Zoroastrian New Year

WEB VIDEO Bahai and Zoroastrian New Year is called Norooz and occurs at the spring equinox. The Zoroastrian faith began in ancient Persia, now Iran. Zoroastrians live mostly in India, Iran, Europe, and North America. Zoroastrianism teaches that people should do good to help the one God in his cosmic struggle with the power of evil.

Jainism Global Resource Center

WEB RESOURCE This is a well-organized religious site that describes basic ideas about Jainism in a manner that is comprehensible to the layman.

A Brief Introduction to Jainism

WEB RESOURCE Jainism is an ancient religion, which originates from Eastern India. Its advent in the 6th century BC was expected as many people were beginning to oppose the hierarchical organization and formalized rituals of Hinduism, the dominant religion in India. This site was developed by Commisceo Global, a firm specializing in intercultural education.

Introduction to Jainism

WEB RESOURCE Part of the Pluralism Project at Harvard University website, the introduction toe Jainism is based on a series of short essays. Each describes some aspect of the faith and its practices.

The Gnostic World View: A Brief Summary of Gnosticism

WEB RESOURCE This scholarly article by Stephan A. Hoeller provides a description of the gnostic worldview and how it contrasts with most creator God religious worldviews.


WEB VIDEO This six and a half minute You Tube video by religious studies students Jessica Wang and Stephen Cook was recommended by several religious studies scholars. It provides an academic overview of Shinto beliefs in a visual format with a clear narration.

What Is The Ancient Japanese Religion Shinto?

WEB VIDEO This short video gives a brief and interesting overview of Shinto rituals and ideas so important in Japanese culture. It is part of the Seekers educational web video collection.

Religions of Japan: Buddhism and Shintoism

WEB VIDEO This video is organized as a personal investigation of Japanese culture and how it relates to ideas, beliefs, and practices of Shintoism and Zen Buddhism.

Avesta - Zoroastrian Scripture

WEB RESOURCE This Encyclopedia Britannica article provides an overview of Avesta, the sacred book of Zoroastrianism containing its cosmogony, law, and liturgy, the teachings of the prophet Zoroaster (Zarathushtra).

Zoroastrian Heritage

WEB RESOURCE This highly recommended site has a rich collection of articles about Zoroastrian beliefs, way of like, and history


WEB RESOURCE Zoroastrianism,one of the world's oldest monotheistic religions was founded by the Prophet Zoroaster in ancient Iran approximately 3500 years ago. For 1000 years Zoroastrianism was one of the most powerful religions in the world. Now it has a very small following but nonetheless is important to understand because Zoroastrianism influenced the religions of the ancient Middle East.

Early Belief Systems: Shinto

ONLINE VIDEO This video segment explores early Japanese animistic beliefs that came to be known as Shinto, their effects on the development of Japanese society, and their continuing influence in modern Japan.

Internet Sacred Text Archive - African Religions

SACRED & TRADITIONAL TEXTS This section of the Sacred Text Archive has texts on the traditional spirituality of Sub-Saharan Africa, as well as their descendants in the New World. These books have a great amount of useful information on this topic, some of it written before colonialism destroyed or greatly modified aspects of traditional culture. The problem with these works is that they were for the large part written by Europeans with their particular biases and agendas. For this reason, we encourage you to 'read between the lines.'

Global Religious Landscape: Other Religions

WEB RESOURCE Worldwide, there are an estimated 58 million members of "other religions," accounting for nearly 1% of the global population. This category is diverse and comprises followers of religions that are not specifically measured in surveys and censuses in most countries: the Baha'i faith, Taoism, Jainism, Shintoism, Sikhism, Tenrikyo, Wicca, Zoroastrianism and many others.

Religion Library: Paganism

WEB RESOURCE This (Neo) Patheos Library website has information about Pagan beliefs, history, origins, and sacred texts. Paganism represents a wide variety of traditions that emphasize reverence for nature and a revival of ancient polytheistic and animistic religious practices. Some modern forms of Paganism have their roots in 19th century C.E. European nationalism (including the British Order of Druids), but most contemporary Pagan groups trace their immediate organizational roots to the 1960s, and have an emphasis on archetypal psychology and a spiritual interest in nature.

Ancient African Religion Finds Roots In America

WEB RESOURCE This National Public Radio interview by Christopher Johnson includes both and audio file and a transcript. It features an often ignored issue of religious expression, in this case the flowering of the ancient Yoruba faith from West Africa in modern Seattle.

Religion Library: Jainism

WEB RESOURCE This fairy extensive encyclopedic entry on Jainism includes information about the beliefs, history, founders, sacred texts, schisms and sects, and major beliefs.

Alcoholics Anonymous

WEB RESOURCE This resource from World Religions and Spirituality provides a history and an overview of the beliefs of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Thomas Paine:Of the Religion of Deism Compared with the Christian Religion

PRIMARY SOURCE Thomas Paine defines deism as the beief of a God. He argues against an understanding of God based on sacred texts, and church teaching and rituals. He instead argues that 'creation' is the true evidence of God. Deism "honors reason as the choicest gift of God to man, and the faculty by which he is enabled to contemplate the power, wisdom and goodness of the Creator displayed in the creation based on rational interpretation of the laws of nature."

Deism vs. Atheism and Christianity by Bob Johnson

WEB RESOURCE This article on the World Union of Deists site compares Deism to both Christianity and Atheism. The article makes special effort to critique revealed religions of all kinds. Johnson's argument against atheism is that everything has a creator including nature. Therefore, the creator of nature is God.

The Obscure Religion that Shaped the West

WEB RESOURCE It is generally believed by scholars that the ancient Iranian prophet Zarathustra (Zoroaster) lived sometime between 1500 and 1000 BC. The idea of a single god was not the only essentially Zoroastrian tenet to find its way into other major faiths such as Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The concepts of Heaven and Hell, Judgment Day, and angels and demons all may have originated in the teachings of Zarathustra. Even the idea of Satan was a fundamentally Zoroastrian one.

Gnosticism: Ancient and Modern

WEB RESOURCE Gnosticism is a philosophical and religious movement which started in pre-Christian times. Some religious historians believe that it had is source in the Jewish community of Alexandria and was later picked up by some Christian groups in Judea and the Galilee. 1 The name is derived from the Greek word "gnosis" which literally means "knowledge." Gnostics believe that they have secret knowledge about God, humanity and the rest of the universe of which the general population was unaware.


WEB RESOURCE This BBC educational site provides and overview of Shintoism though a series oa short articles. The essence of Shinto is the Japanese devotion to invisible spiritual beings and powers called kami, to shrines, and to various rituals. The rituals enable human beings to communicate with kami.

Traditional African American Religion

WEB RESOURCE This Wikipedia article on Afro-American religions (also known as African diasporic religions or New World traditions) is a brief overview. It links to more information on a number of related religions that developed in the Americas in various nations of Latin America, the Caribbean, and the southern United States which derived from traditional African religions with some influence from Christianity.