Talk:Cult

Irrelevant references to Donald Trump in the section on Unification Church
Unless the article intends to imply a shadowy, sinister conspiracy between Donald Trump and the Unification Church, I fail to see the relevance of the following lines at the end of the section. Irrelevant material is in bold:

"The Unification Church also owns several news outlets including The Washington Times, Insight on the News, United Press International, and the News World Communications network. The Washington Times opinion editor Charles Hurt was one of Donald Trump's earliest supporters in Washington, D.C. In 2018, he included Trump with Ronald Reagan, Martin Luther King Jr., Margaret Thatcher, and Pope John Paul II as "great champions of freedom." In 2016 The Washington Times did not endorse a candidate for United States president, but endorsed Trump for reelection in 2020."

I suggest deleting this, as it seems to be a rather transparent politically-inspired move to link Donald Trump to a questionable religious movement. I did not notice any references in the article to Rosalynn Carter or Willie Brown's ties to The Peoples Temple, and those connections were far more direct and established. LibrarianBarbaran (talk) 04:37, 3 May 2024 (UTC)


 * The material on Hurt was WP:SYNTH and has been removed. Thanks for alerting us.Feoffer (talk) 06:19, 3 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Maybe the ontire of Trump taken out. BookeWorme (talk) 22:40, 23 May 2024 (UTC)
 * I don't seem much related from Trump and "cults". The Washington Times don't even it's people working there for Unification Church. 73.189.88.167 (talk) 16:01, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

This article is a mess
The English word "cult" has at least four distinct senses (1) an (allegedly) harmful or destructive religious group–this is the definition the average reader is most familiar with, the definition preferred by most psychologists who write on the topic, and the definition of the secular anti-cult movement; (2) the value-free definition(s) adopted by many sociologists of religion (often replaced in recent years by the term "new religious movement" or "NRM" for short, although that term is broader in scope than some of the sociological definitions of "cult"); (3) the theological definition proposed by the Christian (or to be more accurate, conservative evangelical Protestant) counter-cult movement (when some fundamentalist Protestant says "Catholicism is a cult", this is what they mean); (4) the traditional definition as the worship of a particular entity (as in "cult of the Saints", "cult of Mary", "Roman imperial cult", etc). The problem with this mess of the article, is while it does mention these four different definitions, it doesn't make clear enough that they are actually four largely distinct concepts that happen to be sitting on the same word. It is one of those articles where, if you don't already have a good understanding of the topic, it is clear as mud. I think the article should be structured to segregate those four distinct definitions much more clearly–at least into separate sections, possibly even into separate articles. I feel like trying to do that, but I also view this whole topic area as such a controversy-inducing hot potato, that I'm hesitant to try, since I don't want to start a fight over it. I think it would be better if we could talk about the problem here, and if other people see the same problem I do, how we could solve it. SomethingForDeletion (talk) 08:25, 13 May 2024 (UTC)


 * More problems than the 4 ideas are working together, to various people their opinions. BookeWorme (talk) 20:42, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

Sciencetolgy?
Should also including? BookeWorme (talk) 16:32, 1 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Do you mean Scientology? What do you have in mind?   ▶ I am Grorp ◀  19:16, 1 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks. My mistake is bad with words recently.  This is what I was trying correct. Thanks. BookeWorme (talk) 22:13, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

Cult leaders
I see someone added a section on "Cult leaders", and then it was removed by another. I think the topic is appropriate and think it should be reinstated and expanded. There is much about "cult leaders" available through google scholar. Cult leaders are mentioned in the article, scattered here and there, but I think a summary of characteristics of cult leaders, or methods they use, would be a good addition to this article. ▶ I am Grorp ◀ 01:31, 5 June 2024 (UTC)


 * That is sense to me. BookeWorme (talk) 17:13, 6 June 2024 (UTC)