METAVERSE—ILLUSION CONFUSION?

METAVERSE—ILLUSION CONFUSION?
Tuesday, November 23, 2021 by Leona Choy

Are you one of the roughly 2.91 billion monthly active users of Facebook? Maybe you missed it, but some drastic changes are in the offing since October 28, 2021, that may throw you off-kilter.

Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, the largest social network worldwide, took off his Facebook mask and announced a name and concept change from Facebook to Meta—to help bring the Metaverse to life. Watch for the new name and logo beginning to appear throughout the media.

Why should Christians care? Don't we have enough to be concerned about with our national and global society turned upside down and “Being Built Badly” in ways we thought we'd never live to see? Hold on! The Metaverse is part of the agenda to exploit youthful curiosity about how far humanity can push beyond our 2D of real space and time into the thought world where imagination creates reality. Or so it would seem.

We should be informed watchmen to see the developing future, alert to courageously sound the alarm, if necessary, to protect our next generation. Perilous times are even now upon us. Deception fogs every aspect of our lives.

I've run front for you in the initial research. Check it out yourselves. Where you see quotes below, the statements originate from Metaverse proponents. Comments and Caution Flags? I'm willing to own those from a Christian worldview. As I prepared to post this, IFA popped up online with an article on the same breaking news, which neatly confirms my findings.

What's been going on in the world scene while we were meekly tucked away at a safe distance from society muzzled by decorative masks “for our protection and the greater good”?

Enter the concept of the Metaverse. No, that's not a bizarre kind of poetry for modern readers. In simple terms, the Metaverse will basically be a virtual world which is the digital twin of ours. In this spirit world, we are encouraged to recreate ourselves. It’s an out-of-body experience where your senses trick the human eye and brain and persuade you that you can be someone else and be somewhere else in another dimension. Wearing your unique 3D VR headset, you can leave your body behind in 2D on a chair or couch or standing like a mute blindfolded prisoner.

Since the late 1970s and early 1980s, many in the technology community have imagined a far advanced successor to the Internet. Apparently, this is it! The Metaverse has become the newest macro-goal for many of the world’s tech giants and corporations and for their eager financial investment.

Meta is the Greek word for "beyond." Their new company brand and logo is the symbol of infinity. “The name Facebook,” Zuckerberg claims, "is too limiting. It just doesn't encompass everything we do anymore, let alone in the future." Social media apps will still be a focus for Meta but “Enormous wheels are turning and resources are flowing and the effort is definitely going to be made." The Metaverse is supposed to be the next major advance to revolutionize the way you and I will connect with each other.

Zuckerberg described a grandiose vision of the Metaverse where "you're gonna be able to do almost anything you can imagine. (Compare Genesis 11:6 for God's judgment on man's misguided goal.) He predicts that “within the next five years the Metaverse will dictate how we get together with friends and family, work, learn, play, shop, create—as well as entirely new categories that don't really fit how we think about computers or phones today."

Caution flag! Look for the pagan spirit world connection. The user can imitate the Creator to remake himself into one or more contrasting identities or avatars—one evil self and one benign if they wish. The original meaning of avatar in Sanskrit in the late 18th century was "descent," referring to the descent of a deity to the earth—typically, the incarnation in the earthly form of Vishnu or another Hindu deity. Later it referred to any incarnation in human form, then to any embodiment.

In the age of technology, an avatar is used for the image that a person chooses as his or her "embodiment" in an electronic medium. Out there unprotected in this imaginary spirit world we should be aware that we are vulnerable to the evil adversary and his minions prowling about to devour those who trespass in their territory. (1 Peter 5:8)

Caution flag! We are tempted to escape our real lives and create whatever kind of imaginary world we ideally want to live in even one without law or restraints, or inhibitions. The promise of Metaverse is that “we’ll be able to express ourselves in new, joyful, completely immersive ways and unlock lots of amazing experiences.” The Metaverse is a shared imaginary place “wherein special virtual neighborhoods the rules and laws of real three-dimensional space-time are ignored, free combat zones are available for people to hunt and kill each other." In this make-believe alternate world, our avatar-self can remake itself without a conscience or any God to answer to. A fake utopia in a fanciful world deliberately disconnected from reality.

On a website or social media network, you might have been depicted by a username or thumbnail picture. In the Metaverse, you're portrayed by a customizable avatar that can move, speak, and/or perform animated actions in your identity. As an avatar, you will have the ability to own, create, and exchange, and/or sell your virtual property. This is seen by many as the last step past the "magic windows" of our flat screens on computers or cell phones to a world where one actually feels a sense of "presence" with other 3D avatars occupying the same location. "It'll feel like you're right in the room together making eye contact, having a shared sense of space and not just looking at a grid of faces on a screen," as Meta put it in its keynote message. Caution flag! There are other “presences” in the spirit world which especially the young have no way to discern and be protected against without being grounded in the Way, the Truth, and the Life of Jesus.

So what's not to like in the Meta concept? Haven't we been happy to have available online education, to shop, to present ourselves socially, to work online, to be entertained online, to get all our information and news online, even worship online? Without realizing it, we have become intentionally conditioned to welcome "living online," to be confined in a sedentary virtual world. The advocates claim that in the Metaverse you can access all of life and activity more fully in 3D by wearing VR goggles. You will have the feeling that you are present in the drama, not watching from the outside.

Caution flag! We are rapidly consenting to thought control while losing our freedoms and initiative. We are raising a generation of children hiding behind masks to whom virtual is the norm, whose sense of self and core identity is in question. Their gender is confused and changeable and they have no sense of moral direction or self-worth. They are bewildered trying to distinguish between virtual reality, augmented reality, and real-life through our five senses.

Caution flag! VR will not only change our lives in the very near future but Zuckerberg predicted that the Metaverse “will be mainstream in 5-10 years” and eventually dominate our lives. A straight line from pleasure to addiction. Digital life will be the center of the future. It will not be about the physical world anymore. Eventually, physical reality will naturally merge with the digital world. People will live, work, and play in the make-believe non-world. If you fear that too much screen time already shrivels up your flesh and diminishes your soul or drains your energy, wait till you experience metaverse overload. Is this where we want to end up?

Where's the danger? The Metaverse isn’t an actual location, just a synthetic and fictional one designed for a single purpose. Although not real, it is designed to mess with our minds until we don't know the difference between what is real or not. That's where the evil lies. When we can't distinguish that, we soon border on insanity.

Caution flag! The participant, conditioned and willing, can be controlled, made to do or say anything, even against their morals or faith. As if hypnotized, the mind accepts the false as real. Illusion turns to delusion. The ultimate lie from the chief of all liars. “Be not deceived,” the Lord warns. Wholesale deception. The Scriptures warn, “even the people God has chosen [elect], if that is possible, will be deceived” (Matthew 24:24). Control and power are the goals for “creating a Metaverse, where all kinds of experiences can happen with no consequences in the real world. To escape from the nasty real world is such a pleasurable experience that you are easily drawn in—and soon addicted.

It's important to differentiate between "a metaverse" and "THE Metaverse." Changing the article preceding "metaverse" can heavily impact the meaning. Broadly speaking, any corporate entity or group of programmers will be able to create "a metaverse" as Facebook has done, and just as anyone can create a corporate or business network or a blog.

Caution flag! Here's the possible sinister end goal: In an overall wider sense THE Metaverse could be “taken over” for evil purposes and controlled—a virtual “war of the worlds, a war in the heavenlies” could result. The evil entity whom Jesus called “the prince of the power of the air” has been fighting for heavenly and earthly and probably universal control against the Creator God of the heavens and the earth and all that is in them.

We aren't against progress. Technology is neither good nor bad in itself. Aren't these speculations simply innocent fantasies or games for entertainment? Only an amusing way to temporarily escape the nasty real world where we live? Let's not consent to be blindfolded as we consented to be masked.

That's why I've posted Caution flags. Let's think of our children, grandchildren, and for some of us, great-grandchildren. They are the ones for whom these pleasure traps are being set. Even now they are being conditioned to eagerly accept them. The young have already been nurtured by fantasy, illusion, and make-believe in kids' movies, stories of space travel and time travel, people experiencing everyday non-gravity actions.

Who, if not we, are GOD’S WATCHMEN to protect the next generations against the deceptions of the evil one? We must teach them what's actual and genuine (our invisible God and our invisible souls) and what's pretending and a figment of their own imagination—and who we really are in Christ, and the love of God Who created us in His own image. They don't need avatar-selves!

Let's make sure they don't get lost in cyberspace ON OUR WATCH.

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Comments

Jo Ciaramitaro From Michigan At 11/28/2021 11:46:11 AM

Wow! That was a great and informative blog, Leona. Thank you for all your time and research. We all need to share this one!

Marlene J Bagnull From PA At 11/24/2021 5:06:22 PM

Thanks much, Leona for this in-depth report. Indeed, "not on our watch!" I'm going to send my followers to your blog.

BettyVonn Snapp From Stephens City At 11/24/2021 11:28:18 AM

Very insightful and clear. Thank you, Leona. When I first heard of this, I thought, “God is angry at this travesty - think Tower of Babel”. It was mild in comparison. God bless and keep you.

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