11/2 Class Response

On class on Monday we took a good amount of time to talk about our article summaries and how they related to ritual. One common theme that kept coming up in this conversation was that a bunch of our articles were related to text-based chat rooms on the Internet. This led us to the question, can rituals be strictly textually based?

I can understand certain arguments that would support the idea that rituals could not purely textually based, but I tend to believe, mainly based on my article, that rituals could be purely based in text. Rituals are often thought of and defined as “something you do,” but even people who are using text to communicate with each other online are doing something. In my specific article I read about individuals who used text to create visuals, but in essence it was still just text. There was really no reason for these people to be taking part in this very specific type of chat, but yet they kept coming back for days, months and even years. Why? It could have been because of boredom, love of aesthetics, etc., but if these were the only reasons then these people could have just as easily surfed the Internet for images or visited a museum. Why would they waste their time creating textual images in chat rooms if it didn’t have some deeper meaning to them? I really believe it can only be explained through ritual. The ritualistic act of coming back day after day and the ritualistic act of creating a series of intricate images was what seemed to give meaning to these people.

The other question that surfaced due to our in-class discussion was the idea of whether an act can be a ritual or just ritualistic in nature. I liked the example we gave about Catholic mass. Is mass a ritual if no one shows up? Probably not. I’ll admit, I’m still having a hard time determining what things are rituals and what things are just ritualistic in nature. There are so elements of ritual that we have talked about that seem to apply to almost a person does throughout their day, so is everything a ritual? I don’t think so, but it’s sometimes hard to make those determinations. Maybe as I get more information throughout the semester I will have a better idea of what “ritual” means to me.

Play, Art & Ritual on IRC Summary

The article I read for our section on ritual was called “Play, Art & Ritual on IRC (Internet Relay Chat)” by Brenda Danet. The article was focused around a type of Internet Relay Chat that became popular in the mid-90’s. As a side note, Internet Relay Chat is just a more advanced term for chatting online.

Danet begins the article by describing how chatting online has become a popular since the Internet became prevalent in the past two decades. Typically Internet chats consist of typed text, but a new phenomenon began emerging in the middle of the 1990’s in which a specific group of people in chat rooms would use text to create images in order to communicate with one another. Whole chat rooms were created to accommodate these individuals because they had a very specific way of communicating and it definitely was not something that was for everyone. The author of this article labels this distinct form of communication on the Internet as “avant-folk phenomenon” because people were using folk art techniques to communicate simply in a technological environment.

The core principle of this article was for Danet to try and discover why some individuals were so fascinated with this very specific chat form because it is so obscure. A common dialogue using this “avant-folk” form of communication mainly consists of “people endlessly greeting and acknowledging one another,” so why in the world would anyone want to keep partaking in it?

Danet offers several possible explanations including, boredom, interest in pure aesthetic and community, but these reasons could just as easily be indulged by other activities. So Danet turns to Turner’s theory of people feeling a sense of communitas through ritual. She believes that people’s “ritualized play via the art embodies, expresses, and helps constitute a sense of communitas.”

Danet uses Rappaport’s features of ritual to help define why she believes this form of communication happens because of people’s needs to perform rituals. Formality, formulaic predictability and elements of the past are all features that Danet touches on, but repetitiveness definitely plays one of the biggest roles in this comparative study. One of Rappaport’s most distinct ways of defining ritual is through repetitiveness and she applies this to her study in a very in-depth manner. Repetitiveness is one of the features of “avant-folk” chat that distinguishes it from other chat. Seemingly, the entire point of this chat is for people to repeat themselves to show off their creativity.

Danet does not really come outright and say that this form of chat only occurs because of some individuals ritualistic needs, but she definitely presents a lot of evidence from theorists we have studied to insinuate this idea.

10/28 Class Response

In class on Wednesday we began talking more in-depth about the connections and overlaps between games, rituals and stories. To illustrate some of the overlaps we began playing a new Christian video game called “Heaven” in which the game player takes on the role of a person who has just made his way into the afterlife. There was pretty much a complete class consensus that this was definitely a game and it had a lot of story elements, as well, but we had a little more difficulty picking out ways that it was ritualistic. Part of the reason I think we had trouble picking out its ritualistic qualities is because we did not really get to play it for a sufficient amount of time.

The more I think about the game, the more I believe I can recognize how it acts ritualistically. One element of the game that definitely seems ritualistic in nature was the cross that would emit a holy light every time you were facing the right direction or looking at something important. For the first couple minutes of the game we had no idea why the little cross in the middle of the screen kept lighting up, but after a little while we realized it was our navigational tool. Through experience we realized the objects that made the cross light up were vital for helping us continue with the story line. If the cross had only lit up once in the beginning we would have been completely oblivious as to what to do, but since it lit up in a ritualistic manner some vital knowledge was given to us players. This ritual communicated some new knowledge to us.

This ritualistic act within the game made me think of something pretty interesting. We all observed that it was slightly unusual that the game didn’t come with an instruction manual, but maybe we were meant to discover the rules of the game through ritual? After all, most religious rituals are picked up through experience and not by reading a manual. As I have mentioned before I grew up as a practicing Catholic and I never used a manual to learn the rituals I needed to know. I think maybe “Heaven” wanted to illustrate that ritual is most commonly used through experience.

10/26 Class Response

In class on Monday we began to come up with definitions for what we define as rituals. After we brainstormed for awhile we came up with a pretty extensive list of ritual features and how they can relate to games and stories. For the most part I fully agreed with the list, but the one feature of ritual that I had trouble digesting was “repetition.” Nearly every ritual I could think of included some form of repetition for it to be “meaningful,” but there were quite a few well-known rituals that do not necessarily involve repetition. The two rituals that I was specifically thinking of that did not really involve repetition were bar and bat mitzvahs and Confirmation. These are one time events that make a huge impact on a child’s religious life and they do necessarily involve repeating anything in the future. This event’s signify a huge change and do not really require people to repeat anything in the future; the change has already occurred and things are final.

I think I would feel a little better about “repetition” in the ritual definition if we adjusted it to something like “varying degrees of repetition.” For some rituals you NEED to repeat certain things in order for the ritual to be effective, but for other rituals like bar mitzvahs and Confirmation these are a one-time deal. You don’t NEED to do anything afterwards for the rituals to be effective. Same for things like funerals. These are undoubtedly rituals, but they can only take place once. Things like visiting a loved one’s grave site afterwards could be considered repetition of the funeral, but again, these things don’t NEED to happen for the ritual to be effective.

Like I said, for the most-part I thought our definition of ritual was pretty awesome. Repetition was the only thing that bothered me because it was a bit too broad in my mind. I’m sure others could argue my point somehow, but rituals, in my mind, definitely have varying degrees of repetition.

10/21 Class Response

In class on Wednesday we talked about how religious perspective sometimes allows people to be able to permeate time and/or space. Prophets and seers who were specially chosen, such as Enoch, were granted special visions of otherworldly locations. These apocalyptic journeys are part of most, if not all religions, in some way, shape or form and it is not uncommon for them to be reflected in the profane world. Video games are a very common reflection of these apocalyptic journeys most likely because they are a more intense version of a hero journey. Heroic journeys are reflected in all kind of media, but apocalyptic and otherworldly journeys are becoming a popular subject matter for video games. I have to assume this is because more and more video games are beginning to have some basis in well-known religious apocalyptic journeys.

In the past few years, the God of War series has become one of the most well-known series in the video gaming world. While the main character, Kratos, is character that is not necessarily based on any specific mythical character many of his journeys reflect well-known Greek mythology stories. In the second game, Kratos descends into Hades in order to retrieve a sacred item that will help him continue his journey. The layout of this story is very similar to the ancient story of the heroic musician Orpheus traveling to Hades in order to retrieve his lost love, Eurydice. Both of the God of War games are riddled with apocalyptic journeys that have been “retold” in order to captivate the interest of game players.

Two of the most highly anticipated Playstation games of the next year are Dante’s Inferno and Darksiders. In Dante’s Inferno the player takes on the role of Dante traveling to the depths of hell. The game couldn’t be anymore straight forward in apocalyptic journey approach. In Darksiders, players take on the role of one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse. While the journey differs from that in the Bible, players supposedly will encounter elements from the story and create their own apocalyptic journey.

It is hard to pinpoint why such religious stories are becoming such a popular subject for video games these days, but I would not be surprised our culture’s interest in apocalyptic journeys had something to do with it. The apocalyptic journey just adds a whole new exciting element to the classic hero’s journey, which makes the perfect material for an exciting new high-definition video game.

10/19 Class Response

Yesterday before we ended class we began playing Assassin’s Creed. I had played this game before and never really realized how much it relates to a lot of different subjects we have discussed in class. The one thing that really struck me as we were starting the game was the idea that Chris was playing as a character who was “playing” as an assassin. It brought a whole new dimension to the game. We often talk about how people will often project themselves onto the virtual avatars they have, but how do you project part of yourself onto a virtual entity who is played by a virtual entity? It takes us into a whole new realm and things become seemingly more complicated. I was having a hard time deciding whether I should see Chris playing as the guy on the table or as the assassin.

Another thing that really caught my attention was how there was a voice directing Chris on how to use the controls of the game…and I do believe it was a female voice. Typically in games like this there will be on-screen tutorials and directions, but you almost never hear a voice giving you directions. It was very strange to hear someone giving directions as to what steps the player must take. With on-screen directions it feels like you are self-discovering what you need to do in order to play the game, but when someone is speaking and telling you what to do it feels as though you have less control; at least this is my perception. It made it feel like more of a mission and less of a game. Maybe this was done as  a way to suck people into the game and make them feel like they are the virtual character that is laying on the laboratory table.

All I know is that both of the elements I have discussed definitely relate to issues we have previously discussed and I will be interested to hear how others interpret it in class tomorrow.

Book Review #1

Section I: Introduction

For my first book review I chose to do a book from the Religion Books list. The book I selected was The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Religions Online, which was written by Bruce B. Lawrence. The book was first printed in December of 1999 by Alpha Books, which is located in Indianapolis, Indiana. My particular edition was released in the year 2000.  The book was released during the era when the Internet had become commonplace throughout most of the modernized world and when the “For Dummies” and “Idiot’s” guides were at their peak in popularity.

According to the preface in the book, Bruce B. Lawrence, “is an Episcopal priest who is also Professor of Asian Religions and Chair of the Department of Religion at Duke University” (2000, p. xxi). Lawrence has published a plethora of works, which include 10 books and more than 100 articles and book chapters (2000, p. xxi). His various lectures at religion conferences led to the creation of an undergraduate course entitled “God Online;” this course inspired Lawrence to write The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Religions Online (2000). According to Lawrence’s website, he still continues teaching at Duke University.

As Lawrence so eloquently puts it, this book “is a manual that allows believers or explorers to enter the World Wide Web” (2000, p. 2). The book was written with the intention of helping serious religion explorers navigate their way around the Internet without running into a lot of junk.

The book is extremely informative without being overly complicated to read. You can tell the author has a strong background in religious studies because his knowledge throughout the course of the book. Anyone from novice Internet explorers to technology experts could find something informative in the pages of this book, especially if religious exploration was on top of their Internet exploration lists.

Section II: Summary

Even though The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Religions Online is identified more as a “how-to-do-it” book instead of a typical “persuasive” book it definitely contains an influential argument throughout its entirety. His thesis is something to the effect of, “even though the Internet has its flaws concerning the subject of religion, there are many legitimate and insightful resources throughout the Net that can deeply enhance people’s spiritual lives.”

Lawrence divides the book into 5 main sections, which then split into a variety of chapters that relate to each main topic. The 5 sections of the book are entitled: Part 1: Welcome to the World of Online Religion, Part 2: Getting Started, Part 3: Using Religion to Socialize in Cyberspace, Part 4: Mainstream Religion – or What You’d Expect to Find on the Net, Part 5: Beyond Abraham: Cybersavvy Forms of New and Old Religious Traditions on the Net.

Part 1 of the book is primarily directed towards individuals who are “Internet-challenged” or may not have had much of an opportunity to get acquainted with the Net on their own. The first chapter of the book is solely present for people who have absolutely no idea how to use the Internet. The second and third chapters help people to get a better idea of how to begin browsing the Net for legitimate religious sites and texts. Even though the first part of the book is the shortest section, readers can already begin to see signs of Lawrence’s thesis. He subtly addresses issues that skeptics may use to argue that the Internet is not a legitimate religious resource and then uses these issues to shine light on a more positive perspective technological perspective. For example, in Chapter 3 he says, “The Net might be a virtual rather than a bricks-and-mortar place, but it is still a place where ideas about God and religion can resonate. It provides a space where faith can be shaped by individuals, and where groups can achieve a renewed sense of collective hope” (Lawrence, 2000, p.36).  Quotes like this address certain concerns and act persuasively without being aggressive.

Part 2 of the book focuses on providing individuals with legitimate religious resources that can be found online. This section directs people towards sources that are intended to enhance a person’s spiritual life. Throughout this part of the book, Lawrence illustrates the convenience and practicality of using the Internet to help people stay connected to their religions during an age where we are constantly busy. As Lawrence begins this section of the book, he states, “Just because you’re not at home doesn’t mean your religious life has to suffer – you can find spiritual resources online” (2000, p. 43). By showing people how the Internet can develop their spiritual lives instead of hindering them, Lawrence only furthers his thesis.

Part 3 centers around the idea of using the Internet to communicate with people all around the world, specifically in a religious context. Lawrence acknowledges the fact that many people are cynical about communicating with others online, but he encourages people to look past the negative perceptions and take a chance on a great opportunity to meet and chat with others who share similar interests. The key, he says, is to “Use caution, but enjoy the freedom and confidence you’ll get from cyber-relationships” (Lawrence, 2000, p. 87).

In this section Lawrence also highlights how online chat rooms and newsgroups allow people to take in information as observers or actively participate in discussions that spark their interests.  He says, if a person is interested in being more than just an observer, “These interactive sites allow you to pose questions to the Internet community and share your insights and wisdom with others” (Lawrence, 2000, p. 99).

Both of these main points show people that, “Meeting people on the Internet does not substitute for meeting people in person,” but it “offers a fun and easy way to meet interesting people within your faith from all over the world” (Lawrence, 2000, p. 87).

Part 4 of the book focuses on the mainstream religions, those that are based from the “ancient Mesopotamian wanderer named Abraham,” and their prominence on the Internet (Lawrence, 2000, p. 125). This section of the book primarily focuses on how different sects of Christianity, Judaism and Islam have been using the Internet to create awareness and answer questions about their belief systems. Lawrence only focuses on positive examples of different religious groups using the Internet as a way to support his thesis.

Finally, Part 5 centers on lesser-known religions of the world and how they are using the Internet to “publicize” themselves and teach people about their beliefs and practices. This section of the book is similar to Part 4 because, in both sections, Lawrence gives positive examples of how religions are using the Internet to further their causes and create more devout followers. The main difference in that the religions in this section are not as well known, so their main goal is to just create awareness that they exist. This chapter provides resources for religions like Satanism all the way through Scientology. Again, Lawrence supports his thesis by only giving positive examples of how these religions have been using the Internet to make others more aware that they exist.

Section III: Response & Commentary

I thought that this book was extremely relevant to our Religion, Ritual, & Virtual Reality class from both a religious and technological perspective. In our class we often talk about the skepticisms that people have when it comes to seeing the Internet, and technology in general, as a legitimate source for religious activity and teachings. This book sheds a lot of light on the positive sides and advantages of using the Internet for various religious reasons. Based on the website descriptions that Lawrence gave, I believe this book is a very good resource to use when looking for valid religious websites to use for research purposes or other exploratory endeavors. For our class in particular, I believe we could potentially look at some of these websites to see if communities are being built around them and what kind of rhetoric these sites create in a greater religious context.

One of the biggest problems I had with this book was that I do not believe Lawrence gave a balanced argument to support his thesis. There is no doubt that his thesis is that the Internet, even with its flaws, is an important source that can help people to enhance their spiritual lives. He does an excellent job supporting his thesis with positive data in favor of the Internet, as I illustrated in Section II, but he pretty much completely avoids discussing any kind of negative repercussions that might come about as a result of religious information being put on the Internet. From our discussion in class I realize that not every religious movement is going to be able to use technology to their benefit. For example, the Amish are not allowed to use electricity, so how is the Internet going to be beneficially to them? I know for a fact that there is information online about Amish communities and beliefs, but the Amish themselves are not going to be able to go on the Internet to chat with other Amish people around the world. In a way, the Internet could potentially be more detrimental than helpful to their belief system. While I agree with Lawrence’s thesis, I do not believe he presents a well-balanced argument.

Another minor problem that I had with this book was that the first 3 sections were extremely interesting, relevant and applicable to his thesis, but the last 2 sections (which totaled more than half the book) were pretty dry and almost strictly a resource list. I realize that this book was created with the purpose of being a “how-to-do-it” book, but the first couple sections read more like a persuasive piece while the two major sections were just site lists. I really got into Lawrence’s persuasive writing and was very disappointed when I got to section 4 because it just felt like he was naming off lists of websites to fill space. I have no problem with books full of persuasive writing or books full of resource lists, but I get annoyed when writing styles change halfway through a book. It took a lot of effort to get through the second half of the book because there was very little material that I really felt I could grasp onto.

I do not think that this book really changed my perceptions of religion and virtual reality so much as just gave me some hope that not everyone is a skeptic when it comes to religion on the Internet. This book did not really suggest anything new to contribute to our field of study, but again, it listed some great resources that could potentially be used for research purposes and it brought up some excellent points about how the Internet can be used to enhance spirituality in our busy world.

I did enjoy this book quite a bit. As I stated before, the second half of the book was difficult to get through, but the first 3 sections of the book were really interesting and very applicable to our class. I would suggest this book to others on the condition that they should really only read the first 3 parts of the book.

Section IV: Conclusion

Overall, Lawrence’s book had a strong thesis and legitimate facts to back it up, but unfortunately he did not have a balanced argument to prove his position, which somewhat downgraded his point. The first 3 sections of the book were extremely informative, interesting, and relevant to our field of study while the last 2 sections just acted as a kind of filler. There were some inconsistencies in the writing style since the first half of the book acted as a persuasive argument while the second half functioned purely as a resource list. Even though the book has its flaws it was refreshing to read a book by a religious scholar who was not a complete pessimist and I would definitely suggest this piece to others who take this class in the future…as long as they were sure to primarily focus on the first 3 sections of the book.

References

Lawrence, B. B. (n.d.). Bruce B. Lawrence official website. Retrieved October 10, 2009, from: http://www.duke.edu/web/muslimnets/mcw_bio/bruce/index.htm

Lawrence, B. B. (2000). The complete idiot’s guide to religions online. Indianapolis, IN: Alpha Books.

Muslims & The Metaverse Summary

My article for this week was written by a blogger named Wagner James Au who writes almost strictly on Second Life. The article focused on the idea that digital realms like Second Life could potentially be used to improve relationships between different cultures throughout the world. Specifically the author talks about how people are hoping to improve US-Islamic relationships through Second Life.

The author discusses how a metaverse development company is even planning a conference in Doha, Qatar in an attempt to show people how online spaces could improve US-Islamic relations. The article gives an example of how one of the conference’s organizers talked with two Muslim men in an online space. Initially the conference organizer offered friendship to the two men, but was promptly turned down. This resulted in an in-depth cultural conversation, which ended up being misunderstood by one of the Muslim men, but because he could scroll up and re-read the conversation things were sorted out very quickly. This conversation resulted in the two Muslim men accepting the friendship request. The author uses this example to illustrate how the convenient features of digital spaces may allow more open conversations and historical artifacts of sorts to help clarify mis-communications.

10/11 Class Response

I thought the game we played in class on Monday was an especially interesting exercise. The whole time we were going through the game I really wasn’t sure what to make of it because it seemed so “out there” compared to any other game I had ever played. I know a few people in the class compared the game to Risk and Trivial Pursuit, but I had trouble finding anything I could compare it to. Yes, the board setup was similar to Trivial Pursuit and there was strategy involved as in the game Risk, but to me, these games had a more comprehendible purpose than this game.

The further we got into the game and the more we delved into the rules, the more frustrated I got with the whole activity. Every time I thought I was just starting to understand things something new would get thrown in my face and that would throw off my whole perception of the reality of the game. I can’t help thinking that the creator of the game made this thing so difficult for a reason. Maybe the rhetoric of the game is that there are infinite complexities with religious wars and no matter how hard we try we will never fully be understand them. Who knows? Maybe I’m just dense with board games and everyone else in the class understood perfectly what we were doing; but I didn’t necessarily get that impression. I think there was a definite rhetoric that told us that religious wars cannot so easily be simplified. Most other religious games (not created by religious groups) definitely have a rhetoric about the somewhat ridiculous nature of religious conflict, but the games have been SIMPLE and seem to insinuate that all of these conflicts have simple solutions. This game, on the other hand, seems to insinuate that there is no simple solution to religious conflict and there are infinite levels of complexity.

10/7 Class Response

When thinking back to class on Wednesday the idea of “chaos to cosmos” sticks out most distinctly in my head. For a long time I wondered why religious institutions were using portals on the Internet like Second Life. Even though there is a specific niche of people who see Second Life as a “world” and not “a game,” I wondered why any kind of religious organization would really even bother to become part of these virtual spaces. The majority of people still view this virtual space as “a game,” so what are religious institutions accomplishing by becoming part of something like Second Life? I think the answer lies in Eliade’s “chaos to cosmos” idea.

Maybe religious institutions are becoming part of virtual spaces like Second Life as a way of attempting to create some cosmos in the chaos of the never-ending Internet. I believe the religious establishments in Second Life were created more in an attempt to establish some order in these chaotic spaces instead of as a way to convert Second Life users to a different religious view. These digital institutions seem to be more about leaving an orderly mark on a chaotic world because if these establishments were created to convert people there would most likely be Second Life bots and users standing around strictly to change other users’ views on the world.

Eliade’s “chaos to cosmos” theory gave me a little more of an idea why religious institutions may be working towards integrating into digital spaces.