Whats the difference between a cult and a religion?

[Zidneya]

Technically all religions are cults. A cult is just a religion that has not been around for as long and does not have as many members. All major religions started out as cults. Christianity, for example, started out as many small cults. (It is a common misconception that xtianity was originally unified and then split up into denominations over time -- nope -- there never was a unified xtianity.)

There are other criteria where we can examine the way that a cult operates and determine the degree to which the group controls its members. Robert J. Lifton, Steve Hassan, and many more have established criteria that we can use to analyze a particular group. Some groups are much more controlling than others.

Another common misconception is that all cults are religious -- that is -- having a theological or "woo-woo" component to the operation -- not so. There are non-religious cults. A common example is the Ayn Randians. Multi-level-marketing scams are very cultish and most of them do not contain a religious component. There have been therapy cults that have developed in which the members have an unhealthy level of devotion to a therapy group, its leader, and methodology.

A cult need not be dangerously controlling to be a cult. We can observe many harmless cults, for example new age stuff in which the group enjoys an individualist epistemology and no designated leader -- cult-lite, perhaps, but still a cult and they are all still goof-a-noodles in the shit that they believe.

Here is a great list of criteria for a cult -- 100 (count 'em) categories:

http://www.orange-papers.org/orange-cult_q0.html

Ohh... if only we could convince religious people to acknowledge this elements in their belief system and regognize that religions are cults