Not long after my son gets home from a trip to Blockbuster he's asking good old Dad if he can go online to get "cheat codes" for the newest game he's rented. Now if you've never checked it out before, there are cheat codes out there for every game and every platform. Have you ever wondered like I do what this is subtly and subconsciously teaching people, especially our kids, who have turned to gaming with a compulsion that borders on addiction?
The value used to be on developing fundamentals and skills through good old-fashioned practice, practice, practice! Unless you were born to excel in your chosen endeavor, experience would lead to some degree of earned proficiency. Technology, however, is changing the landscape as literally we become more and more a "now" generation that doesn't have to
wait or work for anything.
Are we slowly reducing life to a game where we can seek "cheats" that allow us to circumvent or bail us out of the hardships and difficulties that come our way? Are we setting future generations up to fail because they haven't learned how to face the adversities that are inevitable in life without the use of a "cheat?" With this emerging "cheat your way to success" mentality do we run the risk of cheapening the role or value of religion and spirituality by seeing it as yet another way to "cheat" on life?
No comments:
Post a Comment