In Reply to: Are Pokemon cards diabolical? posted by Donny on March 09, 2003 at 22:53:07:
Hi Donny, This note will be a short one because I have been up all night. I ran out of holy water and the little Pokemons were all over me like fire ants. No, but seriously, I think that this whole issue of kids and magic is an abomination unto the Lord. Can you imagine for one moment Jesus giving those cards to any kid? The message in those games is simple, 'fantasy creatures with magical powers' are fun to play with. The reason we have problems seeing the implications here from a truly scriptural point of view; that 'absolutely', 'positively' prohibits the Lord's people from any kind of involvement with magic 'whatsoever' is that we are in a world that accepts that kind of thing and were ourselves desensitized as kids growing up. The whole business is pagan. Even the practice of kids with dolls appears to be quite pagan because, 'idols' is where the word, 'doll' comes from. I suspect that among children in the Israelite camp anyway, that they simply played games with one another. There are people out there that as children could see and have real conversations with their imaginary friends and I just read a true story about a man that as a kid had such friends and what was different about this is that a young girl that he befriended could see them too. He said that when the young girl died his imaginary friends shrunk a bit. While I hope this sort of thing is rare, there is plenty of evidence to prove that demons appear to children as 'children' or in some other unthreatening way. Even with adults they appear(initially anyway) as unthreatening and helpful guides. The man Napoleon Hill who wrote the book, 'Think and Grow Rich' that is considered an important classic in business success psychology, started out that project by sitting at a board table imagining that famous men from the past were there and advising him on what to write. After awhile the personages started behaving like real people and he became terrified and stopped work on the book. The book is all about using determination and one's imagination to focus one's whole self on the acquisition of riches. That demon inspired book, looks harmless and I have studied it to find evidence of hocus pocus and couldn't find any. That puzzled me until I stood back (prayed)and then I could see what was going on. The evil consisted of the wholehearted pouring of one's soul into acquiring riches. By making money their god they became like putty in Satan's hands. It is the very opposite of what the Lord teaches about seeking first the kingdom of God, and that a man's life consists not of the things that he possesses, and that the love of money is the root of all evil, etc. There are so many things going on today that can appear innocent enough on the surface but what is hidden behind the appearance? The COG in the beginning appeared to be a powerful move of God, but you know how wrong we were. How far do you think the craziness would have gone if enough of us would have stood up and said, God said, that, that sort of thing is evil and Mo is wrong?
I have a few corrections to make about a statement I made earlier. I went downstairs to the office where my niece and nephew hang out after school (My brother and sister-in-law both work.) and I noticed that the video I spoke of had been opened and obviously viewed and that it was actually called, 'The Birth of Jesus'. As for the 'observation' regarding the children's overall health, that could be very normal stuff for their age and so the imaginative connection that I made to Pokemon may be entirely unfounded. There are however some serious behavioral problems associated with these cards and some schools have banned them altogether from school property. As far as I know they weren't Christian schools either. I will check out the documentation on this to see if parents are reporting unusual problems. There are I know a lot of Christian web sites coming down hard on this issue. I need to further investigate the facts on this to determine the extent of the problem, before making any kind of issue out of this. I have compared the views held by various Greek philosophers going back from Paul's time and there are alot of strange doctrines there. EG. God is the soul of the earth. God is fire and everyone has some of that fire in them. God is Reason as reflected in man. etc. I noticed that some had adopted a number of ancient Hindu concepts. IE. Good and evil are but illusions. Everyone has the essence of God in them. etc. What I also noticed thus far anyway, is that they did not believe in a God of judgement.
How convenient.
It seems some things don't change.