Well, that's certainly true, Davidius. My conscience has doubts. But it has doubts because it doesn't know for sure, because the issue, at least according to the majority of voices here, is subjective. That being said, nobody has really interacted with the logic of my refocused argument, which I think is objective (Either it is correct, or it is not). In the light of my reasoning, one or two things are stated:

(1) They say, "If you take this road, you'll have to throw out a lot of stuff, and that my friend, seems absurd, no?"

(2) Each person must decide whether it seems right in their own eyes (Which, appears to me anyway, to beg the question).

Here, look at it this way. Would anyone really suggest that playing a game built around raping women or abusing children is subjective and open to personal conscience? Of course not. But! as someone will surely say, that is obviously wrong. In that case, I simply ask, did not God drive out nations that practiced sorcery (and all that went with it), and did not God require his covenant people to be different from those who practiced such things, and aren't we to share the mind of God who abhores such practices. Therefore, is it a jump to think that Christians are oblilgated to avoid games that adopt pictures/terminological concepts that borrow ideas from these realities?

That question seems more objective to me. Grymir has stated that Magic the Gathering and D&D are mere childs play compared to the real thing. Ok, fair enough. That's potentially a fruitful direction. Or someone might say that the Christian simply deconstructs the idea and relegates it to the arena of mere fiction, pure fantasy. I'm not so sure that holds water, however. For if someone is "casting a spell" "scrying", surely there is a prima facie collaboration with something real in our world. The same is true with mana, shamans, witches, casting enchantments, utilizing talismans, and pretty much every other imaginable pagan, magical tool or concept.

(An aside: And didn't Gandolf engage in such things, or at least his mentor who surely taught him to use such things? Talk about a monkey wrench in the purity of Lord of the Rings... or is it not?)

With D&D, I had more control over terms and magic. I avoided certain concepts. But with video games and Magic the Gathering, that control is gone.

So anyway, isn't this issue far more objective in those instances? I'd love to arrive at a conclusion that presents a sound rationale for playing these games, but so far, I see no way out. After all, everyone would agree that engaging in something defacto sin is sin, regardless of whether one has faith that is it permissable and good.

So that's where I'm at.

Austin

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Austin Brown
Deacon in New Life Alliance Church (C&MA), Logansport, Indiana
Student: Whitefield Theological Seminary, M.Div program