Sharia Market

As the Sukuk trade becomes more and more widespread in the Islamic countries, (thes contries has no stock markets, since the concept of 'interest' is against the traditional laws of Sharia, the religious Islamic Code of Law.
Read this short Bloomberg article to find out how does the non-secular, relgious organizations try to deal with this issue. Read more!

"Devoted to Judeo-Christian Body Art"

Striking collection of images form all around the word.
http://www.religioustattoos.net/Other_Tattoos/Jesus/index.php
I only wonder if the different traditions of tattooing how could evolve like this. I mean Eastern Orthodox tattoos are quite similar to the middle-American one, yet, the ancient traditions are quite different in these regions, I assume. Read more!

Religion, faith and ethics - Marx's Capital rewritten by a Archbishop

Another fie blog on secular issues, including materials on a controversial exhibition by Austrian artist Alfred Hrdlicka and the rewritten Kapital, not by Karl Marx but a Reinhard Marx, the present Archbishop of Munich. Check it out! Read more!

Manga Bible

From the strange fusion of the typical Japanese manga imaginary and devout Christianity, the Manga Bible was created.

Unlike the highly satirical and critical Brick Testament, which is the largest project of biblical themed illustration, this work is intended to be serious.
Using the familiar manga characters, effects, narrative, the creator of these book tells us the stories we might or might not know from the bible, but not only copying the stylish manga graphics, but also the all assorted materials coming with the style: dynamic, violent graphics, action packed scenes spotted with short, quasi philosophical monologues.
Read more!

Letters form Heaven

An except taken from the website The Post-Rapture Post:

"Just write your letter and it will be hand-delivered immediately following the exodus of the pure from the Earth. But you must be thinking to yourself, "How can the letters be delivered after the Rapture?" The answer is simple. The creators of this site are Atheists. That's right, we don't believe in God. How else would we be able to deliver your correspondence after the Rapture?"

Regarding of the nature of this civic initiative, I recommend to check out the FAQ they provide. First might be a joke to laugh on, but on the second, it seems rather to be a satirical attempt to shake people, and raise some money on real charity - which is an interesting shift from being a mocker to being a critique of a social interaction.
Another satirical attempt by atheist, misused by believers, but still interesting example of satire in action.
Read more!

No porn

I am including this website - http://www.no-porn.com/ - as a perfect example of new media usage by a traditional religious group. There is many I could comment on, but let an Anonymous commenter do this for me, taken from the main page of this website:

“Thank you. When I used the software with your affirmation 'I never use porn or masturbate now,' my life was changed. I have been porn free for over a year. God bless you for this site.”
- Anonymous -

The Christian thread of the site might be not striking at first, you have to dig deeper into the site to find it out - I recommend the Survey or the Forums section.
Interesting website, really professional, subtle, commercial looking, yet in the same time, offers you a product like many of the other commercial websites, but with an assorted surplus, you might not be familiar with.
The question is, if it is possible to deal with moral issues like this, without the religious background, or, anyway, should we?
Secular means no to intervene until a certain point, is this before or after this certain point - the question lives on since it was included into our media space by the time of Victorian England, and many different answers were given in the last few centuries.
Lust, desire, pornography were ever juxtaposed by religious morals - the only question is if we feel fine with not deal with the cultural heritage of this phenomenon, but rather accept the very same answers, commonplaces fabricated centuries ago.

To depart form the average language of my blog, I have to admit, that these sites seem to be a little eerie for me from the perspective of Biopolitics. As biopolitics is one of the fundamental issues of secularism, we should form questions regarding of the possible intrusion of church into this, already much debated issue.
Read more!

Updated capital sins

The Vatican issued a new, updated list of the capital 7 sins this week. By this strange, in fact really confusing list, the Vatican aims to define the main issues the church is ready to fight against. As this list of wrongdoings is actually a political statement, let's take a closer look.


This in the new list:

1. "Bioethical" violations such as birth control
2. "Morally dubious" experiments such as stem cell research
3. Drug abuse
4. Polluting the environment
5. Contributing to widening divide between rich and poor
6. Excessive wealth
7. Creating poverty

and the old list, (maybe familiar from the movie Se7en by David Fincher),

1. Pride
2. Envy
3. Gluttony
4. Lust
5. Anger
6. Greed
7. Sloth

The reason I am including this new list into my blog is, that I consider this act - the reissue of the new capital sins - as a shift in the public policy, and none the less, imaginary and communiaction of one of the major religious bodies of the Western word.

On the first glance, it might a good idea to update officially the capital sins of the catholic church, since the old ones hardly fit into the complex structure of everyday life in a post-industrial society. Yet, many of the "new" capital sins are even more abstract and unclear as the previous ones were. As I am aware, that the major sins are in a way formulating the overall identity of the church - who day are stand against for - I can see a reason for them to be up-to-date to the nowadays political, moral debates, yet, I have no idea what "morals" could mean for a religious body in case of stem research projects? Whose morals? Ours?
An old moral standard of a secular society might resemble some of the new capitals, as they are becoming less "private" sins as "social" ones, marking an important step between the two set of sins.
It is highly impossible to commit some of the "new" sins on your own, unlike the "old" ones. Most of the new list sins are better attributed to social groups as "enviromental polluters stem cell researchers etc., rather then a lone glutton, who could have been much easier to identify, than these new target groups.
For example, how can you "Contributing to widening divide between rich and poor" as an individual, and what does it mean to "create poverty"? It seams that the Roman Catholic church is really angry with some of the political, social symptoms of our times, and deceided to put more pressure on them.
It might be odd to say, but it seems that the cardinals assayed the "needs" of the main target groups in the Second, Third World when they have chosen the new articles. Which is not bad at all regarding to the spiritual life of the believers, but I have to admit, that "ethics", "morals", "pollution", or the definition of "drugs" are not theological questions. By formulating their new sins against political issues, the church updates its political viewpoint, and ready to act as a political entity against these phenomenons - becoming suddenly radical green, social, and non-the-less worldly in some aspects.
(for example, what does pollution mean in a religious context, if sustainability is hardly an issue, since it does not relates to the Final Judgment any way...

Update 1:
An article on the subject in the America - The National Catholic Weekly
Read more!

Perceptions of religious imagery in natural phenomena

(the name of the only on god made out of clouds, taken from the apollo spaceship, above)

Leonardo Da Vinci advises painters to study the different patterns of moss or dirt on the wall, in order to enhance ones visual skills and find new methods of painting. Finding faces, forms, shapes in these patterns might enhance the painters skill, he added - and the statement become a guiding principle for modern, non-figurative painters.
All of us has the experience to discover familiar patterns in clouds, carpet patterns, Pollock paintings - the only question is, if we leave it as an occasional experience or give a higher significance to it.

It is hard to make a better collection of the Perceptions of religious imagery in natural phenomena on wikipedia. A really absurd and maybe even pathological collection of pareidolia - what is a "psychological phenomenon involving a vague and random stimulus (often an image or sound) being perceived as significant", in this case on a religious experience.

It might be very well known to western people that we have a number of holy Mary sightings on toasts, cheese, chocolate, even tortilla. Yet, the Muslim culture, which is a highly iconoclastic one, has its equivalent regarding of this strange phenomenon.

The website Miracle of Islam is collecting sightings of Islam miracles, in most cases of the name of Allah written in Arabic by clouds, or even a watermelon. What really makes the webpage special is the sheer effort of tracking these images - a particular formation of clouds are taking extraordinary much time to discover - hence the collecting is a collaborative job of millions of believers in order to find some of the images. What is really interesting, that a visually so much restrictive culture, like the Islam could find a way to overcome its iconoclast position and feature images, and not ornament after all. Might be an interesting question if something what is produced by the nature can obtain the status of idol or not. Even the 2nd commandment is not quite clear on this. "Do not make an image or any likeness of what is in the heavens above...". Is collection, publication is an act of making in this context?

The determinism behind the two notion of perceiving images are evident. The artist is looking for inspiration, but does not consider it the act of "making", and therefor, does not give this random image the same status as a artistic product, not even in the rich history of abstract and non-figurative painting in the 20th century. On contrary, the devout collector of religious images does give this special status for the images, as they become objects of worship.

Read more!

New Idolatry

(Russian Orthodox priest is blessing a car, above, from the TIME photo essay, Inside Putin's Russia)

Religions tend to have their own set code of communications, information distribution networks, which sometimes play an adherent part even in the religious liturgies, like the holy book, the Torah for the Jewish, which not only acts as a medium of knowledge, but also a tool for communication during the liturgies. Or like the cultural practices of pilgrimage or the fast or even prayers, something you can't mediate other way. Or even you do, it is not easy to do so, although we have seen the opposite quite a few times, take televangelists as an example. How does these organizations use new media, and are they change themselves in the process? In this part of the research, I am focusing on the usage of new media by these structures, especially to image production.

The question is, if this media shift alters the message in this case?
As it becomes evident for religious groups that they have to compete with many of the aspects of our visual culture, which did not existed before, they are giving different answers for this challenge - the process is very similar to the learning and usage of a language, yet, in this case, the language is media . What I am curious about if this process is becoming something what turns out to be just the opposite of the intentions of these users - after all, media is meant to be a highly secular practice, with its inherent freedom, what is sometimes hard to handle for these organizations.

Is it possible to point out a post-secular condition regarding of media usage by religious groups? Is there a boundary after we might say that the message is compromises the usage of media? Where are the limits, after which the original intention of the sacral message disappears, or even compromises it, and becoming idolatry?
Read more!

Religious Superheroes

(musim superheroes, above)

It seems superheroes, like any other, non-super being, has religious afflictions after all. The only question is why would we bother with their belief, as would this not be rather the private business of these marvelous persons?
Should we because these (fictional) characters private life is becoming as much interesting for us as the private life of our not-so-super celebrities?
Or this just another chapter of moral reevaluation of the pop culture by religious groups?


The largest compendium of superheroes can be found at The Religious Affiliation of
Comic Book Characters, where they are not only listed regarding of their religious affiliation, but also give extensive information on the particular heroes practice.
Those who know this subculture well, and has some critical distance to it, might very well know, that these comics are heavily woven with the issues of belief, also due the fact, that supernatural is an inherent part of the genre.
But is seems, that the supernatural is not coming from a sacral source - as in the case of most of the religions, but from an inherent source stemming not from a deistic system.
If the case would be the opposite, and all super power would came inherently from god, or gods, these "personnel" would rather be called saints, or angels.
And since in most of the cases, they do not receive their powers from heavenly sources, they, the superheroes, seems to have the same attitude towards religion as the rest of our society, with the only exception, that they are living wonders themselves.

Regarding of the connection between supernatural belief and supernatural deites, there is a good remark on Jack Constantine, a skeptic superhero from the publisher DC comics:

"In the comics, Constantine lives in a world where all the gods and their pantheons exist simultaneously, feeding off the beliefs of mortals."

This short sentence might enlighten many of the issues regarding religion and comics - which is a highly relativistic system and hard to answer if it is secular or not. Yet in the same time it is also hard to interpret the statement in this sentence as a religious phenomenon, since the same relativism is making the entire culture into a highly agnostic, or rather skeptic position. The simultaneously existence of god or gods might fit into some sort of religious framework, but the "feeding off the beliefs of mortals" hardly: it either sounds like a satanic statement or a Marxist one...

No to speak about religious superheroes, who were created intentionally for promoting a particular religion or moral values, the affiliation of these wonderful persons seems to be not as neutral as we would think - and this might have something to do with the fact that most superhero stories has a certain moral development process implemented into them. After all, they are all fabula, tales to convey certain moral values. The only question is, if the message the deliver is a secular one or not...

(superman is actually listed as a methodist)

As Quasar, Wendell Vaughn was for a long time the appointed protect of the universe and personally met and interacted with many cosmic-level beings. Quasar did not regard this beings as manifestations of a divine realm or spiritual realities, but viewed them all from a purely materialistic viewpoint.
- from the description of the religious affliction of Quasar, an atheist superhero. What is to be a cosmic level being? The definition is open to either secular and non-secular interpretations.

Read more!

Darth Vader on the Washington National Cathedral

Why gargoyles are ugly? Art historians are giving different answers to this question, yet they are not even sure why they were included onto religious buildings in the 12th century.
They could have been warders against evil spirits - adopted from pre-Cristian pagan religions, reminders to the sinners, or just a form of medieval humor...



What makes all gargolyes common is that they are high above the general eyesight of the churchgoers, especially the medieval churchgoers, so they are hard to spot, or even admire - something what should have a significant importance in the cultural history of these statues.
Yet, as photography brought them closer to us, we no longer fear the evil, grotesque faces on these large stone buildings any more: the face of the devil become familiar.

Maybe this notion familiarity led the heads of Washington National Cathedral to include the ultimate grotesque evil of our time, the symbolic dark warlord, Darth Vader onto their cathedral.

The figure of Darth Vader always held some religious potential in it: juxtaposing a peaceful, new age like religion-like way of living, the Jedi, Darth Vader has been always the symbol of something irrevocable evil (don't forget the strange eschatology of the entire star wars universe) even trough he convers to the just cause in the last moment.

The masked figure in a way embodied all what we fear of, a living machine with supernatural powers, no mercy and no dignity. Detached from the actual story (forget about the recent episodes of Star Wars) Darth Vader, or the entire Sith have become some sort of inverted religion. Sith has become an ultimate, satanic symbol of evil, but in an aesthetically sense - the dark figure is so appealing to our idea of evil, that we chose them to become our own demons.
But why to use it on a Cathedral? Gargoyles, even trough we are not clear for what they are made for, are evidently ugly, like the Ely Cathedral 'nose picker', just to include an example.




But Darth is not ugly at all. Its the complete opposite of being ugly, as Darth Vader is a beautiful symbol a power, an embodiment of functionality and perfection, an almost fascist superstar, who become a cultural icon for an entire generation. We love our enemy, because he looks so cool - the trend to make cool 'badguys' can clearly be observed in the contemporary Hollywood movies, just think about daemons as the Alien or the Predator or the Terminator machine.
And they even look good as merchandise goods too.

In this sense they could include the opposite and, Yoda, the small grotesque green dwarf to the cathedral also. But Yoda is a positive figure, always been associated with a hidden sense of power, (not in the last 3 movies), not en ever present, powerful demon to fear - admire.

I think that the commissioners of the Darth Vader gargoyle were not in full sense of understanding what is the social, political, aesthetic meaning of their sculpture, but were very well aware on the possible connections between the mythology of Hollywood, and theirs own...

Read more!

Rebuilding Noah Ark, with a cinema inside

It would be a immerse surprise for me, if nobody would rebuild the iconic vessel of global warming during this recent upheaval for environmental consciousness.

Of course, Greenpeace already started a less then scale copy not far from the troubled area of Mount Ararat, from which beautiful pictures were taken by photojournalist all over the word. (building in progress on the illustration above)

But the 'real', serious construction is going in Frostburg (!), Maryland. Did you know, that there was a 250 seats cinema in Noah Ark?



I have always wondered, if we would build another Noah Ark, it would have been an enormous spaceship, like the ones portrayed in Science-fiction movies in the last decades. Loaded with young and happy, gorgeous looking and blond people, full with funny recreational services, built with Soviet-US cooperation, the spaceship would carry 'our future' to wherever. But it seems, with the danger of immanent nuclear holocaust slowly diminished, we tend to no longer dream about such scenarios - an interesting exception could be the Hollywood flick Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow - which even refers to the renewal of life on earth (or whatever else) in the title.
But lately Hollywood tend to come up with some new, hot titles which directly rely on the notion of 'Noah ark' effect, like the 'Evan Almighty', a pretty lame comedy about the actualization of the old bible story.

The other question which also haunts me, is how to make the predators not eat their pray during the long trip. Maybe they were all eating fish?

Yet, with the alarms of global environmental warming comes closer, people are reffering more and more on the old story of the world flooded by water, ice, whatever else. You could bet that someone shall start to build the ark, like the Greenpeace did, but I rather think that is was only a good advertisement for the movement, nothing else.
Since don't forget what is the starting point of Noah's myth: the sins of the humankind (Genesis 6) were so large in magnitude, that god decided to push the reset button - (by the way he promised he will never again will do it again in Genesis 8-20 even if we all turn out to be really wicked).
We might interpret the "sins" as the pollution of our own living environment, etc, but the words which god used to describe the sins of humankind are fare more familiar from fundamentalist arguments on the "wicked secular society". Even though it is promised to never happen again, that does not stops religious groups from trying to preach about the world end and start to build new shelters, arks, retreats, spaceships.



The most notable example of 'ark rebuilding' is going on since the mid seventies in a Maryland town, Frostburg, where the local pastor is building an enormous copy of the original, or rather a Noah's Theme Park. With conference room, a huge cinema, toilets, God's Ark of Safety sound a really nice place to spend the 150 days of cruising on the giant ocean...

Floorplan for the Maryland ark:
And the Noah cinema:


Read more!

Her Holyness, Lady Liberty

On 9/11 2001, right after the second plane hit the twin towers, I remember people all over the world becoming horrified by realizing that an organized attack if happening against New York and maybe Washington, an immediately started to figure out where the supposed other planes (whose number in the resulting communication chaos were 0 to 12, dependent on all different resources) shall strike down. Apart from the convenient Empire State Building, Capitol Hill, White House (which is just to small to be hit) one of the possible targets in people mind become the Statue of Liberty close to the twin towers.
With the Twin Towers, the places of ‘commerce and liberal world economy’ down, should “they” attack the remaining symbols of the Big Apple? Empire State Building is indeed a large building, but never held the same status as the Towers, being some kind of cordial center, the embodiment of western liberal economy, it rather belonged to a prewar, old colonialist era. Empire State Building was ever associated with King Kong, the ‘natural’ beast who would ‘use’ the building than topple it down. We must not have to forget that WTC was target of attacks even before 9/11, amongst which the most notable was the 1993 bombing of Tower 1. And never the less, Twin towers were taller than the Empire…

Why would anyone hit a statue, an idol of United States with a plane? There was some wicked symbolism in the act of hitting the WTC too, as those radicals was looking up to those buildings as “Towers of Satan”, but the sheer magnitude of destruction and the number of lives taken seemed to make the twin towers a more appealing target for the terrorists. Still, when we suspected a least half dozen more “plane-bomb” coming, some of our first thought was that the Liberty Statue could be hit.




A monumental idol for liberty, the Statue always seemed to have an unclear ideological background, despite the fact that it become a beacon of hope for those who emigrated into the new world by naval means- hence, after the war it somewhat lost its significance due to the increasing significance of aerial traffic.
The statue has never become an international symbol of the notion of liberty as such, never the less, the she remained a strong symbol of the United States itself, as a land of freedom and liberty, being some kind of late modernist “empty” idol for a country. I mean empty since we do not have a clear idea what it portrays and why, even if the iconic language of the work is quite clear. The figure who looks like the ancient Greek god Helios woman shaking down shackles (seen at the basement of the statue) and holding” Enlightenment” is a rather straightforward illustration of some fundamental modernist western values, but never become a beacon for these movements, rather is acts as a beacon for tourists willing to by nice little souvenir copies of the original.
Her image was used for propaganda reasons several times during the world wars, but in that context she somehow started to be the embodiment of U.S. late colonialism rather than the abstract idea of liberty.
Her silhouette is not included into the logo of scientific organizations and her iconic language seemed to be rarely cited in the academic debates during last decades, although she held an important status in the pop and counter-culture after the war, symbolizing freedom and liberty as such. And not to forget her role on the 1968 movie hot Planet of the Apes, hence ever since she become the ultimate symbol of the decline of western civilization!


Naturally, the secular modern society does not need a strict code of meaning attached for a statue of any size, even monumental, as we might see from the development of the 20th century art – still it is not coincidence that other public sculptures did not held such an iconic status in the second part of the century. Nobody considers for example Picasso’s public work in Chicago an iconic work of the United States.
Lately, the statue got some importance thanks to its iconological emptiness. Upon attacked, western civil society, or rather United States media and pop culture conjures up her image in defense of its values, somehow suggesting that “freedom, slavery, liberty” become endangered again, and the she might lose her past monument status and become a contemporary “message carrier”.




Two images of her emerged lately, both suggesting that there might be new (or renewed) readings of this monument, although they had different intentions with the modification of the original statue.
The first one is a rather convenient Photoshop modification of the her, by simply changing the traditional, classical Roman woman outfit with a (contemporary) Muslim one, the burqa, worn by woman mainly in the Afghanistan region.

Seemingly an easy internet joke, the notion of redressing a female statue seems to be a quite critical gesture even by the standards of the western high culture. The image is quite simulate in its style and political context as some of the most renowned world-war propaganda posters, in which the portrayed “women” was the “avatar” of the nation or some of its basic principles .

Opposed by the First World War image, which encourages you to buy war bonds for the country, and which portrays a strong, Athena like warrior woman of a libertine society armored with the spectacular weaponry, resembling warriors of the Holy Crusades, the Burqa coverd Statue is rather similar to the woman portrayed on the famous H.R Hopps 1st World War propaganda poster, the victim.
The Muslim outfit image can be either interpreted as a desacralization attempt on the statue as the symbol of liberty or as a victory mark over it – New York conquered by a Muslim force, which promotes woman wearing obscuring clothing.

Don’t forget that idolatry is banned by Islam, as do the exposure of woman’s face! So the ultimate question is: is the veiling of the Statue of Liberty is an act against the female character of the statue or it is against the monument, the idol of liberty? Is the covering of the statue is a rather simple visual joke based on the simple idea that a female figure is the most convenient pictorial target in a global political game between Middle-East and the United States , or a new chapter in a secular-post secular image debate? Lets look at another example to explore this question further.

The other version of Lady Liberty surfaced in Memphis, USA as a heavy modification of the original, holding a giant cross instead of the ‘light on humanity’, and holding the “Ten commandments” (!!!) in her left hand instead of a plate with the date of the founding of the United States.





As the commissioner, a pastor of the World Overcomers Outreach Ministries Church states, this version of the statue conveys all the values of their belief, as so the original which is a gift from the French people to the United States for celebrating the abolishment of slavery. I don’t want to go into serious debate with the reverend over the post-colonial interpretations of this artwork; yet, this modification of the statue is interesting because of the controversy it caused after the reverend stated that it is stand for "letting people know that God is the foundation of our nation."

One of the commandments (mostly referred as the 2nd) states that no idol should be served by man in any form, and from this perspective the Memphis statue is a rather odd choice of representing Christian belief. In this specific case the commissioners seems to be not aware of the ambiguity behind the statue.
This second statue is rather a misinterpretation, or appropriation of the original, it evidently questions the notion of artwork in the context of a secular society. Hence the question is not only that these images could be interpreted in religious context, but rather the statue could remain secular regarding its relation to artworks. Being secular means not only to distance religion and state in an administrative and theoretical, empirical level but also leaving artworks in a marginalized, secular state, leaving it in the for public spaces, galleries, museums.
Non-secular image debate starts when the very notion of using images not in their original context, but as some political cultural objects. The post-secular starts where the artwork is modified because of a commandment or a belief, rather than a pure aesthetic decision. In this sense, the political usage of an image can be considered as non-secular,




The Liberty Statues image usage, modification , turned some attention on the original iconic language of the work, the stern faced woman in Roman style clothes holding acting as a lighthouse till 1902 immediately reverted back being a secular state monument. ‘That’s freedom over there standing 172 feet high, and we are the state, silent, working in the background, in small, non-decorated square buildings for the benefit of the public.’ – so says the state, the real embodiment of a secular society, which in a way we might say, was indeed attacked on 9/11 in the form of the Pentagon and the Twin Towers.
Yet, I have to add, that for the non-secular minds of the terrorist the Twin Towers indeed were the idol of the hated secularism, the Towers of Satan/Babel, and this could be an interesting starting point to start my research…

The real challenge is to find the artworks which mark the beginning of a post-secular discourse on either on political or social level. To find images that can’t be any longer identified and discussed in a secular context.




Read more!

Sacred Webplaces - dating adds for true beleivers

What I found to be common in nearly all religions web pages, was the large number of dating banners, adds which targeted the possible visitors. Not that I am against people finding each other by this means of communication, but the presence of something as 'dating websites' which are being associated mostly by commercial companies or special networking websites, are found on the pages of these, traditional networks.

Some examples taken from the sites directly:

(Eharmony is taken from the http://www.christianitytoday.com website.)


the Jewish one has almost neutral aesthetics, it could be any religious or ethnics groups add:

It is quite striking, that couples are only featured on the christians and catholic one, the others are despiting the subject of desire. Oddly enough, there is almost no religious symbols in the adds, other then the muslima one, with the trademark head scarf and the crescent moon. The pink heart in brown field is even more surprising, since I can`t remember it on any catholic imaginary.

The tagline, join free is really funny on the Jewish one, sounds like another traditional Jewish joke?

It seems, that `secular`, atheist, worldly dating sites has absolutely no difference with these ones, other than you don`t have to fill out the preferred religion question in these ones.
By this regard, these could have been any subcultures dating site, from emo to gun freaks.
Read more!