(December 14, 2016 at 5:00 pm)Catholic_Lady Wrote: Is there specific criteria that qualifies something as a cult?
The main things that differentiate a cult from a religion, are: a cult usually has a single charismatic authoritarian leader. And there is usually some level of isolation of cult members from family and friends.
Some cults also refuse to work within existing social structures of society.
You'd believe if you just opened your heart" is a terrible argument for religion. It's basically saying, "If you bias yourself enough, you can convince yourself that this is true." If religion were true, people wouldn't need faith to believe it -- it would be supported by good evidence.