Friday, July 27, 2007

Spreading the Good News

There are lots of reasons Catholicism is the healthiest Christian denomination. One is that the Jesuits keep finding new worlds to conquer.

Although I must admit, there seems to be something very... redundant... about carrying the Gospel to Second Life:

In an article in Rome-based Jesuit journal La Civilta Cattolica, academic Antonio Spadaro urged fellow Catholics not to be scared of entering the virtual world which may be fertile ground for new converts wishing to better themselves.

"It's not possible to close our eyes to this phenomenon or rush to judge it," Spadaro said. "Instead it needs to be understood ... the best way to understand it is to enter it..."

"Deep down, the digital world can be considered, in its way, mission territory," he said. "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."

Clearly, lots of people are treating MMO RPGs and other virtual domains as an extension of real life. Given how seriously some take it, there must be those who treat it more seriously than their real lives. Where is the spate of articles about those whose lives have been destroyed by addiction to WarCraft, or Second Life, or MySpace? Unless I've missed them, they can't be far off.

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