Religioni on line. Indirizzi, curiosità e segnalazioni per saperne di più con Internet
by C. Ceci and M. Restelli

Milano, Alpha Test, 2001
ISBN: 88-483-0166-5
pages 188, price EU 8.26

Purpose of this Italian booklet, 188 pages in a very small format, is to register the sites on gods and religions on the web. Ironically the authors outline that the word "god" has just less entries than sex, which has the highest numbers of sites in all the search engines, and food, at list in Italian search engines. The reading is always "user-friendly" and easy going: but we should not undervalue it, since in the introduction gives advices useful also to "old" users like me (we opened our IJTS online journal at the beginning of 1995, after several years of Internet use). It is easy not to be scientific when talking about religion - science and religion look like two opposite tracks - but one can be more or less "serious", or scientific, also while talking about religion (e.g., our IJTS again, of which nobody can doubt of its scientificity, it is a "religious" journal since deals with Tantrism).

The introduction provides also information on portals and search engines on religions. The booklet is divided into eight sections: The Catholic Church, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, More Faiths/More Cults, New Age/Next Age. It also includes a few info on Internet as such, which is useful (or perhaps was useful in 2001, in Italy) to Internet neophytes.

Besides the news on sects and churches of which I did not even know the names, I found very interesting the chapter dedicated to New Age/Next Age. Here one can find also the addresses of the newly established, or reconverted, Italian towns, where one can live in a more natural, and at the same time spiritual way. Some of them might be worth a visit, or a stay...

by E. Garzilli