Everyone an Avatar.
The word avatar means two things. The first meaning we are all familiar with, an avatar is an online representation of a user. The second meaning of the word loads hectares of context onto the first. The second meaning is the physical body of a God, used to visit his worshippers. Gabe Newell worked at Microsoft before starting valve, and one of his jobs was to conduct internal research as to what people actually used home pcs for at a time where having a personal computer was a fairly new phenomenon. He discovered people only use computers for two things.playing videos games and porn, if he’d have conducted the same survey today, he’d have discovered online shopping and social media accounts to occupy each a neat quarter of a whole. What do these 4 practices have in common? They mechanisms by which people feel like avatars.
Video games are like sacrifices to Baal, the god of self sufficiency, who brings success and feelings of accomplishment when you put the responsibility for actual achievement on him, and not you. Video games and worship of Baal each carry the same key principle that you are not actually accomplishing anything by your own right, but by feeling pride you didn’t earn vicariously by the actions of another.
Porn and hook up sites are worship to Asherah, in ancient Canaan there was such a concept as an Asherah pole, essentially a place where ritualistic group orgies and sex happened all hours of the day as a form of worship and experiencing pleasure beyond what a natural human mind can manage. Having had a history with pornography myself, I understand personally its damage. It reduces sex and romantic expression to the relationship between a master and a slave, where the slave’s whole being and purpose is in service to pleasure the master. At these Asherah poles babies were murdered, homosexuality and incest and pedophilia were not only practiced but integral parts of worshipping Asherah.
Online shopping is like a sacrifice to Mammon, a god by which anything and everything you need could be obtained by pledging allegiance to the God, and most importantly, tolerating the systems by which products were delivered so efficiently. The currency of Satan has always been the lives of babies, enough so that there is an entire god dedicated to specifically ritualistic child sacrifice, Moloch. The practices of our men and women in office show that the ritualistic killing and rape of children absolutely does bring wild success and profit on earth. Mammon and Moloch are both worshipped and sacrificed to so that the person would have an easier life, abortion is literally sacrificing your child so that you’ll have an easier life.
Lastly, the most damning sin of them all propagated by patient zero of pride, Beelzebub, Satan, social media is perhaps the clearest example of an avatar, our social media platforms are fun house mirrors that reflect us greater, funnier, prettier, smarter, more charismatic, more financially, relationally, and familially successful that we actually are. We trade meaningful connection and relationships for cheap, flimsy acknowledgements of eachother that really just serve as a vessel for us to praise ourselves. Our friends list and likes and followers become worship to our own greatness.
Now know that the false gods reside in the perversions of gods original intent, art was created to be a vessel for sharing beauty and spurring us to live better lives, video games can do that. Sex was designed as the unifying bond between a husband and wife and a physical example of how deeply god loves us, it can be that. Industry and production were created to make the world more beautiful and bring order and function to the human experience, it can do that. Relationships were made so that humans can experience gods love and plan for our lives more deeply and so that we can share in out successes and failures together, social networks can do that, but remember that Satan is fighting to take what God meant for good and turn it for evil. Know that every moment of your life a war is being waged for your attention and love. Dedicate yourself to the fight.