CyberReligion

This is me (my character on Second Life - Christopher Xenobuilder) outside one of the mosques on IslamOnline.net Island.

After seeing one of the churches in my previous posts I decided to have a look at some places of worship that are on Second Life. I registered myself, downloaded the software and after spending ages getting used to the controls (this is not my usual sort of thing), I had a little
meander around the parallel cyberworld (taking screenshots of course for your benefit!).

Here I am standing outside the ALM CyberChurch (click on the images to see a larger version).


And here's what it is like inside the ALM CyberChurch. Unfortunately, they were not having a service while I was there but apparently they have a number of them including Bible study meetings.

I also decided to go have a look at the LifeChurch.tv one since I have done a previous post mentioning it. This one was the largest of the places that I visited (I don't know if that requires any more effort but I thought it was worth pointing out), and probably the one with the neatest design too.

Here I am at the Kamasutra Temple, having a little dance by myself since that's apparently most of what you can do there (although a range of dances were available to try!). They also had what they called 'Cuddling Rooms' but insisted that there should be no sex in there at all.



And finally, here I am inside a church simply called Elvindale. If you look to your right you'll see that I am actually chained upside down taking part in something called 'Sacrifice' where a constant river (I'm assuming of blood since it's red) gushes over me. Quite what it represented was not made clear at any point.

My Observations

The first thing that I noticed was the vastness of Second Life. There are literally thousands of places of worship that you can go to. Quite who has the time to design this buildings, because they do look very impressive when you're walking around them, is a mystery to me. And also, do they gain anything from doing this or is it simply for the joy of seeing people use your creation for their religious purposes?

The second thing that I noticed is that there was not a single other person there when I visited all these places of worship (I visited others that I did not screenshot). Every church, temple or whatever I sauntered around was empty. So from my experience, this business of online worship, really has not taken off at all yet.

And I can see why, especially on Second Life. It is a game. It feels like a game. It looks like a game. It is not somewhere you would want to go to say a meaningful prayer or perform a religious act. It just has the feeling that it was designed for fun, which it succeeded in doing for the short time that I was on it (although I doubt it could become a regular habit for me, I have enough going on in the real world). Or perhaps I am judging too quickly here, maybe when you're part of a community worshipping it feels different--when you can talk to others around you that you're familiar with. Or perhaps when you are worshipping in the online version of your usual offline church? But then again, I just can't see it.