I am interested in the way atheists, medical materialists, cyber-rapturists, terrorists, ascribe to the internet and cyberspace the 99 names of Allah, without the obligations an ethical life, belief in God, or even minimal civic existence entail.

It is the akashic record, was one of the first poetic descriptions I heard of it over a decade ago, somebody who was fearing Krishna and apocalypse.

It is, as the pet cemetaries, genealogy lineages, kink niches, dystopian sci fi graphic games or Star Trek slash indicate, eternity and paradise, both.

The bodilessness, the cybersex, transhumanism, anonymous Baghdad/Cairo/Tunisia political bloggers, the gender fluidity, are a kind of Olivia Butler post-racial and post-gender transfiguration.

The best self-policers I ever encountered are the play party S and M people. I had a friend who was working through some stuff. We had long discussions about what excellent ethicists the Foucauldian sluts were.

There is a modicum of ethical self-policing on the interwebs. By which I mean a very little. I think we’ve all learned how to kill trolls.

But all this ascription to cyberspace of traditional God attributes? I think it is libertarian, to avoid civic duty to public space, communitarianism, the democracy. I do deplore the bunkerism and the suburban anti-diversity of the cyber rapturists. It’s so much more important to be fucking a Klingon than, you know, actually to venture out into public space, where there may be property taxes. Or germs. Or colored people.

But the allure of the unseen, and the ascription to the void of God-like attributes, is well known. It is not, however, God (unless of course, you believe everything is).

Here is a YA novel about a young Muslim who uses cyberspace to court his true love.