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So the difference between a religion and a cult is size?
If you believe in it, it is a religion or perhaps 'the' religion; if you do not care one way or another about it, it is a sect; but if you fear and hate it, it is a cult. A cult is a religion, usually smaller and newer than yours, that you don't like.
The word "cult" has little use outside the realm of religious mudslinging. When someone uses it, it usually says more about them than the group he's trying to defame.
You see that is the key "secure in his own beliefs"
I don't believe that anyone should have to try to denean someone else's position to make theirs look good. If they have to do that, they don’t have a position. As it applies to this thread, the word "cult" is intended to belittle and offend. I see it as mudslinging. It's not difficult to explain why you don't agree with what someone else believes without having to attach a negative on them to make your point.
You do not need poison in your Kool Aid to poison a person's mind.
Would you mind explaining what you mean by the phrase "poison a person's mind"? I think that's a really important phrase and I would like to know how you're using it.
If you believe in it, it is a religion or perhaps 'the' religion; if you do not care one way or another about it, it is a sect
That's untrue, isn't it. It's still a religion even if you don't care.
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but if you fear and hate it, it is a cult.
...or a sect.
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A cult is a religion, usually smaller and newer than yours, that you don't like.
A Protestant doesn't like Hinduism, a Hindu doesn't like Islam, but neither uses the word 'cult' of what he doesn't like.
There is a use for the word that Protestants have employed for a very long time- simply because it is useful, and not because it is intended to offend. There is a cult of Elvis, of Star Trek, of Napoleon, but nobody gets offended by the word 'cult' in these contexts. The criterion used is that of using the Bible as a source, but either adding to it with another source, as Mormons do, or altering its meaning with a special translation, as JWs do. Other beliefs that fall into this category are Christian Science and Seventh Day Adventism, and there are or have been many more since the 17th century.
These cults are the particular interest of Protestants, because cults often present themselves as a sort of improved Protestantism, and Protestants have every right to disabuse people of this error. A few decades ago, the media, presumably after a thorough takeover by determined antichrists, all at the same time began to describe cults as Christian, and to ignore anyone who disagreed. No doubt members of the LDS and JWs get irritated by internet Protestants who dare to contradict, but free speech is free speech. Isn't it?
In fact, most cults, especially American ones, are little more than modified Catholicism, initially re-presented in a garb more acceptable than RCism to the people among whom they first took root; though most cults have adapted considerably to societal developments over the years. Cults took over where Catholicism failed, due to its unpopularity in democracies, due to its inherent inability to adapt to modernity. Though cults often truthfully and even savagely censured Catholicism, they hypocritically shared the Catholic teaching of justification by works, they shared hierarchies that dictate to members- though without the obvious pomp and ceremony of Catholicism. Justification by works is of course directly in contradiction of the gospel, and of Protestantism. So the ignorant imagined that here was a fresh new religion that must be right because it opposed that awful priest-ridden Catholicism, and had more life in it than those moribund Protestant denominations who could never agree with each other anyway. The devil offered and offers all sorts of drinks in his bar, but they were and remain all poisonous.
For those who are less theologically aware, the practical cult difference is one of membership. One has to be a member to be saved, they say, because, like the RCC, we, the organisation, are the means of God's grace. Christianity says that his grace is free to all, without any human intervention except provision of the gospel, and only when one is already converted by that gospel does one, can one, join a church.
Would you mind explaining what you mean by the phrase "poison a person's mind"? I think that's a really important phrase and I would like to know how you're using it.
You had describe true cults to be like Jim Jones and the People's Temple.
In those cults people did die, Jim Jones used poisoned laced Kool Aid to kill.
I was merely stating one did not have to murder or cause the actual death to be considered a cult; cults do a job on a person's mind.
You had describe true cults to be like Jim Jones and the People's Temple.
In those cults people did die, Jim Jones used poisoned laced Kool Aid to kill.
I was merely stating one did not have to murder or cause the actual death to be considered a cult; cults do a job on a person's mind.
And what do you mean by "cults do a job on a person's mind"? Could you be more specific? I'm not trying to be difficult. I really want to know what you think this means. I know that most atheists believe that there is not a religion on the face of this earth that does not "do a job on a person's mind." If you are religious, does your religion not "do a job on a person's mind"?
And what do you mean by "cults do a job on a person's mind"?
The usual way if putting it is that cults brainwash their members. It's often an intensive process, with coaching and a set syllabus to be learned, with social rewards for those who accept the syllabus without much question, and sanctions against those who do ask a lot of questions.
Not unlike the Catholic method of recruitment, as it happens.
The usual way if putting it is that cults brainwash their members. It's often an intensive process, with coaching and a set syllabus to be learned, with social rewards for those who accept the syllabus without much question, and sanctions against those who do ask a lot of questions.
Not unlike the Catholic method of recruitment, as it happens.
You really do believe that most of the 2 billion people in the world today who consider themselves to be Christians are just members of one cult or another. That's why I have to reject your narrow-minded definition. It excludes more than half of Christianity. It excludes everybody but you and those who think just like you!
You really do believe that most of the 2 billion people in the world today who consider themselves to be Christians are just members of one cult or another.
How can it be otherwise? If all the people who celebrate Christmas were to behave as Christ did, it would be a different world.
I like them visiting except they are very prone to not argue, so the visits are short
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