Pokémon Go Offers Eternal Life
Pokémon Go has got people out into the streets looking for virtual monsters. The game uses the player's smartphone's GPS and camera to create a world of augmented reality.
With Pokémon Go, our mundane morning train ride is now a quest. While standing in line for our bus, we can catch a Bulbasaur. During our lunch-hour, we can engage in a Pokébattle.
Critics might say that players should "get a life". But defenders respond that Pokémon Go gives us a better life - it's got us outdoors, walking, and socialising. It gives us a purpose. An adventure.
So maybe our reality needs to be augmented.
Because if all we are is atoms, then any talk of purpose, love, justice is merely an artificial construct.
And if all we are is another species of life on this planet, then survival by itself can get pretty mundane. How many more days of sleep-work-eat do we really need?
Augmented reality is not such a bad thing.
But as good as it is, Pokémon Go's augmented reality is still an artificial construct - coloured pixels superimposed upon reality.
In the Bible, Jesus offers us eternal life - i.e., augmented life.
Jesus claims if we believe in him, his Spirit renews us and gives us augmented life. A life with purpose, love, justice. A life with adventure. Beyond survival. An adventure with Jesus.
I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.