
New essays that we plan to add to our
web site in future months and years

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Status:As of 2014-NOV-10, we had over 7,200 files essays and menus online. But we estimate
that we need at least another 2,000 essays to fully present:
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Descriptions of the major religions found in North America, and
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Descriptions of the controversial social topics with a religious, spiritual or
moral aspect. |
Over the next year we hope to work on many of the topics listed below. 
Planned major projects: |
Polygamy: We suspect that this may become the next "hot" topic in
North American society. There is a case before the Canadian courts in British Columbia, BC to determine the constitutionality of the existing federal law against polygamy. In Canada federal law governs marriage across the entire country. This differs from the 51 sets of laws in the District of Columbia and the 50 states in the U.S. We have a menu on polygamy
which is linked to a series of essays on patriarchal-structured plural
marriages within the Mormon movement. We hope to add other essays describing
egalitarian plural marriages.
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Atonement: This is regarded by many theologians as the central tenet of the
Christian faith.
The atonement involves the healing of the gulf between God and humanity as a
result of the life -- an particularly the death -- of Yeshua of Nazareth
(Jesus Christ). Different wings of Christianity teach different rationales
about the atonement. There have been many changes in teaching down through
the years. We have covered to date the major historical teachings on this topic,
but need to enlarge this section to include new proposed explanations for the atonement that are less
violent and that are based more on the life of Jesus than on his his torture-execution.
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Genocide: 9/11 brought holy war to the shores of North America.
But holy war and genocide are ancient traditions. The Hebrew Scriptures (Old
Testament) describes three major genocides and one small-scale genocide:
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God's extermination of almost the
entire human race in the time of Noah, |
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God's murder of every first-born human
in Egypt, |
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The ancient Hebrews' genocide of the Canaanites, and |
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The ancient Hebrews' near destruction of
the Tribe of Benjamin. |
The book of Revelation of
the Christian Scriptures (New Testament), literally interpreted, predicts a massive genocide for
our future which involves in excess of two and a half billion deaths -- one third of the
human race. In a series of essays, we will
try to compare and contrast these mass murders with the injunction by Jesus
to love one's enemies and overcome evil with good.
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Afterlife: An enhancement of our section on life after death, to
include in depth essays on:
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Various beliefs including Universalism, annihilation,
Heaven, torture in Hell, etc. |
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How a loving, kind God can create Hell with no hope for forgiveness among its residents.
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Christianity: |
A detailed treatment of Jewish Christians. They were centered in
Jerusalem and were the only Christian movement between the time that
Jesus was executed (circa 30 CE) and the arrival of
Paul in Judea (circa 38 CE). They were led by James, the brother of
Jesus. Jesus' disciples and dedicated followers were part of the
movement. Their beliefs about Jesus, his teaching, God, etc. were
probably quite accurate because they were with Jesus daily. They differed from
the beliefs promoted by Paul which eventually became the dominant force
within Christianity.
|  | The status and role of Yeshua of Nazareth (Jesus Christ). How he was
perceived by Christians and Muslims throughout history in various ways as:
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A deity; a member of the Trinity, |
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One of the greatest of the prophets, |
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A son of God selected by God at the time of his baptism, |
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As a lunatic, |
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A liar, |
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A non-existent person, |
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A prophet falsely proclaiming God's rule in his near future, |
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A magician, |
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A Greek cynic philosopher, |
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A person proclaiming the end of the world, or |
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A person about which we know very little, etc.
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Essays on additional faith groups within the European Free-Church
Family including Brethren, Mennonites, and Shakers.
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Interfaith: A series of essays comparing various faith groups'
beliefs on who will attain heaven and similar topics. We plan to compare
various first century Christian movements, various present-day
denominations, other religions, etc.
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"Stop the bloodshed" We have dozens of ideas scattered through
our web site that discuss ways of promoting religious tolerance, applying the
Golden Rules, ending religiously-based oppression, etc. We plan to consolidate
these ideas into a single section.
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Planned minor projects:These are the new essays that we plan for our web site. Of course, plans
are often overtaken by events in the real world which necessitate the creation
of essays on totally new topics. We have listed the topics them in alphabetic order, not necessarily in the order in
which that we expect to write them.  |
Abortion: Information about the beliefs of non-Christian
religions about abortion. Methods promoted by conservative politicians to restrict access to abortion.
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Anti-semitism: We plan to attach essays which describe anti-semitism
in the Bible and in modern-day cultures to our menu on this topic.
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Atheism:
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Discussion of various books in which Atheists attack religion. |
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Rebuttals by Christians of these books
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Buddhism: We need to prepare essays on some of the Buddhist
traditions that we have not yet covered. Also needed are:
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Essays on supernatural beings in Buddhism, like ghosts. |
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An analysis of the book "Buddhism without beliefs"
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|  | Christianity:
This is a big topic, because more North Americans follow this
religion than any other:
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The Antichrist: his identity.
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The Prosperity Gospel movement.
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Christian Zionism |
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Bible prophecies: Several Fundamentalist Christian sources
teach that those biblical prophecies which do not relate to our future
have occurred precisely as predicted. Some skeptics and religious
liberals write that no true biblical prophecy has ever happened as
predicted. We hope to explain these mutually exclusive belief systems in
a series of essays. We have three essays written
on this topic to date, and plan to write many more.
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The Bible and archaeology: Again, there are conflicting
beliefs among intelligent, well educated people. Several Fundamentalist
Christian sources teach that no archaeological finding has ever refuted
any statement in the Bible. However, there are many archaeologists
working in Israel and Palestine who have adopted "minimalist" beliefs --
that biblical heroes prior to David and Solomon did not exist, that
there was no captivity in Egypt, no Exodus, no United Kingdom, etc. We
have an introductory essay on this topic, but
plan to expand it into an entire section of our web site.
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How one becomes a Christian.
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The founding fathers of America: Some say that they
were staunch Christians. Others say that they were mostly Deists who
worshiped a God who was as different from the Trinity as is Allah -- God
as perceived by Muslims. The truth is out there.
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Freemasonry: A history.
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God: We plan to create a section in our web site that deals with
different concepts that people have about God. It will be based on a book by Paul Froese and Christopher Bader titled "America's Four Gods." It will be linked to existing
essays that deal with Atheism, Agnosticism, Deism, Humanism, etc. But we
will prepare more detailed essays which describe Theism, Pantheism, Panentheism, and
other visions of deity.
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Hinduism: A discussion of the historical source of the caste system in India
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Homosexuality:
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Families: How parents react when a GLBT (Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual or Trangender) child comes out of the closet
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Courts: Are judges becoming too activist?
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Parenting: There seems to be many conflicting claims about
the effectiveness of parenting by same-sex couples. Studies that have
reached opposite conclusions are being published.
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Inerrancy of the Bible: We have received a list of 19 apparent
inconsistencies in the Bible and a challenge to show that all of them can be
harmonized in such a way that biblical inerrancy
is still a valid belief. We plan to try. We note a lot of emphasis on
discrepancies between the Jesus' genealogy as defined in the Gospels of
Matthew and Luke as proving the Bible to be errant. We plan to study this as
well.
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Islam: Our essays on Islam emphasize the peaceful, spiritual aspects of the religion. But, as in all religions, there is also a dark
side. In particular, we want to deal with the teachings of an 18th century Muslim reformer, Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Wahhab. His teachings have been
altered by radical, violent and intolerant Muslim fundamentalists to justify terrorism.
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Jesus: Josh McDowell, and others, have presented non-Christians with a trilemma: that Jesus must have been either a liar, a lunatic or Lord. We hope to
describe these options and describe additional options.
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The Kabbalah: We have started to study this topic many times;
however, our minds rebel each time.
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Nature: Write an essay comparing conclusions about nature by conservative Protestants with beliefs of scientists. This would include
such diverse topics as origins of species, origins and spread of languages, the great flood, indwelling demonic spirits, the nature of sexual
orientation, the cause of natural disasters, etc.
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Occult: Augment our essay on the Ouija board to add information on the psychic circle board.
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Original sin: The very important concept that all humans, including those in successive generations, have been adversely
affected by an event in the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve allegedly
ate a forbidden fruit.
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Origins: Age of the earth: Describe alleged problems that
creation scientists have found with radio carbon dating, specifically C-14
and U-238.
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Prophecy: Predictions of the future based on studies of the
Great Pyramid
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Rastafarianism. This is a religion in which Haile Selassie is viewed as God. It started in Jamaica during the 1930's.
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Religion in the U.S.: The Pew Forum periodically publishes the results of
surveys of religious beliefs among American adults which
contains some fascinating information.
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Shamanism.
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Tolerance: Should one be tolerant of intolerant groups?
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Violence: The problem of religiously-inspired violence which
seems to plague organized religions -- particularly monotheistic faiths. It
takes various forms from physical attacks to murder to mass murder to
genocide.
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If there are any additional topics that you would like us to add to this web site, please Email us using the "Contact Us" link below.  Site navigation:
Originally written: 2004-JUN-08
Latest update: 2021-AUG-03
Author: B.A. Robinson
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