The web’s power to link communities is nowhere more apparent than it is among religious groups. You’ve seen religious sites, faith-based community sites and places of cyber worship. But dig (or Digg) this stat from WaPo:
“…the number of Web pages dealing with God, religion and churches increased from 14 million in 1999 to 200 million in 2004. Religion now nearly rivals sex as a topic on the Internet: A search for “sex” on Google returns about 408 million hits, while a search for “God” yields 396 million.
As we saw here at LR when we posted about James Cameron’s investigation into “The Lost Tomb of Jesus” all you need to do is mention religion and you’ll draw in people you’ve never even had visit your site before. Online faith discussion is a worldwide phenomenon:
“Some sites offer rites from baptism to confession to conversion to Judaism… Sikhs listen to podcasts of prayers… (and Muslims download schedules of prayer times and recordings of sung verses from the Koran.”
The article focuses on Saranam.com, a website in India that sells Hindu pujas – ritual ceremonies – to be performed at distant temples.