Okay I'll admit it (because that's all I do on this blog any more) I joined Second Life. After that discussion in class during our session on Durkheim (see post), I was curious.
So I made an avatar (named Lindsey Dayafter) and set off to explore this new online world. People have apparently been making a lot of money selling items and real estate in this second world. You can hold concerts and movie screenings, get married and even go to church...which is where I come in.
My intention behind joining Second Life is to explore the spiritual life that avatars (and the people behind them) have. Today I spent some time exploring different "houses of worship", from LifeChurch.tv's building, to the Church of Satan, to a Zen meditation center and finally a Catholic monastery. The picture above is of my avatar kneeling in prayer at a chapel in the monastery. It's pretty cool. I'm looking forward to going back to the various different places of worship to check out their services and discussion groups.
But here's the question- is this real spirituality, real religious devotion? I mean, you can see quite clearly that my avatar, Lindsey Dayafter, is kneeling and praying in the Second Life world, but in all honestly I was eating lunch and watching *cringe* Maury while my she was being pious. Hopefully I'll be able to talk to people and find out what this means to them, if they do this with devotion or just for fun.
The internet is such a strange new world that absolutely fascinates me...especially when religion is involved. Hmm...do I smell a thesis topic?
----EDIT---
Apparently Lindsey Dayafter is quite the pluralist-
Meditating at a Buddhism and Yoga center (it's also a nightclub and has a stage for concerts)
Meditating at a Shinto shrine which also had a giant gold Buddha next to it
Worshiping at that Shinto shrine
(Lindsey's been busy)
1 comment:
Second Life sounds like it could be addicting... worse than the Sims.
I better stay away.
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