Talk:Atrocity story

Can somebody please help me to understand the concept? Two examples
 * 1) Current devotees of Sathya Sai Baba may interpret the invitations by Sathya Sai Baba to give him a blow job as kundalini awakening. Of course, former followers see this as abuse of power, betrayal, and sexual abuse. Clearly the latter is sometimes presented by former devotees as violating public morality.
 * 2) Extremely anti-semitic Nazis saw the holocaust as getting ridding of a bad element within human society. Of course, most people see the holocaust of violating public morality

I read elsewhere that according to Bromley ex-devotees that are part of a countermovement do not tell the whole story, or not how they experienced it when they were still believers. I admit that this may be true sometimes because they consider the explanations that the movement gives or that they themselves gave as irrelevant or as not credible anymore and hence omit them.

To me it seems that violations of morality cannot be separetated from context and an interpretative framework which clearly tends to change significantly upon religious disaffiliation. Please correct me if I am wrong because I do not want to make the same mistake as Bromley and Shupe i.e. making sweeping generalizations and making a caricature of the motivations, and opinions of other people. Andries 06:33, 30 December 2006 (UTC)


 * I can't correct you because I agree with you. In the case of something that truly is a "destructive cult" it is only the ex-members who tell the "whole story", while the group itself actively deceives the public about what actually goes on.  The great example of this is the Church of Scientology.  As just a few examples the public can only find out about these aspects of the COS from ex-members:
 * The "RPF".
 * "Fair Game"
 * The "chain locker"
 * There are lots of other examples where the public can only find out what actually goes on in a group from ex-members. To address your example, the public would never find out about Sai Baba's sexual escapades from the group that he runs; only ex-members will report it.
 * As for "they consider the explanations that the movement gives or that they themselves gave as irrelevant or as not credible anymore and hence omit them". Actually they absolutely don't "omit them", they shout them to the world and declare that their former group is deceiving the public.  And the abosolutey do reveal how they experienced the group when they were still believers, explaining their former experience as the result of deception and the use of unethical psychological influence techniques.  Tanaats 17:10, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

See Talk:Controversies_about_Opus_Dei Andries (talk) 21:01, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Duhaime does not oppose the views of Bromley, so Duhaime's view is in the wrong section or the section title is wrong: Duhaime admits that apostates tell atrocity stories, but he disagrees with the sentiment voiced by some that they should be be dismissed only be because of this reason. Andries (talk) 21:31, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

I think the statement by Zablocki was off-topic here. Andries (talk) 21:39, 13 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Sorry Andries, but I am reverting your deletions. The material seems to be directly associated with the subject, so I see no reason for its deletion. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 15:29, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Can you please explain why you think that Zablocki is on-topic? Did he treat differing interpretations of the same events? Or did he check the factuality of events? If the latter is the case then I think that Zablock is off-topic because the term atrocity stories deals with the interpretations of events and their presenations. Not with questions whether events really took place. Andries (talk) 17:15, 14 January 2008 (UTC)


 * This link: http://home.snafu.de/tilman/faq-you/cult.apologists.txt fails WP:EL. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 15:31, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

The word "opposing" is incorrect, because no scholar holds the view that apostates are completely (un-)reliable. "Differing" is more correct. Andries (talk) 14:28, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Unclear/confusing
This article is highly unclear, particularly the lead. Here's the first sentence: 'The term atrocity story (also referred to as atrocity tale) as defined by the American sociologists David G. Bromley and Anson D. Shupe refers to the symbolic presentation of action or events (real or imaginary) in such a context that they are made flagrantly to violate the (presumably) shared premises upon which a given set of social relationships should be conducted.' That doesn't tell you anything about what an 'atrocity story' is, what the term refers to, or why it's significant.

The article goes on to say 'The term "atrocity story" is controversial as it relates to the differing views amongst scholars about the credibility of the accounts of former members.' Former members of what? Scholars of what? It also links to a section of the article Apostate, which was presumably there once, but has now been removed. There then follows a quote that doesn't use the term 'atrocity story'. And so on.

After reading this article carefully several times, I was eventually able to figure out what it's about: controversial reports about cults/new religious movements by those who have left them. Why can't this article state that so simply? This article needs to be rewritten, and the rewritten version should make it absolutely clear:


 * What an 'atrocity story' is;
 * Who uses the term;
 * Why it is controversial/significant.

Sorry if this sounds a bit angry - I'm not, I'm just frustrated that this article makes things so difficult for its readers. Robofish (talk) 17:58, 25 November 2009 (UTC)


 * For what this article should look like, compare it to the one on cult apologist. That begins 'The term cult apologist is used by some opponents of cults and new religious movements to describe social scientists, religious scholars, and other persons who write about cults and new religious movements whose writings they consider as uncritical or not sufficiently critical.[1][verification needed] Scholars have referred to the term as "derisive"[2] and a "handy ideological tool".[3]' The following sections are 'Usage of term', 'Responses' and 'Positive usage'. This article could use a similar structure. Robofish (talk) 18:04, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

I have to agree with you on how unclear this is. I was led here by a link on the page cults, in the context that many former members of cults use "atrocity stories". I have to admit; coming here, and reading the introduction/definition, hasn't helped me. I still have no idea what an atrocity story is. Is it possible for anyone who does to write out a far easier and simpler definition? Maybe at least an example? AbbasAD (talk) 11:16, 13 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I started this article many years ago and the definition was immediately clear to me without any examples. I have to admit that many people have complained that this article is incomprehensible. An atrocity story tries to evoke moral rejection or outrage of the listeners. It may be done by telling stories that are factually correct but without context. Or the event is very rare. Clearly in NRMs the context of the behavior can be totally different from what the public knows, assumes or expects. Andries (talk) 18:30, 27 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I was not able to give an example because I did not have reliable sources for it. Andries (talk) 18:37, 27 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I will remove the unclear/confusing tag from the article based on this replyAndries (talk) 21:11, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

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