Topic summary
Virtual religion
Extracted from the Wikipedia article Religion and the Internet.
Virtual religion
David Chidester wrote in his 2005 book Authentic Fakes, that "If it were possible to trace a genealogy of virtual religions on the Internet, it would probably begin with Discordianism." According to J. Christian Greer, this study was published just at the time Discordianism had transformed itself from a parody religion to a new religious movement. When the Yahoo search engine categorized Discordianism as a parody religion, in May 2001 Discordians started an email campaign to get their religion reclassified. Three weeks after this protest was started, Yahoo moved Discordianism to "Entertainment—Religion—Humor", which some Discordians found more acceptable. David G. Robertson writes in the 2016 book Fiction, Invention and Hyper-reality that: