"The Universal Life Church Monastery strongly believes in the rights of all people from all faiths to practice their religious beliefs, regardless of what those beliefs are, be they Christian, Jew, Gentile, Agnostic, Atheist, Buddhist, Shinto, Pagan, Wiccan, Druid or even Dignity Catholics; so long as they do not infringe upon the rights of others and are within the law of the land and one’s conscience."

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ULC mission statement. Accessed on: 20/04/12. Accessed at:http://www.themonastery.org/aboutUs

Locating Religion

This week in class we discussed ‘online religion’ and this provoked (yet again) some debate over whether the internet can be noted as a sacred place and further more if online rituals are significant or not. Cheong’s (2010) article about the relationship between religion and twitter is also reflective of this argument. Cheong includes that religious organisations started using social networking to ‘encourage the extension of presence beyond the church walls’(Cheong 2010 ). If you take this point of view, then it isn’t really a matter of whether online religion is sacred or not, it’s more about whether it is necessary, and the answer to that is yes. 

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Social networking is not a new fad and many other organisations have been clued on to how powerful it is for quite some time. One of these organisations is the Global Atheist Foundation. This foundation completely utilises every kind of social network to spread their beliefs. If religious organisations want to counteract the spread of atheism and want to truly spread the word of god as far as possible, there doesn’t seem to be any other choice in this day and age- they must embrace the internet. Afterall, is there a defined temporal or spatial aspect to religion? Kim Knott’s book, ‘The location of religion’ examines this question. Knott describes her purpose as trying to create ‘a new perspective on the relationship between religion and the physical, social and cultural areas in which it is situated’ (Knott 2005, p1).

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Sources

Cheong, P. 2010. Faith Tweets: Ambient Religious Communication and Microblogging Rituals. M/C Journal 13.2. Accessed on 15/04/12. Accessed at: <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/index.php/mcjournal/article/view/223>.

Knott, K. 2005. The Location of Religion: A Spatial Analysis. Equinox Publishing:London. 

Let's take our time.

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I’m sure you will all remember the debate that took place in our week six lecture. There were two sides, dozens of ideas  and  frustratingly enough -no decided winner. Out of the numerous comments which were flung from team to team, the two main points were as follows. Those who were pro ‘fast religion’ argued vehemently that older, traditional or ‘slow religions’ were just that- too old, too stuck on tradition, and too slow for a fast-paced world. However, with just as much gusto was the other side, arguing for slow religion and highlighting the fact that it is only the slow religions that hold true meaning. Yes, maybe slow religions are older, but it is only with time that we learn the most valuable lessons. And yes, maybe slow religions revolve around tradition however; we live in a mad world, there is no order to our chaos, there is no method to our madness, except for tradition. The right traditions grounds us, they provides safety from a world which is one step away from being so individualised, so complacent , and so distorted that soon it will be hard to find meaning in anything.

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The debate got me thinking, or more so worrying, about our concept of time.  Every generation seems to be getting more impatient and more wasteful than the next. We want everything now; all that matters is now and the long term is a far away concept that doesn’t matter right now. This is a disposable society where fast is good; fast cars, fast food, fast transport- we are fast thinkers. Western time is a competition. Many other cultures don’t even have a word for time because they do not have the obsessive urges that we do, to do control time. These cultures judge time through nature, they see a certain flower in bloom and they know it is a good time to grow some crops and not grow others. These cultures see certain animals leaving and they know it is time to brace for cold weather. 

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The western concept of time completely disconnects us from nature and drains the enjoyment from something that should be precious: from life. Even now as I write this, I want to escape such restrictive thinking and give the finger to this Greenwhich system we’ve been indoctrinated into, but I can’t. I can’t, because I have assignments due at a certain time; because I have to have dinner ready by a certain time; because I have to have an early bed time; because my class starts at a certain time tomorrow- the list goes on. But most of all, I can’t because I’ve already been conditioned to think in seconds and minutes and hours and years and by thinking like this, time controls me. We are not friends, time and I, just when I think we are getting closer... time runs away from me.