Today was filled with mystery as I got dressed to attend my first religious symposium as a RELS minor. I was able to listen to Dr. Christopher Helland, Associate Professor on Sociology of Religion at Dalhousie University. He spoke on sacred rituals and what they looked like both in real life as well as in the virtual world found on the Internet.
I felt he made very good points on how people still don't take the virtual world seriously, citing the online worship community "Church of Fools" which was started in England by Christian Methodists. Although it was extremely popular for its time in the 1990s, it wasn't long before the leaders had to get wardens to boot virtual attendees for improper and offensive actions during services.
In reference to what Helland calls the "Ritual transfer theory," which is where certain aspects must be left out in order to be enacted online, as well as certain aspects being introduced to a ritual in order to be performed in the virtual world, Helland made convincing points of how most people refuse to acknowledge online rituals as legitimate, due to the physical limitations and lack of a real body. I agreed with him on most points, and thought he made a convincing argument that until people begin to view the virtual world as a real world equivalent and can honor sacred events both physically and virtually, we cannot consider online rituals supplementary for real-life rituals.
I felt he made very good points on how people still don't take the virtual world seriously, citing the online worship community "Church of Fools" which was started in England by Christian Methodists. Although it was extremely popular for its time in the 1990s, it wasn't long before the leaders had to get wardens to boot virtual attendees for improper and offensive actions during services.
In reference to what Helland calls the "Ritual transfer theory," which is where certain aspects must be left out in order to be enacted online, as well as certain aspects being introduced to a ritual in order to be performed in the virtual world, Helland made convincing points of how most people refuse to acknowledge online rituals as legitimate, due to the physical limitations and lack of a real body. I agreed with him on most points, and thought he made a convincing argument that until people begin to view the virtual world as a real world equivalent and can honor sacred events both physically and virtually, we cannot consider online rituals supplementary for real-life rituals.
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