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Second Life
By Scott Harrup | April 7, 2009
Scanning CNN.com today, I ran across a group of stories about Second Life, an online environment that now attracts several million visitors from around the world. Users create avatars, or alternate computer-generated personalities. These avatars interact in countless ways that mimic life. They meet socially, pursue career-related and entertainment activities, organize group events, even marry and divorce — you name it.
What goes on in Second Life has real-life implications. A number of Second Life relationships have led to friendships and romances. Cash generated in Second Life can be exchanged for the cold, hard variety. A single mom in Atlanta supplements her income by about $10,000 a year. She uses her home studio to sing through her avatar in a Second Life club where she can also market CDs of her music. Another virtual artist recently landed a very real recording contract after he finally realized a Second Life talent scout represented an actual record label. A medical university in England is developing training routines for students who interact with Second Life patients.
Where will this technology take us? At some point, will a government legally recognize a marriage between avatars? Could a singer make a living within the confines of a computer-generated world, or a doctor treat a lineup of patients who recreate their symptoms exclusively online? Will some people one day completely immerse themselves in a virtual reality around the clock? Ideas limited to sci-fi just a few years ago are now on the horizon.
I think the more fundamental issues are why people might seek out a virtual world in the first place, and what human characteristics are recreated within such a world. It’s easy to envision the negative actions some people might pursue if they believed those actions would have no consequences. A number of video game developers have been catering to such a belief for years. There’s a positive side as well. Such technology could help some users to develop healthy interpersonal skills. If you practice treating avatars with kindness and respect, couldn’t you transfer those habits to your real-life relationships?
I’m grateful God offers each of us a true second life. It’s not a pixilated facsimile of our day-to-day existence, but a divinely designed new and eternal identity. In God’s plan, we don’t try to recreate the old us, but rather embrace His best for us. The apostle Paul describes that life this way: “What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life” (Romans 6:1-4, NIV).
Topics: Bizarre, Bible, News |
