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Jinn · 03-31-2006, 09:59 AM

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Cults are groups that often exploit members psychologically and/or financially, typically by making members comply with leadership's demands through certain types of psychological manipulation, popularly called mind control, and through the inculcation of deep-seated anxious dependency on the group and its leaders.

Pray to me or you'll burn in the fiery pits of hell? Go to Church or you'll be damned forever? Sounds like a deep-seated anxious dependency on the group and it's leaders. Check.

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"A cult is a group or movement exhibiting a great or excessive devotion or dedication to some person, idea or thing

Jesus, anyone?

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and employing unethically manipulative techniques of persuasion and control (e.g. isolation from former friends and family, debilitation, use of special methods to heighten suggestibility and subservience, powerful group pressures, information management, suspension of individuality or critical judgement, promotion of total dependency on the group and fear of [consequences of] leaving it, etc) designed to advance the goals of the group's leaders to the actual or possible detriment of members, their families, or the community."

I don't even need to address this one.

The only reason for using "cult" is so that you can label religions that don't agree with yours. It's a way of dividing "us" from "them," kinda like your usage of "troll".

And I'm not the only one who thinks it.

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Should we even use the term "cult?" There is a great deal of disagreement on this question. On the one hand, it's a common term which everyone recognizes and to which everyone can attach some meaning. On the other hand, most of those meanings are largely negative in nature, thus "cult" has become almost pejorative. Commonly, religious defenders - usually Christian apologists - use the term "cult" as cudgel to attack small religious groups or, even worse, minority Christian faiths which do not adhere to all the traditional Christian doctrines. Thus, even the Mormons are regarded by many as a "cult." (When the Southern Baptists held their convention in Salt Lake City, they engaged in extensive efforts to evangelize and convert Mormons).

http://atheism.about.com/library/FAQ...on_cultdef.htm

EDIT: By the way...why did you take the excerpt above out of a wiki article and conveniently omit the beginning of the article?

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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 possible reasons.

(emphasis mine)

Or even this?

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Some groups use the word to label other groups that they consider to be at variance with their own doctrine, or that they consider to be competition. Some groups called "cults" by some critics may consider themselves not to be "cults", but may also consider some other groups to be "cults".

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.