#worldling

by Aiden Wilson Tozer

What, then, is that world against which we are warned by the apostles? That world whose friendship constitutes spiritual adultery, the love of which stands in opposition to the love of God?

It is the familiar world of sinful human society which swells about and beneath us as the waters of the flood once surged and churned around the ark of Noah. No Christian need fail to recognize it, provided he wants to know what it is and where it is located. Here are a few infallible marks of identification:

1. Unbelief. Wherever men refuse to come under the authority of the inspired Scriptures, there is the world. Religion without the Son of God is worldly religion. To have fellowship with those who live in unbelief is to love the world. The Christian's communion should be with Christians.

EA-Land [Sims Online] was not a normal video game. There were no monsters, no killing, and although it had some competitive elements, for many players the point was just socializing.

It was just a place to get together, chat, and meet strangers. It was a nice place. It was intimate.

...

Most games are easy to archive. For a game like Pac-Man, all you need to do is preserve the cartridge and the console. But the heart of EA-Land was the community of people using it. If you only saved the computer coding and opened it up years later, all you’d have is an empty world.

...

When EA Games pulled the plug on the server, bits and pieces of the world started disappearing. The environment began to disintegrate. The texture on the trees flickered. All the people froze and blinked out of existence.

The last thing they saw was a blue pop up window: “Network Error — Lost server connection”.

'jig rten phal pa'i chos - 1) qualities of common worldlings; 2) common worldly dharmas [IW]

'jig rten phal pa'i chos - Syn {'jig rten pa'i chos brgyad} qualities of common worldlings, common worldly Dharma, the Dharma of ordinary worldliness [RY]

rtag par 'dzin pa - to look upon what is transitory as lasting, worldling [JV]

byis pa nyer sbyod kyi bsam gtan - the enjoyment meditations of an immature person, a worldling's dhyana of enjoyment [IW]