Angles of Hobart

Heading up from Sandybay road, this is the junction point into the city, and from a
Hobart point of view, yes, we seem to have a pub on nearly every corner with a barrister on the other
to get you out of jail/gaol for DUI.



Angles and boxes, this century and that. Amazing what pictures you
can take out of the window of a car.



Net 102 WEEK 4 Topic 1.5: Faith and Spirituality Online Task 1.4 (Assignment)

Net 102 WEEK 4 Topic 1.5: Faith and Spirituality Online

TASK 1.4 (ASSIGNMENT 1):

How has the internet been used to resist or counteract religious persecution and human rights abuse? As a start, navigate to the Falun Dafa Information Centre (you may use other examples). Less than 500 words.

Faith

–noun

1. Confidence or trust in a person or thing: faith in another's ability.

2. Belief that is not based on proof: He had faith that the hypothesis would be substantiated by fact.

3. Belief in god or in the doctrines or teachings of religion: the firm faith of the Pilgrims.

4. Belief in anything, as a code of ethics, standards of merit, etc.: to be of the same faith with someone concerning honesty.

5. A system of religious belief: the Christian faith; the Jewish faith.

To believe so strongly in those words means that an individual or a group can be singled out, exploited, beaten or have their basic human rights violated and take away from them by a government body who declares that it’s their governing policy and only theirs that should be followed. Religious and belief persecution has been noted in the history books of the world since humans could write e.g. the Spanish inquisition, religious persecution during the English reformation, witch hunts in 18^th century North America, Judaism in Germany during World War 2.  What they did not have and what we have today is the World Wide Web.

I utilised the link Falun Dafa Information Centre that was supplied by Curtin University Course Net 102 and was taken to the ‘official source on Falun Gong and the Human Rights Crisis in China’. (Over the past two decades I have heard a great deal about the human rights issues within China and other countries via other media e.g. television, news papers and radio broadcasts.) Falun Gong is a belief system that as an individual I have not heard about before now (Falun Gong utilises Qi Gong and recognises a charismatic living leader (1)). A report attached to the site “Why doesn’t Falun Gong feature in the news more often?” clarified this lack of information for me in that there is hardly any information leaving China particularly in regard to suppression of individuals and groups human rights. The Chinese government has gone to great lengths within its own country to dam the leaks by any means necessary, especially in regard to Falun Gong. What is interesting here is that Falun Gong appears to be fully “wired” to the internet and is still able to bring its message to the world via the web.(2).

So how is the internet used to counteract religious persecution and human rights abuse?  Quite possibly by having a group of individuals sympathetic to a particular cause live in a country such as North America, whose constitutional right ‘freedom of speech’ enables them to draw attention to and highlight atrocities within a particular country via the medium of a web page, in such  media to the masses.

Reference

 Falun Dafa Information Centre http://www.faluninfo.net/

Google search http://www.google.com.au/search?q=faith&rls=com.microsoft:en-au:IE-SearchBox&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=ie7&rlz=1I7ACAW_en&redir_esc=&ei=khSYTO2nNtKkcdnmyasP

On line dictionary http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/faith

Faluninfo.net/article :Why doesn’t Falun Gong feature in the news more often? http://faluninfo.net/article/912/

Falun Gong and the Internet http://www.ojr.org/ojr/ethics/1017964337.php

(1)   “Its founder, Li Hongzi, was probably born in 1951 (the question of his precise birth date has been the source of controversy) and established his peculiar brand of Qi Gong in 1992, after having left the semi-official Federation. In 1998, Li moved permanently to New York City, from where he oversees the expansion of Falun Gong internationally. Small groups exist in the main metropolitan areas of the U.S. and Canada, and in some thirty other countries”. (Introvigne, 2010)  http://www.cesnur.org/testi/falung101.htm

(2)“The group's secretive leader, Li Hongzhi, lives in New York and directs his movement from abroad with Internet, fax, and telephone. The group is thoroughly wired, with Falun Gong Web sites all over the world, including Asia, the USA, UK, Canada, Israel, and Australia.” (O'Leary, 2000)http://www.ojr.org/ojr/ethics/1017964337.php

Net 102 Week 4 Topic 1.5 Faith and Spirituality Online.

Reading Review

van der Laan, J.M (2009). How the Internet Shapes Religious Life, or the Medium Is Itself the Message. Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society, 29(4), 272 -277. doi:10.1177/0270467609336309.
Skim through most of this article--what we are most interested in is van der Laan's main concerns about the impact of the internet upon religion: what, according to van der Laan, is the problem with the increasing reliance of religious institutions on the internet? Do you agree with his views?

Review:

van der Laan begins with a suspicion that over a period of time internet resources have crept into the readings that he was listening to at church. van der Laan discusses in this article how religions, mainly American Protestant Christianity, are becoming more reliant on the internet for information for their sermons.    It is poignant to observe during the reading of the article a similarity to supermarket style marketing and checkout delivery of pre-written items for either a single cost or membership enrolments. Also noticing that with the expanding use of internet gathered information “enterprises redirect the interests of the churches to advertising and material success.” (van der Laan, p 274), thus the church becomes money orientated and as such gathering people but instead of delivering a message they use the congregation themselves to deliver financial support in reverse.

van der Laan continues further in the article examining telepresence and how the churches are becoming depersonalised with the installation of satellite technologies. Laans concern is “a more extensive examination of telepresence leads too far away from its focus” and that “suffice to say that presence has long been an essential of primary importance to Christians”, (van der Laan, p 274) but in that with the embodiment of satellite churches, congregations are becoming desensitised van der Laan is cynical in that “the audience needs to be no more engaged with the telepresent pastor than with a television show or movie.” (van der Laan, p 274)

He goes on to express fear that religious life has changed with the advent of the internet and that somehow Christianity has become diluted because the web has become the default source rather than a reference point for all things that are deemed important to religious worship. What may be a fundamental dishonesty is subliminally side stepped with preaching a pre fabricated message from the omnipotent computer.

van der Laan ponders if the internet is god like and that like god the World Wide Web performs miracles, an infinite amount of information at your beck and call, van der Laan suggests that “in a sense it is omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent.”  21^st century Christians have embraced technology and with such the church has had to embrace technology along with them.

My thoughts

Marketing, money, pre-packaged generic sermons as pre discussed, all seem to mesh together within this topic, van der Laan uses the word “insipid” to describe the involvement between all of them and from what he has written his cynicism is heavily peppered throughout the article. In this case is the internet the new “word”? Does the gospel according to the internet become the new message delivered to congregations; I will be interested to read more research on the subject.