Talk:Jim Jones

User talk:82.35.153.30 Hi where is your reference that at the mass suicide at Jonestown people were injected with poison? I have never read it. I will revert your change unless you give the references. Andries 18:59, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I didn't make the edit, but there is ample evidence for this:

"The results of pathology examinations conducted by Guyanese coroner Leslie Mootoo however, revealed his belief that as many as 700 of the victims were murders, not suicides. Mootoo claims that in a 32-hour period he, and his assistants, examined the bodies of 137 victims. They had all been injected with cyanide in areas of their bodies, which could not have been reached by their own hand, such as between the shoulder blades; many other victims had been shot. Charles Huff, one of the seven Green Berets who were the first American troops on the scene following the massacre, claimed that “We saw many bullet wounds as well as wounds from crossbow bolts.” Those who were shot appeared to have been running toward the jungle, away from the compound, at the time they were shot."

http://www.crimelibrary.com/notorious_murders/mass/jonestown/connections_5.html?sect=8

How many areas does a human body actually have that can not be reached by ones own hand? Jcbos 01:36, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Inconsistent with article People's Temple

The People's Temple article states that the reason for Jim Jones moving to Guyana was because of claims of abuse and fears of the outside world trying to destroy the group. This article states it was for Tax Evasion. Which is correct?

Homosexuality

I have reverted this page back to include the comments on the arrest and alledged homosexuality. My understanding is that the arrest took place in a movie theatre although a later edit has changed this to a park (I will have to check this further). The comment about being the "one true hetereosexual" is, I believe, true (although I did not make this edit).

I will look to provide sources, however, I would say that a Google search on the relevant keywords should provide some evidence to support these facts. TigerShark 07:17, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Big Sentence

There is a large run-on sentence in this entry that needs to be trimmed up. There are parenthesis in it and without the words in the parenthesis (and even with them) it makes little sense.

Origins and influences

Sociologist Gordon Melton wrote:

Jim Jones was the pastor of the Peoples Temple, a large California congregation of the prominent liberal Protestant denomination, the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). Jones had become an advocate of a radical form of Marxist liberation theology, then a popular perspective in liberal Protestantism. However, while he was praised within his denomination and other Protestant churches, for his social outlook and work on racial harmony, he was not without his harsh critics. In 1977, he moved with hundreds of his church members, mostly African Americans, to Guyana, where the church had previously established a small agricultural colony [1]

So I think the article should mention his previous connection to mainline Christianity, as well as any influences (such as Marxism) which prompted him to depart from the mainstream. The media makes him sound like an independently spawned monster. -- Uncle Ed (talk) 20:14, Mar 15, 2005 (UTC)

you should also mention that JOnes was one of the first pastors to integrate blacks into a mainstream congregation....something that didnt fly well in Indiana.....

joeyjosef@yahoo.com

Why is this article so awful?

I mean, really. There's more about whether or not he was gay than about the whole Jonestown business. There's stuff in the Jonestown article which could be imported. john k 14:52, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I admit that this article is really bad. I had put this article on requests for expansion months ago but to no avail until now. Andries 17:56, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Removal of homosexuality info

I do not think that removal of information is a good or acceptable way of balancing the article. I do not have the impression that the focus on his homosexuality here is used to defame homosexuals if that is reason of the removal. Andries 18:27, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Claim to be a reincarnation of Father Divine?

Father Divine died in 1965 after Jones was born. So the assertion that Jones claimed to be reincarnation of Father Divine does not make sense to me. Any explanations? Andries 21:55, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

Jones didnt claim that he was FD reincarnated....he said that FD's spirit came to rest on him....that he was FD in a new body.......(Raven, pg. 140)

joey joeyjosef@yahoo.com

Joey, could you please edit this article and use reliable references (Raven?). U seem to know a lot about the man. Thanks. Andries 22:13, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

Was Stephan Jones murdered? Please provide references

Please provide references within one week for the following sentnence or I will remove it. The sentences looks doubtful to me because Stephan is described in the quite recent book Hearing the voices of Jonestown by Mary McCormick Maaga as alive and kicking. Thanks.

"[Stephan Jones] died when someone put a bullet into his head from a close range shotgun shot, apparently because of revenge by a Mundy whose family was killed in the suicide."

Also, what does the word "Mundy" mean? It is not in two dictionaries that I checked. Please use only standard English: this is an international encyclopedia in English language. Andries 09:25, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

Autopsies

I read in the book by McCormick Maaga, in contrast to what had been written in this article that only about a dozen corpses received autopsies. I have corrected this. I do not remember the exact nr. so I wrote "less than twenty". Andries 14:30, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

Citations and keeping the untruths out of this article

In general, I urge all contributors to this article to read reliable sources and to cite them accurately because there seems to be many myths about the man and we have to be strict to keep the nonsense and disinformation out of this article (the autopsie mistake hereabove is a good example). I am aware that there is much to improve regarding citation and attributing opinions, and dates in this article and I am co-responsible for this, but I cannot do it alone. Thanks. Andries 14:30, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

CIA

Any connection between Jones and the CIA? My first clue was a Michael Franti lyric that goes, "the CIA runnin’ like that Jones from Indiana but they still won’t talk about that Jones in Guyana", and web investigation revealed that the LaRouche people connect him to CIA mind-control operations. That bunch is pretty nuts but a lot of their research is solid (even though their conclusions may not be). Is there anything to this? Or are we just going to have to wait till the documents are declassified?--Rockero420 20:13, 16 November 2005 (UTC)