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Fragmentation: Online Evidence About Religious Innovation

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Dynamic Secularization

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Abstract

Creative innovations that can be studied especially well on Internet illuminate the dynamics of issues central to a double secularization: the decline of religion and the decline of science. Secularization is often conceptualized as a war between religion and science, yet wars sometimes destroy both belligerents rather than resulting in a triumphant victor. Conventional measures of religiosity, like frequency of attendance at religious services, seem to indicate a decline in the significance of religion. Earlier in this secularization process, specifically in the 1960s and 1970s, the weakening of conventional religion seemed to stimulate innovation, and the birth of novel religious cults. Yet if we are to believe the Wikipedia article that lists new religious movements, their birth rate seems to have crashed near zero, especially if we do not count parodies that express hostility to religion rather than innovation within it. Despite the supposed triumph of secular science, pseudoscience seems ever more popular, for example as illustrated by a set of YouTube videos about telepathy. New cultural forms enabled by Internet offer dozens of simulated religions, such as the sacred quests and migration of souls in the Asian multiplayer role-playing game, Echo of Soul. How can social science help us understand what is really happening?

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Notes

  1. 1.

    sda.berkeley.edu/sdaweb/analysis/?dataset=gss14, using the unweighted data.

  2. 2.

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supersonic_aircraft, accessed September 24, 2016.

  3. 3.

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_new_religious_movements, accessed April 9, 2016.

  4. 4.

    www.globalpeace.org/our-vision, accessed May 5, 2016.

  5. 5.

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster, accessed May 5, 2016.

  6. 6.

    www.facebook.com/groups/181753425298669/, accessed September 10, 2016.

  7. 7.

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missionary_Church_of_Kopimism, accessed May 5, 2016.

  8. 8.

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jediism, accessed May 5, 2016.

  9. 9.

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naked_Science, accessed May 10, 2016.

  10. 10.

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ganzfeld_experiment, accessed May 10, 2016.

  11. 11.

    thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/volume-19/edition-7/20-years-koestler-parapsychology-unit, accessed May 10, 2016.

  12. 12.

    www.bastyr.edu, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bastyr_University, accessed May 10, 2016.

  13. 13.

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_E._Puthoff, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stargate_Project, accessed May 10, 2016.

  14. 14.

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_McMoneagle, accessed May 10, 2016.

  15. 15.

    www.merrelltwins.com, accessed May 10, 2016.

  16. 16.

    weheartit.com, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Heart_It, accessed May 10, 2016.

  17. 17.

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5th_Dimension_%E2%80%93_Secrets_of_the_Supernatural, accessed May 10, 2016.

  18. 18.

    www.lfr.org/lfr/csl/, accessed May 10, 2016.

  19. 19.

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Persinger, accessed May 15, 2016.

  20. 20.

    www.ajcr.us/Aboutus.html, accessed May 15, 2016.

  21. 21.

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingo_Swann, accessed May 15, 2016.

  22. 22.

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_helmet, accessed May 15, 2016.

  23. 23.

    www.youtube.com/user/TheMusicrelaxation/about, accessed May 15, 2016.

  24. 24.

    brainwave.site/about, accessed May 15, 2016.

  25. 25.

    www.spiritualhealingarts.org/isochronic-tones, accessed May 15, 2016.

  26. 26.

    dianehennacypowell.com/meet-dr-powell/, accessed August 2, 2016.

  27. 27.

    dianehennacypowell.com/press-kit/formal-bio/, accessed August 2, 2016.

  28. 28.

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michio_Kaku, accessed August 2, 2016.

  29. 29.

    isha.sadhguru.org/us-en/isha-usa/isha-kriya/, accessed August 2, 2016.

  30. 30.

    www.spiritual-awakening.net/p/spiritual-awakening.html, accessed August 2, 2016.

  31. 31.

    www.jbittersweet.com/about.html, accessed August 2, 2016.

  32. 32.

    dreamingofavalon.yolasite.com/, accessed August 2, 2016.

  33. 33.

    www.aeriagames.com/playnow/eosus/mob_world, accessed April 30, 2016.

  34. 34.

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Status_effect, accessed April 30, 2016.

  35. 35.

    echoofsoul.wikia.com/wiki/Soul_Skills, echo-of-soul.eu/soul-systems, accessed April 30, 2016.

  36. 36.

    echoofsoul.wikia.com/wiki/Alchemy, accessed May 10, 2016.

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  1. Arlington, VA, USA

    William Sims Bainbridge

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Bainbridge, W.S. (2017). Fragmentation: Online Evidence About Religious Innovation. In: Dynamic Secularization. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-56502-6_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-56502-6_1

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