(February 23, 2018 at 10:36 am)Tobie Wrote:(February 23, 2018 at 4:52 am)Fake Messiah Wrote: Christian Cults? So what's the difference between a cult and religion? Number of followers? If it has few thousands it's a cult but if it has millions it's a religion - right?
I think in cults the central figure has to be alive and real.
So that means Jehovah's Witnesses are not a cult, since their central figure is what? Dead?
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"