Free religious library

[David]

Hi Brian,

I found your site today, and have enjoyed looking at it. There is an excellent electronic library of the world's religous texts available, that is free to download, and fully searchable. It is called "Ocean". As a previous comparative religion major, I use it all the time for research.

The address is http://www.bahai-education.org/ocean/

It is alphabetically organized into various libraries, (Bahai, Buddhist, Christianity, etc.), and you simply check which religious libraries you might want to search.

I noticed that the Baha'i Faith is not on your list of religions. ("Ocean" has been developed by an adherent of the Baha'i Faith). From what I understand, it is the most widespread of the world's religions, after Christianity, and is also rapidly growing with around 6 million adherents worldwide. You should find accurate informaiton on this group from their website, which is www.bahai.org

I wish you all the best on a wonderful project.

Regards,

David

 

[iBrian]

Thanks for the heads up - the prgram is just a little too big on the modem connection for easy download - I'll need to set aside about 3 hours for that. But I'll try and get around to checking it out.

As for Bahai - yes, I really ought to add it, but it's simply a matter of time. Real life and some major re-working of the two forums I run have kept myself from updating the actual textual side of this site for a little while. Should be back to that soon enough. Next tasks are to get the Koran and Tao Te Ching online here. Once I'm happy the big traditional ones are properly covered, I can get around to covering more modern faiths.

Oh - and welcome to the comparative-religion.com forum! It would certainly be interesting to have a Bahai perspective on things.

 

[Susma Rio Sep]

From what I understand, it is the most widespread of the world's religions, after Christianity, and is also rapidly growing with around 6 million adherents worldwide.

I don't know that. Have you any statistics of how many and where they are concentrated, adherents of the of Baha'i religion.

As a major in comparative religion, what is your own very personal definition of religion founded upon factual considerations?

I have this definition from my own observations:

A human behavior founded upon a belief in an unknown power resulting in affection and action intended by the believer to influence the unknown power to react favorably to himself.

I seem to see after reading reactions to my definition that there might be a religion which does not look forward to anything of advantage to the practitioner or adherent or profess-or, like the Buddists(?).

But the way I see it, the masses of Buddhists validate my definition of religion. It is with the ideologues-doctrinaires-intellectuals-elites-spokesmen who appear not to. But I suspect they too are within my definition, if they would analyze themselves to determine exactly what they expect or hope to achieve with their practice of Buddhism.

Yet, they might just be enthusiasts of a philosophical lifestyle, and nothing more; and they are attached to such a lifestyle and want also to tell people about it and to defend, explain, apologize, etc., in its regard.

Maybe the difference between religion and philosophy as regards the adherence of enthusiasts is the element of attempts at interaction with the unknown power or with an unknown power.

In philosophy the system as an impersonal entity like the mechanics in an automobile; but in religion there is some sort of a personal entity.

This brings in the idea of the impersonal entity that can be reactive or non-reactive, depending upon the right kind of button-pressing by the connoisseurs of such an entity.

Are we talking here about magic?

So, we have philosophy, magic, and religion...?

And in every religion that validates my definition one can find all three of them together; however, the religion proper factor dominates in the religion that is properly contained in my definition.

Susma Rio Sep

 

[IMSassafras]

Number of Adherents in the Baha'i Faith

I don't know that. Have you any statistics of how many and where they are concentrated, adherents of the of Baha'i religion.

Susma Rio Sep,

Here is a website that might help you in your search.

http://www.adherents.com/

There is a lot of areas you can click on to get all kinds of different information, but here is another website within Adherents you might find interesting.

http://www.adherents.com/largecom/com_bahai.html

I hope this information is helpful to you.

Sassafras