[naruvimama]

Words like "cult" or "pagan" were used as derogatory terms to belittle non-christian cultures, much of which do not exist today.

Academia should be thorough in cleaning up the vocabulary, if not out of politeness, at least as a means to avoid bias.

If John Doe's CV read, "Barbarian John Doe" or "Cult leader John Doe" - where objectively neither of them were true. Bias sets in at the very beginning.

[Kye]

Livescience dot com is not academia. I would like to see the atrocious state of science reporting improve, but it's not going to happen there on a web that's dependent on ad impressions.

[naruvimama]

It is not uncommon for some religious groups to distort or manipulate academic output, so what is obvious nonsense today becomes a fact a decade in the future.