I feel like there are minimum two definitions of cult, that being a high controll group like say jones town and to a lesser but still damaging extent seventh day adventists for example and just a smaller religious grouping.
The BITE classification was invented in order to justify hatred of small religions, by taking a word that already had a meaning (cult) and attaching a second, pejorative meaning to it. It’s like if I write a fantasy novel with a species of evil creatures called jews. Jew is already a word, and it’s a horrific act of religious persecution to take a pre-existing word for marginalised religions and spin it into an unrelated negative.
I didn’t justify the abusive behaviours described by the BITE model. In fact I was very clear that I disliked those behaviours, and their association with an important religious term. You should work on your reading comprehension so you can stop seeing enemies everywhere.
I apologize for misunderstanding. Can you provide a source or reasoning why you think the BITE classification itself was intended to make “cult” a bad word?
I think this situation is more complex than single intents. There’s every possibility that there was a good intention behind the BITE classification, but if there was, then the researchers responsible were continuing someone else’s harmful work without thinking about the consequences.
At the beginning of the satanic panic, the word cult had a value neutral meaning. And at the time, there were four main parties involved in all this. First, you have members of small religions who worship responsibly. Second, you have abusive religious leaders and their victims. Third, you have christians who hate any religion that isn’t christianity. Fourth, you have scientists who want to prevent religious abuse.
Group 3, the christian persecuters, hated groups 1 and 2. Group 4, the scientists, only hated the leaders of group 2. Group 1, the cultists, hated group 2 and group 3, and group 2, the abusers, hated everyone.
So we have a situation where everyone hates the abusers, and the abusers hate everyone back. Great, seems like everyone should work together to stop the abusers. But the christians couldn’t tell the difference between the cultists and the abusers, so they called the abusers cultists, and they said cults are a bad thing. Now, the more intelligent among the scientists who were capable of good critical thinking could easily tell the difference, and they wanted to condemn the abusers while protecting the cultists. But the less woke among the scientists were perfectly happy to go after cultists in their efforts to stop abusers. So they created a second definition of the word cult which was defined by abuse, and which aligned with the way the christians had already started using the word cult. The correct decision in this situation would have been to pick a new word for abusive religions, but christians dominated the conversation at the time, and the pop psych scientists with a shallow understanding of the issues were happy to go along with the hateful consensus manufactured by the christians, and turn cult into a bad word. Which, intentional or not, was unjust religious persecution.
I feel like there are minimum two definitions of cult, that being a high controll group like say jones town and to a lesser but still damaging extent seventh day adventists for example and just a smaller religious grouping.
This place would 100% meet the BITE standard of cult classification.
Thats what I was thinking of but couldnt remember the name, maybe I need to watch more telltale content again.
The BITE classification was invented in order to justify hatred of small religions, by taking a word that already had a meaning (cult) and attaching a second, pejorative meaning to it. It’s like if I write a fantasy novel with a species of evil creatures called jews. Jew is already a word, and it’s a horrific act of religious persecution to take a pre-existing word for marginalised religions and spin it into an unrelated negative.
Yes, because controlling a group’s behavior, information access, thoughts, and emotions is completely acceptable. Autonomy be damned.
I didn’t justify the abusive behaviours described by the BITE model. In fact I was very clear that I disliked those behaviours, and their association with an important religious term. You should work on your reading comprehension so you can stop seeing enemies everywhere.
I apologize for misunderstanding. Can you provide a source or reasoning why you think the BITE classification itself was intended to make “cult” a bad word?
I think this situation is more complex than single intents. There’s every possibility that there was a good intention behind the BITE classification, but if there was, then the researchers responsible were continuing someone else’s harmful work without thinking about the consequences.
At the beginning of the satanic panic, the word cult had a value neutral meaning. And at the time, there were four main parties involved in all this. First, you have members of small religions who worship responsibly. Second, you have abusive religious leaders and their victims. Third, you have christians who hate any religion that isn’t christianity. Fourth, you have scientists who want to prevent religious abuse.
Group 3, the christian persecuters, hated groups 1 and 2. Group 4, the scientists, only hated the leaders of group 2. Group 1, the cultists, hated group 2 and group 3, and group 2, the abusers, hated everyone.
So we have a situation where everyone hates the abusers, and the abusers hate everyone back. Great, seems like everyone should work together to stop the abusers. But the christians couldn’t tell the difference between the cultists and the abusers, so they called the abusers cultists, and they said cults are a bad thing. Now, the more intelligent among the scientists who were capable of good critical thinking could easily tell the difference, and they wanted to condemn the abusers while protecting the cultists. But the less woke among the scientists were perfectly happy to go after cultists in their efforts to stop abusers. So they created a second definition of the word cult which was defined by abuse, and which aligned with the way the christians had already started using the word cult. The correct decision in this situation would have been to pick a new word for abusive religions, but christians dominated the conversation at the time, and the pop psych scientists with a shallow understanding of the issues were happy to go along with the hateful consensus manufactured by the christians, and turn cult into a bad word. Which, intentional or not, was unjust religious persecution.
That’s an interesting and informative response. I’ll be sure to preface “cult” with “abusive cult” next time. Thanks!