What distinguishes a cult from an organized religion?
Saturday, July 31st, 2010 at
11:08 pm
I’ve heard of a cults transitioning into their own recognized churches, so what really distinguishes a church from a cult? If they have similarities, what does it ultimately come down to?
Tagged with: churches • cult • cults
Filed under: QA
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Untruths.
EDIT: Tassell, please email me. I’d like to find out where you got that list from. It’s good!
Religion usually doesn’t end with suicide.
About 100 years. Look at the Mormons.
A cult places its faith absolutely in one charismatic human leader – like Jim Jones – rather than in God.
A cult is a religious authority that takes away legitimate human freedom – making its followers walk in unnatural lock-step.
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Cult just refers to a religion that is not popular. When Yeshua came He was called a cult leader. To be called part of a cult is an honor, because the so-called christian church is NOT of the bible. It is simply big business in the act of following pagan practices for big bucks.
a cult takes the holy texts (word of god most of the time) and changes and/or corrupts it.
Number of followers and public recognition. The most popular religions around today started off as cults.
Some signs are:
An unquestionable authority figure (Jim Jones, David Koresh).
Special knowledge available only to certain members of the cult (Scientology).
Separation from family and friends who are not part of the cult (Jehovah’s Witnesses).
Unusual sexual/marriage practices (Branch Davidians, Jim Jones, Moonies)
Torg
really are not much difference
cults are considered more extreme, but that seems to be a subjective difference
religions are popular cults really
the only difference between organized "religions" and "cult" are the number, and social standing of there followers.
The line is too blurry to make a true distinction, since there are many organized faiths within a religion that have completely opposite view points. Mormonism and the Jehovah’s Witness movement are considered to be organized religions. But, they both have characteristics of cults.
A cult is merely a religion that has severe conflict with the established culture it exists in. Christianity was once a cult because it was established in a jewish pagan world, the values of early christians and the norm conflicted to a degree. The best example of this was the christian prosecution under the roman empire.
An organized religion is a religion that has established a hierarchy.
Within a healthy religious environment, family bonds are upheld and even strengthened, questioning of the leader and basic tenets is accepted, and the leader lives in a similar manner to the followers. One is offered all the information necessary to make an educated decision about joining, and once involved, people can choose the amount of involvement that feels right to them.
A cultic environment tears families apart, does not accept any questioning, and has a leader who claims to have an exalted position and to be above reproach. The cult is designed to solely advance its own goals, to abuse the members’ trust, and to use fear and shame to manipulate the followers. It freely utilizes deceptive techniques while recruiting new members and fundraising, misuses scripture, and declares other belief systems as false. Because it is not under the umbrella of a recognized religion, there is no governing body and the leader is, therefore, free to do as he or she pleases.
See the link below.
Peace.
☺♥☻
Here are ten cult characteristics. This is from the Rose Publishing Company which publishes Christian materials and information about cults:
1. A leader or group of leaders who claim to be divine
2. Rejection of all other churches
3. Control over members’ activities and friendships
4. A special diet
5. Chants using religious phrases or words
6. Sleep deprivation
7. No privacy
8. Over powering demonstrations of love
9. Control over finances, financial resources, or financial decisions
10. Leadership that does not tolerate honest questions.
At least two of these cults go door to door trying to convert people. Maybe you already know who they are.
Organized religions such as Judaism, Islam, and some others don’t really carry characteristics like the cults do. Cults like David Koresh in Waco is a perfect example of a non christian cult. But, the Pseudo-christian cults are just as destructive, because they wear the mask of christianity but reject all of the christian central doctrines. I strongly suggest you go to Rosepublishing.com. Here you will find a chart of all of the Christianity, cults, and the occult. It will show you the difference between them. The chart doesn’t cost much, and it gives an overview of what they are and what they believe.
prejudice on the part of us, the people who call them that. if u read about even the academic research (which is supposed to be unbiased) on religions, they avoid the term cult but they have the equivalent term new religious movement, which is defined in ways designed to make sure that the bahai and mormons are NOT included in this category. in fact some scholars simply define NRMs are all religions that have arisen since the bahai one. u can, i hope, see that this is completely unscientific. the cults are indeed often shocking, like the crazies who all committed suicide or the other crazies who fought the u.s. govt in waco or the yet other ones who launched chemical or biological attacks in japan that killed many people–yet if you think about it how is any crazier than small groups of jews taking on the roman empire or, more to the point, an established catholic and protestant cults murdering millions of people by buring them alive for trivial doctrinal differences or, as is well documented, for disliking the taste of pork (the idea was that if u did not want to eat pork, u were secretly a jew or muslim)? or crazier than the things that are currently taught by well-established muslim or christian or jewish or other cults in iran or … in the united states? we have people here who represent millions and who influence our foreign policy (at least when gop is in power) who firmly believe–or claim to believe–that the way to get jesus to come back is to get the jews into an apocalyptic war in which they will be largely destroyed and who apparently think that encouraging extremist policies in israel is the way to do this.
I have thought about this for years. I used to be part of a cult They have much knowledge about the bible. However I soon learned that any other thoughts except for their teachings was not acceptable. They thought they were the only ones who would go to heaven and considered the few people of that faith in the whole city as being the only ones who were right. I left because I did not feel that I belonged there. There were other things happening too that did not line up with the bible. The Holy Spirit guided me away.
Many religions are like that too so I don’t feel that I have answered your question sufficiently. I can only say that if they do not line up with the bible and do not gve you free will to worship as you choose then something is not right. Pray over it.
Acceptance.
Acceptance by the masses. Acceptance by the other religions. Acceptance that it is and will be a great way to worship.
May you be blessed.
There is no perfect dividing line. In my own opinion you can tell a cult from a religion by how much it relies on leaders and peer pressure to retain and teach believers. So you see all religion has *some* cult like characteristics. Some more than others. However the more a religion relies on pressures from other members of the religion to do the functions of the faith, the more cult-like it is.
Well, technically, every belief system is a cult. The word simply means a group of individuals who share a common belief. However, I know the context your using, and to me, a cult does several things,
It alienates your relationships with friends and family to isolate you
It deprives you of outside relationships
It requires test free loyalty to a leader, who is deemed infallible
It takes away personal freedom to choose ( clothing, spouse, etc )
It goes against morality in favour of the leader’s instruction
It removes your ability to judge for yourself
It equates testing a person or teaching with failure and shame.
An organized religion is a group of people who come together BECAUSE they share similar beliefs and doctrines already, and choose to go to a particular place to practise it.