#1152 – Dungeons & Dragons

Yesterday Warner Bros. announced its plans to develop and release a new movie based upon the classic role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons.

I’ve written before about nerdy blind spots, those nerdclinations of which we have no real knowledge. Dungeons & Dragons is definitely one of my nerdy blind spots. I never played D&D mostly because Christian parents in the 80s were convinced that it led children to worship the devil. There were also a few highly publicized incidents in the 80s that involved people committing suicide and distraught parents pointing the finger at D&D as the cause.

I did a little search on the Internet and found that those claims of D&D leading to suicide were wrong and sensationalized by the media. In fact, many studies have found that role-playing games have no causal effect on suicidal tendencies.

In the 80s, though, we didn’t have the Internet or Snopes.com so people just assumed stories like that were true. I don’t know if my parents told me that I couldn’t play Dungeons & Dragons, but I really didn’t want to. I didn’t want to start worshipping Satan so I thought I wouldn’t enter his gates through D&D.

I clung to those thoughts as a child because there was a definite lack of information. Even though we now have access to exponentially more information, some people still cling to rumors as if they were true.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve scrolled through Facebook only to find people posting links to stories that are patently false. They post links to false stories, usually with some amount of vitriol and outrage. Whenever I see a story like that, the first thing I do is Google it. Usually the first result is from Snopes, which proves that the story is false. It takes everything in my power not to share the link to the Snopes article with the outraged and offended Facebook user.

The problem with buying into fake stories like those is that they cause us to get angry over something that isn’t even real. Real outrage over fake stories is a waste of emotional energy. Instead we should have real outrage over actual injustices in this world.

Planned Parenthood allegedly illegally selling aborted fetus body parts.

A Canadian pastor being detained in North Korea and forced to make a “confession” of his crimes.

Hundreds of children being kidnapped in Nigeria.

These are issues that deserve our outrage because they are actual injustices. And not just fake social media outrage where we retweet something, but actual outrage that pushes us to action, even if that is simply praying. God hasn’t called me to go to Nigeria to help stop Boko Haram from kidnapping children, but I can definitely fall to my knees and pray for that country and those living in fear.

What injustice fills you with outrage and how can you pray?