Serious enquiry for maklelan.

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_Servant
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Re: Serious enquiry for maklelan.

Post by _Servant »

maklelan wrote:
Servant wrote:Grow up guy! "Ignorant" and "bigoted" are not the only words in the dictionary.


You know very well that I'm quite articulate and can have a lot to say. It's just that you're just repeating your ignorant dogmatism over and over again.

Servant wrote:Well, it's your life and if you want to live it functioning as a spoke in a wheel which you've intellecutally rejected, your problem!

There are pseudo-Christians who are called cultists, and non-Christian cults as well. Non-Christian cults include those groups which have spun off of other religions: Nichiren Buddhism, Hare Krishnas, etc. Maybe you should study cult apologetics.


I have, Catherine. More than you. As I already pointed out, you need to study the sociology of it. Real scholars call them New Religious Movements, though, not "cults." That word is for sectarians, and it has nothing to do with scholarship.

Actually, I have studied the sociology of cults, working even with secular groups; and have studied that subject longer than you have existed! I was a member of EMNR - Evangelical Ministry to New Religions (around its inception) when directing a cult apologetics ministry in New Jersey. But, in the case of Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses, Christian Scientists, Unification, and the rest of them - the word "cults" is sufficient to identify these doctrinally deviant groups. Really, these "new religions" are simply rehashes of old heresies. Mormonism, for instance, mixes Universalism, Seekerism, pagan polythesim, and the classic ploy of having a near supernatural founder who heard directly from God. So did Sun Myung Moon and Mary Baker Eddy - right?
_maklelan
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Re: Serious enquiry for maklelan.

Post by _maklelan »

Servant wrote:Actually, I have studied the sociology of cults, working even with secular groups; and have studied that subject longer than you have existed!


Then why are you so abysmally ignorant of the sociology of NRMs and so thoroughly entrenched in the very sectarianism and pseudo-scholarship that the sociological study of religion undermines?

Servant wrote:I was a member of EMNR - Evangelical Ministry to New Religions (around its inception) when directing a cult apologetics ministry in New Jersey.


I think you are confusing the sociological study of NRMs with being an advocate of the anti-cult movement.

Servant wrote:But, in the case of Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses, Christian Scientists, Unification, and the rest of them - the word "cults" is sufficient to identify these doctrinally deviant groups.


In other words, they're religions you don't like. That would be the most honest definition.

Servant wrote:Really, these "new religions" are simply rehashes of old heresies.


Another classic and thoroughly undermined old canard of the anti-cult movement.

Servant wrote:Mormonism, for instance, mixes Universalism, Seekerism, pagan polythesim, and the classic ploy of having a near supernatural founder who heard directly from God. So did Sun Myung Moon and Mary Baker Eddy - right?


No, you've gotta get some real scholarship under your belt, Catherine.
I like you Betty...

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_Servant
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Re: Serious enquiry for maklelan.

Post by _Servant »

maklelan wrote:
Servant wrote:Actually, I have studied the sociology of cults, working even with secular groups; and have studied that subject longer than you have existed!


Then why are you so abysmally ignorant of the sociology of NRMs and so thoroughly entrenched in the very sectarianism and pseudo-scholarship that the sociological study of religion undermines?

Servant wrote:I was a member of EMNR - Evangelical Ministry to New Religions (around its inception) when directing a cult apologetics ministry in New Jersey.


I think you are confusing the sociological study of NRMs with being an advocate of the anti-cult movement.

Servant wrote:But, in the case of Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses, Christian Scientists, Unification, and the rest of them - the word "cults" is sufficient to identify these doctrinally deviant groups.


In other words, they're religions you don't like. That would be the most honest definition.

Servant wrote:Really, these "new religions" are simply rehashes of old heresies.


Another classic and thoroughly undermined old canard of the anti-cult movement.

Servant wrote:Mormonism, for instance, mixes Universalism, Seekerism, pagan polythesim, and the classic ploy of having a near supernatural founder who heard directly from God. So did Sun Myung Moon and Mary Baker Eddy - right?


No, you've gotta get some real scholarship under your belt, Catherine.

Mak, you have no idea what it was like to pioneer in the field of cult apologetics. None at all. It was a field that was looked down on. Of course, my "scholarship" has always been in psychology, sociology and history. But these fields have been helpful.
_maklelan
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Re: Serious enquiry for maklelan.

Post by _maklelan »

Servant wrote:Mak, you have no idea what it was like to pioneer in the field of cult apologetics. None at all. It was a field that was looked down on.


It is looked down on more since the mid-nineties when it lost all the support of the psychiatric and psychology community, and I think it is looked down on for a good reason.

Servant wrote:Of course, my "scholarship" has always been in psychology, sociology and history. But these fields have been helpful.
I like you Betty...

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_The Erotic Apologist
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Re: Serious enquiry for maklelan.

Post by _The Erotic Apologist »

Servant wrote:Actually, I have studied the sociology of cults, working even with secular groups; and have studied that subject longer than you have existed! I was a member of EMNR - Evangelical Ministry to New Religions (around its inception) when directing a cult apologetics ministry in New Jersey. But, in the case of Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses, Christian Scientists, Unification, and the rest of them - the word "cults" is sufficient to identify these doctrinally deviant groups. Really, these "new religions" are simply rehashes of old heresies. Mormonism, for instance, mixes Universalism, Seekerism, pagan polythesim, and the classic ploy of having a near supernatural founder who heard directly from God. So did Sun Myung Moon and Mary Baker Eddy - right?


What was EMNR's position on the existence of organized ritual abuse during the so-called Satanic Panic of the 80's and 90's?
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