Larson's New Book of Cults

Rating:
Summary: A Christian bigot spin
Review: Amazing! This guy must have problems! WHOA! The book simply denigrates people of other faiths and says their wrong because they have things that are not supported in the bible(You know, the book that says bats are birds!)If I were a Hindu I could write a book just like this and place Christianity in it and say "YO BOB! Right back at you!" To me this book is a little biased in that looks at things in a one sided view. Further more the book takes things out of context and creates half truths about other faiths.

Okay! So maybe not all religions can be true and maybe some of these religions have a few issues and things like how Prophecies made by the Jehovas witnesses never came true, but I can easily point out problems with Christianity as well.
My Advice is if you really want this book be forwarned, it is not what it seems.

Rating:
Summary: Unluckily, his statements about Hinduism are not truths
Review: Bob Larson has used many pages to provide his version of Hinduism. Unluckily, many are just half truths. Bob sees Hinduism as a threat to Christian faith. That is not true at all. To begin with HINDUISM IS THE CULTURE OF INDIA and not an organized religion like Christianity or Islam. It does not believe in conversions and it does not go around converting people of other religions to Hinduism. Bob states Hinduism should be viewed as religious anarchy in action. That is not true. Since it has no governing body Hinduism is an explosion of thoughts and ideas. In it you can see FREEDOM OF THOUGHTS AND ACTIONS. Not even one Hindu is ever banished from it since it was born at least 6000 years before the birth of Christ. No Hindu author was ever burnt or crucified for writing a book, whereas in the the Christian faith, countless thinkers had been banished for their frank statement. Even the author of the first English version of The Holy Bible, William Tyndale [1525] was accused of blasphemy and later burnt on stake. Hinduism never ever had a house cleaning, where as Christianity had several house cleanings from the first Council at Nicaea in 325 AD. During that council, bishop Arius was banished from the church for stating that Christ is a created being and not a procreator. After all the word TRINITY was never mentioned in the 66 books of the Holy Bible. Bob, believes that it is a crime in Hinduism to extrend kindness to those who are less fortunate. But Bob has not written one Hindu scriptural statement to prove his point. Bob also believes that doctrines of karma and reincarnation leave men in somewhat hopeless state. That is not true at all. Karma and reincarnation theory makes man responsible every second of his life rather than waiting for final judgement. After all REINCARNATION AND RESURRECTION are just theories. Nobody can prove them or disapprove them logically or scientifically. Those are beliefs of different cultures of the world. In Hindu scriptures one can read history and culture of Aryans and Dravidians. In Holy Bible one read about the history and culture of Jews. It does not talk about Chinese or Aryans in India. Bob believes that Hindus are worshiiping many gods. That is not true. Actually Hindus are only worshiping ONE AND ONLY GOD Brahman which expresses itself in millions of forms. That is why Hindus have no problem even worshiping Jesus Christ since he is an in carnation of God. Hope every one will read books like AM I A HINDU? before making up their mind about the most tolerent religion on earth, which gave a state funeral to Mother Theresa, the Holy Mother of India, a Christian nun. I think we have to read books which will bring us together. We have to read books which are BASED ON HISTORICAL FACTS AND FIGURES. I salute Bob for all the good things he has done through his book, exposing cults that prey upon the innocent and helpless.

Rating:
Summary: Calling other religions cults is just bad manners
Review: I am a Christian writing to you to stay away from Larson! Bob Larson is everything that is wrong with Christianity.... from his totally absurd "excorcisms" (one of the demon posessed people was spotted by a newsman who witnessed the same person become excorcised months earlier in a different town! Now we know why Larson asks for money every fifth second-- he's gotta pay these people to keep up his charade!) to him being spotted having an affair (in all fairness, Larson said that it really wasn't him that was caught with his pants down.. it was a demon that took his form so that he'd discredit Larson's work even more!). Furthermore, Larson does not have a standard definition for cults.. Because if he told you what a cult really was, Larsonism would fit the definition!

Rating:
Summary: Not Fully Accurate
Review: I have found the section about Jehovah's Witnesses to contain many half-truths or false statements. It makes me wonder about the accuracy of the other sections, as well. I think the only way to know what a religion really believes is to talk to a member in good standing of that religion, or to read a book written by that religious group. Anything else, and there is a danger of receiving biased and inaccurate information. The most unbiased book I have read that talks about many different religions is "The Idiots Guide to the World's Religions" although it is very basic in its information. I would recommend it instead of Bob Larson's book.

Rating:
Summary: Book of Lies
Review: I picked up this book as a reference tool at the Library just to look through. I was appalled and shocked at what I found. I have a bachelor's degree in Sociology, and after examining this book, I find it hard to believe that it wasn't categorized in the "Christian" section of my library. First of all it is unfair to examine "cults" from a Christian perspective and give un-tampered information. For each of the groups examined in this book, the author gives a paragraph or two entitled "Errors" about each group, and each time gives a scriptural reference. To give "errors" in logic would be fine but not errors based on your own personal religion. Second, while not listing beliefs like Buddhism or Islam as cults per se he still gives errors for them. There are logical errors for ALL beliefs including Christianity, but he again points out errors based on his own religion and fails to looks at his own religion for errors. Lastly some of the so called "cults" he looks at aren't even cults to begin with! Martial Arts and Yoga are in no way cults, they are activities; and while many Martial Artists are Buddhist, it has nothing to do with the religion. That would be like saying that people who play Football are all in a cult.
In Conclusion: It is people like Bob Larson, who believe that anything that isn't blatantly Christian is against Christianity, that create the problems that many people have with any religion. He is, in a sense, creating a cult. Just like many true cults that at their core are based on Christianity, Buddhism, and other religions, he is branching off from his Christian beliefs and trying to make people believe that if you take Karate, listen to rock music (as he has written about in another book), or not say "bless you" when someone sneezes that you are sinning and will go to hell. I am no Christian and do not claim to be, but the bible does say, "Judge not lest ye be judged." This book is not fact based, they are opinion based. This book can be dangerous if you are trying to learn the facts about the groups in this book.

Rating:
Summary: A good book on the subject.
Review: I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It covers a lot of terrority, and helped me understand cults better.

To the reader who talks about Larson's affair: Could you give me a site for this? Particularly the bit about the demon? I've searched for an hour and found nothing. And where did Larson claim to be a preacher of morality?

Rating:
Summary: Dissapointing.
Review: I've spoken to many people like Bob Larsson and I always come away with a bitter taste in my mouth. Although claiming to be a Christian, he fails to outwardly show the character of Christ.

People like this spend all of their lives trying to show other religions to be false and forget whats important - your attitude to others.

There are many "cult" websites and books attemtping to "expose" religions as false. However, despite attempts to reason with the owners/authors, they continue to misrepresent beliefs, as many have noted in their reviews.

Although yes, I disagree with what may be considered by most to be "orthodox Christianity" and also Mormonism, Islam, JWs, Catholocism etc etc, I would never go out using "scare tactics" and misrepresenting what someone believes. The worst "scare tactic" of all is the actual use of the word "cult". It incites religious hatred.

What frustrates me even more is when people read Larsson's book and say that this book is "absolutely brilliant!" or "excellant job by Larsson!" Why do you say this about someone who is such a bad ambassador of Christianity?

A few rules should be ...

1. Fully read through religious texts etc.
2. Discuss at length with the believers themselves.
3. Check what you have produced thoroughly to make sure you have not misrepresented beliefs. It only gets people angry.
4. If someone answers your questions, do not put the questions down in a list of "irrefutable questions". I have seen this down many times.
5. Be fair and be positive! Mention the good points of other beliefs/relgions aswell as just the negative points.

I reccomend this book. It's much fairer.(...)

Rating:
Summary: Good for Reference not for Theology
Review: If Mr. Larson's original intent was to provide back ground information and a smapling of teachings of various religions and sects then he accomplished his goal. I was introduced to sects I never heard of before and my horizons were broaden because of it.

Granted, Bob Larson's prospective is distinctly Christian but that should not be a point of criticism. No where throughout his book does he every claim to be completely objective. He states quite clearly that the standards he measures and evaluates these sects is the teachings of Orthodox Christiainity. Nor does he attempt to defend every tenet of Christianity, that was not his intention and there are other fines book whose intentions are that.

In today's society, the word cults have a negative conotation and therefore people object when their beliefs are labeled cultic. It should be interesting to note that the standard accepted definition of cults, that Larson himself proposes as groups that teach, 1.)A centralized authority 2.) A 'we' vs 'they' complex 3.) A commitment to proselytize and 4.) A isolationism from the outside world would apply to ever major major religion including Christianity. In a more general sense, the word cult is not negative but rather refers to a sect with a smaller following then main stream religions.

Rating:
Summary: Information? Yes. Fair? No.
Review: This book does contain some interesting information and can lead someone to more sources of information. However, the entire pretext of the book is - "If you don't believe how I believe, you are wrong and/or misled." I can't agree with this. There are other religions and beliefs that are certainly beneficial and valid. Larson's overzealous persecution of other religions causes his beliefs and words to lose their power.

Rating:
Summary: Not Fully Accurate
Review: This book is very comprehensive on many of the new age cults.

First and foremost while the descriptions are all truthful, the critiques are written from an Evangelical Christian perspective.

As a conservative Baptist, I fully agree with what the book says about the cults. It had a wider descriptions on major religions such as Islam and Buddhism, but from our perspective they are not the 'correct' religion. This perspective comes right from the Bible and Jesus having said that belief in Him as the Son of God is the only way to Heaven.

Now for those who are not conservative Evangelical Christians, you most likely will not like this book. Some will even find it offensive. If you are not a practicing conservative Christian like I am, you will not like this book.