New World Notes

If an Actual Pastor Simulates a Baptism in VR, Is It Spiritually Real? Here Comes the Theology

You've probably seen the virtual baptism performed by a real life pastor in VRChat, the latest video from acclaimed embedded reporter Syrmor. Left unanswered is the obvious question: If a "baptism" is only simulated in a virtual world, is it still real in any theological sense?  

From one perspective, the answer suggests another way VR and virtual worlds might one day disrupt traditional services -- in this case, the service being organized religion.

"VR baptisms are new to theological conversations," Bishop DJ Soto of the VR Church acknowledges to me; he is the pastor who who performed the baptism in Syrmor's video. "Our position on VR baptisms doesn’t seek to convince all denominations and religious constructs everywhere because a wide stream of varying theology already exists. Therefore, we simply state why we celebrate VR baptisms."

A trained theologian, DJ once helped launch an actual mega-church in Pennsylvania, but then decided with his wife that the next place to take his ministry was in the metaverse.

Now, his VRChurch typically holds services every Sunday in Alt Space and VRChat, with services in Rec Room soon planned. 100-150 attend, Bishop Soto tells me, with parishioners logging in from the US, UK, Holland, and Germany, "and then a sprinkling of like 10 other countries", from points as far as the Middle East, Africa, and South America.

When it comes to talking about the validity of virtual baptisms, he alludes to well-established strands of Christian theology that have existed for centuries:

Flotilla Killings by Israelis in the Mediterranean Provoke Incendiary Protests at Jewish Sites in Second Life

Anti-Israel protest outside Second Life synagogue -- photo by Crap Mariner

This was the scene yesterday morning outside a popular synagogue in Second Life, protesters waving the Turkish flag, in response to the killings by Israeli commandos of passengers on a pro-Palestinian relief flotilla bound for Gaza. (Most of the flotilla ships were Turkish in origin, as were most of the dead.)

The photo is by Crap Mariner, a Jewish Resident whose real life sister is also in Second Life (known in SL as Beth Odets), and runs the synagogue, which is actually not political or even Israeli by description. In Mariner's eyes, this makes the Sunday protest a form of intolerance violating Second Life's Community Standards against behavior which demeans a Resident for their ethnicity or religion. "When one protests a synagogue, Holocaust museum, Jewish community center, delicatessen, or other strictly apolitical Jewish building or gathering-place," Mariner argues, "you are not protesting the nation of Israel." This is not the first time a Jewish site in Second Life has been impacted by real world current events; last year, for instance, after Israel attacked Hamas in Gaza, SL Israel was besieged by protesters.

Hours later, I visited a nearby Jewish education center in Second Life, which was the site of another protest, this one with activists waving Palestinian flags and signs describing Israel as a terrorist state.

One flag-waving protester piped up to compare the Israeli army to the Nazi SS; another compared Gaza to the infamous Nazi-controlled Warsaw Ghetto. But Israel's defenders were also there, so a freeform debate ensued, mainly conducted through voice chat, by people around the world -- one protester resembled an aging hippie, and reported being from San Francisco. Others were from Europe, several Residents were from Israel, another from Lebanon, and they continually shouted each other down or randomly interjected. Unlike Mr. Mariner, however, I wasn't able to take any screenshots. The protest space was so crowded and the lag so severe, the avatars there were only displayed as blobs of gray, so you couldn't recognize their human features, and they remained undifferentiated abstractions faced off against each other, failing to reach any clarity. Then again, that problem is not confined to Second Life.

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

Oxford Press Book on Digital Age Spirituality Argues Second Life Provides Platform For Innovative Religious Thinking

The ultra-prestigious Oxford University just published a book devoted to theology in the digital age: Apocalyptic AI Visions of Heaven in Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, and Virtual Reality. It's written by Manhattan College professor Robert Geraci, known in Second Life as Soren Ferlinghetti (pictured), and unsurprisingly, a whole chapter is devoted to Second Life, and conversations with several well-known Extropians (sometimes called transhumanists), who often see Second Life as a means for transcending the human body. "Interviews with Sophrosyne Stenvaag and Giulio Perhaps appear in this book, along with other data from the published work of folks like Extropia Dasilva and comments made at public discussions of religion that I hosted myself when i was running a site called the virtual temple," he tells me. It also features some survey data on religion and SL previously covered in New World Notes.

His chief insight on spirituality in Second Life? "I suppose the most meaningful thing I've learned through my time in Second Life is just how innovative our religious instincts are... we can both engage traditional religious hopes in startlingly new ways and reconfigure them into new modes of thought and practice that bridge the gap between the ancient and modern worlds. I'm perpetually fascinated by the ways in which Second Life provides a platform for religious thinking that provides religious options that would have been extremely limited in their distribution prior to the Internet."

Second Life Tweet of the Day

A teacher in Kuwait asks an instructor in Turkey for clearer communication regarding a recent presentation by Jewish rabbis in Second Life.

Retweet me your favorite SL Tweets here.

Second Life Vigil for Iranians at the Mosque of Al Andalus -- Today at 12:30pm SLT

Today at 12:30pm SLT (i.e. Pacific time), there's going to be a Second Life vigil for Iranian dissenters killed in the regime's post-election crackdown, including Neda, the young woman brutally gunned down last weekend. The event was put together by the temporary "Support Iran" group, which you can also join, and it's being held at the Al Andalus mosque (pictured above, with Decimal Zsun, who arrived early for the event): direct SLurl teleport at this link.

Since the vigil is happening at a virtual mosque which numerous Muslims in Second Life include in their religious observances, the organizers suggest you dress respectfully and appropriately. Female avatars, for example, are encouraged to wear a headscarf in the mosque -- there is a free dispenser outside the door. However, as the event notecard reads Ninlil notes to me, that's strictly an optional choice: "If you choose to honor this request, you may find your experience enhanced." (Thanks to Brian Sapphire, Jas0n Althouse, Ninlil Xeltentat, and others who alerted me to the event.)

Celebrating The Seder in Second Life (Surreally)

Unable to make the road trip to celebrate the Passover Seder with his real life sister this year, SL blogger Crap Mariner did the next best thing: attend a Seder meal in Second Life. Conveniently enough, his sister, known as Beth Odets in-world, maintains a Jewish sim in SL, with a beautifully wrought synagogue and a dining table specifically designed for the Seder. (Jews from around the world, Beth told me, come there to light shabbat candles, and virtually share other aspects of their faith.) This being Second Life and Crap being Crap, the meal also came with fresh servings of surrealism. I'm a goyim from Hawaii and all, but I'm fairly sure a traditional Seder meal doesn't usually include a bottle of Jack Daniels and kitty cat sashimi.

Understanding Islam in Second Life, the Mixed Reality Report

I've mentioned the "Understanding Islam Through Virtual Worlds" project from metaverse developer Dancing Ink Productions several times (as here and here).  The final report is available in various versions at this link, including an illustrated hardcopy book, and this machinima above, a very nicely polished production by ILLclan Studios.  Dancing Ink's Josh and Rita explore several Muslim-themed sites in Second Life and interview the creators and inhabitants.  Most fascinating to me is that a number of them were built not by Muslims but by non-believers seeking to understand Islam for themselves, often for political reasons stemming from 9/11 and the US-led invasion of Saddam's Iraq.  That includes, for example, a "methodist from Indiana" who became involved in the Al-Andalus Caliphate project in Second Life, and found herself clashing with a Muslim convert angry that some avatars are entering their mosque without first removing their shoes, as expected by Islamic tradition.  A fascinating clash of best intentions and actual spiritual desires, transplanted into the virtual realm -- read more about it here, including video of Josh and Rita's presentations at the Carnegie Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs.