Gods of Second Life

Every society sprouts a new religion from time to time, and Second Life is no exception. Yes, there are lots of conventional and unconventional religious activities taking place, but this week I came across a unique and purely Second Life-flavored worship area.

The difference?

Gods of Second Life is based entirely on actual Second Life characters and phenomenon, as if we were suddenly hundreds of years into the future when today's issues and personalities had become legend.

Upon arrival, the worship area is rather sparse and seemingly uninteresting - until you look closer at the several altars. Each one is carefully designed to play on Second Life. There is little signage, so you must know your Second Life trivia to understand the exhibits. A long list of Second Life Deities is provided, which includes this quote about the God "Uncle Phil":

Uncle Phil is the Creator from who's loins the world of Second Life and Ruth, the All-Mother have spung. The bringer of Order from Chaos and Pixelated Reality from the Great Void. An effigy of Philip's pants is the shrine of Ruth.

"Uncle Phil" is one of the three Major Deities, the others being "Ruth" and "The Great Corey". All the great features and personalities of Second Life are represented here, including Torley, Hippos, Lag, Crash, Linden Bears, Newbies and many others.

I don't often post multiple pictures, since I fear the Internet will run out of online storage, but Gods of SL deserves many. First, outside the temple is a monstrous torch, which looks eerily similar to the standard torch one finds in the default inventory, except that it oddly emits Flying Spaghetti Monsters. This is the altar for the God "Corey". Watch out for those noodly appendages!

The main temple, which is itself a gigantic effigy of "Uncle Phil's" pants, is pictured above. Note the similarities between the temple and the "real life" Philip Linden - including that rather strange multicolored structure covering the naughty bits.

The Goddess Ruth sits inside the temple, greeting visitors with her standard unchanging gaze. She's holding a Pastafarian torch very much like "Corey's". Pictured are Ruth devotees Infinite Graves and Marlee Theas, who have come to worship before Ruth's default chair. Ruth doesn't seem to move very much, but I am sure she is watching over us all. According to the legend, "If you are fortunate, you may glimpse her visage briefly as people of SL teleport in and out of areas".

Near the teleporter, a gigantic list of commandments specifies:

In Yadni we trust
thou shalt build like crazy
thou shalt help the newbie
thou shalt save the freebie

That's as good advice as I've ever heard for Second Life! Strangely, I follow them too. Most of them. Well, two.

Near the temple is a very inspiring obelisk showing the default avatars on each side. Male and female, human and furry, all equally represented on the different faces of the obelisk just as they are in-world. Seeing those all-too-familiar avatars stirred up uncomfortable memories for me... newbs just don't know how newb they are until it's too late. At least in my case.

My favorite display is this default wooden cube. It appears to be a standard box, and indeed it is. Then you read the description:

"Altar for LAGNOR, God of Lag. I would have finished it, but the sim is too laggy."

So true.

I haven't shown the Altar to Torley, the Hippos Bath or many other amazing items, but you can see them by visiting the Gods Of Second Life at this SLURL. When you arrive, choose "Gods of SL" from the teleporter and enjoy!