Godwired: Religion, Ritual and Virtual Reality

by Rachel Wagner

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

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.

Genres: Religion, Nonfiction, Internet

266 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2012

Reviews

[robin-bookentine · Rating 3 out of 5]

vidéo games… religion… via….

[Graham Oliver]

This contains within it a good lit review of game studies theory in general, which is what I went to it for.

[Seth Pierce · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating, a bit mind-blowing when considering some of the implications (particularly for my faith tradition) and worthy of more study in this emerging arena.

Well worth the price of admission.