What is Reality?

Recently, there was a class discussion that revolved around Second Life which was highly controversial. Second Life is a program that allows users from all over the world to interact with other users in all kinds of simulated environments. Some of these simulated environments are religious in nature. Such places include different kinds of temples, churches, and shrines, including the West Wall in Jerusalem. The main issue here was whether or not participating in organized online religious events would be considered valid in the "real world." The class was pretty much split down the middle as far as agreeing and disagreeing with the validity of the action. Personally, I sided with the class that said, for example, that attending a Shabbat online could be equated with attending a Shabbat at a nearby Temple. One of the main issues that I felt was permeating the conversation was the question of "what is reality?" Many people in the class against the claim of the validity of lets say an online worship service like a Shabbat was that the service was not "real." The service was in a "dream world." Others on the opposite side of the fence claimed that if you truly believe in your heart that you did something or experienced something than it was real and valid regardless of anything anyone else said. In the case of attending an online worship service like a Mass or Shabbat, I felt that many people were focusing on the idea of intent, and if you in your heart intended to go to a traditional worship service, you could just go online and be justified. I feel that there is a fallacy in this reasoning. I do not feel that there is any person on this earth who would agree with this sentence: actually getting on a plane and flying to Paris, France and touching the Eiffel Tower is the same as going online, signing on to Second Life, and having your character teleport to the "Paris Environment" and "touching" the animated tower. In the end, I feel that intent to do something can be a good thing that can lead to fruitful actions. As some have argued, having "Jewish" environments in the game can help those searching for the Truth or trying to learn more about a particular religion can be lead to it for the first time or back to it after it had been a while. But just because I have the intent of doing something and have simulated actually doing it in a fantasy world does not give me the right to say I have actually experienced it in "reality."