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Get Ready for Oculus Rift to Deliver a "Christian Experience"

While some companies try to cash in with virtual reality, others are thinking about saving your soul. Most churches haven't set up outposts in virtual worlds, but some future-focused Christian leaders are already imagining how tech like the Oculus Rift could change what it means to be part of a congregation.

Many communities have come together via the internet, but most Christian churches still rely on face-to-face meetings. That means many people get left out, including ones who live in remote areas, or are confined to their homes due to health issues. That's why Rev. Christopher Benek of the First Presbyterian Church of Ft. Lauderdale in Florida thinks that VR will make churches more accessible and popular.

Benek thinks that as technology like Oculus Rift becomes more developed, immersive, and available to the general public, we may soon be able to easily develop virtual worship and Christian education experiences. This would be a great asset to the church universal, as it will enable the infirm, homebound, and potentially even the poor to participate from afar regardless of their personal mobility or lack of affordable transportation ...

Congregants and pastors will be able to visit and pray with greater numbers of people more often. Small groups will be able to meet more frequently, even at great distances. The way that we currently do care and discipleship will radically change as will our expectations as to what it means to participate in those aspects of the church.

Strap on your goggles and pray.

When Superintelligent AI Arrives, Will Religions Try to Convert It?

We are nearing the age of humans creating autonomous, self-aware super intelligences. Those intelligences will be part of our culture, and we will inevitably try to control AI and teach it our ways, for better or worse. Experts disagree as to when such an intelligence will arrive into the world, but many are betting it will happen sometime in the next two decades. The idea of a thinking machine being able to rival our own intellect—in fact, one that could quickly become far smarter than us—is both a reason for serious concern and a reason to cheer about what scientific advances it might teach us. Those worries and benefits have not escaped religious.

 

Some faith-bound Americans want to make sure any superintelligence we create knows about God. As artificial intelligence advances, religious questions and concerns globally are bound to come up, and they're starting too: Some theologians and futurists are already considering whether AI can also know God.

"I don't see Christ's redemption limited to human beings," Reverend Dr. Christopher J. Benek said in a recent interview. Benek is an Associate Pastor of Providence Presbyterian Church in Florida and holds masters degrees in divinity and theology from Princeton University. "It's redemption to all of creation, even AI," he said. "If AI is autonomous, then we have should encourage it to participate in Christ's redemptive purposes in the world."

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