Talk:Sun Myung Moon

Bias

The author of this article clearly goes out of his way to tie Moon to conservatives. The statement in the opening paragraph about 'right wing causes' is not professional, since such a term is quite relative and often used to poison the well or induce emotion and lacks objectivity. I checked the sources for Moon's "right wing causes"...and could not verify this. THis source here, for example: http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/09/sun-myung-moons-groundbreaking-campaign-to-open-north-korea/262057/ talks about how Moon wanted to "open up" the Korean peninsula, with talks with Punyang. How is this "right wing? I thought a lot of college students (who are generally not right wing at all) were in full harmony with this idea? I dont see any mention in the sources that Moon was advocating a right wing cause when it came to North Korea? I don't know why so many ariticles on Wikipedia do this "ring wing" tactic. It really makes it seem like this website is hawked by a lot of young 20 something white males who have a socialist/anti-capitalist and anti-religious bent. Why not just be neutral and let the chips fall where they may? Using terms like "right wing" is loaded. There is no intellectual dance around it. And lastly, there is not enough emphasis on this article of this being a cult. There is nothing 'mainstream' Christian about the cult led by Moon. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.182.153.76 (talk) 07:28, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

Right-wing simply means he held stereotypically conservative viewpoints. His "reaching out" to the DPRK isn't surprising in light of the fact that, as a Korean and as a man who spent the first 30 years of his life in the north, he was not fond of the idea of reunifying the country through war. It doesn't actually contradict a conservative approach unless you think the default conservative position is to invade the North. He also financed Inchon (which praised the anti-communist side of the war) and pretty much every other political endeavor in his life was tied to conservative causes. The article should probably change the term "right-wing" to conservative though. --Ismail (talk) 12:37, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

And this line looks like a sly, liberal POV which seems to assume that conservatives are racists: "Although conservative on most other issues, Moon took a strong stance against racism and racial discrimination." Not up to Wiki's standards, this.

I suspect that clause was put in to keep readers awake more than to propagandize. It is true that anti-racism is usually thought of as a liberal issue, so introducing it that way adds interest and helps to tie the article together. Borock (talk) 04:39, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

I agree it is a very biased statement; I propose an edit of the sentence to remove political inferences Diraphe (talk) 17:41, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

AMENNEWS

I deleted amennews.com as reference. This is a biased news website. -Nellyhan (talk) 06:28, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

Controversial Conviction?

"...and sentenced to 18 months in federal prison in a controversial case.[4][16][17]" it says, and the three footnotes lead one to expect two or even three different views on this controversy. To my disappointment I found than none of the three does.

Thus we are left with the impression that the guy cheated on his taxes and got caught. No controversy.

David Lloyd-Jones (talk) 08:02, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

• David Lloyd-Jones - then go ahead and be WP:BOLD and change those refs to the ones used in the section about the conviction in the article itself: (87-89) NYT, Chicago Tribune, etc. These articles discuss the controversy better than the USA Today article, which just touches on it. It's nitpickery to me but every editor is free to work their priorities.EBY (talk) 17:18, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

Article continually policed by followers of Sun Myung Moon?

Looking back through the Talk page discussion I see MANY complaints that followers of Sun Myung Moon are continually whitewashing this article to water down or delete criticism and add in lots of material that looks like what one would expect from their own literature. The current abysmal state of the article reflects this bias. Just this week BayShrimp brazenly deleted two important, central facts at once, which he also dishonestly labelled a "minor" edit:

"Followers, who were then sometimes called "Moonies", considered him their True Father while..."

He also made other edits deleting material that might be considered unfavorable by followers of Sun Myung Moon. Shouldn't such people be banned from Wikipedia? DrSocPsych (talk) 22:12, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

The main point of the sentence is still there and now there is a new paragraph about him as a controversial figure, the third paragraph of the lede. What some people called some other people does not seem to be such an important thing to be in the lede. BayShrimp (talk) 23:26, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

I probably was a mistake for me to label the edit as minor. But still what the removed part was saying is: 1. What some people called some followers, only some since most do not live in English-speaking countries. 2. Speculation on what followers "considered." This information is well covered in more depth in the article itself but, to me anyway, seemed awkward in the lede.BayShrimp (talk) 01:05, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

I suppose I should have expected a thoroughly dishonest (self-deceptive?) response from BayShrimp. 1a. This is English Wikipedia. 1b. The term is not limited to English-speaking countries anyway. 2. The reference "True Father" is documented in the church's own literature, and has been reported hundreds of times, including in the reference BayShrimp deleted. Other dishonest deletions by BayShrimp were not justified. DrSocPsych (talk) 19:39, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

"With the fullness of time, God has sent one person to this earth to resolve the fundamental problems of human life and the universe. His name is Sun Myung Moon. For several decades he wandered through the spirit world so vast as to be beyond imagining. He trod a bloody path of suffering in search of the truth, passing through tribulations that God alone remembers. Since he understood that no one can find the ultimate truth to save humanity without first passing through the bitterest of trials, he fought alone against millions of devils, both in the spiritual and physical worlds, and triumphed over them all. Through intimate spiritual communion with God and by meeting with Jesus and many saints in Paradise, he brought to light all the secrets of Heaven."

This quotation, from the Unification Church's own Bible (Divine Principle), is quoted in the article. Where is the section on perceptions of Sun Myung Moon from the public: as a brainwasher, charlatan, cult leader, and con man who takes financial advantage of his followers? Again, many parts of the article sound like the Unification Church's own literature, and some are directly from it! DrSocPsych (talk) 19:44, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

Indeminty

The long section on "indemnity" is better covered in Unification Church where church doctrine is covered in depth, and where Divine Principle redirects. I will try trimming it down. Please feel free to put some back if I go too far. Borock (talk) 12:30, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

I also added some more criticism to the intro. Borock (talk) 15:44, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

If this article on Sun Myung Moon were 1000 pages long it would still be hard to justify a whole section (or even more than a single sentence) on a single point of theology ("indemnity"). Nevertheless, I've retained two setences in this article. Any additional material belongs in the article on the Unification Church, not here. DrSocPsych (talk) 19:45, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

NPOV

The article seems to be about half criticism and half positive or neutral information. I don't see why the NPOV tag was put back.Borock (talk) 12:13, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

• I made a few tweeks, but nothing major.Skylark777 (talk) 05:31, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
  • It's hard to believe that even Unification Church members, who probably shouldn't even be editing this article because of WP:COI, could make a statement like "The article seems to be about half criticism and half positive or neutral information." Most of the article is just what Unification Church members would want to be included, the article is far out of proportion to what has been reported about Moon, and some of the most damaging information is wholly missing. The NPOV tag should stay until these massive problems with the article are fixed. DrSocPsych (talk) 18:25, 27 October 2015 (UTC)