Ananova recently featured this story:

Online confessions for lazy Catholics

A Polish man is in trouble for offering an online confessional for Catholics who can’t be bothered with church.

Borys Cezar, 37, set up the website which welcomed visitors with the words: “Welcome to the virtual confessional.”

It continued: “Now write down your sins against Lord God. Do you regret your sins?” (yes/no) Do you intend to correct them? (yes/no); now click on next.

“We are connecting you with the Lord God, please wait… Your sins are being transferred, please wait… Congratulations, your sins have been forgiven.”

Cezar is facing a heavy fine or jail for offending religious feelings and his website has been closed down.

He said: “I’m a Catholic myself. I go to confession like anyone else. I didn’t want to offend anyone.”

A Google search for “online confessional” reveals thousands of results so why, I wonder, was this poor guy singled out? The article isn’t very thorough regarding that point. The internet is, after all, the closest we’ve ever come to having our own Great Oracle of Delphi.

Fortunately, society is not yet crazy enough to embrace the internet as a deity. There’s already enough ridiculous behavior occurring in the name of current religions. Imagine what would happen if we had people worshiping a god with millions of voices, some of which are imbeciles and some of which are perverts (current religions already have their own fair share of perverts!) On the other hand, I think much hilarity would be inherent in such an institution.

• “I prayed to the internet for a Quiche recipe and my prayers were answered in 3.234 seconds!”
• “I told the internet my symptoms and it told me I had an intestinal parasite”
• “The internet found me a new wife after my old God took my other wife”
• “The internet encouraged me to build a fountain out of Diet Coke and Mentos and it changed my life even though everyone is sick of seeing that trick”

Given the ease at which people commit themselves to completely outlandish systems of belief I don’t think the idea of religion and the internet becoming completely intertwined to the point of inseparability is completely implausible. I don’t think we’ll see it in our lifetime but someday, perhaps.

So why did I put a positive tone on that last sentence? Because I’d rather see religious fundamentalists fighting each other in World of Warcraft than on real streets.

“Quit camping u fukin n00b”