Godwired

the long version

Godwired offers an engaging exploration of religious practice in the digital age. It considers how virtual experiences, like stories, games and rituals, are forms of world-building or "cosmos construction" that serve as a means of making sense of our own world. Such creative and interactive activity is, arguably, patently religious. This book examines: the nature of sacred space in virtual contexts; technology as a vehicle for sacred texts; who we are when we go online; what rituals have in common with games and how they work online; what happens to community when people worship online; how religious "worlds" and virtual "worlds" nurture similar desires. Rachel Wagner suggests that whilst our engagement with virtual reality can be viewed as a form of religious activity, today's virtual religion marks a radical departure from traditional religious practice -- it is ephemeral, transient, rapid, disposable, hyper-individualized, hybrid, and in an ongoing state of flux. - Publisher.