Hyperspace, we're going into hyperdrive.

Reflecting on this weeks (excellent) presentation, and Heidi Campbell's chapter regarding the Abrahamic faiths and their engagement with new media, the sentiments that resonated most strongly with me, in that they seemed to encapsulate the core of what I'd intuitively felt, came from Campbell's elucidation on the Islamic approach to Religion On-Line.

As was discussed in Wednesday's seminar, one of the potential problems with people searching for their spiritual nourishment on line is that they miss out on the physical, collective experience of being around other worshippers, while at the same time contributing to the dwindling participation rates in neighbourhood congregations.

However, this autonomous worship can also lead to a false knowledge of religious texts, and raises the question, 'Is everyone's own interpretation of a religious text equally valid?'


Campbell cites the warning on the homepage of the University of Southern California's Muslim Student Association's Qur'an Database webpage.

"Today, technology is helping bring Islam into the homes of millions of people, Muslim and otherwise. There is a blessing in all this of course, but there is a real danger that Muslim's will fall under the impression that owning a book or having a database is equivalent to being a scholar of Islam.This is a great fallacy. Therefore, we would like to warn you that this database is merely a tool, and not a substitute for learning, much less scholarship in Islam (Campbell 2010: 32)."


Given the enormity and freedom of the Internet, any and all theories and interpretations may be suggested and discussed. This is not necessarily a bad thing in and of itself, but it seems to me that even among secular groups people tend to like listening to and discussing things with people that agree with them. Amongst certain religious groups however, this potential echo chamber can lead to such misinterpretation of religious texts that the benefits of the space and freedom of on line religious learning are seriously undermined. This though, obviously is not restricted to religious groups, with any number of anti social groups exploiting the same space.

As an Iranian cleric is quoted as saying,

"The internet is like a knife. You can use it to peel fruits, or to kill someone. But that does not mean that the knife is bad (Campbell 2010: 33)."

References

Campbell, H. When Religion Meets New Media. Taylor and Francis, 2010.