Meditation is a part of many religious traditions and for good reasons. Meditation is vital to personal well-being and inter-personal well-being. I encourage everyone to practice both private and communal meditation, and to meditate upon inner peace, peace with the world, and the radiating of lovingkindness to all beings. For meditation beginners the Bodyworker site has a great section on how to get started <http://www.thebodyworker.com/meditation.htm>.
This is a community trading system that makes it possible for people to exchange goods and services with one another without using cash. I recommend it as a way to build community. LETS is also an important part of this call to action: A Modern Satyagraha.
I find it vital to have positive examples of human endeavor. These examples give us hope and a platform upon which to build an even greater world. Whenever I feel discouraged about humanity, I find that reading a little from the book A Force More Powerful reminds me of how much wisdom we can discover within ourselves. I also believe the videos from the TV series provide a great jumping off point for discussion about the power and value of peaceful efforts toward change.
A terrific resource for considering issues to do with religious freedom and pluralism.
This site is quite thorough in its analyses of various religions. The teacher organising this site has some important things to say. My only objection would be that in enlisting his students to write descriptions of the various religions he ends up with material that does not reflect his fairer and more pluralistic view on faith, but rather demonstrates the students' ignorance, lack of experience, and narrow point of view. Nevertheless, it is a good starting point for coming to a larger understanding of people's connection with whatever they consider the divine.
I do not have a lot of direct experience with this group, but I am very impressed by what I have read. They pretty much believe that most people have enough experience with moral philosophies, and are aware of the consequences of their actions, to understand how to choose rightly in their relations with others and themselves. They feel that people do not need to wait for outside authority to connect with what is most divine in life, and therefore anyone should be able to establish churches and be the heads of these churches.
Interestingly, they also understand that any spiritual body will still need some grasp of how to deal with day to day affairs, such as how to manage church property and taxes. Therefore, they provide a lot of helpful information on the nuts and bolts of running a religious institution. As a part of this understanding they ended up truly representing freedom of religion in the US courts in defending new and non-mainstream religions to have the same tax rights as any other religion.
Also edifying is their discussion forum: <http://forum.ulc.net/>
