An Unvarnished Tour of Religious Belief in Second Life

Red Odile of Real Life Etc. has a tour of religious sites in Second Life, hitting all the major faiths (Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Shinto) and even manages to find a Wiccan site and a church devoted to LaVeyan Satanists. Ms. Odile poses in many beautiful houses of worship along the way, but it's also an unvarnished look at the harsher side of religious belief (or lack thereof.) She visits an Atheist Center and finds a display of controversial Mohammed cartoons and a stripper pole (!), stops by a conservative Muslim sim and meets friendly people who are very insistent about converting her to Islam, and then notices someone there in a small group supportive of Al Qaeda and the Taliban. In Comments, one of her readers notes that a Second Life synagogue service is often interrupted by "someone who has rezzed a swastika or is shouting hate speech during services." So it's another example of Second Life's double-edged power, where it's extremely easy to create a place of worship and gather an international community around it -- or sadly as some prefer, easy to express opposition to others' beliefs, with a vehemence or even viciousness that rarely occurs in the real world. Image: rletc.com

Comments

[Rev. Samantha Poindexter]

Very interesting, and I'll have to check some of those places out. Though I'm a bit disappointed she didn't check out my own First Church of Rosedale (Immersionist). What do the Satanists have that we don't? :-)

[Scarp Godenot]

We shouldn't buy into this prevalent idea that religion is beyond criticism and humor.

Our culture makes cartoons involving ALL religions, and all politics. This is our culture, just as it is the culture of others to NOT do that.

It is the censors and bigots of their own religions that are desirous of FORCING their views upon us, by saying we are not allowed to use humor in referring to or criticizing them.

Just my opinion on the matter.....

[Domdom]

The group supporting Al Quaeda is not so small and its members are very organised.

I saw them make some material disagreeing with Islam being removed from a sim. Nothing in it was insulting it was just showing some things like pics of muslims protesting against the caricatures (some of them showing slogans asking for the death of the cartoonists).

I visited some islamists sims and saw on some, some lapidation pose balls.

The irony is that they are protected by freedom of speech whereas they fight against the freedom of the other.

I must add I saw all that during a very superficial investigation I don't wanna imagine what a a deeper one would reveal.

[Caty_Edenflower]

Woot way to go Red nice to see your blog reprinted here.Now to the ones asking why your sim wasnt mentioned these are ones she found exploring SL on her own doing a search for her topic of the day.Also feel free to join Rltec as that forum covers all virtural worlds.

Caty

[israel tours]

traveling to Holy Land to promote peace and hope.