Just finished this topic about the religion and cyberspace. Religion and the Internet will continuously be a topic that needs to be addressed by scholar. In my final project, I am doing a web site about spirit money and of course it is about religion and cyberspace. Below are the quotes:
BOOK: RELIGION AND CYBERSPACE
References:
HOJSGAARD, M., AND WARBURG, M., 2005, Religion and Cyberspace, Oxon, UK: Routledge.
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In the twenty-first century, religious life is increasingly moving from churches, mosques and temples on to Internet. Today, anyone can go online and seek a new form of religious expression without ever encountering a physical place of worship, or an ordained teacher or priest.
The digital age offers virtual worship, cyber-prayers and talk-boards for all of the major world faiths, as well as for pagan (a person who is not a believer in any of the chief religions of the world) organizations and new religious movements.
Scholars of religion need to understand the emerging forum that the Web offers to religion, and the kinds of religious and social interaction that it make possible.
Religion and Cyberspace explores how religious individuals and groups are responding to the opportunities and challenges that cyberspace brings. It asks how religious experience is generated and enacted online, and how faith is shaped by factors such as limitless choice, lack of religious authority, and the conflict between recognized and non-recognized forms of worship.
There are few relevant questions need to consider in my project:
What does the Internet do to traditional belief or religion?
How are religious experiences mediated online?
In what ways have religious individuals and groups used and adapted to the emerging reality of virtual culture?
The first studies of religion and the Internet appeared in the mid-1990a, and the very novelty and potential of the subject were grasped with enthusiasm…
(page1)
The far-reaching consequences predicted in the first wave will probably not all come true. However, now that the phenomenon of religious communication in cyberspace, on the Internet, or through computer-mediated communication systems has been with us for some years, new insight (understand deeply) should be gained by researching the subject again. The conference, which is the basis for the book, proved that a range of scholars in the field agreed that the time was ripe for a revisit. (p 2)
Stephen D.O'Leary – a scholar of religion and communication who started the "first wave" of religious studies related to the Internet – in this book reassesses and evaluates the ideas of his earlier works in the light of the present situation. Having had an optimistic approach in his earlier writings, O'Leary admits that his present analyses of religious and cyberspace tend to have a pessimistic tone. Still, he maintains the basic evaluation of computer-mediated communication as something that "represents a cultural shift comparable in magnitude to the Gutenberg revolution." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project Gutenberg
In the words of Lorne L. Dawson that the "interactive potential of computer mediated communication gives it an advantage in mediating religious experience over conventional broadcast media" (p 2 ).
Commenting on cyberspace and the new global communication networks as a whole, Eileen Barker in her chapter 5 (Crossing the boundary: new challenges to religious authority and control as a consequence of access to the Internet) of the book declares that any "student of religion" – or, indeed, of contemporary society – will ignore this new variable at his or her peril". Pondering over her warning, the editors hope that this book may mean that any clever student of contemporary religions will be enough not to ignore the Internet (p 2).
The Internet was supplied with a more user friendly graphical interface and began to grow significantly in the begining of the 1990s, the religious usage of the new medium also started escalating (p 2).
By the end of the 1990s there were more than 1.7 million web pages covering religion. By 2004, the number of religious web pages had grown considerably worldwide. There were then approximately 51 million pages on religion, 65 million web pages dealing with churches, and 83 million web pages containing the word GOD. If these numbers and their growth are indicative of the priorities of human desires in the age of digital information, religion is doing quite well.
Surveys made by the Pew Internet and American Life project indicate that – although religion is not the most popular issue of cyberspace – the interest in this subject area among Internet users has become widespread (p3).
By 2004 the number of persons in the USA who had done things online relating to religious or spiritual matters had grown to almost 82 million (Hoover, Schofield Clark, and Rainie 2004) (p3)
Today, almost every contemporary religious group is present on the Internet (p4).
In the age of digital information, people will still want to meet each other for religious purposes in face-to-face setting. Despite its various representations in cyberspace, the physical Jerusalem, argues O'leary, will maintain its importance as a holy place and corporeal point of political strife. Besides, the Internet is also functioning as a supplement to or just a reflection of religion in the modern or postmodern society at large (p 5).
If the first wave of religious usage and academic studies of the Internet was filled with either utopian fascination or dystopian anxieties about the surreal potentials of the new digital communication medium, the second wave, in general, tends to be more reflexive and less unrealistic, as it seeks to come to terms with the technological differences, the communication contexts, and the overall transformations of the late modern society (p 5).
Mia Lovheim (2004:267) concludes that uncritical claims about the Internet as something "new" and separate from other processes in society need to be questioned (p 5).
The culture of cyberspace, for instance, has been characterized by various authors and commentators during the last three or four years by such words and phrases as "global", "democratic", "anti-hierarchical", "fluctuating", "dynamic", "user-oriented", "virtual", "visual", "hyper-tectual", inter-textual", "converging", and "discursive" (p 5).
One of the most prevalent ideas that permeate these catchy descriptions of cyber culture is the notion of interactivity or interaction.
According to Mark Poster (1995), the Internet by and large can be used either as a telly set or as a telephone. In the first case, the Internet transmits messages, religious or not, from content providers to content consumers. In the second case, the Internet connect people from various places (p 6).
According to Massimo Introvigne that there are 3 foundational aspects of Internet usage – the personal, the interpersonal, and the transpersonal. Personal usage involves externalized information. Interpersonal usage entail objectified information. Traspersonal usage includes imaginary communication and involves internalized information.
The Varying relationships between religion and cyberspace with special reference to the different religious usage of the Net such as mailing lists, message boards and news groups. (p 7)
Religion and the X of cyberspace is a topic driven by many chaotic forces from globalization to technological innovation. Most likely the Internet itself will continue to undergo fundamental and complex changes with respect to its individual and societal significance.
The religious landscape of the twenty-first century will continuously go through alteration and transformations (p 08).
…computers and the Internet could do almost anything. The Internet could create new religions existing only in cyberspace…(p 08).
"Information technology is here" said David Lochhead (1997: xiv), and it is transforming our world. It is transforming us". (p 9)
"The Internet does not generate religion, only poeple do….the allegedly pure cyber-religious sites are being produced and used by persons who do not live their entire lives "on the screen" said Morten T. Hojsgaard (p9).
(Edited by Morten T Hojsgaard and Margit Warburg)
