The Pageless Book

There are many different sites out there that espouse the importance of religious tolerance, pluralism, and dialog. While each of these websites share a view of spiritual equality, unfortunately websites are not created as equal. There are also a number of sites that serve very similar functions. How do we sort out the good from the bad? By setting two similar websites against each other in a no-holds-bar Death Match!

Um… yeah. Or we could just take a look at both sites, discuss their pros and cons, and use our power of reasoning to discern which site is better. Although I feel there is a certain appeal to watching violence played out in claymation, it happens to be a little beyond the scope of my blog at the moment. We’ll just have to make do with what we have. For our first match:

Belief.Net vs. ReligiousTolerance.Org

Both of these sites serve as repositories for articles on a multitude of religions. At first glance, Belief.Net is obviously a better built site. With drop-down menus, unique graphics, streaming video, and steady updates, each visit to Belief.Net is informative and pleasant. Belief.Net has also formed a sizeable and active community. However, there are a few short-comings to Belief.Net. The abundance of flashy ads, many of which has nothing to do with spirituality, is a huge turn-off for many people. I understand that the site has to bring in revenue, but I find advertisements for diet pills and phone services have no place on a website such as this one. In addition to this, Belief.Net has the tendency to focus their attention on mainstream religions and spiritual practices, and avoid participating in controversial dialogue outside of discussions which are already in the media.

ReligiousTolerance.Org, however, is not as mainstream as Belief.Net. This website takes on religion and spirituality in an honest fashion, discussing the lesser known aspects of each religion, as well as delving further into fringe spiritual movements. Unlike Belief.Net, differences, sources of intolerance, and controversy are shown in stark relief, without any attempts to gloss over any particular religion’s dark side. This, however, is not enough to redeem ReligiousTolerance.Org from its haphazard design, broken links, and awkward navigation. In terms of advertising, ReligiousTolerance.Org has a comparable number of ads, but due to the poor placement of these ads and the poor design of the website, they are even more intrusive than on Belief.Net. In addition, the articles themselves often reference outdated information and can sometimes be of questionable quality or authority.

While I want to like ReligiousTolerance.Org for their candor, there is no question in my mind that Belief.Net is the better site. My suggestion is to look at ReligiousTolerance.Org as a secondary resource to Belief.Net. With well written articles, frequent updates, easy navigation, and pleasing design, Belief.Net crushes its competition.