Last week I posted about Heidi Campbell's article on iPhone4 as religion. Since the, on Friday, she posted another entry on her blog as a reaction to a furry of emails by angry Mac fans. They reacted not to the academic article, not even to the article in a popular magazine, but to a misquote of Campbell's words on Fox News. She explains it all in her post. The short version is that the journalist deduced that she was making the claim that "Apple is a religion." based on the following written answer she gave to a question:

"The religious like behavior and language surrounding Apple devotion/fandom could be interpreted as an example of 'implicit religion', where secular activities/rituals & artifacts take on sacred like attributes due to how they are used and viewed by some fans. Implicit religion demonstrates technology use can take on a religious role or quality in postmodern culture when it substitutes for belief and behaviours once attached to religion and religious practice."

atheos is halfway through its series on "The Future of Religion." First a word about Pathoes from their "about" page: "[it] is the premier online destination to engage in the global dialogue about religion and spirituality and to explore and experience the world's beliefs." Based on the further description (see below) it seems they position themselves as the new Belief.net; a place to:

• Explore religious beliefs and histories through a deep library of accurate, balanced information on the world's religions, as well as through unique interactive lenses that allow visitors to compare, contrast and explore religions and belief systems in new and innovative ways
• Enrich the global dialogue on religion and spirituality through responsible, moderated discussions on critical issues across religious traditions, in the site's unique Public Square
• Experience religious traditions, both online and off, through a variety of multimedia applications and online directories
• Engage in intra-faith discussion through religion-specific portals, designed to provide a forum for discussion and public interaction

And now about their Future of Religion series:

As new forms of worship and belief continue to evolve in the twenty-first century, we have asked thought leaders from a variety of religious traditions to talk about the future of religion. What trends will influence how people across the spectrum of faiths worship and practice? What are the challenges and opportunities that will confront faith leaders? What are the controversial issues? Will cooperation or conflict between religions be dominant in the years ahead? What reform movements will shape the future of belief? Essays will tackle such subjects as race, interfaith relations, blogging, theological controversies, gender issues, proselytizing, music, emerging movements, politics, and film.

For each week they have between a dozen and 20 articles from prominent and/or interesting representatives of the religion discussed that week. Readers can comment right below the articles and the comments will show up on Facebook as well. Here are some essays pertinent to the "online religion" topic:

• Online Buddhists
• Morning, Noon and Night in the Virtual Pews
• Mormon Publishing, the Internet, and the Democratization of Information

I will post links to more relevant articles at the end of the series, after all of them appear online.

Since I started up my archive of academic articles related to online religion I kept adding to it. Since July 27  it grew by 41 articles. you can read the abstracts on the webpage or in the csv file. But for ease of references here is their list, linking where you can find the full versions.

• A Study of the Interrelationships Between the Internet and Religious Organizations: An Application of Diffusion Theory by William T. Ruppa; Alan D. Smith; Published in Services Marketing Quarterly, 2002/01
• "The Fabric of our Lives": Catholic Church Perspectives on the Internet by Jim McDonnell; Published in Fieldwork in Religion, 2009/06
• Another Time, Another Space: Virtual Worlds, Myths and Imagination. by Beatrice Bittarello ; Published in Heidelberg Journal of Religions on the Internet , 2008/06
• Believing in the Net. Implicit religion and the internet hype, 1994-2001 by Parna, Karen; Published in Leiden University Institute for Religious Studies, 2010/01
• Buddhist Meditation Through the Medium of the Internet by Joanne Miller; Published in School of Social Science, The University of Queensland. , 2010/01
• Communicating Spiritual Experience with Video Game Technology. by Gino Yu, Michael Highland ; Published in Heidelberg Journal of Religions on the Internet , 2008/06
• Computer Mediated Religious Life of Technoshamans and Cybershamans. by Libuse Martinkova ; Published in Heidelberg Journal of Religions on the Internet , 2008/06
• Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Religion and Computer-Mediated Communication by Charles Ess, Akira Kawabata, Hiroyuki Kurosaki ; Published in Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 2007/06
• Death and the Social Network by Jed R. Brubaker and Janet Vertesi; Published in , 2010/02
• Diaspora on the Electronic Frontier: Developing Virtual Connections with Sacred Homelands by Christopher Helland; Published in Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 2007/06
• Doing Religion in Cyberspace: The Promise and the Perils by Lorne L. Dawson,; Published in The Council of Societies for the Study of Religion Bulletin, 2001/01
• Enhancing the Spiritual Relationship: the Impact of Virtual Worship on the Real World Church Experience. by Andrea Robinson-Neal ; Published in Heidelberg Journal of Religions on the Internet , 2008/06
• Gender and sexuality online on Australian Muslim forums by Roxanne D. Marcotte; Published in Contemporary Islam, 2010/04
• How Religious Leaders Communicate Trustworthiness through the Web by Stefano Pace; Published in Journal of Religion and Popular Culture, 2004/08
• Inner Listening as a Basic Principle for Developing Immersive Virtual Worlds. by Simeon Simoff, Ludmil Duridanov ; Published in Heidelberg Journal of Religions on the Internet , 2008/06
• Internet Use Among Religious Followers: Religious Postmodernism in Japanese Buddhism by Rev. Kenshin Fukamizu; Published in Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 2007/06
• Islam and Online Imagery on Malaysian Tourist Destination Websites by Noor Hazarina Hashim, Jamie Murphy, Nazlida Muhamad Hashim; Published in Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 2007/06
• Islam, Jihad, and Terrorism in Post-9/11 Arabic Discussion Boards by Rasha A. Abdulla ; Published in Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 2007/06
• Kemetic Orthodoxy: Ancient Egyptian Religion on the Internet â€" A Research Note by Marilyn C Krogh* and Brooke Ashley Pillifant ; Published in Sociology of Religion, 2004/05
• Logging-on to Sai Baba: The Poetics of Sacred Globalization by Feike, Meredith Morgan ; Published in Louisiana State University, 2007/04
• Making Space for Religion in Internet Studies by Heidi Campbell; Published in The Information Society, 2005/09
• Muslim surfers on the internet: using the theory of planned behaviour to examine the factors influencing engagement in online religious activities by Shirley S. Ho, Waipeng Lee, Shahiraa Sahul Hameed; Published in New Media and Society, 2008/02
• Net worth? : Religion, cyberspace and the future by Jay Kinney; Published in Futures, 1995/07
• No More SMS from Jesus: Ubicomp, Religion and Techno-spiritual Practices by Genevieve Bell; Published in Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2006/04
• Online Rituals in Virtual Worlds. Christian Online Service between Dynamics and Stability. by Nadja Miczek ; Published in Heidelberg Journal of Religions on the Internet , 2008/06
• Online-Religion in Japan: Websites and Religious Counseling from a Comparative Cross-Cultural Perspective by Akira Kawabata, Takanori Tamura; Published in Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 2007/06
• Religion is Becoming Virtualised. Introduction the the Special Issue on Religion in Virtual Worlds. by Kerstin Radde-Antweiler ; Published in Heidelberg Journal of Religions on the Internet , 2008/06
• Rituals and Pixels. Experiments in Online Church. by Simon Jenkins ; Published in Heidelberg Journal of Religions on the Internet , 2008/06
• S(l)pirituality. Immersive Worlds as a Window to Spirituality Phenomena. by Pablo Martinez-Zarate, Isabela Corduneanu, Luis Miguel Martinez ; Published in Heidelberg Journal of Religions on the Internet , 2008/06
• Technological Modernization, the Internet, and Religion in Singapore by Randolph Kluver, Pauline Hope Cheong; Published in Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 2007/06
• Technology in spiritual formation: an exploratory study of computer mediated religious communications by "Susan P. Wyche, Gillian R. Hayes, Lonnie D. Harvel, Rebecca E. Grinter "; Published in Computer Supported Cooperative Work, 2006/04
• The Church of Fools: Virtual Ritual and Material Faith. by Randy Kluver, Yanli Chen ; Published in Heidelberg Journal of Religions on the Internet , 2008/06
• The Internet as Distributor and Mirror of Religious and Ritual Knowledge by Oliver Krueger; Published in Asian Journal of Social Science, 2004/05
• UNDERSTANDING RELIGION AND CYBERSPACE: WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED, WHAT LIES AHEAD? by Doris R. Jakobsh; Published in Religious Studies Review, 2007/01
• Virtual Incarnations: An Exploration of Internet-Mediated Interaction as Manifestation of the Divine by Julie Anne Lytle; Published in Religious Education, 2010/07
• Virtual Pilgrimages on the Internet by Mark W. MacWilliams; Published in Religion, 2002/10
• Virtual Religion. An Approach to a Religious and Ritual Topography of Second Life. by Kerstin Radde-Antweiler ; Published in Heidelberg Journal of Religions on the Internet , 2008/06
• Virtual Worlds Today: Gaming and Online Sociality. by Gordon Calleja ; Published in Heidelberg Journal of Religions on the Internet , 2008/06
• Virtually Sacred: The Performance of Asynchronous Cyber-Rituals in Online Spaces by Stephen Jacobs ; Published in Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 2007/06
• Where Dreams and Dragons Meet. An Ethnographic Analysis of two Examples of Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs) by Kathryn Stam, Michael Scialdone ; Published in Heidelberg Journal of Religions on the Internet , 2008/06
• Who's Got the Power? Religious Authority and the Internet by Heidi Campbell; Published in Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 2007/06

Yesterday I posted about an academic article on "Islamic applications for mobile devices." As Ramadan starts today, I would like to point out out an NPR piece about apps for Ramadan: Observing Ramadan? There's An App For That

Cell phone applications such as "iPray" or "iQuran" offer a beeping reminder of requisite prayer times, while the "Find Mecca" and "mosque finder" programs help the Muslim traveler in an unfamiliar city find the nearest place to pray...