Welcome evangelicals,
secularists, religious conservatives,
liberals, pagans, progressives, etc.
No matter how you describe yourself, you should find your beliefs and practices accurately represented in this website.
Almost all other religious web sites explain only the beliefs of the webmaster
or sponsoring faith group. We are different: we try to explain accurately the full diversity of religious beliefs, worldviews, and systems of morality,
ethics, and values in the U.S. and Canada. We hope that you will find our essays
helpful and of interest.
With a web site of this size, it may be difficult for you to find an essay on a particular topic using the
navigation bars on the left side of this screen. The search box below may help
you:
Search box
Page translator
This website is unlike almost all other religious
sites:
Many religions assign different definition to
common words and phrases. e.g.: "religious tolerance" and "religious freedom."
So it is important that we define certain phrases up front"
On his site,
religious tolerance means:
To extend religious freedom to people of all religious
traditions, and none, even though you probably disagree with their beliefs and/or
practices. Having tolerance towards another religion does not require you to
endorse that faith group's beliefs; it simply indicates your respect for its right to exist and
for its members be free from discrimination. More info.
Religious tolerance does not require you:
To believe that all religions are equally true.
To avoid criticizing actions by religious individuals or groups that harm others.
To avoid comparing beliefs of different religions with each other & with scientific
findings.
Religious freedom means that you can:
Without oppression, believe, worship and witness (or
practice freedom from belief, worshipping and witnessing), as you wish;
Change your beliefs or your religion at any time; and/or
Associate with others to express your beliefs, and explain them to
others.1
Definition of "Christian:"
There are dozens of different definitions in
circulation. Many people seem to have their favorite, believe that it is the
biblical definition, and consider all others to be false. We use the same
definition as government census offices and public opinion pollsters: A
Christian is a person who sincerely regards
themselves to be Christian. That is, they honestly believe that they follow
Yeshua of Nazareth's (a.k.a. Jesus Christ's) teachings as they understand them
to be. This includes Christian Scientists,
Jehovah's Witnesses, members of The
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormons),
Roman Catholics, members of the Unification Church,
etc., along with thousands of Protestant denominations.
This topic generates more negative Emails
from site visitors than any other. However, we needed to standardize on a single
definition throughout our web site.
Our motto:
"A study of the world's religions will lead to an understanding of religious diversity.
This understanding can lead to inter-religious dialogue.
Dialogue may lead to peace among religions.
Peace among religions would lead to peace among nations." 2
News and information:
Page Rank: Google ranks web sites according to their perception of
the site's "importance." They rated themselves as 10 out of 10; Yahoo is 9;
MSN is 8. This site was 7. Overnight, in early 2009-JAN, they dropped our
"importance" in half to 4. We hear rumors that that they have treated all
web sites with paid text ads in this way. We are
amazed that such a tiny ad on fewer than 1% of our pages reduce our site's "importance" so much.
At the end of 2009-MAY, we removed the text ads throughout the website.
Donations welcomed: We are
somewhat biased, but we feel that peace can only come about through advancing religious tolerance and understanding.
If you agree, will you please
consider making a one-time donation via Credit card,
PayPal, or check -- or set up a small monthly donation. We would
really
appreciate it.
More info.
Attacks on our site: We are continually fending off attacks on our
website by a person or persons unknown. So far, all but one have involved
essays dealing with abortion access,
equal rights for gays and lesbians or The
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. There have been at least
two DoS (denial of service) attacks. Their latest technique seems to involve the
hijacking of one of our Email addresses to make a mass mailing of spam
describing "Prestige replica watches". If you receive an unsolicited Email
that appears to have come from us, please ignore it.
Site metrics: During the week ending 2008-APR-26, traffic on this
website reached a hew high. It handled 9.8 million hits, 1.8
million page views, 107 Gigabytes of traffic, and 449,734 visitors. The number of hits is an almost
meaningless number. However, webmasters delight in quoting them because they are
so large in comparison to other numbers.
Upgrading:
On 2009-DEC-11 placed our 5,100th essay online. We are
systematically reviewing and upgrading some each day until the entire site is
covered. This will reduce our capacity to write new essays, but will increase
the quality of our existing essays.
The six religions chosen for these navigation bars include the three largest faiths in North
American and the three most visited faiths on our web site.
Page Rank: Google ranks web sites according to their perception of
the site's "importance." They rated themselves as 10 out of 10; Yahoo is 9;
MSN is 8. This site was 7. Overnight, in early 2009-JAN, they dropped our
"importance" in half to 4. We hear rumors that that they have treated all
web sites with paid text ads in this way. We are
amazed that such a tiny ad on fewer than 1% of our pages reduce our site's "importance" so much.
At the end of 2009-MAY, we removed the text ads throughout the website.
Site metrics: During the week ending 2008-APR-26, traffic on this
website reached a hew high. It handled 9.8 million hits, 1.8
million page views, 107 Gigabytes of traffic, and 449,734 visitors. The number of hits is an almost
meaningless number. However, webmasters delight in quoting them because they are
so large in comparison to other numbers.
