Comparative Religion and the Internet
Copyright Darren Witwer 2001
All of these pages listed above are provided for the sake of
convenient research, and to aid you in seeking out printed material
in the library for your research. Much research can be
done from this site alone, but you are also encouraged to go
to the library and to book stores to find more information.
As you will see, the Internet is becoming an important tool
of many religions, allowing like minded individuals from all
over the world to connect with each other and share ideas.
It is also providing the means by which individuals can eclectically
develop their own spiritual perspectives and practices.
A warning about bias and reliability:
There is always a risk of bias and distortion in the presentation
of information, whether it be in printed matter or on the Internet.
That risk increases in fields of knowledge that are controversial
or involve political divisions between groups of people.
This risk is increased in the field of religion because of the
strong tendency of religions to compete and criticize each other
on a variety of planes--political, ethical, metaphysical and
even scientific. Religion deals precisely with belief
instead of what is scientifically knowable or measurable.
In other words, Religion is a field where Absolute Truth is
essential to the believers, but impossible to prove to the outsiders.
Unlike fields such as history, in studying religions, belief
matters more than reality. The fact that some people believe
in UFO's or angels is much more important than epistemological
and scientific arguments against such beliefs.
It is my personal opinion that the best way to learn about
a religion is from sources that come from participants in the
religion. However, the vast majority of these types of
web sites are unreliable and unscholarly. You can recognize
them by the fact that they are intended to persuade you to join
and practice the religion, rather than to present the facts
in an objective way. Use your common sense in choosing
sites like this, and avoid anything that looks like a personal
homepage dedicated to the owner's personal vision of the religion.
External sources (written by non-believers) can be negatively
biased. The best external sources are academic or educational
in nature. The worst place to learn about a religion is
from a critical, external source produced by a competing religion.
There are exceptions, but this ought be a basic criteria that
you use for evaluating the content of materials you read.
Nevertheless, in Unit Six we will be looking at some critical
material in order to investigate the conflicts that underlie
the Neopagan movement and extreme Fundamentalist religion.
The criticisms of other religious movements may offer deeper
insights into the nature of the religious people who make those
criticisms.
Be careful to note whether a site is a personal home page or
a site that represents the voice of a single institution, or
if it is a scholarly site. Each of these presents a different
set of problems and values: personal home pages are of
very limited use as ethnographic information
at a personal level. Institutional sites representing
official doctrine may represent very biased opinions and dogmatic
ideas. Scholarly sites can miss a lot of the deeper, phenomenological
experience in their attempt to be objective and academic. For
the purposes of this course, I have provided links to a variety
of sites from all three perspectives. I also try to provide
helpful comments for each site. Keep in mind that most
personal home pages are written with the intent of persuading
the reader to join that religion, or teach them to practice
some ritual. They also tend to have very narrow, personal
interpretations of doctrine--sometimes even erroneous.
Avoid using these kinds of web sites for your presentations
in class.
The sites I provided here are the best sources I could find
on the Internet. If you find others, please send me the
links, and I will try to incorporate them into this web site. All
of the links were checked around the end of December of 2000,
so they should be still valid, but you can expect to encounter
dead links on many of the pages I have linked to. That's
the nature of the Internet.
When using on-line resources, you should be aware of potential
bias. For instance, Neopagans will often present very
negative views of Christians, Christians will present negative
views of almost all other world religions, etc. You should
also be aware that primary texts on-line (things like the Bible,
the Koran, and other important historical texts) are not the
most definitive editions, nor the best, most recent translations.
For serious research, you really ought to use a library.
However, for the purpose of maximizing potential resources at
your disposal, I am turning you all loose with the growing resources
of the Internet with only the caveat "Beware."
In my experience, these primary text resources are definitely
good enough for us to use, and the first hand accounts of religions
are very useful. The main risk is in second hand accounts
(like Neopagans discussing Christianity, or Jews discussing
Islam and vice versa). Always be aware of the political & religious
biases of the pages you are using. Also, look carefully
for signs that the web site is promotional in its intent.
I want to avoid promotional presentations in class.
If you see negative information in a second hand description,
you should use The
Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance page to check
out the allegations. They have done excellent research
to eliminate hearsay and bias. You should also rely on
the textbook to verify or disprove such allegations.
In the following document I am combining an explanation of
several different models for comparing religions with a collection
examples and web links to relevant sites. The sites were
hand chosen by me. I have examined some of them extensively,
and others only briefly. I believe that they will be indispensable
for you this semester. There are also a few in there to
entertain you.
More sites of a general nature can be found on the General
Links page.
I have provided two different clusters of pages to organize
the information. One is based on the units of our class,
and the other is based on the "Describing
Religions" page where I present a thee-fold model for
categorizing manifestations of religion. I have used this
three-fold model to organize some basic descriptions and links.
The main purpose of these three pages is to get you thinking
about the various problems involved in categorizing religions,
and the usefulness of noticing patterns. I recommend starting
with the Monism page, then read
the Dualism page, then the Pluralism
page. When you're finished, look at the General Links
page and the Unit-Based Links pages for further, more detailed
and specific information. (note: the Unit collection below
is more thorough and detailed in the explanations. The
Monism/Dualism/Polycentrism pages are more narrative so as to
give you an idea of what topics/religions interest you most.
The LINKS or General Links page provides a variety of resources
useful for a number of units or purposes.
