FINDING GOD ON THE WEB

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In fact, as much as the Net is changing our ideas of God, it may be changing us even more. For many, signing on to the Internet is a transformative act. In their eyes the Web is more than just a global tapestry of PCs and fiber-optic cable. It is a vast cathedral of the mind, a place where ideas about God and religion can resonate, where faith can be shaped and defined by a collective spirit. Such a faith relies not on great external forces to change the world, but on what ordinary people, working as one, can create on this World Wide Web that binds all of us, Christian and Jew, Muslim and Buddhist, together. Interconnected, we may begin to find God in places we never imagined.

--Reported by Greg Burke/Rome, Bruce Crumley/Paris, William Dowell and Lisa Granatstein/New York and Richard N. Ostling/New Orleans

For more information about faith on the Web, visit our Website at time.com/godcom