1. Julie D says:

    Thank you. I actually had a conversation with my parents about this yesterday (not exactly my first choice of topics, but they brought it up, not me) and while we both agreed that it was a horrible tragedy,  they were much more comfortable with shutting it down in response than I was. I pretty much went over your points, in my own way, boiling it down to

    Bans are horribly inefficient.
     Human nature can muck up anything.

    Where we disagreed was point #3:

    Therefore, to limit the damage we do to ourselves, we should put rules in place until people’s hearts are changed.

    One bad apple can spoil the barrel, but it’s not the fault of the other apples.  And as your experience points out,  people can and have enjoyed the Slenderman mythos before without causing any of this horrible stuff. (I haven’t seen more than a few Marble Hornets myself) .

     

    • we should put rules in place until people’s hearts are changed.

      I won’t comment on the morality of this (yet), only the workability: It won’t work.

      Why?

      Because you must define a “we” who are able to enact and enforce the rules on others. Which requires being exposed to the Thing yourself. Which requires assuming that some people already have either changed hearts or other means of “immunity.” Which defeats the whole point.

      • Julie D says:

        I agree.  The problem in explaining that comes when you apply this logic to something like abortion or pornography….because we do have laws that attempt to limit that harm.

  2. Matthias M. Hoefler says:

    I think there was a whole subculture created around (don’t stone, folks who are through with references to these novels) Tolkien’s mythology. He certainly contributed to the couple fantastic Hobbits I’ve been watching. No spoilers, I haven’t finished Smaug yet.

     

    But this Slenderman. He might as well have done it himself. Was guilty to the point that if our technology were able to trace things like this into the realm of the mind, his fingerprints would be on that knife along with those girls’.

     

    That’s what people say about our LORD when something awful happens or their life doesn’t turn out the way they promised themselves it would. I’m sorry they lived through something horrible. But God’s so much better than that.

     

    I don’t understand how an all good, all powerful God tolerates the extremes of suffering that happen here everyday. I’ve read some on the subject, and my heart and mind tell me it’s wrong to simply blame Him for, say, the Holocaust.

     

    The Lord Himself has suffered.

  3. I totally agree. This isn’t about the specific evil character that “inspired” an action. If it wasn’t one, it would be another. Plenty of folks in history have blamed the devil (or God, for that matter) for inspiring their actions, so even the Bible was the only book published in the whole world, you’d have this problem. Like you said, it’s been there since Adam and Eve.

  4. Christian Jaeschke says:

    I don’t believe demons are behind every bush and I’m not saying that the girls weren’t responsible for their deplorable crime. That said, the girls mentioned that they wanted to appease Slenderman. I don’t know about you, but that sounds to me like a demonic influence (like the ancients killing to appease their gods/goddesses). We know the Enemy can use mental illnesses for his own purposes. It’s like ‘they’ using this obsession of the girls as a proxy to lead them into greater and greater sins, to the point where they took the life of one of their friends. Personally, I have no issues with Slenderman. I tried the game and it was creepy but I’m played worse. Also, I enjoyed aspects of the mythos but never really got into it. These girls need our prayers.

  5. Josh says:

    I like how everyone jumps to say, well this person shouldn’t believe in something that doesn’t exist. Just because you believe something doesn’t exist, DOES NOT MEAN it does not exist.

    If you saw the trial details you would see that one of those girls was very smart. She wasn’t dumb, and violent.  I am sorry, but if I saw something like the slender man and it told me to do something, I might think twice about not doing it.

    I know to some people right now I may seem dense. All I want you guys to realize is that you do not know everything, you have not seen everything.

    And for those who believe in a God who made everyone and everything, and is almighty and all knowing, how could you not believe in the slender man. I mean honestly guys. I am pretty sure you haven’t seen either one, but deeply believe one is up there, why not the other?

  6. Greg says:

    “Over-generalized pious hand-wringing?” “Requiem for Responsibility?” A horrible tragedy and you’re claiming we shouldn’t be too quick to blame Slender man? What about a sense of community? It seems to me that “Where we go one, we go all.” Perfect righteousness is the sine qua non of the kingdom of heaven. Come on now, you’re a minister – trained in theology. Why can’t you see that what you’re saying is biblically incoherent for the reason that murder, whether real or imagined, is sinful. Even your own enjoyment in such an atrocious past-time is culpable, which is not to blame all video-games – just ones that treat sin lightly, as if a little sin has no consequences. Perfect righteousness my man – the sine qua non of the kingdom of heaven. Nothing that perverts or corrupts will enter.

What do you think?