5 ms·
Easy. A "cult" is a disparaging term for a religion that someone other than yourself belongs to. YOUR belief group on the other hand is obviously not a cult, b
by jqm 12y ago
Easy.
A "cult" is a disparaging term for a religion that someone other than yourself belongs to. YOUR belief group on the other hand is obviously not a cult, but a religion.
(Actually I guess it might be size, but in common vernacular I think the above is actually often the case).
- JoeAltmaier 12y agoCults have another attribute: a mechanism for addicting members and keeping them, usually through psychological means.
- gobots 12y agoSo, Catholicism's / baptists / etc. hell, the Jehovah's Witnesses everlasting destruction, Mormon / Jehovah's Witness / Amish excommunication... ad nauseum.
- arjn 12y agoIts literally every one of the the large religions.
- JoeAltmaier 12y agoThose are really passive techniques. Cults have active, planned techniques of mind control. Try this: http://www.scribd.com/doc/514598/How-Cults-Seduce http://www.scribd.com/doc/514598/How-Cults-Seduce
- gobots 12y agoI was a Jehovah's Witness and since leaving three years ago I have been struggling to differentiate between cult tactics and the control tactics of that particular religion.
- JoeAltmaier 12y agoJW tactics are definitely taken from the cult playbook.
- dragonwriter 12y agoAny group that exists more than briefly has a mechanism for drawing and keeping members that, necessarily, operates "through psychological means".
- nandemo 12y agoThat's certainly not the only or even the most common usage of the word. For example, most educated Catholics don't consider the Anglican church or mainstream Judaism or Islam as cults. On the other hand, many Catholics would consider Jehova's Witness and some pentecostal churches as cults, even though at some level Catholicism's doctrines share more bullet points with these organizations than with Judaism or Islam.
- dragonwriter 12y agoThere are a number of uses of "cult" (both the disparaging term you use for a group, the neutral use "pattern of devotional practice" which refers to a set of actions rather than an organization, and various objective criteria for organizations) Size usually isn't a criterion in the definitions used for groups, whether the disparaging ones or the more objective ones (e.g., in the approach used in Marc Galanters Cults: Faith, Healing, and Coercion.)