Markus Davidsen at Aarhus University is writing a fascinating dissertation on “Fictional Religions: The Morphology and Reception of Invented Religions embedded in Works of Fiction.”

He describes his project as:

“about two types of religions, fictional religions and fiction based religions. By ‘fictional religions’ I understand religions, spiritualities and magic systems which are embedded in works of fiction, be that literature, films or TV series. Such fictional religions are transformed into ‘fiction based religions’ when certain fans form religious groups based on the concepts and rituals of the fictional religions. Examples of fiction based religions include Jediism which is based on the Jedi religion in George Lucas’ Star Wars movies, Church of All Worlds which is based on the church of the same name in Robert Heinlein’s science fiction classic Stranger in a Strange Land and the Church of Satan and Chaos Magickians inventing rituals invoking the monstrous gods from H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos. Fiction based religions range from divinity directed religion to self-spirituality and from stern belief over playful experimenting to sarcastic anti-religiousity. Some religious groups base themselves almost solely on a fictional model, others blend impulses from fiction with influences from more conventional forms of religion and spirituality.”

I wonder if the worldviews in Dune are influencing any practices today?  I would expect to find references to Dune in neopaganism, just as we find frequent references to much of the science fiction/fantasy canon.  Also it’s hard to ignore Scientology which was founded by a science fiction writer.  I have yet to read James Lewis’s volume on Scientology, and wonder if he addresses this.  It would also be interesting to look at the effect of William Gibson’s writing on belief in cyberculture.

The web site myblessingcircle.com is launching as a self-described “Peer-to-Peer Anonymous Blessing Community.”

“Blessing-receivers are invited to upload a photograph or symbolic image and/or short bio of themselves, specify a particular spiritual/religious tradition they turn to for support, as well as request blessings focused on a particular theme or issue.

Blessing-givers can review pending requests, and select one that “calls to them.” Neither the giver nor the receiver would be identified by name or email.

All blessing messages will be “peer reviewed” before delivery. Truly inappropriate messages will be flagged for immediate removal, and the giver will lose their membership rights.”

OGMA releases his his first album. His ecstatic music can be heard on myspace.

“Titled “The Pope Meets You on Facebook,” the new Pope2You application lets people send and receive “virtual postcards” of Pope Benedict along with inspiring text culled from the pope’s various speeches and messages.”

Via Cult of Mac, via Catholic News.

A post on _Augmentology 1[L]0[L]1_ titled “_Emily is Not Real_: Uncanny Valley vs The Digital Übermensch” refers to my paper “Mapping the Temples of Cyborgism” and uses the graphic I created to illustrate an expansion of Mori’s map of the uncanny valley. The post is a RICH mine of links – so check it out.

_Augmentology 1[L]0[L]1_ is a blog seeking to “dissect post-geophysically defined notions of reality” and is sponsored by the Ars Virtua Foundation via the CADRE Laboratory for New Media.

“Ars Virtua is a New Media Center and Gallery located in the synthetic world of Second Life, World of Warcraft and the World Wide Web. It is a new type of space that leverages the tension between 3-D rendered game space and terrestrial reality, between simulated and simulation. The Ars Virtua Foundation is a locus of research around the issues of reality within simulated environments.”

This feels at first, in a speculative fiction sort-of-way, like one more step toward turning the planet into a large neural network… Building floating synapses for the network mind, out in the sea.

“In general, computing centers are located on a ship or ships, which are then anchored in a water body from which energy from natural motion of the water may be captured, and turned into electricity and/or pumping power for cooling pumps to carry heat away from computers in the data center,” Google writes in the patent application.

Read More…

The NYT writes about the decline of buddhism in Japan. Within the article is an aside about buddhist priests for hire via the internet:

It was partly to dispel this bad image that Kazuma Hayashi, 41, a Buddhist priest without a temple of his own, said he founded a company, Obohsan.com (obohsan means priest), three years ago in a Tokyo suburb. The company dispatches freelance Buddhist priests to funerals and other services, cutting out funeral homes and other middlemen.

Prices, which are at least a third lower than the average, are listed clearly on the company’s Web site. A 10 percent discount is available for members.

“We even give out receipts,” Mr. Hayashi said.

Mr. Hayashi argued that instead of divorcing Japanese Buddhism further from its spiritual roots, his business attracted more people with its lower prices. The highest-ranking posthumous name went for about $1,500, a rock-bottom price.

“I know that, originally, that’s not what Buddhism was about,” Mr. Hayashi said of the top name. “But it’s a brand that our customers choose. Some really want it, so that means there’s a strong desire there, and we have to respond to it.”

After apologizing for straying from Buddhism’s ideals, Mr. Hayashi said he offered his customers the highest-ranking name, albeit with a warning: “In short, that this is different from going to a shop in town and buying a handbag, you know, a Gucci bag.” Read more…

From the New York Times article:

Thousands of South Korean students, mainly networking through the Internet, immediately took to the streets, followed by a broader uproar.

The uprisings and protest in South Korea are a great example of the power Cyberactivism to affect and infect people (who may or may not have access to technology) with the call to action for social justice.

This is from the introduction to my paper in progress “Cyberactivism and The Courage to Be: Resisting Institutional Power in the Network Society”:

Technologies of resistance are manifold. The mythologies and histories of resistance are transmitted between actors, tribes, nations and networks through technologies as diverse as writing, dancing and uploading. Such means of transmission, information technologies, are foundational components of the cognitive spaces where we describe the indescribable, make the finite infinite and explore and expose the internal. These cognitive spaces are dreamplaces, realms of imagination and spiritual depth, where resistance is born from belief in
social justice and the possibility of a different, or even better, world. From the archaic to the advanced – information technologies are, as Davis (2004) describes them, “technocultural hybrids” (p. 7). These hybrid technologies are the revelatory vision, the pictograph and petroglyph, the smoke, the alphabet, the printing
press, the electronic signal, the telephone, radio, television, fax and satellite.

Along with the rise of networked information communication technologies emerges a potential new depth and scope for dreams of social justice. These are not only new means of resisting power but also new spaces for institutional power; technology is always the trickster, a coyote of the network society.

However, when used as a means to resist institutional power, information technologies can mediate the expression of what Tillich (1959) calls “ultimate concern.” When information technologies are engaged to communicate what Tillich (1959) calls “ultimate meaning” in answer to the “moral demands” of
“ultimate concern,” technology mediated communication becomes a religious practice.

This is one of the most responsive, interactive and informational web interfaces I’ve encountered:

http://www.moma.org/exhibitions/2008/elasticmind/

Take a look at Gregory Donovan’s brilliant research blog – he’s re-launched. What a code master!

Biblical events as if seen on Google earth.

God’s Eye View (Ark)

Devices are always watching us – and feeding data into the network. This OS X screensaver by Michael Zoellner searches for CCTV feeds and displays them. Very eerie.

riseup.net has a great collection of tech activism listserves.

Highlights include:

nomesh-tech New Orleans Mesh Networking – Technical Support & Discussion

farma Renewable energy sources campaign for the Zapatista communities

leftistpython Leftist and combative object oriented programming

fpl-fbv Forum on the Patenting of Life – Forum sur le brevetage du vivant

vgranjeros List for the farmers who tend the fields of the vfarm

techne technology and democracy

The New York Times reports that prison libraries are being purged of religious books and other materials. The Bureau of Prisons is banning material that might “discriminate, disparage, advocate violence or radicalize.”

Of course this is absurd and I can’t even begin to imagine who is deciding what would “discriminate, disparage, advocate violence or radicalize” and how to apply these criteria. Surely the entire Jewish and Christian Bible must be excluded – or is the Bureau of Prisons just assuming that there is no advocating or discriminatory content in the Bible. If so, they clearly haven’t read it. The Koran and the Bible both advocate violence in parts and peace in others. And so I can only conclude that this is an attempt to remove material that might inspire prisoners to rise up against the illegal and immoral system that has locked them up.

I wonder how much access to the internet prisoners have, if any. Could a case be made that access to cyberspace is a right for prisoners just as occasional access to the outdoors is?

In his research blog, Gregory Donovan constructs a definition of his neologism “cyberenvironmentalism.” Donovan writes that “cyberenvironmentalism aims to develop ecologically informed environmental practice for the information age through interdisciplinary examination of cyborg ecology.” He further defines his new field as follows: “Pragmatic in its approach, constructive forms of relationship between cyborg and cyberenvironment are negotiated and re-negotiated through sustained scientific research.”

I propose that the current threats to human rights and social justice in cyberspace warrant not only a “pragmatic approach…negotiated and re-negotiated through sustained scientific research” as Donovan proposes but also a revolutionary theory as David Harvey demands, one “validated through revolutionary practice.”

This revolutionary practice is cyberenvironmental activism. Cyberenvironmental activism is the pursuit of social justice within cyberspaces using not only the tools of theory but also drawing on the rich history of radical actions outside of cyberenvironments (by groups such as the SDS, the Weathermen, FARC, The Black Panther Party, etc.) Online protesting brings to mind mobilization through list-serves and email or web sites such as Meetup or MoveOn, but these are usually just a method of communicating about a solidspace action to prepare for the ‘real’ protest, when the people assemble in a physical space together. But there is an arsenal of tools available to the online online-radical to engage the cyberenvironment.

Just as is true with the solidspace equivalents, many of the methods used in this sort of ‘virtual protesting’ are considered acts of terrorism or crime by authoritarian structures. (It is worth noting that most web sites and cyberspaces have ‘free speech zones’ where expression of certain kinds is allowed, the actions described here deny the restriction of those spaces and reclaim the cyberspace as a public forum.) The tools of cyberenvironmental activism include:

Civil Disobedience: refusal to participate in online activities, refusal to follow unjust rules online.

Sit-ins, aka “denial-of-service-attack”: visiting and refreshing a site en mass to the point of crashing it or preventing other visitors from accessing the site.

Graffiti: hacking sites and posting political messages.

Boycott, aka the “auction attack”: negative rating attacks on cybermarketplace sellers to prevent commerce.

Letter Writing: Email flooding, sending more email than the recipients inbox can handle.

What distinguishes cyberenvironmental activism from cyberenvironmentalism? Cyber-Activism does not rely on scientific research or a pragmatic approach, but rather on that aspect of the human spirit that demands immediate action when we witness injustice. Cyberenvironmentalism might serve to “agitate, educate and organize,” while Cyber-Activism takes direct ‘violent’ or ‘non-violent’ action against the barriers to social justice in cyberspace.

Why does the human spirit demand we engage in cyberenvironmental activism? Religion. Socialist theologian Paul Tillich defines Religion as that which is ultimate, infinite and unconditional in our spiritual life; ultimate concern. Tillich proposes this ultimate concern manifests as the unconditional seriousness of the moral demand. Activism is a religious practice, we engage in activism because we MUST. The “schizophrenic split” between theologians and scientists that Tillich examines can be a source of creative potential – within that chaotic area exists an opportunity for revolution.

How much storage do you have on you right now?

In response to text messages, hundreds of participants wore white and crossed the Brooklyn bridge, boarded Subways and made their way (many unknowingly) to Coney Island. Joining the event without understanding the purpose and following this crowd, I had the distinct impression that I had been swept up in some religious ceremony. This congregation of believers could have been a ritual occurrence – and this only one instance. I found great pleasure in following and not knowing. Wondering if I’d wandered into the pilgrimage of a new techno-cult. The events were characterized by a frenzy of costume, face paint, electronics and the sudden appearance of music, fire dancers and magic elixers when we arrived at meeting points as directed by text message and guides carrying flags.

Can technology provide not only access to, but understanding of the origin of our design/evolution? According to Arianna Huffington, some family and friends of Google are getting into the business of decoding genomes. The Mountain View company 23andMe, Inc. is offerring to help you “make sense of your own genetic information.” According to thier web site, this means understanding:

“the 23 paired volumes of your own genetic blueprint (plus your mitochondrial DNA), bringing you personal insight into ancestry, genealogy, and inherited traits.”

To make sense of our own genetic information. To see what the genotype under the phenotype is. Is this like choosing “view source” on your web browser? To those who wonder about the ‘great web developer in the sky’ and its intentions for them, viewing that source code might come as a shock. Even with the passage of the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act, how long will it be before a religious idea like “chosen people” becomes something verifiable through the revelation of ‘fact’?

In The Soul of Cyberspace Zaleski quotes Rabbi Yosef Y. Kazen, founder of the Chabad-Lubavitch Web site, description of his “Global Interactive Database of Good Deeds” in which users type in an act of goodness or kindness and a ‘vitrual menorah’ lights up:

“[this database adheres to] our perspective that the Internet is a fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy of swords into ploughshares”

The text referenced is: “And He shall judge between the nations, and shall decide for many peoples; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.” (Isaih 2:4, Neviim, The Tanakh)

O’Leary (1996) as quoted by Højsgaard & Warburg in “Religion and Cyberspace”

As we move from text-based transmissions into an era where the graphic user interface becomes the standard, and new generations of programs such as Netscape are developed which allow the transmission of images and music along with words, we can predict that [the available resources of] online religion will [expand beyond text to include] iconography, image, music, and sound — if not taste and smell…Surely computer rituals will be devised which exploit the new technologies to maximum symbolic effect.