ECO-LOGICAL frameworks link humans with their natural environment and GeoLogic
links them with the Earth, but THEO-LOGIC expands this context
to include super-natural or spiritual forces. Traditional religions offer doctrines
designed to support these linkages. Feng Shui, an ancient Chinese geomantic
practice and belief system, provides an Eastern model that has provoked global
interest as one may see by going to the Feng
Shui Society's Home page. The Church of All Worlds (pagan) offers a journal,
Green Egg that is dedicated to ...
the shared values of globalism, ecological sustainability, and planetary stewardship...[of]
the Earth we hold sacred.
An essay by Fred Riggs called Faith on the Web provides a summary of ways in
which the Internet has been used by and influenced religious communities in
the context of globalization.
A comprehensive list of Religious
Movements -- prepared by Jeffrey K. Hadden and his students at the Department
of Sociology, University of Virginia -- includes systematic information
about each community, followed by a wealth of Web sites. This is the ideal
place to get an overview of the world's faith-based communities. [Since
writing this essay in 2003 other sites have picked up and elaboated the
theme of religious communities affected by theWorld Wide Web. A review
of this literature in 2006 can be found at Laguardia College, Religious
Diversity.]
List of Sites by Religion and Politics Section
of the APSA -- open the 'LINKS' connection
Religion Resources and
others sites listed below under the Comparative Religion.
category. Encyclopedic information about each category, when available, heads
these segments.
The list of home sites that follows is intended, selectively, to illustrate
how these communities have responded to the challenges of globalization. Most
of them have seized the opportunities offered by the Internet not only to support
the THEO-LOGIC of their own beliefs, but also to try to make the world
-- and the earth -- a better place for all humans. No matter how ancient or
contemporary their roots -- from Zoroastrians to Baha'i' to Christian Scientists
-- in the modern world they co-inhabit cyberspace. For example, a tract on the Good
Religion and Zoroastrianism reads: The restoration of the religion to
its pristine position provides prudent answers to a ... world perplexed by the
primeval past, the practical present, and the promising future... the Zarathushtrian
religion is [ultra-modern] in its eternal guideline for a good life on this
good earth and beyond. Data from this files provide the basis for a comparative
analysis of globalization and religion to be presented at a panel of the International
Studies Association, 23-27 March 2002.
Faith-based communities include a wide range of esoteric and individualistic
movements, atheists, humanists, and pagans as well as the mono-theists who follow
the more familiar and well institutionalized religious persuasions. Among them
the most complex, centralized, and globally linked on the Internet is headquartered
in the Vatican. The political links between church and state are illuminated,
statistically , in Adherents.com
. The entries are alphabetized but some major categories with headings in
caps are followed by the relevant sub-lists. Readers are invited to suggest
links to relevant sites they think we should add to this list. Write to Fred
Riggs
AHIMSA
Ahimsa is an Eastern spiritual concept of active nonviolence or noninjury,
thus kindness and love towards all. It is a central tenet (perhaps the first
tenet) of Jainism and yoga. It was introduced to the West by Mahatma Gandhi;
the Western civil rights movements, inspired by his actions, engaged in non-violent
protests, led by such people as Martin Luther King Jr.Wikipedia.
Although rooted in religious beliefs of different traditions, the basic concept
has also been adopted by secular movements as well. Some of the relevant sites
are listed here:
Encyclopedia
of Religion -- mainly Christian information and related sites Bibliography of Bibliographies
for Religious Studies -- Univ. Calgary, Saundra Lipton
