What is the difference...

[Xamonas Chegwé]

... between a religion and a cult?

Is it just a matter of scale? Or is there a more fundamental difference (pun intended!)

Just asking. Anyone answering?

[Pappa]

They're the same, only religions are cults that have become accepted by society (so scale really).

[Trolldor]

Modern religions exist primarily on a primitve method of manipulation, they rely on emotional blackmail more than anything, and that just doesn't work in the long term.
Cults, however, manipulate through constant and real fear, or beyond emotional blackmail. It isn't just you, but your friends and family they threaten. Your actions are infectious, the consequences branching.

Religions exist on a principle of "expand and engulf", cults exist on a principle of "consolidate and control". Religion will attempt to convert as many people as possible, and will often do so though peaceful means, violent religions such as Islam are not globally violent, and they will eventually consume themselves from within because there are so many different schools of thought, because they encourage the personal interpretation of amiguous religious texts. Religions attempt to justify themselves to the outside world, and the methods employed vary depending on the individuals either preaching or controlling the organisation.
Cults have a single method, and there is no deviation, no change. The ebb and flow of religious thought is not present within a cult, either you are in completely or not at all. They don't preach, they "inform". Their aim is not to convince you they are right, or even to tell you that they are right, their aim is to pull you in to an environment where you convince yourself they are right. Doubt is non-existant within a cult, because it is an investment of your entire life. Your money, family, work, education, it all becomes property of the cult. Your mind becomes property of the cult.

There are cults within religions. You can have Christian cults and Hindu cults, but in most cases your local Catholic Church can not reasonably be said to be in the same category as, say, Scientology.

[Trolldor]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFBZ_uAb ... re=related[/youtube]

I think a further note is that a religion doesn't attempt to manipulate how you think in the same way a cult does.

Religion will tell you to ignore, it will tell you to dismiss. It might do so effectively, but education is all it takes.

Cults are complete investments, though. Within a cult, there is no fact and fiction, only "untruths".
They make sure you know what's going to be said, and they turn off your ability to comprehend what's being said.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJxL21Zm ... re=related[/youtube]

[Xamonas Chegwé]

An interesting viewpoint BAA. I find myself agreeing up to a point but I can't help feeling that the schisms, inclusiveness and re-interpretations that you highlight as properties of religions as opposed to cults, are actually a consequence of scale. Once a cult grows to a critical mass, it naturally fractures and diversifies due to internal power-struggles.

A small cult can function with a single 'infallible' leader and everyone else equal followers. Once the cult grows larger, this leader is not able to control everything in a hands-on manner and must delegate responsibility - and those delegates then 'interpret' his words and desires according to their own desires. Once interpretation begins, schisms are inevitable. And once the leader dies...

When xtianity began, it was a judaic heresy, a cult of personality built around some bloke called jeebus. It didn't start as a religion with multiple doctrines, factions, leaderships and ceremonies; that only happened once it became large enough to support them all.

So I would say that a cult is just a small religion but I would add that its nature is very different because of that smallness.

[Trolldor]

An interesting viewpoint BAA. I find myself agreeing up to a point but I can't help feeling that the schisms, inclusiveness and re-interpretations that you highlight as properties of religions as opposed to cults, are actually a consequence of scale. Once a cult grows to a critical mass, it naturally fractures and diversifies due to internal power-struggles.

A small cult can function with a single 'infallible' leader and everyone else equal followers. Once the cult grows larger, this leader is not able to control everything in a hands-on manner and must delegate responsibility - and those delegates then 'interpret' his words and desires according to their own desires. Once interpretation begins, schisms are inevitable. And once the leader dies...

When xtianity began, it was a judaic heresy, a cult of personality built around some bloke called jeebus. It didn't start as a religion with multiple doctrines, factions, leaderships and ceremonies; that only happened once it became large enough to support them all.

So I would say that a cult is just a small religion but I would add that its nature is very different because of that smallness.

I'm going to have to challenge you there. We don't know how Christianity began, or Judaism, or any 'ancient' religion because the histories are flawed, the recounts bias or non-existant. We can't draw conclusions on incomplete and unreliable data, secondly the conditions of the time are not the same they are today. It's possible that factionalism started off almost immediately, we don't know.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

An interesting viewpoint BAA. I find myself agreeing up to a point but I can't help feeling that the schisms, inclusiveness and re-interpretations that you highlight as properties of religions as opposed to cults, are actually a consequence of scale. Once a cult grows to a critical mass, it naturally fractures and diversifies due to internal power-struggles.

A small cult can function with a single 'infallible' leader and everyone else equal followers. Once the cult grows larger, this leader is not able to control everything in a hands-on manner and must delegate responsibility - and those delegates then 'interpret' his words and desires according to their own desires. Once interpretation begins, schisms are inevitable. And once the leader dies...

When xtianity began, it was a judaic heresy, a cult of personality built around some bloke called jeebus. It didn't start as a religion with multiple doctrines, factions, leaderships and ceremonies; that only happened once it became large enough to support them all.

So I would say that a cult is just a small religion but I would add that its nature is very different because of that smallness.

I'm going to have to challenge you there. We don't know how Christianity began, or Judaism, or any 'ancient' religion because the histories are flawed, the recounts bias or non-existant. We can't draw conclusions on incomplete and unreliable data, secondly the conditions of the time are not the same they are today. It's possible that factionalism started off almost immediately, we don't know.

No we don't. I am of course speculating. I don't think that alters my point though. Once a cult gains a certain size, factioning is inevitable. Look at the morons as a more recent example. Joe Smith started what was essentially a tight-knit cult but it has grown into a fully-fledged religion, complete with schisms (the most obvious one being over plural marriages), populist amendment of doctrine (such as the revision of early racist doctrines), evangelism and inclusiveness.

[Feck]

http://www.apologeticsindex.org/d49.html


Members of this Cult were banned from talking to me because "He has Satans tongue " possibly my finest hour.

[Trolldor]

But it was based on the primitive methodology of Christianity. It never controlled how your mind worked or functioned, it never taught its adherents how NOT to process information. It's focus was on expansion, on giving Joseph Smith money and booty, not power and control.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

But it was based on the primitive methodology of Christianity. It never controlled how your mind worked or functioned, it never taught its adherents how NOT to process information. It's focus was on expansion, on giving Joseph Smith money and booty, not power and control.

So are you saying that the morons were a religion from the off? That they never were a cult? I would also refute that they are 'not about power and control' - all religions are to some extent.

I must say that looking around, I am unable to come up with a single agreed definition of the word 'Cult'. I will have more to say later but I have to go out now.

[Comte de Saint-Germain]

I like the various perspectives posited here, but would say that in cognitive psychology there is no clear distinction. Quite likely, because the definition of religion is so very wide. It is very hard to be scientific about religion - which means taking cultural anthropology and the diverse experience of religion across groups of humans - and maintain the ability to discriminate between religion and cult as this thread purports.
At the most you are going to acquire folk-psychological perspectives which, with most folk-psychology tells you more about those people than about the actual subject.

[Trolldor]

I'm arguing there is a distinct and noticable difference in the framework and structure of a "cult" as opposed to your average everyday religion because of the mode or basis of control which is placed.
Individual religious ideology is personally enforced. The structure of a church or society may put pressure on an individual, but it is the individual who is ultimately in control.
Cults remove any aspect of self-control.

Or, to give it 'life',
The Catholic Church has the Pope as its head, but the pope's influence is minimal. What do I mean? That pope's "revelations" are accepted only by those that are comfortable with accepting them.

In a cult, the leader has a revelation and the individual is not capable of even thinking on the matter. There is no "Do I agree or disagree with the principle" let alone whether to follow it.

The reason Jehova's Witness never started off as a cult is because it was left up to the individual. If you joined you were presented with the "truth" of their beliefs from the start.
In a cult, you aren't given that opportunity. It is a slow and gradual decline in to dependancy.

[Comte de Saint-Germain]

But, the essential characteristics of a religion - essential insofar as they follow from a cross-cultural study of the phenomenon - are present in cults. In your definition, cults are a special subset, where indoctrination is gradual and volition is minimal.

However, the practical indoctrination of many Christian churches - throughout their existence was gradual. Many people were dependent upon their priest to explain the Latin texts and lessons were taught over the course of many years - over many sermons. I think that if you end up with a very rigorous definition of 'cultism', of what it 'gradual or staged indoctrination' means and implies that the lines blur. There is no clear distinction. The same goes for volition: can it be really said that on matters where the church had influence people chose whether to accept or not?
Many Muslims do not 'consciously' choose what rules to follow: at the most this selection is done unconsciously; Not all Muslims pick and choose what part of the Qu'ran to follow and what to ignore.

[al-rawandi]

violent religions such as Islam are not globally violent, and they will eventually consume themselves from within because there are so many different schools of thought, because they encourage the personal interpretation of amiguous religious texts.

Islam is not globally violent? Excuse me? Islam is defined by its call for global violence.

[Trolldor]

violent religions such as Islam are not globally violent, and they will eventually consume themselves from within because there are so many different schools of thought, because they encourage the personal interpretation of amiguous religious texts.

Islam is not globally violent? Excuse me? Islam is defined by its call for global violence.

I love your bias hate. Wrong, completely. Not all Muslims are violent nor wish to be nor will be, therefore it is not globally violent.