in the open space: God & culture

Last summer, my family acquired one of the latest revolutions in virtual reality — a headset that uses a smartphone as a display. It looks like a giant visor, and once you hold it up to your eyes and strap it on, you are immersed in a wide variety of 360 environments — from standing in a dense forest with a very real-looking computer-generated dinosaur to balancing on a surfboard gliding under giant curved walls of moving water. Some of the environments almost feel like the real thing — and many people are drawn to it. “This technological paradigm shift brings a level of immersion unlike any that has come before it,” says Monica Kim in “ The Good and the Bad of Escaping to Virtual Reality .”                                                ...