Young is part of a new generation of pastors who can be in two places at one time. They are using technology — high-def videos, and even holograms — to beam their Sunday morning sermons to remote “satellite” churches that belong to their congregation.

It’s no doubt the “Trekkie” in me that sees no problem with holograms. Holodeck vacations anyone? If NASA, Buzz Lightyear, or anyone else manages to go to Mars or beyond, it might be nice to have a friendly worship service, say for healing, for death, for any number of events, while separated from home base. A more down to Earth example would be services beamed into remote military posts in Afghanistan or scientific posts in the Arctic.

On the other hand, the disembodiment, de-incarnational charge is legitimate, I think. Hermits and solitaries aside, most religions do factor in some corporate, communal elements. The question really is whether virtual community adequately fills this need. What’s the beer commercial? Great taste? Less filling? Perhaps the holo-vangelist experiment warrants a “yes” and a “no” to each of the two questions.

My concern here isn’t solely on the religious side of things. What I’m most interested in are the educational, or rather, the pedagogical issues this raises. Online learning. Can there really be such a thing? Once that question is asked, seriously asked, and even more seriously considered, one soon realizes that the answer is elusive. Social scientists, psychologists, cognitive scientists, education experts, and conflicting data notwithstanding, the matter may very well come down to where one stands on the nature, and thus, the purpose, of a human being.

See? And you didn’t think that everything had to be a theological issue.

If man evolved from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?

Take a closer look. Scan-ti-bodies? Scanty Bodies.

Checkout the Freakonomics folks over on The New York Times.

Warning! The discussion is on the creepy side. Below is a comment from a reader.

There is good evidence that Toxoplasma gondii — the parasite often found in cat feces that poses a risk to human fetuses — spreads by affecting the behavior of its rodent hosts. Infected rodents show decreased fear-responses to cats, which is thought to increase the likelihood that the cats will then eat the rodents, allowing the protozoa to complete the next phase of their reproductive cycle in a feline host.

Your reader wrote, “Can you image something like that in humans?  Scary.”  There is a growing body of evidence, which is somewhat controversial, that toxoplasmosis may induce behavioral alterations in infected humans as well.

“Employ these new technologies to make the Gospel known, so that the Good News of God’s infinite love for all people will resound in new ways across our increasingly technological world!”

These could have been the words of Johannes Gutenberg or Billy Graham. In fact, they belong to the current pope, Benedict XVI. He spoke them last month in anticipation of World Social Communication Day, an annual event intended to spread the Good News of God’s infinite love using mass media outlets. The message this year was mostly for the kids: “Young people in particular, I appeal to you: Bear witness to your faith through the digital world!”