The Cyber-based Religion And National Security

The cyber-based religion mainly is that the religious organizations and believers make use of the internet for religious activities, and a new form of religion, besides that, it also conludes nonreligious activities, which closely relates with religion. It begun in the middle of 80s of last century, and in recent years, especially the first ten years of the new century, it has increased sharply and become one of the most notable trends of nearly all kinds of religions.The cyber-based religion has effect the national security like a double-edged sword. For the negative influences, it could magnify the irrationality of religions, through the ways as follows:Firstly, the cyber-based religion leads to the group polarization of religious organizations and believers to affirm their irrationality, and it could cause extreme activities.Secondly, it could bring on conformity, and its dynamics are informational social influence and normative social influence, the former is that people want to achieve confirmation and balance, when they find themselves in uncertain occasions, so they lean to conform to others, escepcially others were the respected or the beloved ones; the latter is that people have to obey the rules of human society, if they want to be appreciated by others.Thirdly, the internet could be utilized as a convenient tool to spread the extreme religious ideas; what's more, the cyberspace could be a platform for the religious extremists and terrorists'activities.For the positive ones, under the current trend of cyber-based religion, the government can make use of the internet to form the common ideas of common interests with the believers, and the common interests are the base of the harmony relations between the nation and the religious organizations and their believers; furthermore, the cyberspace could be a new battlefield for combating with the religious extremists and terrorists.However, the managements have fallen behind the pace of the cyber-based religion; for example, there are not enough professionals who major in religion science and IT, and the measures are too rough and simple to cope with the complicated situation well. In all words, the challenges and questions will not be solved only by shutting them down, and the flexible and self-regulated ones will be better.