Talk:Cult/Archive 4

message: According to T. Robbins on his ""The Sociology of Contemporary Religious Movements" there are three competing definitions of "cult", as follows:
#The media and popular demonology use of "cult" 'to refer to authoritarian and totalistic movements that "psychologically imprison" converts and that ought to be controlled;
#Some Sociologists using the term "cult" in a manner almost antithetical to the popular pejoritive usage. Whereas "sects" have traditionally been viewed as being relatively intolerant, authoritarian, and close-knit, the term "cult" is now being used by many sociologists to refer to putatively ephemeral groups that lack clear group boundaries, centralized leadership, and standardized dogma, and that make minimal demands on devotees, whose degree of commitment may be highly variable; and
#Other Sociologists have developed an explicitly substantive concept of a cult as a group that makes a radical break with the dominant religious tradition in the society. In contrast, a sect is a subdivision of the dominant tradition, e.g. a Christian sect in America or a Hindu sect in India. The Hare Krishna would thus be an American cult rather than a Hindu sect.
#Religious Leaders, especially Christian Refer to Cult as a subvert of the same root word as culture; referring to a set of traditions which have built up over any period of time; sometimes artificially constructed by organisations who would gain control, other times by minority religious groups, further to this, religous leaders would call even mainstream religions "cults". --Phil 20:44, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Competing definitions of "cult" 

message: I'm not sure about this, but when talking about God, aren't you supposed to capitalize He?  I thought it was simply the way it was supposed to be done, whether or not one believed in Him or placed Him on a higher pedestal than anyone else - I myself don't necessarily believe in God, but I still use the capitalization.  I don't think it's incorrect to use lower case for such pronouns, but I would say that it is much more common to see it capitalized.  See God.
24.67.253.203 10:42, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Talking about God? 

message: Various topics seems neglected in WP about cults in particular and religions in general. 
See, Zappaz, I have no prejudice about classifying cults as religions or not. Seems to me that both share some objectives of controlling human beings. It is just that some do it more forcefully and deviously than others ;-)). And I don't see much difference between sects and cults, oops, NRMs.
Btw, I have nothing against personal creeds, but I am wary of organized outfits playing social psychology tricks. 
Well, you can say the same of some secular ideologies that verge on totalitarism, like those which poisoned Europe and were the source of war tragedies in the last century. Secular church are for me a reality also. Was not Stalin an ex seminarists? And were not some nazis adepts of pagan superstitions, which are just a mirror of religion? I could add to the lot various individual charlatans, like astrologists and the same. Just other forms of cult or guruism for me. Not a pretty bunch.
Those are the suggested topics.
* Cult and money, Religion and money
* Cult and politics, Religion and politics (1)
* Cult and media, Religion and media
* Cult and terrorism, Religion and terrorism (2)
(1)the present US govt gives an extreme example
(2)here we have Osama
They can be chapter of existing articles, or article by themselves.
What about it, folks? --Pgreenfinch 12:51, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Things to do 

message: This article is peppered with statements that seem either some editor's opinion or original research. One examples (highlight is mine):
*Members of groups referred to as cults have been known to engage in long discussions over the definition of the word "cult." Critics of alleged cult groups state that by doing so, these persons have been known to waste large amounts of time and effort that would be better spent examining the actions of the groups in question, in order to reveal why these groups are referred to as cults.
I am putting some sections in this article in , until information that is presented as factual is supported by some kind of reference. --Zappaz 06:41, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  This article needs major cleanup 

message: Andries, just drawing your attention about he "notability" of Zablocki. Google test: 960 pages . Compare Google test for  Gretchen Passantino: 756 pages [, Google test for Bob Passantino: 1,380 pages .  So, be careful whith your arguments on other articles about notability of sources usupportive of your POV.--Zappaz 03:38, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: A google test has never been accepted or proposed as test  if a person's opinion is a good NPOV source for writing an article. If that were the case we could fill this whole article with quotes by Rick Ross and Anton Hein. A google test is acceptable to determine whether something or somebody deserves its or his or own article. Zablocki has edited a book "Misunderstanding cults" about the subject and has written papers about it. He also contributes to Nova Religio.  Andries 06:26, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

text: Don't change the subject, Andries. We are discussing notability. Zablocki is as notable for this article as the Passantino's are notable for Mind control. Hope you could admit the fact that you are challenging sources being not notable only when it is convenient. Regarding Hein and Ross, go ahead and fill the article if you wish. After all both of them are notable anti-cultists. If it is good info and properly referrenced, I don't see the reason why not. --Zappaz 15:42, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I think that I start to see the reason why we have so much conflicts, that is a fundamental difference of opinion about writing encyclopedic content. In that case, I hope you accept my apologies for doubting your good faith. I always thought that best the way to write a good article is to quote, use and refer to the best sources available. I do not think that Passantino, Ross, or Hassan are the best sources so I object to using them. Wikipedia:Cite_sources Andries 17:47, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: "Best" sources have to be looked at in context. A source may not qualify as "best" for one article, but it can qualify as such in another. --Zappaz 19:23, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: When desrcibing the views of anti-cult activists and their concepts Rick Ross and Anton Hein etc. are good sources, together with scholarly criticisms e.g. by Bromley of their opinions and methods. Passantino does not qualify as such. Please explain why you still think that Passantino is a good NPOV source for the article of mind control. Andries 05:41, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: One more time: An anti-cultist writer that speaks agains mind-control theories is notable for this article! --Zappaz 00:43, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that this fact is notable enough to be mentioned but criticism of the theory of mind control theory should not come from just a website, like Passantino's but from social scientists and scholars. Andries 08:10, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The Passantinos are well known writers in their domain. Relevant, of course! What difference that makes that their article was republisged on a website? If you find a better reference to of an anti-cultist that rejects the theories of mind control, that would be great. Thanks --Zappaz 07:11, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: There is some if you take the effort to search. Andries 08:20, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Benjamin Zablocki notable? 

message: The text from Jean Duhaime is in broken English. Anyone cares to fix that? Thanks. --Zappaz 23:13, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I translated it from French. Andries 05:21, 20 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Jean Duhaime 

message: Please do not remove my most recent contributions about apostasy/triangulation that are for the time being unreferenced. They are all contained in the book "Politics of religious apostasy " by David G. Bromley but I need some time to write it down more accurately. Thanks. Andries 08:18, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: What is the rush? If you are researching something, use a scraps page on your userspace, rather than an article for your notes. Thanks. --Zappaz 21:22, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Contributions on apostasy

message: Melton did say about the Peoples Temple, "This wasn't a cult. This was a respectable, mainline Christian group." 
 though I think that it should be taken into account what definition of a cult he normally uses. I do not think that this is the right place for such extensive information about Melton. His own article is a better place. See J. Gordon Melton. Andries 08:38, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: FYI, these that you call "experts" and indeed experts. Or should we believe more the self-proclaimed "experts" such as Ross? or the AFF? Give me a break. ---Zappaz 05:30, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: "Expert" is as "expert" does, Zappaz.  When "expert" takes money from a religious group to fly halfway around the world and call a press conference to announce (based solely on the evidence provided to them by the group) that they could not have produced the nerve gas that they are accused of committing mass murder with, more than a month after police already discovered at the group's headquarters a secret laboratory quite capable of manufacturing the toxin -- then I don't see why his "expert" credentials should count for more than his actual track record.  As for the "self-proclaimed" issue, it's hard to take you seriously on that issue, since you rely heavily on experts just as "self-proclaimed" as Ross. -- Antaeus Feldspar 23:40, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

text: It is clear that we should not take these experts very seriously, self-proclaimed or otherwise because they can and make and have made serious mistakes. And also because these NRM scholars do not agree with each other. Andries 18:44, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

text: I first thought that Anton Hein was spreading negative propaganda about Melton but when I started reading Melton's books I observed that he indeed tries to belittle and minimize every single criticism of cults. I do not think that Melton works are biased because of the donations that he occasionally receives from NRMs. I believe that he is sincerely convinced that he needs to balance the many  criticisms and negative generalizations by the ACM, but the problem is that he tries to do this so strongly that he is not credible anymore. I admit though that it is very difficult to write in the hypersensitive minefield of cults and NRMs and  not to exaggerate or minimize matters.  He is fully correct though in his opinion that many Christian countercult organizations are biased, ignorant and spread obsolete information about non-Christian religions Andries 18:56, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Please limit Melton bashing in this article

message: Can somebody help to create a subsection on Switserland? I don't know much about the Swiss parliamental procedures. (I have already made a blunder with regards to the European Parliament and SSB.) Besides the formal "civil servant" French and German language is diffficult for me. French or German language. Thanks Andries 13:02, 16 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Switserland

message: This article should have fair summaries of the articles apostasy and post-cult trauma, not selective duplications that support a POV. These summaries were already there (Wright, Barret, Wilson, van der Lans) Bromley's POV and Wilson's POV is already here and does not have to be duplicated here from apostay. Hence I think that tis justifies my revert of Zappaz' edits. Thanks. Andries 20:36, 17 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: You create a new section in which the reliabity (or lack thereof) of apostate testimony is discussed. As it was, it presented only a partial view of the controversy. You have two options: either you include your new text into other sections in the article, or the new section needs to include ALL POVs in the controversy. Your choice. --Zappaz 20:39, 17 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: okay, I will move some of what already had been written in this article to the methodology section. What had already been written here is, I think a fair summary of the dispute. Andries 20:42, 17 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry, Andries, that edit does not work for me. On one hand you "summarize" the extensive work of Bromley, Melton, Introvigne, Wilson, Shupe and others, and then you go on on two long paragraphs from Carter's Carriers of Tales. That does not work. You will have to do better. Reverted. --Zappaz 00:32, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The reason why Carter deserves more space here is because he wrote extensively about methodological issues, not just about apostate reliability. My summary of Carter's opinion of former members and apostates is very short. Carter's remarks about methodological issues cannot go anywhere else than here, I think. In contrast, Wilson's and Bromley's opinions are already treated in apostasy and are summarized here. Andries 08:38, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

text: I disagree. You cannot be the judge to decide what research methodlogy is better. If you want to write about Apostate testimony, then its place is in Apostasy, not here. The moment you add a section like the one you just created, will force me to copy text from Apostasy to maintain balance. We have two options. (1) delete this section and move to Apostasy. (2) Keep this section with balanced views of all scholars that researched this. --Zappaz 16:13, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The normal rules of Wikipedia is that a summary of a certain relevant article appears in this article, that is the correct way of "maintaing balance", not copying selective POVs that support your POV from another article. The "methodology section" cannot be moved to apostasy because it deals with much more than apostasy. We cannot copy all scholars who wrote about apostasy to this article because that would make the cult article too big. Andries 17:26, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

text: If there is somebody whose opinion deserves more space in methodological issues then it is Zablocki and possibly Barker. Zablocki did empirical research on apostate reliability. Andries 08:43, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Zablocki is only one scholar, amongst many. You are not to decide which one needs to be given more space. --Zappaz 16:13, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: There are very good reasons to give Zablocki a lot of space on the subject of apostasy reliability i.e. he does not just give his opinion based on anecdotal evidence, but he has done empirical research and he is cited in the literature a lot and not just on the website of Scientology, like Kliever and Wilson. Andries 17:26, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

text: no, there was and should be a fair summary of the dispute until you starting insering long quotes by Wilson and Bromley that had already been summarized here. Again Zablocki is more important than Bromley because he did empirical research. 20:29, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

text: Giving more space to empirical research that is widely cited is according to NPOV. Andries 20:44, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

text: Zappaz, can you please tell me why you think that your version with the long unsummarized quotes by Wilson and Bromley are following NPOV guidelines. Folllowing the same line of reasoning, I could insert long quotes by Hallami, Zablocki which would make this article useless. Again there was already a good summary of the dispute until you started to change it by inserting long quotes. Andries 04:48, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: We are getting there. I am happy with the last edit. Thanks. --Zappaz 16:09, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

text: Please provide refences for Introvigne. references of Philip Lucas can be found at apostasy. Thanks Andries 20:42, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

text: I mean, please provide references for Introvigne's critical attitude about the testimonies of former members. That what has already been referenced in apostasy does not have to be referenced here again. Andries 21:37, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Fair summaries of other articles of [[apostasy]] and [[post cult trauma]]

message: I suggest that we change the #'s to actual numbers - the references need to keep the same number even if another reference is removed. Any objections? Comments? If not, I'll do it in a few days. SeventyThree(Talk) 20:54, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: If you could do that then that would be great. Thanks See Wikipedia:References Andries 21:24, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

text: A most welcome proposal. Go for it. --Zappaz 03:11, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reformat References 

message: The untranslated German dates (but only they) were copy-pasted from internet sources with the full sentences of the cases, because I'm not so good at copying numbers manually - I do not think that this constitutes a copyright violation. The texts as such (condensation of several pages of juristic chinese in one sentence) are my own. --Irmgard 21:55, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for the text. I have NPOVed and Goethean has fixed some grammar and typos. --Zappaz 00:45, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Regarding Switzerland 

message: *Reorganized article, grouping sections as needed
*Why the deletion of of Introvigne? I added the reference as requested. His views are widely known.
*I have added Kliever's reference
*The US section does not need a laundry list if allegations against SSB. These can be moved to the SSB article. 
--Zappaz 05:08, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Where does Introvigne say that apostates are unreliable? I can't find it. Andries 05:50, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

text: I meant to ask for the references of Introvigne, not Kliever, my mistake. Also I propose, not including the many references about apostate reliability here, but leave them at apostasy, because the reference section is already very long. Andries 05:54, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

text: Facts about SSB are important to help the reader to make up his own mind about the claims of former followers. I have already put an Request for comments about this issue, as I had announced Andries 05:54, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I added a wikilink to the article about allegations agains SSB. That will give readers a chance to explore these, without having to repeat them here. --ZappaZ  03:25, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Edits 

message: I've been looking through this article, and I have a few concerns:
*The article is *way* too long. Some of the sections need to be in separate articles.
*The introductory paragraph doesn't mention the controversy and disagreement surrounding what cult means, which groups are cults and what proported cults do. It actually seems to present "cult" as non-controversial.
*The article mixes together information about groups AFAIK generally called cults by most everyone (People's Temple, Heaven's Gate, etc) and other groups often called, but not generally agreed on, as cults (Scientology, etc).
*The article doesn't clearly explain the practices, beliefs and techniques used by groups that can lead to accusations of being a cult; perhaps some of the information from Cult checklist could be brought over.
I know you guys have been working hard on this article, and that it's a difficult subject to work on as it's so controversial. I'm just hoping to help make it better :) --K. AKA Konrad West TALK 00:33, 28 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The article is very long, yes. It's also going to be quite hard to split up. I suggest moving the section Cults and government into a sepatare article, maybe Cults and governments. SeventyThree(Talk) 17:52, 31 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I support SenventyThree's proposal to move information to a new article Cults and governments and summarize it here. I want to make the section Cults and government a subsection of Cults#National differences because there are some important differences between countries that have nothing or little to do with the governments, e.g. the fact that in Germany information about cults and new religious movements is mostly disseminated by mainstream churches. I do not know where to write this in the current structure. Also I want to move the subsection "methodological issues and challenges" to the bottom, because, I think, this is only interesting for highly engaged partisans, like myself, not for the average reader. Andries 18:33, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

text: I think a good article on this complicated, diverse, and controversial subject cannot be short. Of course, we should use summary style (create separate articles on subtopics and summarize them here), but as Seventythree wrote, this article is difficult to split up. Apart from that, I do not know how to make a summary of the entire article.  Andries 18:38, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

text:  I'm going to go ahead and make the new page Cults and governments now. SeventyThree(Talk) 18:58, 13 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Some concerns about this article

message: , and the kinds of narratives they construct,
This expression is not NPOV - it infers that the narratives of former members are constructed without any attribution. -Irmgard 07:35, 2 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I think the expression "constructing narratives" is a neutral sociological expression for the fact that everybody who tells testimonies or stories selects which facts s/he tells and what interpration of facts s/he uses. However when stated without this clarification, the expression suggest that ex-cult members make up stories, which is against NPOV guidelines. Andries 21:17, 5 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: This deletion is stupid and shows a lack of understanding of the English language. There is nothing wrong with "the narratives they construct", they do as we all do construct our own narratives. I am restoring that text. --ZappaZ  05:06, 6 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Zappaz, but how does that expression "constructing narratives" sound and is it suggestive for average native English speakers? As far as I know, it is a neutral sociological expression, not used in everyday usage but easily misunderstood, and hence it should be labelled as such to avoid confusion. Andries 10:42, 6 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Former members 

message: Zappaz, please stop -- STOP -- calling scholars in opposition to cults by the POV expressions "anti-cultists" or "anti-cult movement" - those terms have been coined by Lewis and Bromley in 1989 and are used by the cult defender camp, so they are no more neutral that the equally POV "cult apologist". It is ok to use such terms in attributions - "Bromley says Langone is a member of the anti-cult movement" or "Hein refers to Melton as a cult apologist" but it is not ok to use them not-attributed, because then it is an attributation by the article-writer which is against NPOV. Would you care to have a mention of "Dr. Eileen Barker says" replaced by "cult apologists say" or "cult apologist Barker says"? Such a statement takes position in the cult controversy - which is not, what an encyclopedia article is supposed to do.  I'm going to change such statements by you to a normal wording and I urgently ask you to not revert this again, else the question would have to escalate to mediation. --Irmgard 12:36, 27 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: FYI this Zappaz is not doing it accidently, because of his temper or just bias. He is fighting the war of words. As an apprentice of Massimo Introvigne he is just following the recipe. Please read   if you want to understand what is happening here.213.76.152.186 14:53, 27 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I am aware that this use of words has not started with ZappaZ. And I am also aware that one can get influenced vocabulary-wise by the things one is reading frequently. Such name calling is not unique to the cult subject, it's used in most every controversial field of scholarship (ecoterrorists, health apostles, etc,) - scholars are human, after all ;-) Only I do strongly feel, that an encyclopedia which is proud of its NPOV should not imitate this. --Irmgard 15:53, 27 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with Irmgard that the word anti-cult activists is often inaccurate, but it is a generally accepted word. A more accurate description, in most cases would be, "people who emphasize the risk and extent of harm associated with cults and NRMs" but that is a mouthful and not a very usual description. Andries 16:08, 27 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: What I claim is that views and statements should be attributed to specific persons (Michael Langone, L.J. West, Rick Ross) not to anti-cult activists in general, and that these persons should, if applicable, be described by their profession and not get non-neutral qualifications. Usually, their position can easily guessed from the context anyway, and as practically all of the key persons do have their article, detailed information about their specific POV is only one click away. I'm pounding so hard on this, because of the language use of the "anti-anti-cult-movement" (expression not to be used in an article except in direct quote): they refer to sociology professor Bromley as sociology scientist prof. Bromley and to sociology professor Kent as anti-cult activist Stephen Kent. And that's something we should definitely not imitate here. Also, in case of "fuzzy words" or words mainly used by POV-positions, it is better to use a neutral expression - e.g. replace "anti-cult movement" by "secular opposition to cults" , apostate or ex-cultist with former member  --Irmgard 20:00, 27 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Names or name calling 

message: At the risk of spreading this dispute to another article...shouldn't we debate this on the talk page for Cults and governments (Talk:Cults and governments)? After that article's text is settled, we can put an introduction to it in the main article. SeventyThree(Talk) 20:23, 27 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Makes a lot of sense --Irmgard 21:00, 27 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cults and governments dispute - move to [[Talk:Cults and governments]] 

message: There are some entries in the 'References' section that appear to be unused. I've linked all the references I can using Wikipedia:Footnote2, but there are still some left. Any authors remember where the references are used? Some of them are probably for text that has been removed since.
I suggest moving these references into 'External links' or 'Bibliography'. SeventyThree(Talk) 17:01, 3 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Good idea. Move them to a Bibliography section. --ZappaZ  23:40, 3 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Will do. SeventyThree(Talk) 14:37, 8 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unused References 

message: These three paras contain lots of unattributed opinions and quite some redundancy. Please condense, clarify who says what and then re-insert into the article. --Irmgard 10:04, 3 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unattributed Opinions 

message: I have removed these as well. Provide references and state which countries. Thanks. --ZappaZ  00:29, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  More unatributed opinions 

message: I think a section on cults in fiction would be nice. if someone could write that. User:Zerath13
::Following the suggestion of the person above, I have added near the end of the article a section on cults in literature. It is only a beginning. I invite others to add to it and to correct any errors. If this section grows, it should be split off as a separate article...but not yet.--dking 17 April 2006
::The Possibility of an Island  is one Andries 00:34, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cults in Fiction 

message: I really don't like the term 'cult' in the first place, and having a picture of a religious group seems a bit prejudiced. I think we should remove the photo. Wikipedia is supposed to be neutral. You can call any religion a cult, but that doesn't make it one. I could put a photo up of a group of christians, but that wouldn't make it a cult. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. It's supposed to be neutral. Though I will admit, wikipedia should have photos for every article if possible. Eirra 23:22, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The inclusion of the picture of the Peoples Temple has already been dicussed extensively. Please read the talk page incl. the archives. Andries 13:46, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

text: I did. Eirra 23:57, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Remove the People's Temple photo? 

message: There is a dispute on Objectivism (Ayn Rand) on the matter of whether Ayn Rand's Objectivism qualifies for the category of Cult.  This may be of interest to editors of this article. Al 19:24, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rand and cults 

message: I removed the summary inserted by User:Paulscf , because I don't feel it accurately reflects the sociological definition. Concepts such as "small group", "limited structure" are inherently vague, and size is not the most important component of the sociological definition -- the most important components are novelty and tension. Of course, tension implies that cults will be tend to be smaller than denominations/ecclessia, but cults come in vastly different size ranges -- some cults have dozens of members (or even less), but others have thousands, tens of thousands.... Secondly, small size or limited structure, insofar as they are consequences of tension, are equally features of both cults and sects, and thus fail to properly distinguish them. Similarly, a "charismatic leader" is not a component of the most common definitions of a cult in terms of church-state typology. Certainly, many cults (by that definition) do indeed have charismatic leaders, but charismatic leadership is not part of the definition (i.e. its absence does not render a group not a cult). "Ideology outside dominant religions" could be referring to the novelty part of the definition, but again its not very clear...
Furthermore, why do we need to stick these summaries on the end of paragraphs? The paragraphs alone are clearer than the summaries, and will do. --SJK 10:08, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree the summary was not good. Please note that there are several significantly different sociological definitions of cults. Andries 12:19, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Do you mean definitions in the context of Weberian church-sect typology, or definitions outside that context? Certainly, in the context of the typology, different authors give different definitions of "cult", but I think they are best seen as different aspects or emphasises on the same basic definition. And, compared to that definition, paulscf's material doesn't seems largely unrelated. Now, if you mean definitions outside that typology, well I am not really familiar with them (I have some broad knowledge of this field, but I'm not an expert in it) -- but in any case, my impression is that in sociologically the Weberian typology definition definitely predominates. --SJK 10:37, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

text: The only reason that needed to be cited for removal was that the material lacked the support of a reliable source. If a reliable source described such summary, it needs to go back into the article, regardless of what you I and Andries think about the subject. The way to do this, SKJ, is to ask Paulscf to provide a source for the material he added, and if he does not produce that within a few days, then delete as established by WP:V. In the meantime, you can tag that material with . ≈ jossi ≈  t • @ 15:24, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removal of summary from sociology of religion section