God Block

Yesterday while keynoting an event in Port Charlotte, FL, with the Presbyterians I began thinking out loud about the future of internet connectivity.

I had seen Paul Allen of Microsoft earlier on a taped PBS show talking about "by the time our grandchildren are our age, there will never be a time when they are NOT connected to the internet."

I began to wonder what that will mean to the human experience. Think about it.

1. They will live with constant and immediate access to all of the knowledge of the world.
2. They will live in constant and immediate communication with all of their friends... except those they choose to block.
3. They will live with constant and immediate access to all entertainment
4. They will live with constant and immediate access to virtual sex (some of it with real people, most of it with avatars who will be a lot more pleasurable, beautiful, made-to-order and perfect than wrinkled, flawed, real humans)
5. Predator posers will have constant and immediate access to prey (unless, of course, virtual prey is a lot more pleasurable, beautiful, made-to-order and perfect than wrinkled, flawed, real humans)
6. Most people will go on vacation in virtual reality
7. Some people will never come back
8. You'll be able to sit down for "Highs and Lows" every night with your kids and friends in a 3D Holographic representation of anyplace in the world. ("Highs and lows on top of Haleakala in Maui tonight! Five Minutes!)
9. Prison might simply be a sentence to go "off grid" for six months
10. Some parents will put a "God Block" on their kids, and every message, thought, reference to God, the Bible, or Jesus will not be allowed to pass into their minds

I invite my friends to take these 10 into youth group, young adults group, or an adult group this week and begin the discussion of what the world will be like when our kids are "NEVER NOT" connected to the internet.

If you can each come up with a few more thoughts for my list, email them to me, I'll collect them, and we'll post the list in a later blog. (Maybe 95 Theses?)

Rich  (email to ramelheim@faithink.com)

Comments

[Mary Hess]

Authority will continue to flatten, with new kinds of authority structures emerging, and with organic relationships being privileged over institutionally structured ones. What counts as "authentic" will shift, AND matter more at the same time. What we mean by authentic study, worship, prayer, engagement, and so on, will continue to morph, with music and image joining our more cognitive ways of determining what is true. Finally, the ways in which we understand what we DO together, and individually, will press more and more towards flexible collectivities and participatory collaborations. I fear -- and sometimes am quite excited by -- the consequences for how we understand "church."Quite clearly religious education will matter more and more as we have to learn, from the ground up and together, what it means to BE of a particular faith, and practicing in a particular faith community, in the midst of 21st century pluralism.