Sorry, I used to use the same arguments you do - I just don't buy into them anymore. Nope, I'm no expert on this, but it just seems that Christians here seem to have a real appetite for these dark games & I do wonder why that is. (me included in the past).
Oh yeah.... that's where I was at too. I wasn't so much arguing about it with others, actually few had anything to say about it of whom I was exposed to. Even now I don't find a lot of people speaking out about it, and usually when such threads pop up in various forums that get any attention they are HP threads. But I did promote such games, that I this day remorse over; basically herding others into a dangerous situation getting them involved in such games.
Anyway, where was I on my story about turning from it? Think I left off at the Super Market. It was the beginning of the end I guess, though I did feel uneasiness about it at times with playing these games, but having such desires manifest in a super market was a bit alarming.
So this was on my mind for some time, and I wasn't sure what to really make of it. I guess I still had that "me" perspective on the whole thing, how it effected "me", but what about people around me, or more importantly how was it effecting God? So I pulled out a bible when I was at home. Actually it wasn't my regular bible I read but one that was just in a box near my bed that I had not opened in a very long time, it was just available and in reach.
So anyway, I opened the bible searching for some answerers, but it was more of a feeling of groping page to page with nothing at all coming to mind. Then I came across a note. It was a sealed note that my friend Brian gave to me like seven years earlier. He said that the Holy Spirit moved him to write down some bible passages for me, to just put it in my bible and forget about it because it was not for then but for something to do with in the future which he said he had no clue what it was about. That was the bible I had on me when he gave me that note, and there the note sat pretty much undisturbed for about seven years since I really didn't use that bible.
Obviously it was time to open it, forgot all about that day and I was at a loss for what I was looking for until I found that note and remembered my friend which gave me a warm feeling thinking about, being a memory I had forgotten about. Lets see, Deut 18? haha there were about a half dozen passages on the note, some passages about God being a jealous God and how witchcraft etc is wrong.
Started boxing up my games and deleting those games off my hard drive that same hour.
I still struggle with it at times, I mean the desire to want to play them, I mean like Ultima Online I really loved, but I just stay away from it. The guild we started in Ultima Online was one of the largest guilds in all of UO according to MyUO which charted membership, we were third ranked for some time in over all guild membership of all servers/shards. I was one of the leaders of the guild, I was there when we started it. Like 180 members at the height and we must have had over 1000 people come and go in the years we were in operation. No one got saved, no one found any light, it was just one dark hole that we had all jumped into together. And talk about life issues, so many weird things went on in there, people dieing in RL, a rape, people getting very depressed as they played the game over time. I kinda noticed those things since I was usually taking care of guild events so spent a lot of time talking to various people and getting to know them albeit over the Internet on a game.
EQ wasn't any better either, like I mentioned about those people and their coven. I mean the selling agent for them was not entirely "hey look this is fun to do in real life too!" but they used sex to sell it rather well. The leader of that group after all was adorable looking, she was an 18/yo sweet looking blond and readily shared her photos. Huge flirt she was, always led into her religion at some point. But I guess that is rather common for wiccan's. Much of it is empowerment and sex certainly is one of those tools.
Seems like the world is on a fast track to something...
