The recent pandemic has led more and more people into the world of
‘virtual reality’. Unable to travel,
downloads of virtual-travel apps have doubled in a matter of months. People are getting accustomed to living in a
make-believe world in their head rather than reality outside their body. Virtual reality companies stock prices are
being gamed by the jump in demand.
Share prices of gaming companies likewise are benefiting from the
American penchant to succumb to the utterly sinister simulacrum of computer
games. Increasing numbers of adults play
games for hours every day – withdrawn from reality in a simulated world where
their time and efforts are totally wasted other than to gain a short-lived
‘high’ from an imagined thrill.
Whereas gaming serves the naturally useful function of teaching and
training the young in the simple elements of functioning in the real world, in
adults it only serves to wasting time of talented individuals, keeping them
from being productive and useful. Of
course, the same holds true for others addicted to TV, movie-watching, etc.
God gave our minds incredible creative power. Through prayer and intellectualization, we
can imagine, describe and then bring forth into actuality things only hoped for
before. This aspect of being made in His
image was not meant to be turned on its head and used to create, only in our
minds, imaginary worlds that take us out of the flow of the true objective
reality.
Yet, we are witnessing an ever-increasing ‘subjectivism’ to the
extent that we witnessing people unable to forge and maintain ties to the
external world. Familial, political,
vocational connections are never formed or, are cut, if formerly established,
in lieu of internal subjective sources of relational satisfaction.
Everything is becoming psychological not, physical. We look to ourselves and our own internal
conditions for what is really matters to us.
This fascination and concentration on the self is supplanting traditional
faith as demonstrated in the lowering numbers of the churched.
Truth is no longer to be found in an external text, it is
exclusively the domain of our internal feelings, which is why we must stay
self-absorbed. This obsession with
subjective rather than objective truth is resulting in the increasing public
irrelevance of Christianity.
As Christians differentiate their faith from reality, moving it
into their virtual inner space, only attempting to keep a ‘pure’ heart and
mind, they abandon the public space to those not quite as likely to be
righteously inclined.
This retreat from the objective to the subjective is a leading
explanation of the unrelenting advance of the ‘progressive’ agenda, as those
who should naturally oppose it are impotent – residing in a state of cognitive
dissonance when it comes to the external world.
And, our enemies know how to exploit this disconnect to
reality. They have become expert at,
selectively, of course, invoking the mantra that they are “personally opposed”
to a policy (typically, abortion) but can’t impose “my personal beliefs on
others”. In other words, it wouldn’t be
proper for me to actualize or, make real, my internal truths – it can’t come to
life any more than the aborted babies are allowed to.
The reality, of course, is that there is no point of possessing a
truth if it isn’t brought into fruition in the real world.
Theology 101 tells us that God moves from the spiritual to the
material. He starts with an idea, moves
to speaking and ends up creating a hard material universe. This is good.
Satan on the other hand, entraps men by moving from the material to
the spiritual. He starts with a drug (or
alcohol, sex, food, gaming, etc.) moves to inducing a ‘pleasurable’ spiritual
state – creating an unreal cerebral state of existence disconnected from Gods
created reality. This is not so good.
By creating us in His image, God intended man to create just as He
does. We are to participate in His
never-ending flow of creativity in our joint effort of redeeming this world
from its fallen state.
The Lie, on the other hand, immobilizes us to the true work God has
put before us by creating a surrealistic subjective world that we become
content with even though it keeps us from our true vocation and, isn’t even
real besides.
It might be good to remember that God glories in the material – He
came to earth in physical body and we get a new glorified physical body (with a
never-ending warranty), even as Christ already has. We’ll live in the New Jerusalem – a physical/material
city – a fit abode for physical bodies.
Our purpose is subverted when we give up re-fashioning our world
for the better and trade that opportunity in for a mesmerizing internal
experience that has no redemptive value other than to selfishly make us feel
good…for a moment.
By Terry Applegate