Hello all. I had an idea, primarily sparked by the thread on meeting face to face. I've been playing a free massively multiplayer online game called Second Life
http://secondlife.com
which basically allows the users to create the content. There are a number of religiously themed builds in the game, from churches to buddhist temples and monasteries, to neo-pagan temples, to a newly constructed mosque, and I've even found a reconstruction of the beit hamikdash although that one is very poorly done.
There are also a number of religious groups; for Christians, for Muslims, for neo-pagans.
I'm just wondering what the interest would be here in using that as a place to come together for interfaith dialogue. I could give a tour of some of the nicer religious sites, we could meet for a weekly or bi-weekly dialogue, we could even do things like "interfaith skydiving", "interfaith fishing", etc. We could also make use of some of what has been created in the world of Second Life as a basis for interfaith dialogue. For example, I think it would be really good to do something like visit the Camp Darfur build and discuss what's going on in Darfur from an interfaith perspective. We could open these events to the Second Life public if we wish, and there are very easy ways to make events publically known. We could also open the group to the SL public if we wanted.
Accounts are free. The limitation on free accounts is that that you can't own land, but you can rent it, although it's not necessary to have land anyway. If there was interest in doing this we would need a place to gather together, but there are halls that can be rented, or we could even meet at the place I'm currently renting while we're getting organized. And if we only need a spot to meet only to head off somewhere else, my place is a definite possibility.
One of the downsides of this idea is that the adult grid is 18+. There's a separate grid that is, I think, 13-17. So that would keep some of the younger members from participating in anything, although due to recent changes in registration policy, I'm not sure that this is a barrier anymore. Time zones would also be a potential factor. Let me know what you think.
Dauer
http://secondlife.com
which basically allows the users to create the content. There are a number of religiously themed builds in the game, from churches to buddhist temples and monasteries, to neo-pagan temples, to a newly constructed mosque, and I've even found a reconstruction of the beit hamikdash although that one is very poorly done.
There are also a number of religious groups; for Christians, for Muslims, for neo-pagans.
I'm just wondering what the interest would be here in using that as a place to come together for interfaith dialogue. I could give a tour of some of the nicer religious sites, we could meet for a weekly or bi-weekly dialogue, we could even do things like "interfaith skydiving", "interfaith fishing", etc. We could also make use of some of what has been created in the world of Second Life as a basis for interfaith dialogue. For example, I think it would be really good to do something like visit the Camp Darfur build and discuss what's going on in Darfur from an interfaith perspective. We could open these events to the Second Life public if we wish, and there are very easy ways to make events publically known. We could also open the group to the SL public if we wanted.
Accounts are free. The limitation on free accounts is that that you can't own land, but you can rent it, although it's not necessary to have land anyway. If there was interest in doing this we would need a place to gather together, but there are halls that can be rented, or we could even meet at the place I'm currently renting while we're getting organized. And if we only need a spot to meet only to head off somewhere else, my place is a definite possibility.
One of the downsides of this idea is that the adult grid is 18+. There's a separate grid that is, I think, 13-17. So that would keep some of the younger members from participating in anything, although due to recent changes in registration policy, I'm not sure that this is a barrier anymore. Time zones would also be a potential factor. Let me know what you think.
Dauer