Customer Reviews

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Religions Online

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Bruce Lawrence, an Islamic scholar who chairs the prestigious religion department at Duke University has written a delightful review of religion on the Internet. Lawrence writes with both humor and intelligence, a rare combination among such well placed academics. This is a must read for anyone interested in tracking the explosive growth of religion on the Net. Naturally I would give this book a great review, as Lawrence rated my own sites as being among best on the Net.

You'd have to be a "Complete Idiot" not to enjoy & benefit from this very useful book. The past five years have witnessed such an explosion of religion-related resources on the internet that tracking reliable & authoritative information can become a chore. With a scholar's critical judgment & a master teacher's communication skills Bruce Lawrence guides cyber-pilgrims -- both seekers & scholars -- from one end of the religious spectrum to the other to websites that are worth the trip. This is a book that any researcher in religion should consult before going on-line. Minutes consulting this Guide can save hours wasted in sorting the chaff churned up by mechanical search engines.

An interesting project, considering that every religion has its critics, and you are always going to offend someone by writing about their religion. The Watchtower is no exception, with literally hundreds of websites postured against this organization and only two official websites of the Watchtower with very limited information. Yet, it is the responsibility of the web critic who wishes to reach the reader to be kind and fair to members of the religion who may be browsing online. A little humor and some poetry, film and sound waves are nice. I get many Witnesses write me at freeminds.org.

It is quite off-subject in the first few chapters, going through explaining how to use various features of the browser and such, but it does get going eventually. It is by far the best book I have read yet concerning online religion.

Along with being a great list of great web sites for many, many religions, it also covers quite a bit of information about them, explaining some basic philosophies, practices, etc.

If you're doing any religious research or looking for your religion or doing anything else with religion online you must have this book!

This book contains practical (be is very basic) information for locating religious resources on the internet. One plus regarding this book is that it covers more than just the 8 'great religions' and also covers alternative religious sites as well. Recommended for the internet search engine challenged.

This author belives that the Soka Gakkai is pure evil, and as a Soka Gakkai member I was deeply offended. But its still a OK book.

Bruce must be congratulated for the indepth research in facilitating acces to the Web, that is otherwise hidden, deep and in mysterious webs.

This author belives thathe Soka Gakkai is pure evil, and as a Soka Gakkai member I was deeply offended. But its still a OK book.