help with sociologist friend...

by losingit 33 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

• 

  slimboyfat

  For JWs "high control group" is probably a better description than cult. There is a continuum in these things, and JWs, it's probably fair to say, are not as controlling or "cultish" as the Moonies or Scientologists for example, but are a bit more controlling than Mormons, and much more controlling than Anglicans.

  All religions confer benefit and harm on their adherents in varying proportions. But arguably groups like JWs are so far on the scale of causing harm to their followers - deaths from refusing blood, broken families, mental health problems, limiting potential in education and life - that they merit a specific description that separates them from more benign groups. "High control group" sounds less shrill and more scientific than "cult", so it makes sense on practical as well as tactical grouds.
• 

  paranoia agent

  Depends on what a persons definition on cult is, I found that there are many:

  Small group of people

  splinter group

  secretive group,etc.

  I stopped using the word cul alltogher, tell your friend that. Also tell your sociologists friend that there should be a name for religions that are more like the mafia or gangs, you know you can't just walking and just walk out like any other religion, yeah tell you sociologists friend that
• 

  Ruby456

  here is something your friend may be interested in

  religion comes from religio which is a latin word and meant public cult in antiquity. Christianity was thus the religio of the Roman Empire.
• 

  jgnat

  If he is using "delusional" or "splinter group" in his definition, then yes. If we use "high control" or "damaging" a distinction can be made between, say, Moonies and Lutherans.
• 

  steve2

  I disagree. Hassan is a mental health clinician and his books are self help books, not academic. I wouldn't expect researchers on cults to necessarily know of him or his work, unless they are looking at mental health resources for exiting cults. There really would be very little need for sociologists specializing in cults to know of him.

  I accept your comments as correct - for sociology. My field is psychology (although I did a double major in sociology and psychology) and it could be "peculiar" to New Zealand schools of psychology that researchers are expected to at least know of sociological perspectives and even the "popular" non-academic perspectives on their topic as found in the more general marketing publications.

  Back to the OP, if my sociologist friend were researching cults and had not heard of Hassan I would happily mention him, stating that he was a nonacademic practitioner.
• 

  laverite

  Steve2,

  My primary field is also psychology, at least according to my academic title "Professor of Psychology." But I tend to work at the intersections of psychology and sociology and have taught within both psychology and sociology departments. I was previously a senior lecturer in psychology at a university in England. I have no experience with psychology in NZ. But in all of my professional experiences, I have personally never come across academic researchers needing to be familiar with popular or nonacademic perspectives or general marketing publications for their academic research. That notion is completely foreign to me. The only time I could see it as being possibly relevant in some way is if a rsearcher were studying self help movements, etc. I could also perhaps see this as also true within some clinical or applied areas but I don't know for sure about that as I have no background in those areas so I am not qualified to comment (other than guessing).

  As far as your comment on the OP, I agree completely with what you said -- I'd mention him as a nonacademic practioner.
• 

  laverite

  Practioner? Wat da wat? How did that get into my post?

  Practitioner, rather. LOL.
• 

  fulltimestudent

  The problem at the centre of this discussion involves the usage of the word and the concepts involved with the word 'cult.'

  In popular usage ( as on this web-site) the word cult is used as a perjorative term to refer to tightly disciplined groups that require a high measure of control over members. Historically it was not neccessarily so.

  Here are some meanings attached to the word (from the web-site, Dictionary.com - used for convenience)

  First, Dictionary.com's own set of definitions:

  noun 1. a particular system of religious worship, especially with reference to its rites and ceremonies. 2. an instance of great veneration of a person, ideal, or thing, especially as manifested by a body of admirers: the physical fitness cult. 3. the object of such devotion. 4. a group or sect bound together by veneration of the same thing, person, ideal, etc. 5. Sociology . a group having a sacred ideology and a set of rites centering around their sacred symbols.

  That site quotes from another site, ' Word origin and history:'

  cult 1617, "worship," also "a particular form of worship," from Fr. culte, from L. cultus "care, cultivation, worship," originally "tended, cultivated," pp. of colere "to till" (see colony ). Rare after 17c.; revived mid-19c. with reference to ancient or primitive rituals. Meaning, "devotion to a person or thing" is from 1829.

  Most of these meanings can be found in scholarly research. Historians of the ancient Roman world speak of the "Emperor Cult," in which devotees gave 'cult' to the Emperor. I mention that only because, Reverend Professor Allen Brent argues that the Imperial cult gave organisational form to the early Christian cult.*

  As always, words require definition, before meaningful discussion can follow!

  * The Imperial Cult and the Development of Church Order: Concepts and Images of Authority in Paganism and Early Christianity Before the Age of Cyprian (Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae, V. 45)

  Amazon's description reads:

  Recent studies have re-assessed Emperor worship as a genuinely religious response to the metaphysics of social order. Brent argues that Augustus' revolution represented a genuinely religious reformation of Republican religion that had failed in its metaphysical objectives. Against this backcloth, Luke, John the Seer, Clement, Ignatius and the Apologists refashioned Christian theology as an alternative answer to that metaphysical failure. Callistus and Pseudo-Hippolytus gave different responses to Severan images of imperial power. The early, Monarchian theology of the Trinity was thus to become a reflection of imperial culture and its justification that was later to be articulated both in Neo-Platonism, and in Cyprian's view of episcopal Order. Contra-cultural theory is employed as a sociological model to examine the interaction between developing Pagan and Christian social order.
• 

  fulltimestudent

  argued that it was able to break away from being a cult because of the Protestant Reformation. Such revolt at such a scale was unheard of before Martin Luther.

  Ummm! I think it can be reasonably argued, that from the earliest days of Christianity, there were continuous revolts (schisms), resulting in the formation of new "cults.

  The Arian/Athanasian split was certainly a major split (with arianism controlling large segments of the church) as was the Catholic/Orthodox split. Both prior to Luther's time

  Wikipedia offers this list (Used for convenience):

  Meletian schism (4th century), a split involving the Patriarch of Antioch Nestorian Schism (431), a split between the Church in the Sassanid Empire and the Church in the Eastern Roman Empire, after the First Council of Ephesus Non-Chalcedonian Christianity (5th century), a split between the church in Armenia, Syria and Egypt and the church in Asia Minor, the Balkan peninsula and Italy Acacian schism (484–519), a split between the Eastern and Western Christian churches Schism of the Three Chapters (553–698), a split within the Roman Catholic Church Photian schism (863–867), a split between Eastern and Western Christianity East–West Schism, (11th century), a split between the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church; sometimes called The Great Schism Western Schism (1378–1417), a split within the Roman Catholic Church Schism of 1552 (1552), a split within the Church of the East Protestant Reformation (16th century), a split between the Catholic Church and early Protestants

  there were more -- (grin)
• 

  LisaRose

  You can say all religions are cults, I guess there is some truth to that, but there is a huge difference between mainstream religions and high control religions like the Jehovah's Witnesses. Those religions do not practice shunning and disfellowshiping, do not discourage you from doing independent research, do not discourage higher education, adk to to refuse life saving medical treatment, and a host of other things that define high control religions. This is important, because by calling all religions cults, you automatically alienate all those who belong to a religion. There is a difference, and it is huge.