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World of Warcraft: A Religion? Keane Ng posted on 30 Jan 2009 3:28 pm
To say that hardcore WoW players are fanatics is one thing, but to call them religious is another. That's what a graduate student at the University of Colorado is arguing, though.
Citing the French sociologist Danil Hervieu-Lger's definition of religion, Theo Zijderveld argues that though World of Warcraft isn't a religion proper, it certainly contains the four key ingredients: community, ethics, culture and emotion. The communal aspect, Zijderveld says, comes from playing with people and making friends within the game. As for the ethics, the rules of the game (and presumably the rules of the community) constitute that. "Thou shalt not ninja loot" being a rough equivalent of "Thou shalt not steal," I'm guessing. The rich Warcraft lore and mythos provide the culture, and the feeling of belonging that WoW players experience in-game provides the emotional dimension.
The act of playing a character in WoW, or in other virtual worlds like Second Life, Zijderveld argues in his paper "Cyberpilgrims," is a way of acting out a quest for enlightenment and spiritual identity in a supremely secular world. "You have to level up as a way of self-realization," he explained. "It can be very spiritual."
Though a virtual space like WoW is ultimately not real, Zijderveld would say that that very fact makes it even more like a religion. Religion is based in illusions and fictions, but the important part is that even though people may know it's not real, they experience it that way. "Though virtual realities are in fact not real, they are experienced as real," he writes. Like religion, "they offer a framework that makes sense by offering a narrative and rules of the game...People can experiment and develop their cyber-character, and thus contribute to sef-realization. In an enchanted virtual world, they can truly find a spiritual identity."
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Not that I completely agree with him or anything, but I think he has a valid argument. There's as much reality to the WOW religion as there is to your standard Christo-judiac-hinduism.
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Sorry, I've already accepted Rock and Roll as my one true savior.
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This smacks of a grad student having to stretch an idea to fill a semester of research. Especially after I read that he's from UC.
At Lock, touche.
I am actually a graduate student that works on religion, and let me just say that the definition of religion used here is so broad that nearly any popular movement could carry the characteristics of a religion (i.e. Oprah's Book Club, Star Wars, and the Grateful Dead).
Frankly, I have never come across a definition of religion that I liked, and the best I can say is a "religion is something that a group of people recognize as a religion" or "I know it when I see it."
That said...WoW is not a religion, but it does contain a lot of messages about religion: namely that people should be very skeptical of the dictates made by their religious leaders or gods (in WoW 90% of gods or religious leaders go evil), and that extreme attachment to religious beliefs will invariably lead to violence (see Scarlet Crusade and Cult of the Damned).
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