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All religions are cults (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter IC FBGCav
- Start date
Peyton Marino
Footballguy
this should be good.
SaintsInDome2006
Footballguy
Keith R
The Don
True. Learned in college that size controls. Cults < sects < denominations
That is the denotation. Of course, the word "cult" has become loaded with connotations since being introduced to the English language, but if we are only looking at the definitions, only the smallest religons could be considered cults.
Psychopav
Help us, Joebi-Wan Brynobi, you're our only ho
SaintsInDome2006
Footballguy
To answer the question - a cult need not be religious.
Think of the word cultivate, it has the same root, it means to tend to a particular practice, so basically a cult adheres to a practice or set of rituals. A cult is just a set of practices. You can have a cult of personality, a cult of vegetarians, a cult of people at your office who go to the bathroom but don't wash their hands.
A religion pretty much means people are tied to an institution of some kind, that is a set of ideas that have been institutionalized not an actual Vatican or HQ or anything like that; there must be some center whoever/whatever that might be and it must be formalized. I think even 10 people could form a religion, so long as they agree they are tied to a set of beliefs.
Think of the word cultivate, it has the same root, it means to tend to a particular practice, so basically a cult adheres to a practice or set of rituals. A cult is just a set of practices. You can have a cult of personality, a cult of vegetarians, a cult of people at your office who go to the bathroom but don't wash their hands.
A religion pretty much means people are tied to an institution of some kind, that is a set of ideas that have been institutionalized not an actual Vatican or HQ or anything like that; there must be some center whoever/whatever that might be and it must be formalized. I think even 10 people could form a religion, so long as they agree they are tied to a set of beliefs.
Lutherman2112
Footballguy
There are thousands of Christian denominations worldwide, but I wouldn't call Christianity a cult. However, I do believe cults based on Christianity exist. For example, the Branch Davidians were an offshoot of the Davidian Seventh-day Adventists, which was an earlier offshoot of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.
Much easier for a cult leader to start with set of beliefs to expand upon rather than start from scratch.
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Lutherman2112
Footballguy
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IC FBGCav
Footballguy
Lutherman2112
Footballguy
You have solved your own question. Churches and religions do interpret rules for God.
Cults apply those rules and interpret them to their people.
IC FBGCav
Footballguy
Lutherman2112
Footballguy
FUBAR
Footballguy
checklist:
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CowboysFromHell
Footballguy
It's amazing how much that definition of a cult fits one major organized religion. Can you guess which one?
Lutherman2112
Footballguy
Hmmmm.....Cowboysfromhell posted......let me think......Satanism?It's amazing how much that definition of a cult fits one major organized religion. Can you guess which one?
Long Ball Larry
Footballguy
CowboysFromHell
Footballguy
FUBAR
Footballguy
wazoo11
Footballguy
tommyboy
Footballguy
yes, you are.
"a quasi-religious organization using devious psychological techniques to gain and control adherents"
you'd have to make the case the buddhism, islam, christianity, shintoism, hinduism and other major religions are that defintion above.
Officer Pete Malloy
Footballguy
So what happens if someone says "None of this is true...it is nothing more than mythology"?
Officer Pete Malloy
Footballguy
Pretty sure every major religion in the world today started off/was once called a "cult".
wikkidpissah
Footballguy
God knows...
proninja
Footballguy
What about denominations who adhere to a confession's interpretation of scripture?
Also (not directed at you, roboto) this discussion is dumb, it's an argument about the definition of a word.
Mister CIA
Footballguy
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wikkidpissah
Footballguy
Religion would be one of the most interesting subjects to discuss - being that it is the largest obstacle to civilization moving forward, yet the loss of its structure being the largest reason civilization is currently falling backward - if debate didnt invariably devolve into offensive defensiveness. Dont think this is the way in to changing that.
IC FBGCav
Footballguy
G
General Tso
Guest
I always found it comical that anything that relies on beliefs in the supernatural and thousand year old texts can be definitive about anything. It's not too hard to see how this could result in cult-like behaviors.
I rail a lot against religion but I guess it isn't all bad. The's a great episode in Through the Wormhole where religious beliefs are traced to the evolutionary need for human beings to advance through the strengthening of social covenants at the expense of individual desires. Researchers did a pretty cool experiment where they observed that people exerted much more self control when subliminal suggestions of religion were introduced. http://youtu.be/sR0nB6F86tE
Or, as Neitzsche said, "Religion is the opiate of the people".
I rail a lot against religion but I guess it isn't all bad. The's a great episode in Through the Wormhole where religious beliefs are traced to the evolutionary need for human beings to advance through the strengthening of social covenants at the expense of individual desires. Researchers did a pretty cool experiment where they observed that people exerted much more self control when subliminal suggestions of religion were introduced. http://youtu.be/sR0nB6F86tE
Or, as Neitzsche said, "Religion is the opiate of the people".
SproutDaddy
Footballguy
Karl Marx said that. Not Nietzsche.
G
General Tso
Guest
Right. Neitzsche said "God is dead". I get my atheists mixed up sometimes.
SaintsInDome2006
Footballguy
Wow, who said that? The Roman and Grekk gods were in several instances or in groups definitely religions. There were also some cults, just like today. The pantheon of whom they worshipped was just far more more diverse than what we have today.
SaintsInDome2006
Footballguy
That is likely true. Christianity started out as a mystery cult. Islam started out as a rich guy who got his tribe to believe he was uttering the words of God for profit and power. The Jews may have had more of a claim to an original religion if they came out of the monotheistic religion of Akhenaten, though that's not solid.
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Tom Servo
Nittany Beavers
Uh...no.
If you have a beef with that, take it up with God, because He said it, not me.
SaintsInDome2006
Footballguy
The first point establishes that cults and religions are not equivalent. If the OP wanted to say that religion is weird, fakey and pernicious he should have just said so, however cults and religions are two different things though. There are religious cults, but they are religious (have some qualities of religions, especially rites or rituals) not actual religions.
Tom Servo
Nittany Beavers
Also not correct. The apostles were originally Jews and many of the early converts were Jews. Rome recognized that Christianity was an offshoot of Judism.
SaintsInDome2006
Footballguy
Hm, not sure about that. Also I'm not sure if you're implying that a mystery cult is inherently Roman in nature. But in any event there were non-Jewish adherents in the first 70 years, that's a big part of the debate in Acts and St. Paul's Letters especially.
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The Commish
Footballguy
So much stinky bait 
I can't look away!!!
I can't look away!!!
Jayrok
Footballguy
I believe that Christianity, as we know it today, is the product of the redactors (church in Rome) who successfully unified the Jewish-Christian (who had Peter) and the Gnostic-Christian (Saul/Paul) camps in the first part of the second century. Of those two, I'd say the Pauline-Christian group was more like a "mystery" cult. The Roman church united the Jewish roots of the movement with hellenistic-modern ideas and I believe Marcion, though not credited by history, had a massive impact on the formation of modern Christianity. The other key player, who's influence also was lost to history, is Simon Magus.
Acts was written, in part, to soften the Paul of the epistles and show he was more in line with the Jewish messianic movement by showing he was indeed subordinate to the Jerusalem Apostles...which differed in character from the Paul in Galatians, for instance.
Yes, there were non-Jewish adherents early on... mystery cults.. some labeled heretics, but not before some of their beliefs were grafted in to what became Roman Catholic Christianity.
SaintsInDome2006
Footballguy
Thanks, great post. - I might just add I never got the impression that St. Paul was shown to be in line with or subordinating himself with the Jewish adherents in any way, quite the opposite. He often seems derisive and dismissive of them, maybe reluctantly acceding to the greater body only when called down by the leaders (eg Peter), and I guess you're right you do see that in Acts. But that's a whole other issue, thanks for the follow-up, interesting.
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JZilla
Footballguy
Not to mention a Religion Haters Haters Cult
(I don't think the definition fits. It may be like a giant cult, but there are no billion people cults)
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Jayrok
Footballguy
Paul is defiant and "not in the least inferior to the super apostles" (2 Cor) in the epistles, where he teaches that the law is a barrier to God and abolished by Jesus' acts of grace on the cross, essentially replacing the law with grace. He is sent to and fro by the apostles and other churches in Acts. He is instructed, by the Jerusalem Apostles, to purify himself with 4 other men because local Jews, zealous for the law, heard he was teaching that Jews should not circumcise their children or live according to jewish customs. So he is instructed to purify himself to show the jews that the rumors were not true and he (Paul) himself is living in obedience to the law.
He circumcises Timothy in Acts as not to offend the jews who knew Timothy's father was greek. I can't imagine he would do this sort of thing in the epistles, given the way he talks about circumcision in Galatians. But anyway, the Paul of Acts and the epistles are different in character. But I believe there is a method to the madness.
