Religious Studies

Through this site one finds a wide variety of electronic resources of interest to those who are involved in the study and practice of religion including syllabi, electronic texts, electronic journals, web sites, bibliographies, liturgies, reference resources, software, etc. The purpose of the Guide is to encourage and facilitate the incorporation of electronic resources into teaching.

Published by the Department of Sociology at Penn State University. Data varies by location. Figures for denominations in the U.S. can be had at the state, county, and zip code level for 1980, 1990, and 2000 while profiles for the entire denomination can include more historic data. Statistics on religious adherents are available for entire countries along with various socio-economic measures. GIS Maps are available, and it is possible to cross-reference geographies with practices. Downloadable datasets allow users to work with data independently of the site." Voted by RUSA's MARS as Best of Free Reference Web Sites 2010.

"The American Religion Data Archive (ARDA) is a project funded by the Lilly Endowment, Inc. and acts to preserve quantitative data on American religion, to improve access to this data, to increase the use of the data, and to allow comparisons across data files. The ARDA collection includes data on churches and church membership, religious professionals, and religious groups (individuals, congregations and denominations)."

One can search for information by state or religious tradition in addition to locating articles, research reports, bibliographies and additional links.
The Pluralism Project mission is to "explore particularly the communities and religious traditions of Asia and the Middle East that have become woven into the religious fabric of the United States in the past twenty-five years."

It was maintained by Rutgers University's Religion Department and appears to have ceased update as of 2007-2008. Although you will find dead links, a large amount of content has active links. All major religions are covered including a variety of other areas such as American Religions, Ancient Near Eastern Studies, Anthropology and Sociology of Religion, Archaelogy and Religious Art, Biblical Studies, Comparative Religion, Confessional Agencies and more.

It is the goal of this site to make these great words available to everyone for study and appreciation.

"This site is a freely available archive of electronic texts about religion, mythology, legends and folklore, and occult and esoteric topics. Texts are presented in English translation and, in some cases, in the original language. This site has no particular agenda other than promoting religious tolerance and scholarship. A comprehensive bibliography of the texts scanned at sacred texts is available... In particular, comprehensive translations of the Shinto texts, the Kalevala, the Upanishads, and the Rig Veda" are available. (ISTA)

This text is the result of a five-year project involving the collaboration of an international team of 40 recognized scholars representing all the major religions of the world." "World Scripture gathers passages from the scriptures of the various religious traditions around certain topics. Often these scriptural passages support a common theme; sometimes they illuminate several contrasting positions on the topic. This method of organization allows each topic to be addressed with the resources of many different traditions, often providing a broader and deeper understanding of the topic than would be possible from the resources of a single tradition."