When Human Values Are Not Human Values
When holiness re-enters the human heart, values will once again have value.
When I was a child, the battles were plastic. My friends and I gathered on the living room floor with GI Joe figures and green army men. The wars we fought were make-believe, the casualties imaginary, the losses forgotten once dinner was ready.
We were pretending.
We understood that play ended when the game was over.
But somewhere along the way, something shifted.
From Pretend War to Programmed Violence
Today, we live in an era where violence is not just simulated — it's streamed.
Movies, television, and especially video games have turned killing into entertainment.
The average child now witnesses thousands of on-screen deaths every year. In the most popular games, the player doesn't merely watch — they participate. Virtual blood splatters in real time, and every kill unlocks another level, another achievement badge, another dopamine rush.
What began as imagination has become immersion.
What started as fantasy now trains the mind to feel nothing.
The Numbing of a Culture
When images of death and cruelty are consumed daily, empathy begins to fade.
The conscience dulls. The soul grows calloused.
Culture no longer flinches; it applauds.
What once repelled now entertains.
And with every repetition, the sacredness of life — the core of what makes us human — erodes a little more.
We now tolerate what once would have horrified us.
In some corners of digital life, an assassination culture has emerged — sanitized, gamified, and normalized.
When Values Lose Their Value
We still talk about "human values" — kindness, compassion, respect — but too often these words have become hollow.
They appear on corporate walls and political slogans but not in our actions, not in our media, not in our reflexes.
We praise empathy while we consume apathy.
We celebrate justice while we entertain brutality.
Human values cease to be human when they no longer protect life.
When compassion turns to tolerance for cruelty, when creativity becomes a conduit for corruption, our values are no longer virtuous — they're veneers.
The Spiritual Root: Desensitization by Design
What looks like cultural decay is, at its core, spiritual desensitization.
The enemy of the soul cannot destroy humanity outright, so he dulls it — pixel by pixel, frame by frame.
He numbs the senses until violence becomes "just a story."
He erases the line between good and evil until morality feels "subjective."
And when right and wrong become interchangeable, "human values" become whatever pleases the moment — not what honors the Creator.
The Path Back: Reclaiming Reverence
The antidote is not censorship but consecration — restoring reverence for life and dignity to the center of human identity.
Parents must discern what their children see.
Artists must reawaken moral imagination.
Believers must model compassion that feels again — that weeps for the broken, that refuses to celebrate the profane.
Culture changes when conviction becomes contagious.
Revival begins when reverence returns.
Final Reflection
When human values are no longer rooted in the divine, they cease to be human.
We were made in God's image — and only by returning to that image can we restore what we've lost.
The truest humanity is not found in power, pleasure, or progress, but in the ability to feel — to mourn, to forgive, to love.
When holiness re-enters the human heart, values will once again have value.