First Church of Cyberspace

The Gray Lady has a story this morning [free registration req'd] about Church of Fools, a virtual church sponsored by the Methodist Church of England.

It has all the usual features of virtual worlds--avatars, chat, as well as griefing and server-load problems--but is an interesting experiment in broadening VW appeal into the spiritual arena. My question is why they go to the trouble of building this from scratch, instead of renting a server from Second Life and building a whole island retreat, or just building a church in TSO?

Maybe Peter Ludlow's satanic church scared them off.

Comments

[F. Randall Farmer]

1.

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NOTE: Hasn't TerraNova already covered this ground? http://terranova.blogs.com/terra_nova/2004/04/holy_virtual_co.html

Maybe it is just a weakness of blogs, but given that weakness, I'll re-paste something greglas made reference to in a comment on the original posting with some new information.
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First Church of Cyberspace? Not even close. :-)

From TLoLH

"We compromised by changing the system to allow thievery and gunplay only outside the city limits. The wilderness would be wild and dangerous while civilization would be orderly and safe. This did not resolve the debate, however. One of the outstanding proponents of the anti-violence point of view was motivated to open the first Habitat church, the Order of the Holy Walnut (in real life he was a Greek Orthodox priest). His canons forbid his disciples to carry weapons, steal, or participate in violence of any kind. His church became quite popular and he became a very highly respected member of the Habitat community." [event circa 1986]

The building was even vandalized by thoughtless/malicious users, who would either steal the flowers or litter the entrance with leaflets, on a fairly regular basis.

Randy

[Andrew Burton]

2.

Ask your Linden what happened when someone tried to build a church in Second Life. Please, I dare you. Ask.

[Andrew Burton]

3.

Bah... I post and two minutes later find the link I was after...

http://forums.secondlife.com//showthread.php?s=b0477eb7f35e1ac6059b64fcf24e4261&threadid=11909&highlight=church

My point is that setting up your own service (no pun) for a church means you don't have to deal with griefers, neg-raters, or the like. Maybe it's not a true missionary attitude to try and step around the sinners, but it's a prudent one in my mind.

(Sorry for double posting.)

[Ren]

4.

Andrew > Ask your Linden what happened when someone tried to build a church in Second Life. Please, I dare you. Ask.

Er, OK.

Hay Cory – what happened when someone tried to build a church in SL?

[Cory Ondrejka]

5.

I'll let the forum thread speak for itself. I don't know of anyone making a church on a private island yet but I'm sure it will happen.

[Cynner]

6.

Interesting forum post about a church in a virtual world. Nice to know that any form of expression is welcome in Second Life.

Quizzing the forums also show that the individual who was blantently against the church is also a recipient of a cash award from Second Life for development. OY!

[JM]

7.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/europe/05/19/uk.online.church/index.html

Satan went to church.

(Okay, so, this isn't totally on topic, but, it talks about the church...)

Had this happened in SL, they could have built a cage around him.

[Luca Girardo]

8.

I wonder how they could not think about that. It was to expect that griefers would try to log in and create chaos. It is no surprise.

[BardicheElderSongs Unsung]

9.

Well said all and all the more likely to say it will always and eventually in all ways possible have to be tried in many several concievable fashions to know... but .... like the man of god who knows no pastor nor priest, but worships with every breath and whose church is the day and night and mountain and sea and all upon within below and beyond.... is it necessdary to delcare yourself being in worshipful attendance to the wonders and fascinations of vr brought this last quarter century to the hand and eye of "Everyman" from the minds eye and hearts hope of countless believers and doers of reality who both have and have not kept an idea of church in mind at all the whole way?

In olden days, the alchemists and magicians would mix the sand and lead and gold and spin their incantations over the endless hours needed to produce singular and more than rare pure orbs of crystal to allow them to gaze into the past future and to mold the present by making themselves aware of what was and is being and would thence be or not as things were allowed or interevened upon in their times of occurence...we use that same sand as silicon and lead to ground the powersupply and gold to fire the connections to allow us to determine the past, predict the future and mediate the moment by our manipulations machinations and moderations of ourselves and others in great part directly or through the applications of these now and soon even less so not so rare appliances of gazing afar ... our magick... how can SL TSO AW OL THERE WORLDS PALACE and the meany others be regarded as simple non real virtualities when in fact they are both the aim and the actuality of what wizza wicc magus shaman feri trad proponents have been doing without such wondrous tools for so long... "Everyman" having magic will neither dilute it nor stagnate its development more and more until even these most powerful devices we employ will sit on shelves just as so seldom now seen orbs of crystal do with no one wondering if that one there is really magic or just an adornment.

Church is not only the mindful awareness and celebration of ones appreciation of that which one regards as the source of possiblity for what is in ones world view as well as what is not; said world view being declared either virtual or real is unnecessary if not inapplicable to define that worlds nature to the celebrant... yet still more the establishment of church attendance by like minded individuals would come about necessarily if the efforts of those who may or may not so celebrate themselves, or in fact even nay say such celebrations and they both pro con and indifferent be of and or among the very creators and developers of that world view, so said esspecialy so when virtual, is to be not only expected but indeed almost likeunto an epitiome (in their delightfully descrying epiphany in the midst of what to they and their experience solicits and inspires both joyful noise and praise even to the extent of the expression of thanks) of true accomplishment not only in the minds of the intenders and bringers about, but in that mind and heart of "Everyman" who after all must be counted upon to bring about the continued enthisiastic use and support both by indulgence of personal pleasure, sharing the pleasure with others and so bringing the necessary fiat of fiducial support to enable and inspire ever greater and more complete renditions of immersive realism for the mind and the soul.

Men will worship..we need but allow them, and continue to tell them they are only computers... they really would rather not know that magick is the beginning the past the recent the now and the yet to come... all now exactly as was first intended when those first arcane spells were cast and molten spheres were spun and cooled to see from then to now that understood or not, agreed with or not, the human creature will always attribute a higher reality and purpose to the present they find themselves in...church is not a bad thing even when its not at all good either... it's just what humans do.