Larne L. Dawson: The mediation of religious experience in cyberspace

Sometimes, the use of internet or the computer as the medium of mediation could be very complicated and confusable. One would think he is truly experiencing religious experiences because being in front of the internet connected computer could be the whole world for him. During the first few days of mine in United States, being able to sit in front of the internet connected computer for 24/7 was the only one thing I need to live on and socialize. I totally forgot about the real world outside, forgot about the people walking on the street because I was able to communicate with my friends via Google Talk, Skype and Vzo. But then, I bumped into a signature from an online forum saying that “Real life is not your TV and computer monitor but go out with your friends, have a coffee and nice chat!” That brought me back to sense and I was and still very cautious not to spend too much time using my computer but to go out, and feel the real life experiences. When I read the essay by Larne L. Dawson, “The mediation of religious experience in cyberspace”, I totally agreed on one of the arguments by the author that is; “Internet is a fantasy universe that stimulates the imagination but ignores the rest of the body, it is a non-environment that sucks attention away from the immediate surroundings in which most traditional religious life occurs”. I could not agree more with McGillion on the fact that internet is distracting people to involve in real religious experiences. I cannot speak for the Christians in Myanmar, since they do not even think internet as a tool for the ministry to have thing done quicker and effective in sharing information, teaching and communication, I can only speak for myself that I cannot concentrate my meditation while I am sitting in front of my computer so far. Indeed, there are many insightful mediation passages, presentation and youtube clip on cyber space and even there a visual physical space for meditation like in Second Life. Yet, I won’t get the experience of holing my Bible in my hand while I was kneeling and reading the scriptures and contemplate on that text which I would like to call spiritual moment of mine.

However, it is not to be blame on internet or cyber space for not having real experiencing moment while mediation to a particular group of people (unfortunately, I am one of them!) because internet is only a medium. It is a question of how the individual utilize the internet as medium of religious experience and what is the level of effectiveness to them. The definition of religious experiences by Larne L. Dawson is: "They happen to people and are not the product of human construction- either social or psychological. They are a manifestation of a seemingly ultimate 'other'." There will always be pro and cons of using cyber space as a tool for the meditation and religious acts depending on the various type of people. One cannot control the revelation of the 'other ultimate' from which we have the religious experiences. The revelation of the 'ultimate being' could happen in cyber space for some people as well as in physical church and community. Another advantage of using internet as medium is likely to have interactiveness which is lack in other kinds of media. However the effectiveness of this interactive communication is still an open question to be answered.