Give me that Old Time Religon...

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)

Illustration: St. Anthony, as depicted by Dali: A scraggy naked
	man in a desert, using a cross to ward off hallucinations (without
	much success, as we can still see them.) 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).

Etc.

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!!


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