Talk:Cult

My reasoning for See Also: Protestantism and Christianity

Prior to the Roman emperor Constantine's acceptance of Christianity, it was considered a cult. During the late 1st century and 2nd centuries, it was commonplace to beleive "these christians worshiping that guy from nazerath as the son of God" were very much outside the mainstream. After Constantine and through the centuries since, Christianity bloomed into a full fledged and accepted religion. It is the perfect example that all cults are not bad and can evolve into religions.

Protestantism was originally an offshoot of Catholicism, essentially christianity. As such, it started as a Sect. It serves as an example of sect -> religion and while it should more precisely be in the sect article, pointing out the differences in sect and cult led the way to including a similarity of the two in both being able to evolve to an accepted religion. -- Creol 06:20, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree that they were (are?) cults - however sources should be supplied for this asertion, and a paragraph should figure in the article. Sfacets

Context of media

Would it be appropriate to add a section here about cult followings in the media? FrancesO (talk) 20:02, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Bias

Does this article contain bias? Are there positive things along with the negative things? Frogger48 (talk) 16:51, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

"Cult" is a perfectly good term, explained in the reference works and dictionaries listed in the references. It does not mean "New religious movements" because it is a broader term, and because not all NRMs are cults. A cult which was not religious in origin was the one led by Charles Manson. It's not even clear that a semi-respectable cult like that of Rajneesh was primarily religious. It had elements of various philosophies. Whatever, it was certainly a cult.

There is also no reason to talk of bias. All we do is represent what reliable sources have reported. If the sources have negative opinions, we reflect that. We would also report positive judgements, so long as they were from sources independent of the cult in question. Macdonald-ross (talk) 07:53, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

The tagging here seems unwarranted. If someone thinks that the article contains bias, there needs to be examples given. We need something to go on in order to address the problem. Osiris (talk) 02:49, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

All that really matters is if the article is NPOV. I think that the positive and negative views should be represented equally. Is there another word for this article other than "cult"? Frogger48 (talk) 02:10, 25 October 2013 (UTC

No, you don't understand what "bias" means. It does not mean "positive and negative views should be represented equally". It is the "equally" bit which is most wrong. An article is not biased if it reflects the balance of reliable sources. The source is under NPOV "Due and undue weight" [1]. And the sources almost all call these organisations "cults", so that is a perfectly good title. Macdonald-ross (talk) 05:01, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

To add on, just because an article doesn't mention some things does not mean that the article is not neutral. It is also important to not make unimportant or irrelevant things appear more important than they actually are. Otherwise, every article on Wikipedia would be considered not neutral. Chenzw  Talk  07:29, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

Positive info

"Cult" is an accurate name. Is there any positive information that I can add to this article about cults? It seems to talk about mostly the negative stuff.

Frogger48 (talk) 16:42, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

Further reading

This section should not be overloaded. Books should be selected with understanding of what might benefit our readers. Macdonald-ross (talk) 05:15, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

POV

The article is heavily skewed towards a negative POV on cults. For instance, the assumption that Mind control is a factor in the recruitment of members is set as the status quo even though this is a viewpoint held by a minority of scholars (brainwashing theory proponents). Furthermore the article names certain groups as cults, which is original research. The article needs a major overhaul to better reflect the english wikipedia article. Zambelo (talk) 22:29, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

No, you don't understand what "bias" means. It does not mean "positive and negative views should be represented equally". It is the "equally" bit which is most wrong. An article is not biased if it reflects the balance of reliable sources. The source is under NPOV "Due and undue weight". The sources almost all call these organisations "cults", so that is a perfectly good title. And we are not here just to reflect English wiki; we are a separate wiki, and will make our own minds up on such issues. Macdonald-ross (talk) 04:41, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

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