Just curious to see what you guys believe the difference between a religion and a cult to be.

I've seen a few threads with people complaining about the presence of cults within Nigeria. So I'm curious how these people (and the rest of you) define a 'cult'.

So, what is a cult and what makes them so bad whilst 'religions' are so inherently 'good'?

A religion is a cult with an established hierarchy. This ensures that it can continue even after the founder/guru is no longer present.

Other than that, I see no fundamental difference.

Some cults actually become religions in their own right, e.g. Christianity was originally a Jewish cult that eventually grew into a religion. From orthodox (Roman Catholic) Christianity other cults sprang up during the time of reformation (e.g. Lutheranism), which then became established religions of their own.

exu:
I've seen a few threads with people complaining about the presence of cults within Nigeria.

Exu, is it possible that you're confusing 'secret cults' (which are very common in Nigerian Universities and frowned upon because they promote violence among youths) with 'religious cults' (which seem to be what you're asking us to define here)? Note that when Nigerians are complaining about the 'menace of cultism', they are usually referring to secret cults and not religious cults!

Apart from secret cult, there is no difference between religion and cult.

there is no difference between religion and cult whether it is secret or not.

I don't know much about the difference,because my church is so small that sometimes I feel like it's a cult.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cult

In religion and sociology, a cult is a cohesive group of people (often a relatively small and recently founded religious movement) devoted to beliefs or practices that the surrounding culture or society considers to be far outside the mainstream. Its separate status may come about either due to its novel belief system, because of its idiosyncratic practices or because it opposes the interests of the mainstream culture. Other non-religious groups may also display cult-like characteristics.

In common usage, "cult" has a negative connotation, and is generally applied to a group by its opponents, for a variety of reasons. Understandably, most, if not all, groups that are called "cults" deny this label. It has been argued that no one yet has been able to define “cult” in a way that enables the term to identify only groups that have been claimed as problematic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cult

Well i may not be able to give the textbook definition of a cult but i know for sure that it is something bad which no one will like to get involved in.
However, what i've realised about today's cult is that it has been modified so much that it doesn't involve much spiritism but people are still being brought down (killed)

For me christian cults can be defined by secret beliefs and interpretations, that they withhold from the general public.

Christian Religions tend to hold beliefs that people are open and honest about, no matter how insane and unbiblical the beliefs or interpretations.

Well we have a basic idea s to what religion is all about, but cultic groups are of such that their members tend to follow their leaders to the T. There is hardly any room for discussin as Dru suggested. Members blindly follow and it would seem there is a certain amount of brainwashing that occured.

The Branch Davidians is a perfect example. Another exampe would be Jim Jones and his followers. And there are modern cults of that nature today as well. We have recently seen them on the news.

Members are not allowed to question what the higher ones teach, or how they choose to interpret the bible. Often you'd hear them say that their present leaders have been handed down the divine "baton" so to speak.

Whats really sad about all this is that innocent family members suffer in the midst of this confusion.

Tanicarr, what is the name of this organization that you are in? Trust your instincts, most importantly, pray to God Almighty for guidance. If you suspect that your movements are curtailed by members of your organization, and you are restricted from receiving or visiting family members, then you are in a cult. Please, take note of that. Isolation is one of the ways that these organizations play on their members, and as some of us know, it is a stepping stone to abuse.

Dont delay.

The way most churches are run these days, there isnt that much difference between a cult and a church.

The bottomline is to ave a personal relationship with God.

Cults and religion are the same, the basics principle upon which every cult/religion is based is belief, The christians have their beliefs which differ from the muslims which differ from the hindus, e.t.c Weather secret or not a cult is a religion,

No real difference, but it essentially boils down to who is doing the defining.

Seun post at #6 gives a good idea of the general usage of the term these days.

What is a cult?
A cult is a splinter group or sect from the original group.

The mother off christianity in the western world (New world) is the Roman catholic. All religious denomination are splinter group of the Roman Catholic church and thus should be refered to as sects or cult.

The Roman Catholic got the name from the ancient Egiptian, Sphinx known to the early european invaders as the Holy cat which they refered to as Cat holistic or Catholic. Holy cat, Cat Holistic to Catholics.

The point is that Jews, Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhism and all others, are perpetrating a fraud and are guilty of misrepresentation for the simple fact that they refuse to give due recognition to the source of their teaching, Egipt. Not the Egipt you see today in north eastern Africa and not the impersonators who reside there today, but pre-dynastic Egipt, which birthed the 46 dynasties.

This is where all these religious doctines, churches, mosques, Synagogues, freemasonary, chapel, science, Magic, Logdes etc, etc get the teachings and stories from. And today this is spoon fed back to the people in the form of religion as if the as the originators of these things the teach, in so doing lying and deceiving the whole world, especially the Negroids(the black woolly hair people) whose ancestors are the deities mention in the religions be it in Torah, Bible or your Koran.

Re-legion emmm, well we all know the story of legion in the bible , the Demon possessed man who Jesus healed. So with re-legion the Caucasian race are basically re-aligning (which means again as in re-take, resit, return etc, etc) the people with these demonic forces.

So you have re-legion the causes of most of the conflicts in the world today and a result of one re-legion or the other.

What we have in Ancient Tamare/Africa was a way of live where we acknowledged nature and our ancestors this was not re-llegion, but our true way of live.

Today Africans, Nigerians, Afro-carribbeans, negroids, Blacks, Niggers or what ever else we have been labelled are worshipping the images of people of other races all in the name of re-legion.


The beginning ,

Every cult has their personal supernatural beliefs and you can call that religion even if it means sucking blood 24 seven.