Talk:Sun Myung Moon/Archive 1

message: If ya'll are trying to *sell* Moon, you are doing a good job!
I don't think it's true that Rev. Moon is a billionaire (unless you're counting in Korean won :-)
I rather doubt his entire extended family's assets amount to much more than my own.
Perhaps the previous contributor meant that as founder and leader of the Unification Church, he exercises virtually unquestioned control over all church property and funds -- much as the Roman Catholic pope does -- and thus "owns" those resources. If so, it might be better to make this POV clear.
BTW, most of the other additions are in a similar vein. I'm not going to go through them one by one, nor am I going to revert. If this is what everyone thinks, so be it. --Uncle Ed 20:18, 1 Oct 2003 (UTC)
replies: text: The Queen of England also technically "owns" a lot of assets.  This does not make her the "richest woman in the world".  I don't see how there's any debate on this issue.  Pakaran. 03:22, 29 Jan 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Moon as billionaire 

message: The last of the introductory paragraphs says 'In 2003, Rev. Moon announced that...several dozen dead U.S. presidents...declared him to be "the savior and messiah of humanity."'. Is this the Clouds of Witnesses? But the Clouds say it is the communist leaders -- which is basically the opposite of US presidents. Also, the Clouds were in 2002, not 2003 (although this is an easy typo). Is the president thing an error or another cloud declaration? --Menchi 03:13, 6 Nov 2003 (UTC)
replies: text: That was something "206" added in late September this year. I still haven't finished corrected all the errors (and bias) he introduced. The president thing is another cloud declaration (see, for example Proclamation of Resolution of Former US Presidents). --Uncle Ed 22:46, 7 Nov 2003 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Clouds inconsistency 

message: it seems that the one person here who is actually of the church and apparently quite knowledgeable about its fonder (despite obevious biases) is getting ignored by those who share beliefs more akin to my own.  despite our "beliefs"/"reason", we do all supposedly share a single conviction in mind: that of the necessity of representation of all viewpoints for proper analysis.  i may be beating a dead horse, but there is a definite underrepresentation in this "article" of adherents to the faith being discussed, which you will not find in the section on Jesus Christ, Messiah, or Paul (i noticed a lack of Saul's belief in Mithraism prior to conversion, and there is no mention of the fact term "Christ" came from Paul, being a Hellenistic term).
:Oh, that's okay. I'm used to being misunderestimated. This is an example of the kind of situation where the process is just as important as the product. I feel a burden to exemplify my church's teachings via my edits to this article; being heavy-handed would violate those teachings, so I'm trying to be lowly and meek... --Uncle Ed 00:03, 15 Jun 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  furthermore 

message: :Be it known...I, CHARLES B. RANGEL, Member of Congress, 15th Congressional District, by the power and authority vested in me, this 16th day of April, 2004, do recognize you as "True Parents" exemplifying self-giving service and leadership and of "King of Peace" in the key areas of reconciliation and peacemaking over fifty (50) years.
This is not quite the same as an "unsolicited testimonial". At a recent church meeting I heard that these specific words were suggested (or perhaps written) by a church leader; Rep. Rangel merely SIGNED them. I think there's a qualitative difference: "here's what I think" vs. "okay, I'll go along with that". --Uncle Ed 00:08, 15 Jun 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Rangel proclamation

message: I added a section about Moon being crowned by US congressmen, kooky fucking shit if you ask me.  This man is plumb insane.  Check out the Salon.com article about the incident:Hail to the Moon king.  How does a noted homophobe, anti-Semite and all around crazy asshole get so much power and influence in our government?  Sigh...
:Well, for one reason, his followers are mellow and tolerant people like me who refuse to take offense at comments like 'kfs' and 'ca' above :-)
:We just go out and serve our communities. I've served the online community at Wikipedia so long that I was first "bureaucrat" elected; and people are frequently calling on me to bring harmony to articles which are deadlocked in POV squabbles.
:But more to the point: perhaps the idea of any one being crowned King of Kings sounds kooky? Or is it just that you don't think Christ would disapprove of (a) homosexuality or of (b) turning over Jesus to the Romans for execution? Or don't you take Isaiah 9:6-7 literally: "of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end"?
:I would think believers would be saying Hallelujah! --Uncle Ed 01:12, 24 Jun 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Added section about coronation 

message: 'Cut from intro:'
:the Unification Movement, which is as much political as it is religious.
As a member of the church, I regard it as much more religious than political. Opponents who call it a "cult" paint it as political to discredit it. It's no more political than Catholics and less political than Unitarians. We pray, read scripture and attend church; there's very little political activity, although what little there is gets a lot of free publicity from opponents (but only to denounce these activities as anti-liberal or as 'evidence' that the church is spurious. --Uncle Ed 01:19, 24 Jun 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Moon met with enormous opposition, but through canny and expensive PR strategies has become a VIP among national-level Washington, D.C. politicians
You can say this if you describe these PR strategies. As little as ONE SINGLE sentence is enough. 
I can describe it in two words..
     POLITICAL GRAFT.
Or simple QUOTE a source, like this: A Salon article claimed that it was through "canny and expensive" PR strategies that Moon won the favor of DC politicians. See, I'm helping you express your POV -- not censoring! --Uncle Ed 01:25, 24 Jun 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Politial or religious

message: It has been pointed out to me that I used an appeal to authority when it favored my point of view about mind control or deprogramming, saying that we should listen to scientific organizations or courts when they uphold the right of believers to participate in Unification Church lifestyles. But that I call into question other court opinions, like the sentence in North Korea (in the 1950s) or New York (in the 1980s) which I regard as persecution.
Okay *blush* I admit there's a bit of a logical inconsistency here.... --Uncle Ed 20:11, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Court verdicts

message: Cut from article:
:Today Moon's Unification Church International controls industries all over the world, ranging from a third of the U.S. fishing industry to $300 million in cultural and political enterprises in the Washington, D.C. area alone, as the Washington Post has reported.
Please provide a source for the preposterous charge that one third of the US fishing industry could be controlled by a church.
And please give an additional example of an industry which UCI "controls". Otherwise, the article should say UCI has industrial holdings all over the world -- not "controls" these industries.
Also, the church spends millions of dollars for cultural work -- I'm not sure how this becomes an "enterprise", in the sense of a for-profit industry. Rather, the church uses donated funds for the sake of public projects instead of enriching itself.
Finally, the quote I cut implies that the church is improperly mixing business and politics.
Just saying "as reported by the Washington Post" is not enough. The complaints need to be more detailed, and need the primary sources. Did a Post reporter discover these things himself, or merely quote some church critic who made various disparaging statements? --Uncle Ed (El Dunce) 19:42, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Industries

message: The US exports over $2 billion of seafood annually. If the Unification Church had one third of that, its share would be $600 million. With just under 6,000 members in the US, that would be $100,000 per member -- our families wouldn't have to work at all!
I suggest that the "one-third of the fishing industry" was simply made up, possibly to promote the charge that the church isn't really religious but just a money-making scheme. Please present documentation for such serious charges, or at least give the name of the critic making it. --Uncle Ed (El Dunce) 19:54, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Fishing industry

message: I don't think that UC members regard Moon as an "evil Messiah". Maybe the latest edit was just graffiti. --Uncle Ed (El Dunce) 17:30, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Evil Messiah

message: Coming across this article, it is clear to me that serious changes are necessary. While the article gratuitously addresses "both sides" of the debate over the nature of the Unification Church, it reads more like a justification - criticisms of the church are recounted, in highly skeptical prose, only to be shoved aside with comfortably and confidently written rationalization.
----
It's called "repressing dissent" as in the following example.
"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will 
eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such 
time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic 
and/or military consequences of the lie. 
IT THUS BECOMES VITALLY IMPORTANT FOR THE STATE TO USE ALL OF IT'S 
POWERS TO REPRESS DISSENT
, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State" 
Propaganda Minister Goebbels of the Third Reich 
The BIG LIE in Moon's case is that he is the "messiah". It's all
kind of telltale when ya think about it!
----
This starts in the second paragraph of the article. It begins to degrade into unsubtle hero worship: "In 2004, members of Congress crowned him the 'King of Peace' in ceremonies on Capitol Hill. But when he first came to the United States, Rev. Moon met with enormous opposition..." First of all, referring to "members of Congress" is incredibly misleading. It implies that perhaps a large number of members of Congress, or maybe the body itself, "crowned" Rev. Moon as "King of Peace". In reality, there was only one representative (Danny Davis) involved in the crowning. Other Congressmen in attendance have almost uniformly attempted to downplay their involvement in any event that day. The passage pretends that the ceremony constituted some sort of victory for Rev. Moon; a triumph in the court of public opinion and society, when in fact the case was precisely the opposite. The immediate reaction of bewilderment and disgust to the incident, and the fact that many Congressmen attempted to so sharply distance themselves from the event, points to the reality; Rev. Moon, within the United States, is a marginal figure at best.
In its summary of Rev. Moon's life, it also makes the assertion that "Unable to convict him of political malfeasance, the probe landed him in court on charges of tax fraud and conspiracy to obstruct justice." The strong implication here, and throughout the article, is that the prosecution was politically, and not legally motivated, in pursuing its actions. That may be true. However, it is not the purpose of a Wikipedia article to make such a conclusion.
Another claim, coming shortly afterward, is patently absurd: "By the early 1990s Moon and his church had largely rehabilitated its public image." Granted, there has not been an substantial amount of research into public attitudes concerning Rev. Moon. In fact, public knowledge is likely not very deep in this arena. However, as noted before, it is highly revealing that so many Congressmen who had participated in a Moon event were forced to immediately distance themselves from it. From an anecdotal (although naturally, any non-scientific conclusion is open to debate) perspective, I can deduce that support for Rev. Moon's organization is extremely low, and among Americans with more detailed knowledge of his organization, there is a strong feeling of contempt (although this is usually tempered by moderate hilarity).
Another quote: "His followers love him in spite of the criticisms, which they have often portrayed as an organized smear campaign." Rev. Moon is the purportedly semi-divine leader of a religious movement - obviously, his *followers* love him. The phraseology here is completely gratutitous.
"By 2003, Unificationist missionaries were working for their longtime goal of sex purity in New Jersey public schools, on a government abstinence-based sex education grant." - This is another claim used to bolster the perception than Moon has become a productive and respected participant in American civic life; revealingly, there is no mention of the incredible controversy surrounding such grants.
I do not pretend to be an expert on the specifics of Moon's tax evasion trial, and consequently I will not attempt to modify the article in that respect, at this point. However, the narrative on his legal issues during this time period appears to have an incredibly pro-Moon slant.
A final quote: "Critics claimed later that most of the congressmen in attendance didn't expect a coronation but thought the awards dinner was only to honor activists from their home states as 'Ambassadors for Peace.'" The use of the word "critics" here seems incredibly insidious - this, of course, is not a view held merely by critics (and 'critic' usually has a negative connotation), but by the congressmen themselves. The congressmen are obviously competent to judge what their own expectations of the event were - and if they are not telling the truth when they say that they did not expect the circumstances that unfolded, it is important to discern *why*; perhaps, being politicians, they sensed that public opinion would be overwhelmingly in opposition to the crowning of the leader of a unconventional sect as "Messiah" on Capitol grounds.
The task of modifying this article appears to be a monumental one - I doubt that I have the time, knowledge, or writing ability to do so in the near future. However, for those who disagree with my points, I welcome commentary. I apologize if my commentary was too belligerent; I would like to have discussion on this very controversial issue so that we can determine the best article for Wikipedia.
--mrognlie
You make good points and in a very rational and NPOV manner, much unlike Stopthebus18. Jamesters 07:51, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Serious Changes Needed 

message: If any criticism can be made, it is that the article does not explain the church's rationale for putting on the Ambassadors for Peace programs. The article should explain what the church wants people to think about the 'crowning'.
Specifically, is the church trying to insinuate that Rev. Moon is the Messiah; or that the US Congress has on some level recognized Moon's claim to be the Messiah?
I address the issue as someone who is both an advocate for the church and a contributor to Wikipedia. Please don't just make a drive-by criticism, but stay and help us improve the article. --Uncle Ed (El Dunce) 16:03, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Content

message: "True Parents to UC members."  What are true parents?  and who are UC members?  Since i'm familiar with rev moon, i know he has declared him and his wife "true parents", but somebody reading about this for the first time wouldn't.  I don't know what UC means  - is that his cult?  Jm51 03:55, 25 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: UC is the Unification Church.  cult is a word we don't generally use on Wikipedia, but see cult and new religious movements among other articles.  I believe "True Parents" means that he and his wife were sent to lead the world or osmething like that.  Pakaran (ark a pan) 19:40, 25 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Family Section 

message: I am a unificationist,  and like to know how I can contribute to this encyclopedia.
lafamilyfed@gmail.com 
Thank you
p.S. All of you are doing a great job, as editors of this encyclopedia.
:Anonymous: you just did ;) Just edit the article itself and read and add comments to the talk page for any major or potentially controversial changes. Antonrojo 13:17, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  I like to contact Uncle Ed 

message: "The APA's pronouncement that there is no scientific merit behind the theory of mind control removed the legal basis for deprogramming in the US." What's the meaning of the acronym APA in this sentence? The American Psychological Association? It would be helpful if APA linked directly to the right article instead of to the APA disambiguation page like it does now. --x-Flare-x 07:59, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: APA?

message: I am aware that providing references is tedious and hard work, but let's please give it a try for at least some of the contents.  Andries 19:57, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Why are there so few references for this article?

message: Unfortunately, this article seems to be taking a turn to provide an apologetic justification upon Mr. Moon and his practices instead of being an objective and informational portrait of the man. I feel that this article needs to be edited against advocacy and towards neutrality.--Folksong 21:13, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I went about editing, and I think that the article has been closer to NPOV. I'd like to hear from everyone else.--Folksong 21:29, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  NPOV template placed upon article 

message: This section of text is poorly written and error laden:
:By 1976 Moon had homes and training "camps" in San Francisco, CA having new recruits of his "Church-State" organization transported to Boonville.  They were considered taken from their parents and told not to inform their real families where they would be and what will be their mission. Moon had his followers, called "moonies" sell flowers and raise more money for his own home in Westchester County, New York.  Boonville was a "chicken coop", very difficult for people taken there for training to escape.  The Pacific Heights home in S.F. was closed later, and was a local headquarters for religious training and bringing in new people literally off the streets.
It ignores the previous treatment of the term Moonies". It does not explain what "Church-State" means or who applied the term. It asserts that Father Moon had homes (plural) in San Francisco - implying multiple private residences for himself. The scare quotes around "camp" are not explained. 
It doesn't say who "considered" that recruits were "taken from their parents". However, if church members did tell recruits to conceal their location from their parents, this is easily sourced and should be in the article. Perhaps the book "Crazy for God" by Christopher Edwards  would help, here.
The "difficult to escape" claim is not true. There was a chain across the main driveway entrance, but no fences kept people from leaving. But if there are indeed contradictory sources on this, one should be produced.
The term "chicken coop" is misused here. One of the dorms for men was called that - not the entire farm. 
The phrase "literally off the streets" is poor writing. If it meant that recruitng began with meetings on sidewalks and in parks, it should be rewritten to say so. I believe Fisherman's Wharf was the primary witnessing area. 
The "selling flowers" part is half correct. At some point fundraisers started using fresh flowers as "product" (their term). However, Father Moon did not order Boonville recruits of the 1970s and 1980s to raise funds for his personal residence. Rather, on two distinct occasions, when church leaders gave money to Rev. Moon to purchase an home for his family, he accepted the money but spent it on inter-religious conferences instead, much to the leaders' consternation.
The Tarrytown estate was bought at the ridiculously low price of $625,000 (it's worth many millions now) and used as a residence and training center for members. The Moons lived in small quarters on one floor of the main house.
Please, try to get the facts straight before adding them to this encyclopedia article, and use sources. You can ask me for help with sources, if googling doesn't do it for you. I've been a member of the Unification Church since 1977, and I know a lot about it. --Uncle Ed 13:56, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Needs sources at least

message: The article says:
:In 1975, Moon and his followers started the True World Foods, Inc. sushi empire. It has since grown to massive proportions and provides most of the raw fish to the United States. So prominent is their influence and market dominance, that of the 17 most prominent sushi restaurants, 14 receive their sushi from Moon's businesses.
"Most" of the raw fish? Wow, I had no idea. This would make me very proud, even arrogant, if only it were true. The last I heard (from inside church sources), the movement's Japanese restaurants were so unprofitable members were fundraising on weekends! 
"Receiving sushi": I thought sushi was always prepared fresh. It goes bad in a few hours, which is why the stuff you get at supermarkets tastes terrible. Did the contributor mean Sashimi, the raw fish from which sushi is made? Even then, I'd like to see a source for that claim. I'd even like to see someone try to list the top 17 sushi restaurants.
Come on, admit it: you just made this up, right? --Uncle Ed 20:43, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Raw fish section has a bad smell

message: You all really need to archive this page, as it is way too long. Thetruthbelow (talk) 15:57, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Archive 

message: Could someone explain what Rev. Moon hopes to gain by all those millions in political donations? Steve Dufour 16:36, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Check out some of the other articles on religious groups.  For instance the Unity Church, the Unitarian Universalists, and the Mormons.  They are all have something in common with the UC in that they grew out of the Christian tradition, they are rejected as "cults" or "non-Christian" by Christian fundamentalists, and in the case of the last two are criticized for being too involved in politics.  Yet their wiki articles are much more favorable than the UC's.Steve Dufour 12:45, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

text: One word: Influence. "Moon Crowned by U.S. Congressmen..." would be an obvious start. FeloniousMonk 00:26, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: In what direction is he trying to influence them?Steve Dufour 06:27, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Political donations

message: Do you think this should be moved to its own article?  It seems to take up a lot of space here.  I will not move it unless other people think that is a good idea.Steve Dufour 07:36, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It was taking up a lot of space. It is a prototypical section to move to another article. (Another one is the "Divine Principle political ideology" section on the Unification Church page.) I'm glad you moved it even though no one commented. There are reasons that Wikipedia encourages people to be bold in editing; it seems those most qualified are often the most reticent! -Exucmember 23:47, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks.Steve Dufour 00:50, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Crowned by U.S. Congressmen

message: I think this is an important subject that deserves its own section.  p.s. I think your addition of the quote to the introduction was a good move, Exucmember.Steve Dufour 06:46, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It seemed the best quotation to summarize the important issue of his identity as understood by himself and by his followers. -Exucmember 21:14, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm glad we agree.  I think that is the single most important fact for people to know if they want to understand what he is about:  That he thinks he is the Messiah.  Everything he has done stems from that. Steve Dufour 17:03, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Christian Criticism of the UC + Rev. Moon as Messiah

message: Is this true?  I would have thought he was still a citizen of the Republic of Korea.Steve Dufour 04:58, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Unless something changed in the last few years this is not true. Mrs. Moon is a naturalized citizen. Rev. Moon kept his Korean citizenship. -Exucmember 06:07, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I will take the tag off then.  If he had become an American citizen I think I would have heard about it.Steve Dufour 16:15, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Naturalized citizens of the United States???

message: The article begins by describing his birth date as: born February 25, 1920, lunar: January 6, 1920. The word lunar sounds odd to me in this context, and I suspect that the intention might have been for the Julian calendar, though the Julian and Gregorian calendars are not nearly that far apart. Another possiblity: A new moon did occur on or about Feb 20 1920, which would have made the 25th to be on the 6th day of that lunar month, but is there any calendar in the world which would refer to that lunar month by the name 'January'? I haven't heard of any, but perhaps there is some significance here which members of the Unification Church would notice and could clarify. --Keeves 18:25, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: My understanding is that this is the traditional calendar used in China and some other Asian countries.  I have never really checked it out so I don't know how it works.  It certainly has nothing to do with the Julian calendar.Steve Dufour 06:45, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The Julian and Gregorian calendars are solar calendars. Many Westerners haven't heard of lunars calendars, but I think most have heard of "Chinese New Year," which is based on a lunar calendar. It's based on the revolutions of the moon and has a leap month. Calling the first month of a lunar calendar "January" is just a translation convention. In Korean and other east Asian languages, the literal translation of the first month of the Gregorian (Western, solar, "regular" - most commonly used in the world) calendar is "Month One." The lunar calendar also starts with "Month One." So it's translated "January." -Exucmember 06:04, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  birth date - lunar calendar? 

message: Steve, I noticed you corrected a typo in:
*biography in Wikipedia-like Unification Church sponsored online encyclopedia
but have you gone to the page? This article has not been made available to the public yet. Until the article becomes a "sample" article or until the official launch, it can't be viewed by the general public. In the meantime, I think the link to it should be deleted. -Exucmember 05:51, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry about that.  I am a member of the encyclopedia project and can view the page.  I didn't know that it wasn't open to the public.Steve Dufour 16:17, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Encyclopedia Project article on Sun Myung Moon 

message: Steve, I think you should leave the photo request in place. I'd like to see a photo that represents his core identity, such as he and Mrs. Moon praying. There's plenty of room on the page for another picture, and I think a picture that suggests religiosity would improve the page. -Exucmember 06:30, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Fine with me.  In fact I will check the encyclopedia project and see what they have.Steve Dufour 18:42, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Photo of Sun Myung Moon 

message: The whole thing is up in the air about his marriage.  He seems to be back with his wife now. I would like to take his reference back down to one sentence. If people want to know more they will link over to his article.  And who knows, history might judge him more important than Rev. Moon in the end.  Unless Rev. Moon really is the Messiah after all.  :-)  Steve Dufour 04:05, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Archbishop Milingo has his own article