(February 3, 2015 at 10:05 pm)IanHulett Wrote: Are there any real differences between a religion and a cult? Thanks a bunch.
It depends on what sources you're citing and whether you're using a religious definition of a cult, or a secular one, and how you determine which of the many religious/secular definitions you choose to employ.
As a very broad-brush general definition, a cult is a group that shows religious veneration or devotion to a particular person or object. In that sense, almost every religion could justifiably be a cult (every religion I can think of, anyway).
A religious definition will distinguish Us from Them by defining cults as a religious group that is unorthodox, spurious, or denies one or more of the basic tenants of the parent religion. In that sense, mainstream Christianity wouldn't be a cult, but Mormonism would be because they deny basic tenants of the Christian faith, such as the doctrine of the trinity. And to Mormons, they're not a cult, but the FLDS would be because the FLDS doesn't accept the mainstream LDS prophet (Monson) as the Prophet of God.
A secular definition of a cult would be a group that "manipulate, exploit, and control its members. Specific factors in cult behavior are said to include manipulative and authoritarian mind control over members, communal and totalistic organization, aggressive proselytizing, systematic programs of indoctrination, and perpetuation in middle-class communities."[source] They often trick members into joining under false pretenses, introduce the "real" doctrine only after the member has joined and is "proven worthy" and make leaving an arduously difficult task.
While the links below do not list the criteria to be a cult, they provide information about techniques that cults heavily rely on: mind control and thought reform. If the group you're thinking of joining or the one you're investigating meets the criteria on these lists you might be looking at a dangerous or destructive cult:
Steve Hassan's BITE Model of cult mind control
https://www.freedomofmind.com/Info/BITE/bitemodel.php
Here's a link to Robert Lifton's 8 Criteria of Thought Reform
http://www.exitsupportnetwork.com/artcls...lifton.htm
Margaret Singer's 6 Conditions for Thought Reform
http://www.csj.org/studyindex/studymindc...singer.htm
(February 3, 2015 at 11:06 pm)vorlon13 Wrote: It's clear by what is and isn't available for historical review in the Mormon archives that the church hierarchy is aware they are sitting on a huge pile of incriminating bull shit.
[snip]
Makes it a cult, a damn successful one too. Probably enough success to really stick in the craw of the Scientologists.
In terms of cultish behavior, Scientology is skewed WAY more toward the obviously destructive side since they have the structures in place to isolate people from wider society much more so than the mainstream LDS church has now, but the LDS church does exhibit a lot of very disturbing behavior that is indicative of the behavior of cults.
Teenaged X-Files obsession + Bermuda Triangle episode + Self-led school research project = Atheist.
