Resource Database

A database of web resources to accompany "Exploring World Religions: The Canadian Perspective"

Exploring World Religions: A Canadian Perspective

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Welcome to our World Religions Website. We hope that it will useful to many people. It was created to supplement two World Religions courses taught in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. Thus, its contents were selected to serve the needs of teachers and students in those courses. The resources presented here were selected by graduate students and faculty in the Department of Religious Studies, Memorial University, and we based our choices on three main criteria:

  1. First, a site had to be informative and engaging. Its content had to complement or supplement the textbook used in the two senior level high school courses on World Religions (3101 and 3106), World Religions: The Canadian Perspective, shown here. We tried to locate sites with good visual media as well as discussions of issues of interest to young adults. We include sites that discuss religion responsibly; sites from recognized and identified institutions or individuals. These on-line resources are accessible throughout the province.
  2. Second, the sites listed for any one religion, or any one chapter from the course textbook, had to provide general introductions as well as discussions focussed on specific elements of a religion. Collectively, they had to offer a variety of perspectives including those of practitioners of the religion but also including those who do not present themselves as religious. We include some sites from scholars of religion; individuals whose professional work is to teach about the history of religions, for example, in Universities and Colleges.
  3. Third, we balanced the number of selections overall so that each religion, and each chapter in the course textbook, would be well represented. It is not possible to provide an equal number of sites for all religions. Some religions have an extremely strong presence on the internet; some are severely under-represented. So, while we cannot and do not claim that our resource database covers every religion or that it gives equal space to the religions it does cover, we have endeavoured to give equitable representation to the religions studied in our province's high school program.

This website was made possible by the co-operative efforts of the Office of Immigration and Multiculturalism and the Department of Education of the Provincial Government of Newfoundland and Labrador and Memorial University's Faculty of Arts and Department of Religious Studies. Funding for the site was provided by the Office of Immigration and Multiculturalism and the Department of Education of the Provincial Government. Three Graduate Students from the Faculty of Arts did the research and descriptions for the database under the supervision of Faculty from the Department of Religious Studies.