Welcome to Mike's Religion Page!

Introduction

The links in the Table of Faiths might be useful to anyone interested in comparative religion. I've assembled links to on-line information about the faiths in general, their founders or principle saints, their scriptures, and their principle sects. I've tried to link only to a single, representative site (the "best" one I could find) for each distinct topic (i.e., faith, saint, scripture, or sect). My criteria for inclusion of a link were quite arbitrary, loosely based on:

• Presence on the Net. Much that is vitally important to the spiritual life of the human race is missing from this page due to the fact that no-one's thought to put the info online (or I couldn't find it).

• Comprehensiveness. A page with lots of links to other resources was often preferred over one with fewer links.

• Appeal. What it all comes down to: how much did I like the page? For this category, I have to admit that I'm as much a victim of Web culture as the next guy, and I value presentation and organization as well as richness of content.

• Sympathy to the faith. This was the most important criterion: I did not knowingly include material biased against a given faith. Some of the material, in fact, is from a stridently sectarian point of view.

Please note that scholarship was not one of my criteria. I am no scholar, though one day I hope to be one. Being unqualified to make such judgements, I didn't even try. Therefore, as with most material found on the net, don't believe everything you read. (Think about it: if you believed everything you read beginning on this page, you'd be one mixed-up puppy.)

In any case, many decisions were snap judgements made at about 0200 hours when I should have been sleeping and didn't feel like looking into everything in great depth. Therefore, if you have any suggestions for links I missed, or links that I should have chosen instead of the ones I did, by all means let me know.

A disclaimer: not all saints and scriptures listed for a given faith are revered by all sects of that faith. For instance, few Presbyterians count Joseph Smith as a saint, and few Theravada Buddhists count the Heart Sutra as scripture. Perhaps some day I'll make these fine distinctions more explicit somehow; until then, make no assumptions. If you're interested in polemics, you can find them via many of these links, but not directly; that's not what this page is about.

Further, not all sects listed are necessarily regarded as legitimate by other members of a faith. My current policy is to use self-definition as the criterion for categorizing a sect: if most members of the Church of Gonzo would also consider themselves members of the Church of Kermit, then I listed Gonzoism as a sect of Kermitism, whether the majority of Kermitists would agree with this classification or not. I recognize that this policy is not perfect, and I will entertain well-defended requests for exceptions. The bottom line is this: the spectrum of the world's faiths is rich, wide and varied (read on if you have any doubts). It's not always possible for a decision to be acceptable by all of the world's many faiths. If an action is sincerely and critically examined in the light of one's own faith, it must be enough.

Help (Key to the Table)

In an attempt to impart some meaning to the colorful icons I designed for each tradition, I've introduced the concept of "faith families" to the Page. I've grouped the religions into eight loose families, designated by icon color: GOLD is the Western tradition of faiths descended from Judaism. ORANGE are the "syncretic" faiths (those openly combining truth from many diverse traditions). ROSE is the Eastern tradition of faiths descended from Hinduism. VIOLET is the Japanese tradition of faiths descended from Shinto. BLUE are the Chinese faiths. CYAN is Zoroastrianism. It didn't seem right to lump such an ancient faith into the "miscellaneous" category. GREEN are the faiths descended from pre-Christian European/Near Eastern religion. TAN are the faiths of the aboriginal peoples of America, Africa, Australia, and elsewhere, many of which have stayed especially near to their ancient roots. GREY are assorted, mostly independent faiths. Further, the small icons above a religion's large icon point to that tradition's "parent" faith(s), while small icons below a large icon point to a religion's "child" faith(s). Please note that I am not promoting some wholly rational, historical, evolutionary view of the development of religious truth; by no means do I believe that reference to a faith's roots in another tradition fully explains the genesis of that faith. I am not trying to downplay the role of divine inspiration, original human imagination, or enlightenment in the development of a new faith tradition; I am simply noting that (on a purely rational, historical level) many faiths can be understood as having roots in one or more "parent" religions. Please let me know what you think of this. The population figures I've added for some faiths are estimated number of adherents worldwide in 1992 CE. Most of the figures are swiped from the 1994 World Almanac and Book of Facts (Funk & Wagnalls, Mahwah, New Jersey, USA, 1993).

The name listed in [square brackets] above the first horizontal rule in the "Saints" column is one name drawn from that tradition for that Ultimate Reality and Ground of Being from which all things spring, including especially the faith itself. The saint listed in {curly braces} below the last horizontal rule in the "Saints" column is the anticipated "Messiah figure" who will come at the end of the age to restore the Kingdom of Heaven to earth. There are even more versions of this belief than I've listed in the Table. I've added these names to point out the near-universality of these two beliefs, although it should be noted that there is no entry in these categories for some faiths. Also, an italicized name in the "Saints" column represents the name of the Founder of the faith.

Bulleted items in the "Scriptures" or "Sects" column are sub-scriptures or sub-sects of the non-bulleted item immediately above them. Finally, a representative creed (or summary of the principles of a faith) has been listed for some faiths in the "Scriptures" column below the horizontal rule, as a link from the word CREED (in all caps). Please note that these creeds are representative, and it is not necessarily true that all adherents to a faith subscribe to all of the precepts in the creed presented.

As an example to illustrate all of the above, the entry for "Islam" is reproduced below. In the above entry, the small gold Magen David and Cross icons above the first horizontal rule in the "Faith" column represent Islam's heritage in the Jewish and Christian traditions, which can be considered Islam's "parent" faiths. The gold color of the large Crescent icon (the symbol of Islam) indicates Islam's membership in the "Western" family of faiths. The number in parentheses below this icon is the approximate number of Muslims worldwide in 1992 C.E. The small gold Star and rose Khanda below that point out that the Islamic tradition contributed to at least two "child" faiths: the Baha'i Faith and Sikhism. The top name in the "Saints" column (listed in square brackets), "Allah," is one Muslim name for Ultimate Reality. The middle name, in italics, is that of the human founder of Islam, the Prophet Muhammad. The last name in that column (in curly braces) is Imam Mahdi, a "Messiah Figure" in the Islamic tradition. Of the Scriptures listed, Sahih Bukhari, Sahih Muslim, Sunan Abu Dawud, and Muwatta Malik are all sub-scriptures (or examples) of Hadith literature, and thus are bulleted under the Hadith heading. Similarly, Sufism is a sub-sect or movement within Sunni Islam, and is thus bulleted under the Sunni heading. Finally, the CREED link in the "Scriptures" column leads to a representative summary of the faith of Islam. If any of the features or layout of the Table are still confusing or inconsistent, please let me know and I will make every attempt to clear up the confusion.

Cool Links

Kaleidoreligion A truly beautiful comparative religions page; a kindred spirit.	City of Refuge Community Church A progressive, spirit-filled, dynamic, joyful church.
MACROCOSME It's cool. Check it out.	City of Refuge Community Church A progressive, spirit-filled, dynamic, joyful church.
The Ontario Centre for Religious Tolerance A noble enterprise; a great site!	About Islam and Muslims As the title indicates, a large collection of Islamic resources.
The Egyptian Book of the Dead Although the Egyptian faith is (for the most part) no longer a living religion, the Book of the Dead is a text worthy of your attention.	Jewish Communication Network Excellent Jewish cultural resource.
Prayer Time Calculator Enter your international city name, U.S. ZIP Code, or latitude and longitude, and the server will calculate your direction and time of prayer.	CrossRoads Nifty Pagan e-zine.
Upanishhadic Philosophy A wealth of information on these spiritual masterpieces.	Early Church Documents From Clement to Augustine to the Summa Theologica, the Church Fathers are online.
Tricycle The Buddhist Review (e-zine).	The Holy See The Vatican now has a gorgeous web site.
Science Without Bounds Heady new paradigm stuff: a synthesis of science and religion?	Mysticism in World Religions A wonderful resource showcasing the commonality in the mystic traditions in six of the world's faiths.
Page of Talmud A unique way to learn about the history of Jewish religious literature.	The Other Place A beautiful site with images, sounds, and philosophy related to Gaudiya Vaisnava Hinduism.

These are organizations and paths which aren't quite organized faiths or sects, but should not be overlooked. These orders tend to be mystically oriented, and indeed one of the primary characteristics that distinguish them (in my mind) from an organized faith is that there is often no exoteric, "popular" element to their teaching, or at the very least the esoteric is emphasized. There are exceptions, of course, and the line that separates this table from the main Table of Faiths is admittedly indistinct. As always, please let me know if you disagree with any of my categorizations.

Order	Founders/Teachers
Ananda	Paramhansa Yogananda Swami Kriyananda
Art of Living Foundation	Ravi Shankar
Dava	Dava
The Fourth Way	G. I. Gurdjieff P. D. Ouspensky
Freemasonry
Johrei Fellowship	Mokichi Okada
Mahikari (World Divine Light Organization)	Yoshikazu Okada
Mercy of God Community
Moksha Foundation	Andrew Cohen
Monasticism
New Thought Movement	P. P. Quimby
Quan Yin Method	Suma Ching Hai
Rosicrucianism
Seicho-No-Ie	Dr. Masaharu Taniguchi
Self-Realization Fellowship	Paramhansa Yogananda
Share International	Maitreya

The Writings section of the Page is being offered as a forum for original writings of a spiritual nature. Send me anything with a spiritual theme: essays, fiction, poetry, you name it. All I ask is that it you wrote it yourself or that you have the express permission of the author to make the piece freely available to all (whether it's in the public domain, copyrighted, GNU copylefted, or whatever). I'm not going to edit submissions (except maybe for formatting), so I'm afraid I can't publish anything that's not well proofread, nor anything that's blatantly offensive or...um...aggressive.

The writings of Peter R. Koenig about the Ordo Templi Orientis and related movements are erudite, thorough, and largely in German. If you're into that sort of thing (and patient), you'll be fascinated by what you'll find on his page entitled The Ordo Templi Orientis Phenomenon.

The Truth. It's what all spiritual souls are searching for. It's also the name of a small, insightful gem of a book by Cyril James Skidmore. Subtitled "The Universe is a Growing God", the philosophy espoused in The Truth has been dubbed by the Transhuman movement as "the first Transhuman religion".

Angels and similar beings feature in a vast majority of the world's faiths. Journalist Pierre Jovanovic has written a book called An Inquiry Into the Existence of Guardian Angels, which explores the subject.

Jon F. Zeigler, a self-described "mathematician, amateur historian, science fiction fan, freelance writer, [and] occasional scribbler of bad poetry," has written a long essay he calls Notes from the Crossroads, which he describes as "an extended argument for a form of rationalistic Deism...with lots of small digressions." I think his thoughts are intriguing. You might think so, too....

I kicked off the new section with a paper I wrote in college, which won an award. It's about the Adversary or Tempter figure in two world religions: Buddhism (where he's called Mara) and Christianity (where he's usually known as Satan). The paper has some big words, and I thought you might find it interesting. I'm not so sure it's as wonderful as I used to think, but, you know, it was a term paper. Perhaps the most impressive thing about it is that I wrote the original version (which was mostly about Mara, and not so much about Satan) in a single day using only research materials from my own library. Yes, my name is Mike, and I'm a bookaholic. :-) Anyway, the paper started out as a WordPerfect for DOS document before being reincarnated as a Word for Windows doc, and then was saved as an HTML doc directly from Word (using the MS Internet Assistant extensions) so there are a few formatting anomolies. Particularly: Word, in its wisdom, stripped all the footnotes and endnotes off the HTML version, presumably because those types of things are Too Hard. It also did some funky things with font sizes and such in the Word formatted version (available as a PostScript doc below). I blame Bill Gates. I'll also fix it some day, but for now please bear with us. For your viewing or downloading pleasure, I've got HTML and PostScript versions, and I suppose if I were trendy I'd have an Adobe Acrobat version as well. I'm not. :-P

On a lighter note, I present the Book of Turing, a bit of fluff that's also written by me. It is my sincere hope that you will find it amusing, not offensive, as it was written in a spirit of lighthearted satire. In it, I poke fun at the five most popular spiritual worldviews in the context of a software development project. By the way (for you non-geeks), AI stands for Artificial Intelligence.

I also have a sort of poem on The Purpose of Prayer, although really it's more like formatted prose than poetry. Of course, if you showed me a prettily formatted nutrition information label from a condensed soup can and told me it was a poem, I'd say "Sure, it's nice." Such is my knowledge of poetry. This...er...writing was an attempt (while I was in college) to be profound, or something.