Second Life Fertile Ground For Religious Missions.
It’s not just the pornographers, politicians, and panderers who are enjoying the new frontiers of Second Life. With the freedom, customizability and ever-growing population of the game, some religious scholars are looking at the MMO as a newly emerging audience for religious teachings.
Some, like Jesuit priest Antonio Spardaro, see the game’s vast landscape as prime territory for religious missions, stating that:
While the virtual world might be a refuge for some people seeking to flee the real one, it is also full of people seeking something more from life, including, possibly, religious enlightenment…Second Life is somewhere where the opportunity to meet people and to grow should not be missed, therefore, any initiative that can inspire the residents in a positive way should be considered opportune.
Religion in Second Life isn’t exactly a new thing. Entirely new belief systems, some purposeful, some purely for amusement, have been constructed with the game, but I find the recognition of the potential value of virtualized audiences from a fairly conservative sector of Christianity interesting. The reach of Second Life is still spreading.
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POSTED IN: Culture, MMORPG, Online Gaming, Second Life
1 opinion for Second Life Fertile Ground For Religious Missions.
Tara Yeats
Aug 13, 2007 at 2:32 am
The conservative christian interest is pretty non-surprising, given their online history - I’ve commented on my blog - http://www.tarayeats.com - about it, and will probably say more.
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