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Online Church - For or Against
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| lovefootball) | Date: Wednesday, 29.09.2010, 23:05 | Message # 16 |
 Dean
Group: Users
Messages: 662
Status: Offline
| The phrase "our mission is to bring Jesus Christ to the Internet" from the site shocked me. I don't know, maybe I'm being too old-fashioned but I can't make myself think that God and the Internet have anything in common. So I'm still against this "church". But I think some online society that can unite religious people has a right to exist.
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| Teacher | Date: Thursday, 30.09.2010, 00:42 | Message # 17 |
 Head teacher
Group: Admins
Messages: 375
Status: Offline
| lovefootball), these words may not symbolize something like creating an online-'Isa in the Internet. As far as I understand, "to bring Jesus Christ to the Internet" means to diffuse knowledge about the Cristian Church and its Teachings in the Net, to make it easier for Christian to communicate despite the distance, for example.
In Vino Veritas...
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| Asya | Date: Thursday, 30.09.2010, 13:44 | Message # 18 |
 Union committee president
Group: Moders
Messages: 298
Status: Offline
| You've written many thought-provoking things... Especially the Teacher... Well... I have visited the web-sites you've attached the links to. But they didn't change my mind. This web-site is still something usual, something trivial, something common. I mean it's a web-site and nothing more. I was "entering" the Prayer Room and feeling nothing! Just nothing! As if I were going to yandex, for example. And it seemed strange to me. When I enter the Church, some strong feelings raise in my soul. And when I'm praying they're strengthening. And when confessing I hardly manage to control my tears... This on-line church will never substitute the real one... For me... It's a very different thing...
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| Former-Teacher | Date: Thursday, 30.09.2010, 13:58 | Message # 19 |
 Dean
Group: Admins
Messages: 504
Status: Offline
| What you are saying means that you have opened the site with a strong misconception and resistance. it's like walking into a church to ask somebody the time or how to get to the nearest post-office. This is not fair. For a start - would you like to write an email message to a priest? Will give you an email
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| alex_makh | Date: Thursday, 30.09.2010, 17:25 | Message # 20 |
 Monitor
Group: Admins
Messages: 42
Status: Offline
| Well, I thought about what you said to me during the break V.A., and I can say that u're right to some extent. Today we have web-money, on-line communication, on-line shops and poker rooms, cyber magazines and newspapers, web entertainments, so why can't people have an online church? It may sound strange but on the one hand as people say here "church is a sacred place and cyberchurch is blasphemy", but on the the other hand, is the Internet as blasphemous and evil as you say, when we do practically everything via it today. We should accept and understand the situation that the Internet is now an inseparable part of our life, and there is nothing to be scared by!
Quote (lovefootball)) We shouldn't let the Internet penetrate into our mind!
don't please talk nonsence)) the Internet has no need to penetrate our mind today, because it has already done it. Here is more a matter of religion rather than a problem of the E-net)
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| Megastarosta | Date: Thursday, 30.09.2010, 22:25 | Message # 21 |
 Union organizer
Group: Friends
Messages: 126
Status: Offline
| I think the idea of on-line church is not bad. Everything develops and gets socialized. And church is not an exception. By the way it is a good chance for business people who dont have time to visit church or are scared doing it. Another question is, can all services (such as wedding, christening/baptizing, funerals) be on-line? I think not because people demand your personal presence. That is my opinion. On-line church is possible but not for everybody. I'm rather a conservative person and i wont pray with the help of the Internet because i like church's atmosphere and all innovations in this area will be alien for me.
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| Former-Teacher | Date: Saturday, 02.10.2010, 12:26 | Message # 22 |
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Dean
Group: Admins
Messages: 504
Status: Offline
| Open your mind and heart to the word of God and don't think where it comes from - the Internet or a church building! Actually, a lot of people stick to the TV screens when a church ceremony is broadcast. People watch such programmes to feel part of a great event, to experience a common rapture of being there together with the other parishioners and piligrims. They often repeat aloud the prayers when priests say office. I saw and heard my mother-in-law do this and for her it is such a revealing and relieving experience that you can see little tear drops slowly sliding down her cheeks. But she was not in church. She was at home. It was a virtual presence.
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| lovefootball) | Date: Saturday, 02.10.2010, 22:28 | Message # 23 |
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Dean
Group: Users
Messages: 662
Status: Offline
| Agree, I think it has become a tradition. But does it have anything to do with online church? From the technological point of view it's just a TV broadcasting.
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| Former-Teacher | Date: Monday, 04.10.2010, 10:31 | Message # 24 |
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Dean
Group: Admins
Messages: 504
Status: Offline
| No! It's a VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENT where you practise your religion in other forms and patterns! It is not a broadcast, just like a church ceremony is not a talk show. Online Church is not a substitution, it is another parallel environment where the Holy Spirit resides without our knowledge or concensus. It is everywhere, in the Cyberspace as well. If we follow God's commandments, I am sure there is nothing against a Virtual Noah's Arc or a Virutal E-church. I am not saying that exludes and downdrades the earthly church, a sacred building for religious workship.
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| lovefootball) | Date: Monday, 04.10.2010, 17:50 | Message # 25 |
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Dean
Group: Users
Messages: 662
Status: Offline
| And do you know people who can speak about that from experience?
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| Former-Teacher | Date: Tuesday, 05.10.2010, 13:11 | Message # 26 |
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Dean
Group: Admins
Messages: 504
Status: Offline
| Tell me, please, when you went to church last. When did you prey with your eyes fixed on an icon? When did you repent last? When did you light a candle last? I do think going ro church is essential for a christian! But there are new forms of religious practices nowadays, why not resort to them?
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| lovefootball) | Date: Tuesday, 05.10.2010, 19:30 | Message # 27 |
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Dean
Group: Users
Messages: 662
Status: Offline
| I did it in summer and I agree it's essential. Well,we follow the dictates of heart when we go to church and I think one should have the same motivation for accepting this new form.
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| Nekavaen | Date: Wednesday, 06.10.2010, 02:33 | Message # 28 |
 Head teacher
Group: Users
Messages: 340
Status: Offline
| Every innovation finds its advocates and opponents. But I think, if this new invention can make a least one human life a bit easier and happier, it has the right to exist.
Actually, there are a lot of people who need it.
Firstly, Online Church can be of great help for those people who work or study hard and have to spend the whole day (and sometimes night) in front of the computer. They will get a chance to satisfy religious needs quickly and easily.
Secondly, not all of us can leave home easily and go to real churches. Some people are seriously ill and it's difficult for them to move and walk. But with the help of this innovation they will visit virtual churches and talk to priests who are far away but REAL onliine.
Thirdly, I know a lot of people who are afraid of going to church though they do want to. Maybe, it's because they already have some negative experience. You know, there are also old ladies in Russian churches who try to teach young people what to do in an unpleasant and obtrusive manner, who discuss all your moves and words. And in a virtual church nobody will see you, your face, your tears and make you confused.
Online Church is a questionable but creative and working method of popularization of Religion in general. Somebody may call it a sacrilege - they have a right to do it. But I think we should first try it and then judge. I think it's better to be a parishioner of a virtual church than to become a heretic.
It is not human to be without shame and without desire. (Ursula K. Le Guin)
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| Former-Teacher | Date: Wednesday, 06.10.2010, 08:48 | Message # 29 |
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Dean
Group: Admins
Messages: 504
Status: Offline
| Yea-a-a-a! Thanks Nekavaen...Great. It is also said in the Bible 'pray when nobody sees you', do not show off your prayers, this is a self-revealing act but no a public event.
Quote (Nekavaen) are also old ladies in Russian churches who try to teach young people what to do in an unpleasant and obtrusive manner,
Quote (lovefootball)) we follow the dictates of heart when we go to church
To tell the truth, I am not a regular church-goer so you can criticise me for that. What is it reall that makes us go to Church? Can the same motives take us to Virtual Church? Will we find a similar peace and rest as in Real Church? Does our online prayer have the same power as our real prayer?
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| Teacher | Date: Wednesday, 06.10.2010, 10:46 | Message # 30 |
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Head teacher
Group: Admins
Messages: 375
Status: Offline
| There is one more thought. People always go to church to rest from the wordly vanity. Probably that's the problem: people can't be in peace in online-church, because they phisycally and mentally need a real place with walls and ceiling to feel them in a sacred place railed from the other world.
In Vino Veritas...
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