This study encourages you to create an experience in which people explore the nature of virtual reality, making the hyperlinks with media messages, Bible messages, and God.
3. Look at/listen to U2′s “Even better than the real thing“, off the video Achtung Baby – The Videos, The Cameos And A Whole Lot Of Interference From Zoo TV. The first video mix does an expos≥ of TV addiction.
4. Play virtual reality computer games together. Shoot em up, skiing and rally driving are the most popular in video arcades. Black Sun is a popular networked experience of virtual community. You could either visit a video arcade or connect your own TV screen or video projector to the computer in your home patch.
5. Get people to bring along their virtual pets and demonstrate them in small groups.
As a group, prepare a debate on the virtues of virtual reality. One side argues for the potential, the other emphasises the dangers.
PLUSES: You could include uses for architecture, environmental impact analysis, engineering, air and automotive safety testing, astronaut training, and enhanced education. Experiments in which the real thing is too expensive, dangerous, or speculative. Just plain fun.
MINUSES: You could include the danger of withdrawing from real life; treating real life as though it was a game; waste of money & time; treating people like virtual objects. (Cross reference the MTV clip I’m a Barbie Girl by Aqua, showing the dangers of using women as objects which can be manipulated and undressed.
You could take a look at the resurrection. Did the disciples have a virtual experience of Jesus, or was it literally real? From the accounts in Luke 19, the early church firmly believed that Jesus had a body that could be touched, that worked. No illusions. And yet Jesus was able to appear without seeming to go through the door. One way of exploring this is to look at Paul’s imagery in 1 Corinthians 15 and 2 Corinthians 5 where he talks about our resurrection being like putting clothes on. Instead of becoming less real when we die, we actually take on a deeper reality, a more solid kind of body. CS Lewis explores this in depth in the book, The Great Divorce.
In what ways are we tempted to replace God with our own idols that provide us with the effect but not the real thing?
Life – the real thing
Compare a graphic image of food or drink with the real thing. Invite people to sample and compare satisfaction.
Use Isaiah 55:1-3 to express God’s call for us to get a real life.
True Worship You could use songs that appeal to the imagination, inviting us to visualise being in the presence of God:”I see the Lord,” by Chris Falson, Seam of Gold, Sydney, Australia
“Let our praise to you be as incense,” by Brent Chambers, Songs of the Kingdom, Scripture in Song, NZ.
You could use Isaiah 58 for a reference to real worship.
Send in your comments on this study, with your ideas on how it could be developed. “