Religious Acts in Metaverse. Catholic Christianity

Lara Katharina Schneider

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Essay from the year 2023 in the subject Communications - Miscellaneous, grade: 1,0, University of Lisbon, language: English, abst...

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Essay from the year 2023 in the subject Communications - Miscellaneous, grade: 1,0, University of Lisbon, language: English, abstract: A metaverse makes sacred sites virtually accessible to digital pilgrims and offers space for individual and communal faith practices such as worship, prayer, baptisms, funerals, weddings, confessions and other religious rituals. Since 2015, it has been possible within "Experience Makkah" , for example, to visit the holy Mecca and, among other things, insert a prayer note into a crack in the Western Wall or participate in the Holy Fire ceremony. "Buddha-Bot" , a Buddhist chatbot, you can ask for advice in the Japanese Teraverse. Here, however, a fundamental media-scientific and theological question becomes apparent: How valid are religious acts in Metaverse? I will mainly refer to Catholic Christianity, as I have the most contact with it and a consideration of all religions would go beyond the scope of this work. In October 2021, one of the world's largest social media corporations changed its company name from Facebook to Meta. The background to this is the construction of a so-called metaverse: A new 3D digital internet world where we can work, meet friends, do other everyday things or even attend events and concerts. All from the comfort of our own sofa in the physical world. In the same year, Fortnite developer Epic Games also announced they would invest a billion dollars in a Metaverse project, and Microsoft is also working on an "enterprise meta". Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is also fascinated by new digital 3D worlds. The metaverse is the "next big thing", the "next level of the internet". A metaverse (or cyberspace) today generally describes a global, virtual reality in which people can move and interact as (non-materialised) avatars within a (meta-)3D online space. The terms metaverse and also avatar were both first mentioned and significantly coined in the 1984 novel "Snow Crash" by Neal Stephenson. In the present, one reads again and again about "God has entered the metaverse" , "Metaverse Church is a Massive Hit During the Pandemic" or "Christians, Beware of the Metaverse".