Finding a New Promised Land on the Internet : Computers: A variety of faiths are establishing home pages while other services offer electronic copies of the Bible. Even the Pope is going on-line.

Move over, on-line porn. Internet surfers are packing the pews.

Computer aficionados with an interest in religion have found paradise on the Internet, a fast-growing worldwide network that allows about 30 million people to receive and provide information while they form the equivalent of electronic communities.

The religious side of the “Net,” as it’s sometimes called, is branching out, from on-line prayer chains and Bible studies to a nonstop dialogue about faith, ethics and morality. Even weddings and wakes have gone digital.

And the possibilities seem limitless.

Search an electronic edition of the King James Bible for a favorite verse. Or visit “Hell,” the electronic guide to satanism. Hit a few buttons and you can find information about everything from voodoo and witchcraft to Judaism, Islam and Sufism.

And if you care to see a picture of Thich Nhat Hanh or another Buddhist teacher, click a few times on your computer mouse and it appears on the screen.

“Internet is a way to realize unity,” said Rene Mueller, a 29-year-old resident of Zurich who in March, 1994, created “Spirit: A Snapshot of Spiritual Consciousness on the World Wide Web.” The “web site” allows people to share personal stories about UFOs and out-of-body experiences.

Some of the most popular areas for Internet interaction are the fields of politics and religion.

The Institute for Global Communications, for example, offers a “progressive directory” of sites such as “Peacenet,” a network of social justice and human rights groups.

“The Right Side of the Web,” on the other hand, offers the perspective of the Religious Right, which already has a “considerable presence on the Net,” according to Linda Collette, a doctoral student at Cincinnati’s Union Institute who is writing a dissertation on media coverage of the Religious Right.

And anti-Muslim finger-pointing after the Oklahoma City bombing prompted the Islamic Center of Southern California to create its own “home page,” a colorful display of text and pictures describing the religion, to counter the association between Islam and terrorism.

“We needed a fast and efficient way to disseminate information about the Islamic stand,” said Ahmed El-Gabalawy, the center’s religious and social coordinator.

University of Calgary religion professor Eliezer Segal founded a web site offering a rhymed Jewish Passover Haggadah, a children’s liturgy in the style of Dr. Seuss.

“The educational, spiritual and generally wholesome aspects of the Net need to be emphasized, in light of the publicity that is given to its seamier sides,” Segal said.

Like many of his colleagues across denominations, Segal said he uses the Internet to stay in touch with academia, collect teaching resources and attend on-line classes about Judaism.

Other scholars are logging on, too.

Jay Treat, a doctoral student at the University of Pennsylvania, plans to offer a web site with “sights and sounds from the Song of Songs,” which will include images and chanting. He’s also using his computer to collaborate on a Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible.

And church congregations are finding the Internet an inexpensive tool for public and internal relations.

The Pope transmitted his encyclical over the Internet in May. And the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America set up a home page in mid-May that allows visitors to locate the nearest congregation by punching in a ZIP code.

“It costs much less to send one message by computer to a public meeting than it costs to mail or even fax such a notice,” said Miriam Woolbert of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

Tens of thousands have plugged into the divine side of the World Wide Web--the part of the Internet that allows computer users to see graphics as well as text. It has more than 3,000 sites devoted to religion, and includes an alphabetical listing of about 70 topics, such as cyberculture religions, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Hinduism, Buddhism and mysticism.

To help computer novices, Jason Baker, a 25-year-old Baltimore resident, has written a book--”Christian Cyberspace Companion,” that seeks to introduce people to the Internet and provides about 200 Christian sites in the so-called cyber-community. The directory is available on-line.