Besides the fact that it would free up funds to 'buy' goods from charitable organisations or 'sponsor' friends, I feel it's right to get rid of the Gameboy for good, because even if it weren't for Pokémon, video games no longer fulfil much of a meaningful purpose in my life beyond wasting time that I don't have. As I say, I have an 'addictive' personality and so find it very difficult to stop playing any kind of video game. It is true that gaming is still a talking point with my brother, but the only games he wants to talk about are related to Pokémon, which, as I've said above, I'm trying to renounce.
Now, the crux of my problem is about whether and how I sell the Gameboy console. I feel a bit odd about inviting someone to pay me money to take something off my hands that was an instrument of so much sin for me, without knowing what it's going to do to them. I'm not superstitious, and I wouldn't say it's 'hexed' or anything as long as it's used with thanksgiving. But I can no longer conceive in my mind of that thing being used with thanksgiving, because in my adult life it usually caused me to stumble into selfishness and time-wasting. That's not to say that everyone is like me, but it's hard for me to imagine, from my angle on things, how else it might have gone. I don't want to sell the console, only to have it go to another person who's buying it because they're also addicted, and only want it so that they can transfer Pokémon from the earlier versions of the game to a later one. (For those who don't know much about Gameboy, the Pokémon games were and still are among the most popular games on the console, and the fact that Pokémon could be transferred between different versions of the game, has extended the console's lifespan and profitability considerably).
But I don't know for certain how likely it would be for that to happen. I don't know what other reasons people buy retro games consoles, than to feed unhealthy addictions that consume their affections for God - probably because I can only see my own potential motives and not theirs, and maybe different people's brains/tastes are wired differently; perhaps they would be blind to the sorts of things I see in anime. If I were buying a games console to play one game on it obsessively, I'd probably just buy the console alone as cheaply as I could, and not go for the console in a bundle with a load of accessories and other unrelated games. So I'm thinking of just selling the console as part of a bundle.
What do you think? I know that the sorts of people who buy old Pokémon games tend to be Pokémon/anime addicts, but am I likely to fuel someone's unhealthy addictions by selling the console and the other non-anime related items on eBay, or are the reasons people have for buying these things more diverse than that? What is my Biblically mandated responsibility here? Is it fair to argue that as everything can potentially cause somebody to sin, then nobody should sell anything at all, and that because they clearly do, then selling a Gameboy is okay? Is selling a Gameboy really as innocuous as selling, say, a wooly jumper? Is it worth selling it even with a greater possibility of causing someone to sin, if it enables me to give to charity? If I'm going to do it, how could I do this as ethically as possible?
I know that not everyone is a Christian, that some people like anime, that a lot of people like gaming, and that a lot of people aren't like me. But I'm asking as a matter of conscience to you because you're the people here who are most likely to know about Pokémon, Gameboy Colour and second hand retro games consoles, and I am trying to be respectful to you all in your respective positions. In return, please don't say derisory things about God or my relationship with him, or make fun of me, if you do not share my perspective or empathise with my concerns.
I'm trying to get rid of a Nintendo Gameboy Colour. I think I owned it since they first came out, and I would have been about 8 then. In its day, it was a good toy. It provided many hours of mindless entertainment during long car journeys and it was something I could do with my little brother, who also had one, that resulted in friendship, interest and cooperation rather than the usual fighting. This was especially the case for the Pokémon games.
But in later years, after I grew too old for it, the Pokémon games, and anime in general, became an idol. I would waste hours and hours of time over them which I should have spent doing needful things, and I sometimes got in trouble for neglecting important responsibilities. For seasons of my life, I would get addicted. I would play for between three and five hours per day. It would damage my relationship with God and weaken my faith. Then, when I completed the game, I got bored. Then a season would pass, I would pick up the game again and restart it, and become addicted again, until I got bored again. I've just today come out of my latest cycle of this and it has simply gone too far. I need to prepare myself for a new stopgap job; I don't have time to wile away my hours on this child's thing, and yet that is what I've been enslaved to.
This evening I destroyed the only Pokémon game I could find. I feel a little guilty because Pokémon Gameboy games are a retro item and are going for over £10 on eBay; I could have made a profit and given it to charity. But I wanted to protect others from it. Anime has a powerful, I would say almost demonic, draw on me, and I've heard that others get this too. I personally think it's the Eastern Buddhist/Hindu/pagan spirituality about it, about harnessing elemental forces, using psychic powers, channelling chi energy, having 'spirit' animals, honouring gods or spirits or creatures with god-like attributes, casting spells, obsessing over power, shunning 'weakness', and the like. The link between these elements and the obsessiveness isn't obvious, so I'm reluctant to apply the condemnation of anime across the board. But I do have a very addictive personality and a vivid imagination, I like to immerse myself into 'story worlds'; I'm the sort of person who likes to get at the heart of the philosophy behind things and generic laws and themes that govern all the things that take place. When you try to get into the heart of the philosophy and the 'world' behind much anime, you get something that isn't really all that Christian at all - and woe betide you if you let it get a hold on your affections so that it becomes an all-consuming obsession! All the anime I know seems to have at least some of this stuff behind it, and the more it has, the greater this intoxicating pull on my affections seems to be as I find my imagination being stimulated and excited by the conceptual make-up of the universe in which they belong. Not only do they lure my mind away from things of God, but their exotic, romanticised fantasy universe makes the real world and the true-to-life world order that God created look undesirable, which is more likely to undermine my affections for him and give rise to doubts, the longer I immerse myself in it. After indulging in anime, I am often led onto other sins - anger, selfishness, lust, greed, irresponsibility, callousness to the spiritual concerns of the world, further time-wasting. The proof in the pudding for me is the fact that over-immersing myself in anime worlds is never a spur to me to do good, right, responsible, God-honouring and people-loving things. Basically I destroyed the game because the sorts of people who buy retro Pokémon games like that are usually people who are addicted. I just didn't want it to harm anyone else as it has harmed me.
But now that I've destroyed the offending game, I still have this Gameboy console and a load of accessories that I accumulated over the years. Judging by other eBay sales, I might be able to get £30 for the whole lot, and as long as my nerve doesn't fail me at the last minute, I would be really happy to donate that to help the Iraq churches because I'm unemployed and looking for a job, and I don't have much money to give (the employment situation for over-qualified, under-experienced university graduates in my specialism in Britain is dire; I've been searching for over 6 months even in spite of my church praying for me. Because I live in my non-Christian parents' house and cannot afford rent or bills, they have claimed rights over the use of my money and have forbidden me from tithing or donating money to charity, except to 'sponsor' friends for doing things or buying goods from charitable organisations. They have access to my bank accounts, and there is only so great a proportion of my money that I can spend in this way before they will start to get suspicious).
Besides the fact that it would free up funds to 'buy' goods from charitable organisations or 'sponsor' friends, I feel it's right to get rid of the Gameboy for good, because even if it weren't for Pokémon, video games no longer fulfil much of a meaningful purpose in my life beyond wasting time that I don't have. As I say, I have an 'addictive' personality and so find it very difficult to stop playing any kind of video game. It is true that gaming is still a talking point with my brother, but the only games he wants to talk about are related to Pokémon, which, as I've said above, I'm trying to renounce.
Now, the crux of my problem is about whether and how I sell the Gameboy console. I feel a bit odd about inviting someone to pay me money to take something off my hands that was an instrument of so much sin for me, without knowing what it's going to do to them. I'm not superstitious, and I wouldn't say it's 'hexed' or anything as long as it's used with thanksgiving. But I can no longer conceive in my mind of that thing being used with thanksgiving, because in my adult life it usually caused me to stumble into selfishness and time-wasting. That's not to say that everyone is like me, but it's hard for me to imagine, from my angle on things, how else it might have gone. I don't want to sell the console, only to have it go to another person who's buying it because they're also addicted, and only want it so that they can transfer Pokémon from the earlier versions of the game to a later one. (For those who don't know much about Gameboy, the Pokémon games were and still are among the most popular games on the console, and the fact that Pokémon could be transferred between different versions of the game, has extended the console's lifespan and profitability considerably).
But I don't know for certain how likely it would be for that to happen. I don't know what other reasons people buy retro games consoles, than to feed unhealthy addictions that consume their affections for God - probably because I can only see my own potential motives and not theirs, and maybe different people's brains/tastes are wired differently; perhaps they would be blind to the sorts of things I see in anime. If I were buying a games console to play one game on it obsessively, I'd probably just buy the console alone as cheaply as I could, and not go for the console in a bundle with a load of accessories and other unrelated games. So I'm thinking of just selling the console as part of a bundle.
What do you think? I know that the sorts of people who buy old Pokémon games tend to be Pokémon/anime addicts, but am I likely to fuel someone's unhealthy addictions by selling the console and the other non-anime related items on eBay, or are the reasons people have for buying these things more diverse than that? What is my Biblically mandated responsibility here? Is it fair to argue that as everything can potentially cause somebody to sin, then nobody should sell anything at all, and that because they clearly do, then selling a Gameboy is okay? Is selling a Gameboy really as innocuous as selling, say, a wooly jumper? Is it worth selling it even with a greater possibility of causing someone to sin, if it enables me to give to charity? If I'm going to do it, how could I do this as ethically as possible?
I know that not everyone is a Christian, that some people like anime, that a lot of people like gaming, and that a lot of people aren't like me. But I'm asking as a matter of conscience to you because you're the people here who are most likely to know about Pokémon, Gameboy Colour and second hand retro games consoles, and I am trying to be respectful to you all in your respective positions. In return, please don't say derisory things about God or my relationship with him, or make fun of me, if you do not share my perspective or empathise with my concerns.
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