Like all religions, the Faith of the Invisible Pink Unicorns is based upon
both logic and faith. We have faith that they are pink; we logically know
that they are invisible because we can't see them.
First, a disclaimer: I am an (mildly atheistic) agnostic
(fallback-position: there is an un-personal cosmic irony; somewhat like the
Tymbrimi belief) who is somewhat interested in theology.
What this means: IMHO, all religions are wrong, and god (if (he|she|it)
exists, which can't be known, but is rather inprobable) doesn't care about
us humans and would probably be mildly amused by the silly ideas we harbour
about (him|her|it).
Irregardless their factual bases, organized religions have been powerful
social and political organisations for a long time, and still are in some
uneducated parts of the world. Any student of history, philosophy or the
human mind must take into accout the belief systems of individuals and
societies present and past. Also, it is too easy to say "religion is
silly".
Some religions are sillier than others; some are quite harmless, while
others dangerous to those that believe in them (or those that don't believe
in them); some are fun while others are boring; some are intellectually
stimulating while others are dull; and some might even help you to become a
better human being.
Sub-sections:
Judaism (or, where the trouble started)
Just about any major religion that still thrives nowadays in our "western"
culture is derived, directly or indirectly, from Judaism.
(10.04.95)
An
Internet Guide to Chabad Literature
(10.04.95)
The virtual Shtetl, a
Yiddish Language and
Culture Home Page
(04.03.95) Lilith is a fascinating figure. I knew some of the legend
before reading this
article, but it includes some details i hadn't heard of before. Man's
trouble in finding adequate companions is explained nicely by the Lilith
myth. His original "missing half" is lost (or at least, unavailable), and the
females are only "sub-man" (being made of a part of man, they can hardly be his
equal).
(03.05.95)
Long
Hair vs. Short Hair in Ezek 44:20 is a study in comparative philology.
(22.03.95) This article also belongs under Christianity/Fundamentalism and Fringe
Jews for Jesus Home Page
And I had thought I had seen them all...
Christianity (or, 12 guys that didn't get it)
How much faith do you have in a theology made up by 12 guys (most
of them illiterate, i.e. not exactly doctors of theology) who permanently
mis-understood their teacher? Can you show me just one place in the whole
NT where Jesus says to one of his followers: "yes, you have truly
understood my message"? Besides, most of today's christian theology is
deduced from letters written by someone who didn't know Jesus at all.
Yes, I don't like Paulus (a false prophet if
there ever was one), the Revelation (it was considered apocryphal by some,
and should have stayed so), or the idea of Trinity (talk about commitee
decisions!).
(18.04.95) Lets start with a heresy. Well, at least an
apocryphon: the
Coptic
Gospel of Thomas, nicely annotated with extant greek fragments and
parallels in the canonic gospels, where they exist.
This gospel is one of the things you really miss in the canonic gospels: a
straight collection of Jesus' sayings. Some of these are rather hard to
comprehend, e.g.
Jesus said, "Blessed is the lion which becomes man
when consumed by man; and cursed is the man whom
the lion consumes, and the lion becomes man."
Great for hours of clean fun, ehh, exegesis.
(11.09.95)
Refuting Missionaries: The Myth Of The Historical Jesus tells how the
the figure of Jesus might be explained as a synthesis of earlier historic
figures. I am not entirely convinced, as the existence of Peter and Paul
seems to be historically secure (or is it?), and from Paul we have a link
to other apostles who have known Jesus during their lifetime.
(22.03.95)
Guide
to Christian Literature on the Internet
Quite extensive.
The Pitts Theology
Library home page provides links to internet resources for the study of
religion and Christian ministry. Among the resources are bibliographies
developed by the staff, finding-aides for the archival holdings of the
library, exhibit catalogs, and bibliographic databases. Information about
academic programs at Emory University in the field of religion and ministry
is provided as well as a link to the Emory University libraries on-line
catalog.
ARTFL Project: German Bible Search Form
http://tuna.uchicago.edu/forms_unrest/GERMAN.BIBLE.form.html
The WWW Bible Gateway
http://www.calvin.edu/cgi-bin/bible
Das deutsche WWW-Bibel-Gateway
http://www.calvin.edu/cgi-bin/bible?language=Deutsch
Easton's Bible Dictionary
http://www.cs.pitt.edu/~planting/books/easton/ebd/ebd.html
Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary on the Whole Bible
http://www.cs.pitt.edu/~planting/books/henry/mhc/mhc.html
From: randy@MicroUnity.com (Randy Wigginton)
Check out
http://saturn.colorado.edu:8080/Christian/list.html
It is a pretty complete Christian resource list. I haven't found any interesting
Christian sites that you CAN'T find from there.
The World Wide Study
Bible is now available on the World Wide Web.
WHAT IT IS NOW: A study bible, organized by book and chapter of the Bible,
with four translations (RSV, KJV, Darby, YLT) and Matthew Henry's Concise
commentary. Also book introductions from Easton's Bible Dictionary.
WHAT IT COULD BECOME: A way of organizing an enormous number and variety
of Biblical resources on the Internet according to scripture reference.
Imagine turning to a chapter such as Romans 8 and finding lists of
translations, commentaries, sermons, meditations, word studies, book and
article references, musical settings, etc.
Use it for your own study purposes, or better yet, contribute to it by
adding pointers to relevant internet resources. If you like, sign the
guestbook when you visit.
(24.04.95) And remember...
Islam (or, YHWH for beduins)
I am, in fact, quite sympathetic to the original Islam. Show me any other
religion that improved its followers general health and sanitary conditions
(by asking for 5 cleanings per day), that was knowledge-centered
(cf. hadiths on "books" and "knowledge") and as liberal for its days
(cf. the hadiths on "people of the book"). Also, Mohammed is a
well-documented historic person (can't say that about Jesus!) who didn't
try to act as a god, but simply fulfilled his role as a prophet. The
quarrel between the followers of Ali and "mainstream" Islam is probably a
major historic tragedy, as it laid root to the in-fighting that is alive
even today.
(10.04.95)
The Warwick University
Islamic Society provides a few texts of its own, and a slew of links
elsewhere.
Full of islamic resources: Ibrahim Shafi's Home
Page. Contains a pointer to Bukhari,
searchable (IMHO, Bukhari is the best introduction to Islam. Much
easier to read than the Quran itself, in handy pieces ;-)
(17.05.95)
MSA-USC has placed partial collections of the following hadith works online:
Sahih Muslim
Sunan Abu-Dawud
Malik's Muwatta
You may find them through our WWW site located at:
http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/
Look for hadith and sunnah.
(21.03.95) Yet another Islam page.
Fundamentalism (or, literal-minded illiterates)
And I mean it. Fundamentalism, aka Bible-thumping, is a strange thing:
people use the Bible to prove their point, but avoid to read it in
the process, since the "inerrancy" of the Bible could be violated when its
actual contents (as revealed by linguistic and historic context)
would be considered.
Some american fundamentalist world-views are also quite warped:
Way back in my much younger years, I was a fundamentalist. Even then, I
did some reading on other religions, including Catholicism, so I knew a
little more than most of my fellow congregants. When I was 18, our Young
Adult Sunday School class studied a book called, _Christianity and the
Cults_ : one of the Cults listed was Catholocism. (The book said that
Catholics worshipped idols, didn't believe in Jesus' resurrection [they
wore crucifixes instead of crosses], and that they prayed to other than
the One True God). I argued a bit, they prayed for my soul, and I left.
(Marie Houck in soc.religion.unitarian-univ on 4 Apr 1995)
(25.06.95) The Christian
Coaltion (this entry also belongs to the "politics"
department). Presided over by Pat Robertson, the CC publishes newsletters
such as the Christian
American (each issue containing a Q&A column by Pat himself) and
the Religious Rights
Watch, which contains small news-clippings. Christ.Am. May/June 1995:
warns us about the dangers of
TECHNO-PREDATORS: Computer Porn
Invades Homes.
The Congressional
Scorecards are interesting.
I eagerly await the moment their Poll Page becomes active.
Maranatha Home Page -
``Check this page regularly to see examples of the signs that He is coming
and other Bible prophecy issues. God bless you.''
(22.03.95: yuck)
(03.10.95) This Week In Bible Prophecy
(22.03.95)
Creation
Research Society:
``CRS is a scientific organization, originally formed in 1963 by group of
ten like-minded scientists. A major impetus for this effort was to
establish a forum to support and publish scientific information that is
favorable to the creation viewpoint.''
They seem to adhere to the ``what I say three times is true'' school of thought.
(22.03.95)
I just love soc.religion.christian.bible-study.
Current flame wars on: did the serpent really lie to Eve?; how
sinful is homosexuality? (that's an eternal one, the moderator usually
stomps it out after 3 months, but lets it rekindle half a year later); did
Paul violate Christ's wishes? (in converting the gentiles); 666 and the end
of times; are FRPs tools of Satan[tm]?; contradictions in the bible; was it
ok for Jesus to curse the fig tree; ... then there are the "real" theologic
bones like "faith vs. work" and "what's canon and why", and pharvey's time lines... finally a debate on
"identity christianity" (doesn't sound very dangerous? look into it, it is
hair-raising!)
Werdna's Biblical
Contradiction FAQ has just (13.05.95) been renovated. It shows how
christian creativity can cope with any contradiction. ("Believe three
impossible things before breakfast", eh?)
I have writte a few comments myself (God
wept / Omnipresence
) and check for follow-ups every other month.
The Fringe (or, there is always something new in California)
Most of the fringe is currently Scientology-related. Is there some natural
law that the most absurd belief systems have the most fanatic followers?
(31.05.95) Craig Williams' The Israelite
Handbook tries to use the Bible to prove that Blacks and Hispanics are
the Chosen People (TM) & the True Nation of Israel. In this process, he
also notes that Christianity and Islam "serve false Gods".
(18.04.95) A prime source of links to bizarre religious page is the
Divers
Strange Sects section of the HWbW3 collection.
(10.04.95)
Sloth's Suppressive
Person's Page, contains a CO$ primer, articles, and links to related
sites.
(03.04.95) CalTech and
the roots of Scientology. Reading this stuff makes me feel like living
in a Robert Anton Wilson book. But then, the basic tenets of Scientology
being as absurd as they are, why shouldn't its history share the same
qualities?
(20.03.95) Ron Newman's report
on The Church of Scientology vs. the Net. While some people think that the
CO$ is not a religion, it displays all the looniness habitually associated
with the Real Thing(TM).
(02.02.95)
This WWW
page is a collection of information critical of the Church of
Scientology (which has recently been attempting to remove newsgroups from
USENET). It also contains several links to other related sites, including
a couple of pro-Scientology ftp sites. Come see Orwell's nightmares
realized.
Das Religio-Handbuch
gibt u.A. Synopsen zu allen wichtigen Religionen/Sekten, die einem so
tagtäglich unterkommen. Die Beurteilungen muß man nicht unbedingt teilen,
aber man kann seiner Allgemeinbildung schon nachhelfen. Die Kommentare sind
stellenweise Neufünfland-orientiert. Das zugrunde liegende Material ist
fast immer aus anderen Werken exzerpiert, brav mit Quellenangaben.
Fast schon humoristisch: die Beschreibung der EAP, und das dazugehörige
biographische Material über Lyndon LaRouche.
(18.04.95)
OMNet home
page: ``The OMNet is dedicated to facilitating public access to
occult and mystical documents and social groups, and to promoting
interdisciplinary information exchange.''. Mainly consists of an
extensive list of very
mixed nature.
Generic / Comparative
(theology is one of the view exact sciences -- like mathetmatics and CS)
I should really put some of the bible study sites in here.
There are probably others, but our CWIS has the Bible, the Mormon canon,
and the Quran. See
http://info.rutgers.edu/Library/Reference/Religion/
The actual
search tools have not yet been converted into HTML forms, so you'll find
that they are links for telneting to specific ports.
Anti-Religion (or, the forces of reason)
Skeptics Society
Web
The Skeptical
Review is published by Skepticism, Inc. and edited by Farrell Till. Till,
who was a preacher with the Church of Christ for many years, renounced his faith
in Christianity and became an agnostic. _The Skeptical Review_ is a quarterly
publication devoted to discussions of Biblical errancy.
I don't know where to put them. Atheist Christianity? Anyway, in the big
religion-vs-rationality conflict, UUism seems to be on the side of the
Good[TM].
Unitarian
Universalist Resource List
(09.07.95) Luree's Great God
Contest (and ancillary information).
Mostly things I haven't found the time to look at, or any idea where to put
them.
One of the few genuine gods around here: Demos rules over the TubMUD. Haven't done anything
on my domain in months.
(03.03.95)Want to know whom your neighbor prays to each morning at 4am?
Look him/her/it/them up in The Rough And
Ready Guide To The Gods (listed alphabetically,
or by
culture)
(28.01.96) The Monastery is
dead. "The maintainer [..] had to send the pages to their rest."
(12.03.95) The Top 16
Biblical Ways to Acquire a Wife (one-time fun), and Eco's
comments on relions and computers makes me chuckle each time I read it
("And machine code, which lies beneath both systems (or environments, if
you prefer)? Ah, that is to do with the Old Testament, and is talmudic and
cabalistic..." )
Connections to Miscatonic U. are
often down. Even if you can connect, better do not look at this
manscript (page-wise scanned, takes long to download (R)).
I still search an NNTP server that provides this legendary newsgroup!
Tibetan Studies
Weitere Informationen zu Religion(en) sind zum Beispiel:
Die Studiengemeinschaft Wort und Wissen e. V.
http://www.urz.uni-heidelberg.de/u/urz/x91/WWW/WuW.html
Christian Resource List
http://saturn.colorado.edu:8080/Christian/list.html
Christian Classics Ethereal Library
http://www.cs.pitt.edu/~planting/books/
This informations I have got from Martin Ramsch, Uni Passau, Germany.
http://www.eecs.nwu.edu/emacs/emacs.html.
(01.04.95) An unofficial Church of All
Worlds sites. How the hell did a neo-pagan Gaean church get
that name? Hmm, founded '62, incorporated '68. Doesn't tell
where the name derives from.
(23.07.95) Why Wednesday (Queen of alt.)
thinks that the Neo-Pagan
movement is getting pretty darned lame.
(24.03.95) The Rant of the SubGenius.
(10.04.95)
This Zen site features the Gateless Gate koan
collection and the
10
Bulls "teaching ladder".
(11.09.95) A very good description of one of the pre-cursors of
Christianity, Mithraism.
(22.06.95) The Church of
Euthanasia home page.
Hey! They called it a church! It belongs onto the religion page!!
This page is part of the Trash Heap.