Oddity Central Website

According to its About page, this site contains "a collection of oddities gathered from all around the world." These oddities can be grouped into such categories as bizarre events, weird inventions, freaky characters, strange places, and odd art. The stories are collected from all over the globe, and anyone can participate by suggesting a new possibility for inclusion.

The site appears to be very active, with new stories appearing on a daily basis. At the time of my visit, the newest articles covered such oddities as the world's largest swimming pool, a dog that walks on two legs, clothing made out of chocolate, skiing witches, a Swiss ice palace, the world's tallest model, a house made from bottles, the Devil's Pool of Zimbabwe, mud sculptors, robotic insects, an image of the Virgin Mary made from 15,000 Easter eggs, a ceremony in which people leap through flames, an edible wedding dress, and a depiction of the crucifixion of Jesus made from toast.

The article on the toast image of the crucifixion says that it was made by British artist Adam Sheldon. He used a regular toaster to burn some pieces of bread, then flattened them and put them into a giant frame. He then used a scraping knife to create the lighter parts of the image, and darkened the background with a blowtorch. His finished work is now on display at the Anglican Church of St Peter in Lincs.

To visit this site, go to Oddity Central.

Bible Places Website

This website is a pictorial guide to historical structures and locations mentioned in the bible, and it also includes some material about other archaeological sites associated with various other ancient near-eastern civilizations. The operators of the website claim that it generally has the highest-quality Holy Land photographs available on the web, and they sell a CD of most of these photos through mail order.

The photographs mainly show well-known sites that annually attract thousands of pilgrims and tourists. Each photo is accompanied by a discription of the structure or location along with its place and significance in the biblical story. I found these descriptions to be generally well-written, informative, and objective enough to mention the controversies and uncertainties that are often associated with historical sites in Palestine.

There are some good photographs of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, which encloses the traditional site of Golgotha (where Jesus was crucified) and the tomb where he was buried. There are also some excellent photos of Masada and its environs.

To visit this website, go to Bible Places. It would take many hours to go through the entire site.

Farshores.org

This website encompasses the fringes of science, history, and religion, with a broad coverage of areas such as unidentified flying objects, paranormal phenomena, scientific anomalies, unsolved ancient mysteries, historical conspiracies, strange creatures, religious prophesies, and extra-terrestrial life.

I was especially impressed with the uniqueness of many of the subjects discussed in the articles. For example, the Ancient Mysteries section contains articles about a possible Holy Grail secret site in Iceland, Da Vinci's secret mirror images, evidence for a possible lost second sphinx near the Great Pyramids of Egypt, America's mysterious Melungeons, ancient python worship, and Aztec musical instruments used to induce trances.

A section called Secrets and Conpiracies includes an interesting article called "The Coming Era of Mind Control", which discusses saturation advertising as a possible future method of mass "brain washing" for political or commercial purposes. It also describes the possibility of using brain scans as a more accurate method of lie detection.

In addition to the articles, the site also includes a section of latest news stories about strange or anomalous events, recent discoveries, and new theories.

Adherents.com

This site is a refernce source for membership information and other statistics on more than 4,200 worldwide religions, churches, sects, denominations, religious movements, and other faith groups. The database contains more than 43,870 individual statistics and is still growing. Because of the way the data is organized, a visitor to the site can find answers to specific questions such as "How many Methodists live in Kentucky?", "What percentage of the world population is Muslim?", or "What are the largest religions of India?". The data is obtained from primary research sources such as government census reports and statistical sampling surveys, as well as some secondary literature from various sources.

Another feature of the site is its detailed lists of famous adherents of more than one hundred different religious groups, such as famous Methodists, famous Catholics, famous Jews, famous Zoroastrians, and famous Theosophists. There are also lists of prominent politicians, authors, U.S. presidents, Supreme Court justices, artists, musicians, actors, and other famous people classified by religious affiliation. The site also contains detailed religious biographies of thousands of famous people.

To visit this website, go to Adherents.com. The site is designed for use by students, researchers, journalists, teachers or anyone who is looking for statistical data about the size or geographic spread of a particular religion, or who wants to get information about the religious makeup of a specific country, region, state or province.