Religion
Related: About this forumTwitter and tragedy: A revamped American religious experience
Timothy K. Snyder | Sep 13, 2013
BOSTON (RNS) On my first Patriots Day in Boston, I was enjoying lunch with several colleagues when someone rushed into the restaurant: There had been an explosion at the finish line of the Boston Marathon. Moments later, caravans of ambulances and police cars raced, and the reports of casualties rolled in.
In the hours and days that followed, social media became for me, and many others, a sacred space to share our prayers and words of disbelief.
The scene gave personal immediacy to research Ive been conducting with a colleague about the use of social media as public memorialization in the wake of last years shooting massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. Over the past nine months, weve spent countless hours sifting through thousands of tweets, amateur photos, and related media coverage that appeared in the aftermath.
Our research can be framed as a simple question: Is using Twitter a religious act? Im convinced it can be.
http://www.religionnews.com/2013/09/13/twitter-tragedy-revamped-american-religious-experience/
Good grief. If posting on twitter can be a religious act, what is posting in the DU Religion Group?
cbayer
(146,218 posts)IRL, I don't talk much about religion at all.
muriel_volestrangler
(101,405 posts)http://www.zenit.org/en/articles/pope-francis-decrees-plenary-indulgence-for-world-youth-day
I wonder what 'practical theology', in which the article author is a fellow, is? Wishful thinking?
Jim__
(14,092 posts)But certainly in the difficult times following some tragedy, pictures can have a tremendous emotional impact.
dimbear
(6,271 posts)To Dimbear, a mixture of blasphemy, sacrilege, and usually little known info on religion. This group is an invaluable place for the comparison of differing approaches. It's a place for settling religious questions without the usual IEDs.