An Inopportune Moment of Entry for a Handicapped Person

Computer science skills are becoming more and more a vital part of life. To prove this point to my friend, I began to pretend to be a manager, interviewing potential employees who either did, or didn't know a computer language. My friend and I were on our way to a restaurant at the time, just along the side of the street. "Oh hi, Stephen Hawking! What's that, you don't know C++? Oh, I'm sorry, I can't hire you then for this position." Is what I meant to say. However, just as I began to speak, a handicapped person in a wheelchair rolled out of a shop ahead of me. Imagine, then, my horror as I finished the sentence "Oh hi, Stephen Hawking!"

That moment seemed to freeze in time, magnified in duration by the amazed and horrified expressions of the strangers around me who saw the handicapped man. My heart fell into my stomach, burning in the gastric juices. Mein Gott! What have I done?

Time resumed all too quickly, and I pulled a hood over my face to conceal my identity. I resumed speaking, trying to complete the rest of the sentence so that it seemed I hadn't even noticed the man. But it was too late. I felt the angry burning glares of the people around me, so I rushed ahead and crossed the street, hoping to escape into the busy crowd ahead, thereby shrugging off my embarrassment.

Whoever is reading this, make note of the moral of the story: sometimes, time and space conspire against you, and you can do nothing about it.

Video Games Corrupt and Quicken the Mind

Video games. Moms hate 'em, Dads (secretly) love 'em, and most kids breathe 'em. I remember my first gaming console - the PS2, and my first game: SSX Tricky. Damn that game was fun.

Ah, the golden days of low-definition übertricks.

As I played more and more games as the years went by, I noticed that they also got more violent. Every once in a while you'd get a fairly nonviolent creative game, like Little Big Planet, but the general trend saw a definite increase in violence and a depressingly sharp decrease in Attenbourgh-esque British narrators.

The theory goes that violent video games and other violent media lead to long-term violence increase. Before I did any research, I believed the answer lay fully in the domain of a nature>nurture approach - in other words, it depends on your genes - maybe games influences some people to horrific ends, but those people are just outliers. Right?

Well it turns out, that may not be the case. A 15-year longitudinal study conducted by Bushman & Huesmann revealed, shockingly, that men and women who had watched a large amount of TV violence as children abused their spouses twice as much, and were over four times as likely to have assaulted another adult as compared to those who had not watched violent TV (1). As for video-games, a meta-analysis conducted by two other researches found conclusive evidence that kids who played games like Grand Theft Auto III ended up exhibiting more aggressive actions, thoughts, and emotions, decreased likelihood to help someone, and an attitude reflecting increased acceptance of drinking underage, smoking pot, and having sex without contraceptives (2).

The laughter in the child's eyes is only death schadenfreude.
(source)

Of course, we know video-games go both ways.

Video-games have been shown to actually make you smarter; better processing speeds, memory, spatial rotation and even better neurosurgerical abilities (really). It has even been suggested as a treatment for Alzheimers!

And of course, there's the actual pleasure of escaping the mundane realities of life to be a hero and save the universe. Who doesn't want that? Everyone does!

Or I could go play an exciting round of solo table-tennis!
(source)

Of course, as a Christian, I believe there is a significantly better way to be a hero and have a life packed with adventure and intrigue - by following Christ. In fact, I think the very fact that we find video-games so attractive is because we want the very thing that can only be had over a lifetime following the God of Ages. 

For all of you who disagree, agree or just want to tell me how handsome I am, please leave a comment below! Please! Anyone! *sobs*

(1) Bushman, B. J., & Huesmann, L. R. (2000). Effects of televised violence on aggression. In D. Singer & J. Singer (Eds.). Handbook of children and the media (pp. 223-254). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. 
(2) Anderson, C.A., & Bushman, B.J. (2001). Effects of violent video games on aggressive behaviour, aggressive cognition, aggressive affect, physiological arousal, and prosocial behaviour: A Meta-Analytic Review of the Scientific Literature. Psychological Science, 12(5), 353-359.

Why Imagination?

Rain gently pattered down on a tin roof, whispering at me and giggling with great plops and patters. The thunder was not so amicable. Bellowing in a disgruntled sort of way, it rambled on through the sky, pausing only to let the careful assurances of the rain surround me.

That day happened to be an unusually sunny day, without even a trace of cloud in the sky. I was sitting in a lecture, listening to the deluge-like pitter pattering of the typing students around me become rain. The voice of the bearded professor, as you may guess, was the thunder.

Why was I able to transform an otherwise dull hour into a peaceful stay in a wood-bound cottage by a stream? This is hardly an unusual ability - every human is able to take a book, or a bird, or a branch, and craft ancient scrolls, pterodactyls, swords.

But why? If you are an evolutionist, what procreationary benefit does this have? If you are a creationist, what purpose does imagination serve in glorifying God? These are not rhetorical questions, I would like an answer.