Firstly, let me make it clear: I'm an atheist. Or is it Atheist. Or perhaps Agnostic. Anyway, I don't thump on the Bible or any other religious text. But it's like I once heard somewhere: There are many paths to the Almighty.
In my journey to the Almighty (I guess that makes me an Agnostic) here are some of the various religious bents I have investigated:
- Ascetic Catholicism
- Islam
- Wicca
- Shamanism
- Animism
- Germanic Paganism
- Native American wisdom (for want of a better word)
- Satanism (for a laugh)
- Rosicrucianism/Masonic stuff
- Druidism
- Chaos magic
- Alchemy
- Scientology
- Discordianism
- Jediism
Obviously, few of these belief systems would have been accessible to me (or many other people) without New Media presenting them in a convenient, safe, anonymous, I'm-just-looking-so-take-away-the-ass-paddle way. But more importantly, the trend seems to be that Netizens are taking their religion in the same way they take their porn, friendships, and funny cat pictures: Eclectic, non-committal, and as fast as the wires can deliver them.
None of this is more apparent than with Jedi beliefs. What started off as a bit of a gag for Atheists to stick it to government censuses, has now all the hallmarks of an emergent religion. The Jedi phenomenon has its roots some thirty years ago in a certain series of movies, made up out of whole cloth as a plot device; but it took the magic of New Media for the "Jediism" as a belief system to evolve and be disseminated, to reach critical mass with a global and rapidly growing bunch of believers.
Now we just need someone to demonstrate use of the Force...
The same can be said of New Age beliefs, as an elephantine, intransigent whole. Probably the weirdest group I've seen are the "Psychic Vampires". There are tons of people who fully believe they are vampires, on account of some kind of blood or cutting fetish they have. But there are others who identify with the vampire visage (i.e. cool and attractive), but can't stand the sight of blood. So instead they claim they suck on peoples' "psychic energy". People who have pissed them off, bullies and mean teachers mostly. Only the power of New Media could have brought this geographically sparse assortment of dysfunctional teens into a cyber-whole.
Some paths to the Almighty are rockier than others...
Back to my opening statement. One of the gems of New Media is that Wisdom (with a capital W) is easily available to all. It allows us to access to accumulated teachings of the great religious leaders, living and otherwise, across the entire socio-ethnic spectrum. It means we don't have to "throw the baby out with the bathwater." For example, I can appreciate the notion of loving thy neighbour without having to scoop out my brain and subscribe to Intelligent Design.
Many orthodox commentators see this as a watering down of Religion; taking bits of teachings from here-and-there and discarding those which are inconvenient. Meh...
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