One window open for blogging, another window open for Second Life…here I am standing at the top of the bleachers watching avatars talk about religion. If you’d asked me if I’d be here a year ago…never mind…good stuff going on here.

Second Life has been an adventure, in some ways scary, in other ways fascinating.

It’s good to see this group of people who’ve assembled to listen to our panel discussion about religion in SL…they have some pretty tame and friendly looking avatars. That’s not always the case here. There’s something reassuring about the big tent, the people assembled…it has a religious quality of its own. Also comforting is hearing real voices and being able to link them with their avatars…Something I’ve never liked in Second Life is not knowing who is behind the “mask”. But maybe that’s a metaphor for life anyway.

Our speaker now is talking about the different way faiths can use Second Life. He says, “People hear virtual and they think imaginary, because I could be a dragon, and we all know that dragons are imaginary, so yes the virtual world can incorporate the imaginary. But I can also talk to people, hold conversations, make friends with them, and those things are all real. It’s a danger to characterize the virtual world as only one thing.”

This is the question at hand. Where do we live our lives? We dream, don’t we? We live in that world for a short time each night. Some things we remember, some things are forgettable…and other things we just forget. There are many forgettable things in Second Life, to my mind… Or some I’d like to forget…last week I accidently fell into a porno club…yes, avatars can have sex. (I didn’t hang out to find out exactly how).

The tactile world holds a plethora of memories, but I must say I’m impressed with our discussion here today among panelists who are very thoughtful and devout. Who knew there was such a rich religious life here in the virtual world? Now I do.

Here’s a sample from our discussion: Beth Odets says people approach her several times a week wanting to give classes or sermons in Second Life. She says she consistently has to tell them to hang out, learn, and meet people. Even if someone is Jewish, Beth wonders how she will know what the person’s teachings would be based on, and whether it would mesh with what she feels would be appropriate. She says it’s a good idea to go outside of Second Life to verify some things. “Where religion is concerned, “we cannot be too cautious.”
There is a kind of quick intimacy that one must be careful about here in Second Life.

Bit scary, that quick intimacy thing, and the quest for quick intimacy is much in evidence in SL. All the more reason to create something soul-filled. Not that sex isn’t soul-filled, (see some of our videos on the Moral Compass for proof of that), but the world of SL suggests we review the hard questions.

Erin FitzGerald

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 29th, 2007 at 1:05 pm and is filed under Second Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.