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Social media giant Facebook has just grown bigger. On Tuesday it spent two billion dollars to acquire Oculus, another Silicon Valley success story, which designs platforms for virtual reality games. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg issued a statement in which he promised ‘the most social platform ever,’ which will ‘change the way we work, play, and communicate.’ These are big promises: work, play and communication occupy quite a large fraction of our lives. So what changes does Mr Zuckerberg have in mind? The Oculus platform is based on an advanced set of goggles which allow us to enter a virtual space designed by computer software. As the technology develops, we should expect that this new world will become increasingly lifelike. Ray Kurzweil, chief of engineering at Google, thinks that in about ten years, virtual reality will look just like the real thing. In twenty years, he prophesies, we’ll be able to ‘enter the virtual reality environment from within the nervous system.,’ and we won’t even need to buy the goggles. In time, some think, there will be a wholesale human migration to the virtual world. To remain competitive, the real world will have to become more fun, and more like a game, modelling itself on the virtual worlds created by the software engineers. And it will be fun. In our new virtual reality we will be able to change the rules: the colour of the sky, for instance. One could dine with the celebrity of one’s choice. Or even choose a moral system different to that which constrains us in our present environment. One can laugh this away; but billions are being invested, and Kurzweil does, after all, have nineteen PhDs. There will be money to be made in inviting us across the digital threshold, into a promised land where we can do pretty much whatever we desire. So here’s the latest challenge to our familiar human ways. But does religion offer a clearcut response? In the Muslim case, I’m not sure that we’re ready with the answers yet. Take some examples: if in my virtual imaginary world I marry a glamorous Hollywood star, is that, in fact, binding under Sharia law? And during the fasting month of Ramadan, is it a sin if I don’t fast, since the food which I think I’m eating is only virtual food? The answers, I suspect, should come from scriptural assurances about the objective seriousness of humanity and creation. The Koran says that the world has been created ‘in truth’. This material world, and our bodies, are the only true site of our moral and spiritual quest; the rest tends towards escapism. I think my theology would start there. Religion is ancient, but its cumulative wisdom continues to provide the basis for tackling the deepest questions. On this issue I don’t have all the answers, but I look forward to dealing with this latest challenge as it evolves.