 Front page of Religious Tolerance. The Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance (OCRT) is a group formed with the stated purpose of promoting religious tolerance and providing the public with information about various religions. To accomplish these goals, they maintain a Web site, ReligiousTolerance.org,[1] and give lectures. The group is based in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (1024x768, 164 KB)Front page to http://www. ...
Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (1024x768, 164 KB)Front page to http://www. ...
Freedom of religion is the individuals right or freedom to hold whatever religious beliefs he or she wishes, or none at all. ...
A website, Web site or WWW site (often shortened to just site) is a collection of webpages, that is, HTML/XHTML documents accessible via HTTP on the Internet; all publicly accessible websites in existence comprise the World Wide Web. ...
Murney Tower, Kingston. ...
Members Five volunteers make up the group. They identify themselves as "two Unitarians (one Agnostic and one strong Atheist ), one Wiccan, one liberal but unaffiliated Christian, and a Zen Buddhist."[2] They outline their credentials as follows: We are not theologians or religious innovators; we are simply reporters on religion, spirituality, and ethics. We do not create or promote new religious beliefs. Rather, we explain all of the points of view which others teach on topics as varied as abortion access, equal rights for homosexuals, heaven and hell, God, Satan, and hundreds of other social and religious topics.[3] Bruce A. Robinson, the agnostic of the group, is the founder and coordinator of the OCRT, and the primary contributor to ReligiousTolerance.org. Robinson is a graduate of the University of Toronto, with a BaSc degree in Engineering Physics. He worked for a large multi-national chemical company for thirty-eight years before early retirement. His professional interests were in the development of electronic instrumentation. The term agnosticism and the related agnostic were coined by Thomas Henry Huxley in 1869. ...
The University of Toronto (U of T) is a coeducational public research university in Toronto, Ontario. ...
A Bachelor of Applied Science is an undergraduate academic degree awarded for a course of study that generally lasts three years in the UK or four or five years in North America. ...
Engineering physics (EP) is an academic degree, usually at the level of Bachelor of Science. ...
Ammeter Communications-electronics Electron microscope Electronic amplifier Electronic deception Instrument Landing System Instrumentation amplifier Instrumentation engineering Instrumentation, Systems, and Automation Society Measuring instrument Meter (electronics) Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems Moving coil meter Multimeter Ohmmeter Popular Electronics Voltmeter Categories: | | ...
The group receives its funding from donations, banner ads, commisions from Amazon.com, and donations from authors wishing to reprint material from the site.
Web site The group started ReligiousTolerance.org in 1995 to counter what they perceive as a proliferation of misinformation about various religions and a lack of religious tolerance on the World wide web. The site contains essays on a variety of topics related to world religions, morality, spirituality, religious intolerance, and new religious movements. The group states that they attempt to write accurate, impartial, and balanced essays,[4] that reference reliable sources. The site keeps a record of notable errors and corrections on an errata page.[5] Robinson writes the vast majority of these essays. 1995 (MCMXCV) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
WWWs historical logo designed by Robert Cailliau The World Wide Web (WWW or simply the Web) is a system of interlinked, hypertext documents that runs over the Internet. ...
Major world religions have been distinguished from minor religions using a variety of methods, though any such division naturally reflects a particular bias, since many adherent of a religion are likely to consider their own faith major. Two methods are mentioned in this article, number of adherents and the definitions...
It has been suggested that Moral reflex be merged into this article or section. ...
Spirituality, in a narrow sense, concerns itself with matters of the spirit. ...
Religious intolerance is intolerance motivated by ones own religious beliefs, generally against anothers religious beliefs. ...
A new religious movement or NRM appears as a religious, ethical or spiritual grouping that has not (yet) become recognised as a standard denomination, church, or body, especially when it has a novel belief system and when it is not a sect. ...
The information available on ReligiousTolerance.org has been cited and used by the Toronto Star, CBS News, CSIS, and the FBI. The Toronto Star is Canadas highest-circulation newspaper, though its print edition is distributed almost entirely within Ontario. ...
CBS News is the news division of American television and radio network CBS. Its current president is Sean McManus who is also head of CBS Sports. ...
The letters CSIS can stand for several things. ...
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is a Federal police force which is the principal investigative arm of the United States Department of Justice (DOJ). ...
The Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance designed their site for a North American audience. Though the group is based in Canada, they make a concious effort to follow American spelling. Political highlights of North America North America is the third largest continent in area and the fourth ranked in population. ...
American English or U.S. English (en-US according to RFC 3066) is the diverse form of the English language used mostly in the United States of America. ...
As of the start of 2007, the web site contains about 3,590 essays and receives about 1.5 million visitors a month. [6]
Controversy ReligiousTolerance.org addresses controversial subjects such as homosexuality, persecution, and abortion. The site attempts to discuss all sides of these issues and how they relate to various faiths. Homosexuality refers to sexual and romantic attraction between two individuals of the same sex. ...
Look up Persecution in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...
A number of web rating groups, such as CleanNet and CyberPatrol, once banned the site for its controversial subject matter. These bans have since been lifted. The site remains banned by some governments, such as Saudi Arabia.[7]
There is a lack of information on the more controversial beliefs, practices, and history of Scientology.[citation needed] Al Buttnor authored or co-authored almost all the site's articles on the subject. Buttnor is the Director of Special Affairs for the Church of Scientology Toronto. These articles [8] focus less on controversial topics than the site's treatments of other faiths, such as the LDS Restorationist Movement, including the Mormon denominations[9]. The site is currently blocking the Wayback Machine of the Internet Archive from showing previous versions of the pages. Scientology is a system of beliefs and practices created by American pulp fiction[1][2] and science fiction [3] author L. Ron Hubbard in 1952 as a self-help philosophy. ...
Internet Archive headquarters, San Francisco The Internet Archive (archive. ...
Internet Archive headquarters. ...
In 2006 the Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance decided to "bend the rules" and make an exception to their overall policy of providing information about various religions in a neutral and tolerant way. They presented an argumentative essay donated by Vladimir Tomek titled "Changing Holy Books, In Order to Modify Beliefs and Alter Behaviors". It argues from a progressivist viewpoint for the alteration of holy texts, the Bible by downplaying or ignoring those biblical passages that justify genocide; oppression of women; human slavery; execution of Witches, homosexuals and religious minorities; physically abusing children, etc. Their argument follows: "To break the spiral of violence and intolerance in the world, we need to eliminate the sanctification of wrong attitudes and evil deeds which are contained in our 'sacred texts.'" The essay argues against fundamentalism, concentrating on Christian fundamentalism. The authors explain their reasons for singling out Christianity and the Bible: "We will primarily cite Christian examples here because it is the main religion in North America, which is our main service area." They acknowledge the essay's potential for sparking controversy, writing that they "realize that believers who regard their holy text as God's word might interpret this essay as an attack on their beliefs." They caution, "If you are easily distressed, we recommend that you not read this essay. Alternately,you may wish to submit your own reguttal in the form of an essay for our visitors' essay section,"[10] Progressivism is a term that refers to a broad school of contemporary international social and political philosophies. ...
The word Bible refers to the canonical collections of sacred writings of Judaism and Christianity. ...
// In comparative religion, fundamentalism has come to refer to several different understandings of religious thought and practice, through literal interpretation of religious texts such as the Bible or the Quran and sometimes also anti-modernist movements in various religions. ...
Fundamentalist Christianity is a fundamentalist movement, especially within American Protestantism. ...
Criticism Feedback from the site's audience varies.
About one in four responses are negative. They charge the site with being biased, dishonest, or unaccommodating, and view the articles as poorly researched, argumentative, or inaccurate. Others find the site's treatments of controversial topics distasteful, blasphemous, or immoral. The site receives hate mail and the occasional death threat. Blasphemy is the defamation of the name of God or the gods, and by extension any display of gross irreverence towards any person or thing deemed worthy of exalted esteem. ...
About three in four Emails are complimentary. These praise the site for being unbiased, honest, or accommodating, and see the articles as well researched, neutral, or accurate. See [11]for an assortment of comments.
Several counter-cult Web sites accuse the group of having a cult apologist agenda.[citation needed] One Christian apologetics site classifies ReligiousTolerance.org as "Pluralistic", and views it as biased. The Christian countercult movement is a loosely knit affiliation made primarily of Evangelical and fundamentalist Christians to resist viewpoints and organizations which they see as opposing what they view as the historic and orthodox Christian faith. ...
A cult apologist is a term to describe a scholar of cults and/or new religious movements perceived as responding to the movements they study with advocacy instead of with neutral scholarship. ...
Christian apologetics is the field of study concerned with the systematic defense of Christianity. ...
Unfortunately, while you'll find an extensive collection of documented, cross-referenced information, many articles are not as balanced as advertised. The site promotes pluralism, and has a decidedly dim view of the anti-cult and counter-cult movements. It prefers to believe cult-apologists, and promotes many of their arguments. In public and private messages, staff and supporters of the Scientology-backed CAN, refer people to the site rather than their own.[12]
External links |
Feeds |
Contact