%0 Book %D 2016 %T Cyber Zen: Imagining Authentic Buddhist Identity, Community, and Practices in the Virtual World of Second Life %A Grieve, G.P %K Buddhist %K cyber zen %K Virtual World %K Zen %X Cyber Zen ethnographically explores Buddhist practices in the online virtual world of Second Life. Does typing at a keyboard and moving avatars around the screen, however, count as real Buddhism? If authentic practices must mimic the actual world, then Second Life Buddhism does not. In fact, a critical investigation reveals that online Buddhist practices have at best only a family resemblance to canonical Asian traditions and owe much of their methods to the late twentieth-century field of cybernetics. If, however, they are judged existentially, by how they enable users to respond to the suffering generated by living in a highly mediated consumer society, then Second Life Buddhism consists of authentic spiritual practices. Cyber Zen explores how Second Life Buddhist enthusiasts form communities, identities, locations, and practices that are both products of and authentic responses to contemporary Network Consumer Society. Gregory Price Grieve illustrates that to some extent all religion has always been virtual and gives a glimpse of possible future alternative forms of religion %7 1 %I Routledge %C London %G eng %U https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781317293262 %0 Book %D 2013 %T Deus in Machina:Religion, Technology, and the Things in Betwee %A Jeremy Stolow %K Buddhist %K Christian %K Egypt %K Haitian %K Islamic %K Japan %K medieval %K religion and technology %K religious studies %K Spiritualist movement %K Vodou %X The essays in this volume explore how two domains of human experience and action--religion and technology--are implicated in each other. Contrary to commonsense understandings of both religion (as an "otherworldly" orientation) and technology (as the name for tools, techniques, and expert knowledges oriented to "this" world), the contributors to this volume challenge the grounds on which this division has been erected in the first place. What sorts of things come to light when one allows religion and technology to mingle freely? In an effort to answer that question, Deus in Machina embarks upon an interdisciplinary voyage across diverse traditions and contexts where religion and technology meet: from the design of clocks in medieval Christian Europe, to the healing power of prayer in premodern Buddhist Japan, to 19th-century Spiritualist devices for communicating with the dead, to Islamic debates about kidney dialysis in contemporary Egypt, to the work of disability activists using documentary film to reimagine Jewish kinship, to the representation of Haitian Vodou on the Internet, among other case studies. Combining rich historical and ethnographic detail with extended theoretical reflection, Deus in Machina outlines new directions for the study of religion and/as technology that will resonate across the human sciences, including religious studies, science and technology studies, communication studies, history, anthropology, and philosophy. %I Fordham University Press %C New York %G eng %U http://muse.jhu.edu/books/9780823250240 %0 Book Section %B Annual Review of the Sociology of Religion: Religion and Internet %D 2015 %T Cyber Sisters: Buddhist Women's Online Activism and Practice %A Tomalin, E %A Starkey, C %A Halafoff, A %K Buddhist %K cyber %K online activism %K Women %X The interest of the book lies in the diversity of the geographical areas, religions, and online religious presence which nevertheless have a lot of points in common. Non-interactive websites, social networks, chat lines, and so on come together to provide a good panorama of the online opportunities to religions nowadays. %B Annual Review of the Sociology of Religion: Religion and Internet %I BRILL %V 6 %G eng %U https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=G6KXCgAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA11&dq=Internet+and+Buddhism/+Internet+and+Buddhists&ots=gybgYVWdEA&sig=MSwiMO5eGBQ8yXo5xzKwyknpcUE#v=onepage&q=Internet%20and%20Buddhism%2F%20Internet%20and%20Buddhists&f=false %1 Daniel Enstedt, Göran Larsson and Enzo Pace %0 Journal Article %J Sociological Focus %D 2013 %T Internet Accessibility of the Mizuko Kuyo (Water-Child Ritual) in Modern Japan: A Case Study in Weberian Rationality %A Mieko Yamadaa %A Anson Shupea %K Buddhist %K children %K infants %K Japan %K memorial service %K mizuko kuyo %K New Religious %K religion %K Ritual %K Shinto %K Spirituality %K websites %X The mizuko kuyo is a Japanese (Buddhist, Shinto, New Religious, other) memorial service for infants or young children who have died through some misfortune, including disease, miscarriage, and, increasingly, elective abortion. Indeed, abortion is the predominant form of contraception for many Japanese families. Here we consider, in Weberian terms of the rationalization of institutions, how Internet accessibility and its created virtual reality of the mizuko kuyo has driven its popularity along the dimensions of privatization, bureaucratization, and commodification in decisions to perform the ritual by Internet. We utilize a sample of Tokyo mizuko kuyo Web sites and the contexts of their advertisements and available services for mizuko kuyo, including fee structures and other advertising “lures,” to analyze this merging of traditional and modern technological paths of spirituality along Weberian theoretical lines. %B Sociological Focus %V 46 %G eng %U http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00380237.2013.796833#.Ul1LyVCsim5 %N 3 %& 229