Talk:New religious movement

Controversial NRMs not mentioned

There is a deficiency in the article - controversial NRMs are not mentioned, seemingly because they are mentioned separately in another article, cults. There is currently a debate over the word. I suggest including references to NRMs that are called cults as well.

The cult and paste from cult is incorrect

The word NRM is new and existed long before the word cult. Andries 18:47, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

LOL! You mean the "cut and paste"....

But seriously, Andries, I added all that stuff to correct the "deficiency in the article - controversial NRMs are not mentioned". All that remains is to integrate the non-destructive-cult stuff from that big paste. I might not finish it all in one day; I do have a life. --Uncle Ed 19:01, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Untrue, they were mentioned. Andries 19:04, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

what you did was a revolution in your edits. I prefer an evolution. Andries 19:06, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Ah, but as a believer in intelligent design, I would quite naturally believe that evolution is impossble (see irreducible complexity ;-) --Uncle Ed 13:01, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Seriously, though, I believe both (1) that it's useless to make a major change if you and the others oppose it (cuz you'll just revert it, and I'll refuse to fight about it); and (2) that a radical change is needed, because the POV of the anti-cult movement pervades the articles. But I don't have the energy to create a fork; I'd rather you all would bear with me and help me make this change. --Uncle Ed 13:01, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

This is the funiest Freudian slip I have seen, Andries,... cult & paste! ROFL!.

How to go about this? An anti-cult POV pervades the article as it stands now, and as such it requires work. Any constructive proposals to do this will be appreciated, but note that status quo is not an acceptable proposition given the poor state of this article. --≈ jossi ≈ 15:34, Sep 23, 2004 (UTC)

Jossi, I agree that the current cult article is too close to the POV of the anti-cult movement. Andries 16:53, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Maybe we could go through the article line by line, inserting "anti-cult advocates say..." in front of every POV statement? --Uncle Ed

:) that will not do it, Ed... and you know it... I recommend to clear the decks and start from scratch. --≈ jossi ≈ 21:51, Sep 24, 2004 (UTC)

Yeah, but that's a huge writing job. I spent 3 hours just reading the Ontario Consultants website. Then I'm gonna hafta read a lot of Prof. Hadden's material again. And I'll probably need to dig up my copy of that book our church's head lawyer wrote, which is a verrrrry long read. Can't I just say that people can't agree on religion and often go to the extreme of calling other religions fake? :-) --Uncle Ed 00:11, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

That will be simplicity at its best... :) ≈ jossi ≈ 00:33, Sep 25, 2004 (UTC)

I'm sorry...

I'm very sorry but this page is all about cults, isn't it supposed to be about "religious movements"?

I've removed the following:

==See also== *[[Cult]] *[[Anti-cult movement]] *[[List of controversial new religious movements]] ==External links== * http://www.apologeticsindex.org/ Apologetics Index: research resources on cults, sects, and related issues. The publisher operates from an evangelical Christian point of view, but the site links to and presents a variety of viewpoints. * http://www.religionnewsblog.com ReligionNewsBlog.com Current news articles about religious cults, sects, and related issues. * http://www.skepsis.nl/onlinetexts.html Online texts about NRMs, collected by the Dutch organization of skeptics *[http://www.cultawarenessnetwork.org/ Cult Awareness Network - a website of the Foundation for Religious Freedom]. See also [[Cult Awareness Network]] [[de:Neue Religiöse Bewegung]] [[fr:Nouveaux mouvements religieux]] [[pl:Nowe ruchy religijne]] [[ja:新宗教]] [[Category:New religious movements]] [[Category:Religion]] ---- ''Cut and paste from old version of [[cult]] which I renamed to [[destructive cult]]. --[[User:Ed Poor|Uncle Ed]] 18:45, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC) ---- And moved some things around... don't kill me but the article looked horrible. I hope I've helped, if not revert the changes please. Trying to be proactive here - not cause trouble. JoeHenzi 09:57, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Thanks. The more the merrier.

And part of the difficulty is terminology. The term "cult" is rather subjective. Sociologists coined the term "new religious movement" (or NRM) to avoid the negative connotations of cult. (Like, if it's a "cult", we already know it's bad, so why study it "objectively"? Are you a cult apologist? Who's side are you on, anyway?)

We also need help on brainwashing, thought reform, mind control; as well as destructive cult, list of purported cults and other related articles. Jump in! --Uncle Ed 16:24, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I will do my best. Maybe the strategy will be to use the existing cult material and try to show how they are the same and/or different. I think this page is not on the side of NPOV because it makes the casual reader seem that every new religious movement is in fact a cult. Not something you want to read when you think you've found something that makes you happy. If you are asking me if I'm a cult apologist, I don't think so. I just think this article is a mess, like I've said it seems that we are trying to tell Krishnas that they are members of a cult (note, I know nothing about Krishnas). Even though I'm opposed to the idea of, membership of and existance of, lets say Scientology, I would never think of trying to put anything but facts in that article - this site is not one which should try to sway one's beliefs. I usually try to stay away from articles which get me worked up because the temptation is there to put in POV work. I hope this helps show my position. BTW; I've already left this message in another persons talk page but let me restate it: I think this could be a good start, we might just need to make this material point out the similarities and difference to cults. Then again, I'm just human. JoeHenzi 01:19, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Using the word cult is part of the problem. Remember that the official definition is "a religion regarded as spurious". (emphasis added for talk page)

It's almost a grammatical error to discuss whether a group is really a cult. What we mean is whether a group is really spurious, i.e., either just pretending to be a religion (while it has some ulterior goal) or professing false doctrines (i.e., heresy).

I think we'd be better off describing what NRMs actually do. Hare Krishna devotees shave their hair off, dab green paste on their foreheads, and wear diapers and dorky orange robes while pursuing a celibate communal lifestyle. They not faking this, and they're never made their leader rich. Are their beliefs really true? (Ah, that's hard to say: are any Hindu beliefs really true?)

A group that commits mass suicide thinking that will get them onto a comet, now that's what I'd call a destructive cult.

Another thing: I think we should move the info about cult checklists to a separate article. They're cluttering up all the cult, destructive cult and NRM articles. --Uncle Ed (El Dunce) 16:57, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Okay, I did it. See cult checklist. --Uncle Ed (El Dunce) 17:13, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Duplication of text?

I can see the Ed and Andries took upon themselves to make some sense out of the cult, destructive cult, and related articles. Commendable effort!

As this article contains a lot of duplicated text with the cult article, may I suggest to remove all that duplicate material and have a See also link to the cult article instead? --Zappaz 22:00, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I have removed several sections as these were an old version of a much improved text that now appears in the cult article. Zappaz 21:58, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Zappaz, I agree with your edits and we are now basically back on the version of 10 September. I am not happy with the merry go round editing proces. Andries 22:36, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Subud

I will add Subud to the "examples of new religious movements" section of the article because Subud is a very good example of a New religious movement. It is a good example because if NRMs in general break the mold about religious or spiritual beliefs, then Subud breaks the mold in a more dramatic way because it is not a belief system per se. There are no specific beliefs required in order to do the Latihan. Because there are no specific beliefs, it follows that, e.g., practicing Muslims and practicing Christians (or anyone practicing any religion--or an open-minded atheist or agnostic) can be in Subud without any conflict of belief. E.g., it is doubtful that a person can be a practicing Christian and a practicing Muslim at the same time because the status of Jesus conflicts in these two religions. But since Subud doesn't address the status of Jesus (or the status of anything) then there is no conflict about practicing Christians and practicing Muslims being in Subud. Aliman 06:25, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

NRM disambig?

There is a very popular rock band in Belarus called NRM - http://nrm.by.com/ - I would like to write an article about it. Can someone explain to me how it can be done and how can I make a disambiguation page? Thanks. --rydel 23:39, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Sure. It's easy:

1. Create an article with the title NRM (band) <--(just click on that link) and write your article on the Belarus band there on that page, and save that page.
2. Go to NRM <--(just click on that link). That will take you to the "New religious movement" page. At the top of that page, in parentheses and small print, it will say, "(Redirected from NRM)."
3. Click that "NRM" link in the parentheses at the top of that page, and it will take you back to the NRM redirect page, which currently says only: # REDIRECT [[New religious movement]] .
4. Edit that redirect page, and delete that redirecting line of text.
5. Type in your new disambig page, with a listing for and link to [[New religious movement]] , and a listing for and link to [[NRM (band)]] . Be sure to put the tag {{disambig}} at the bottom of that page.
6. Save that page.
7. Click on "What links here" on that page, which takes you to a list of pages that link to "NRM". Go to each page on that list (other than a talk page, don't bother with them) that links to "NRM" when it means "new religious movement", and change the link on each of those pages from [[NRM]] to [[New religious movement]] .

There you are. Let me know if you have any problems. --Gary D 19:18, Dec 7, 2004 (UTC)

hate group debate

Moved the text from Hate group article to here, after a prolonged debate as per its relevace on the context of Hate groups in general, as the text is indeed relevant to this article. --Zappaz 12:08, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Merge with cult into Cults and new religious movements ?

Shall we merge this article with cult into Cults and new religious movements? Like Ed Poor, I am confused what should go where e.g. I think that some of Zappaz' edits with regards to hate groups should have gone into the cult article. Andries 14:04, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

After what we went through at hate group, just because one single sentence, It gives me a headache to even consider such merge... I will not stop you from trying, though, but please note that the Cult page is now close to 30K, so merging will certainly exceed the alloted 32K. Also note that the Cult article has a very specific header that may limit what can go there. --Zappaz 15:52, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)