What is the difference between a cult and a religion?

Answer 1

There basically is none they are all cults!! Believe in yourself and what your heart tells you not some book written by people you have never met!

Answer 2

Here are the dictionary definitions of each.

Religion:1 a: the state of a religious b (1): the service and worship of God or the supernatural (2): commitment or devotion to religious faith or observance2: a personal set or institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices3archaic : scrupulous conformity : conscientiousness4: a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith.

Cult: 1: formal religious veneration : worship2: a system of religious beliefs and ritual; also : its body of adherents3: a religion regarded as unorthodox or spurious; also : its body of adherents4: a system for the cure of disease based on dogma set forth by its promulgator 5 a: great devotion to a person, idea, object, movement, or work (as a film or book); especially : such devotion regarded as a literary or intellectual fad b: the object of such devotion c: a usually small group of people characterized by such devotion.

So.. pretty much any religion can be considered a cult, but not every cult can be considered a religion.

Answer 3

A person can have his own private religion.
A cult is usually a group of people following the ideas and sharing similar beliefs of a leading individual. A motorcycle gang could be a cult as many other social gatherings or associations.

Answer 4

A cult is a group too small to be called a religion or a denomination of a religion.

Answer 5

A cult would be defined as a religious entity that carries on in secret (think Jim Jones, David Koresh, Heavens Gate, etc.)
These people do not come knocking at your door trying to tell you the "good news" of God's Kingdom. Matt 24:14.

In Newsweek magazine it said that cults “are normally small, fringe groups whose members derive their identity and purpose from a single, charismatic individual.”

Cults are generally understood to be religious groups with radical views and practices that clash with what is accepted today as normal social behavior. Usually they conduct their religious activities in secrecy. Many of these cultic groups actually isolate themselves in communes. Their devotion to a self-proclaimed human leader is likely to be unconditional and exclusive. Often these leaders boast of having been divinely chosen or even of being themselves divine in nature.

Answer 6

The difference between religion and cults is determined by how much real estate is owned

Answer 7

Basically time and followers. There are two ways to look at cults, harmless and harmful. The harmless ones tend to either die out after the first generation of believers and lead die, or they continue until they are recognized as a religion. The harmful ones are generally focused around a central leader and demand/inspire/brainwash unthinking loyalty.

Answer 8

Semantics. Etymologically, they mean more or less the same thing.

Religion - from the Latin "religionem" - "respect for what is sacred, reverence for the gods."

Cult - from Latin "cultus" - "care, cultivation, worship."

The word "cult" has a negative connotation in popular usage, and as such is applied to religions one wishes to marginalize. But as shown above, it only means "care" or "worship," and is therefore synonymous with "religion."

And note how I get thumbed down for stating plain, uneditorialized matters of fact. "Religious" people don't always have respect for what is true.

Answer 9

A religion is a cult that was successful dear.
Or a cult is a religion that failed....

Answer 10

Who you are following.

A religion is one that is following a diety or Christ... the Son of God. A cult is a sect who is following a man or leader. Now if that man is following Christ it can be a good thing... but in most cases the man is leading them away from Christ and to himself.

Jer. 17:5 Thus saith the LORD; Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the LORD.
6 For he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh; but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land and not inhabited.
7 Blessed is the man that trusteth in the LORD, and whose hope the LORD is.
8 For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit.
9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?

Answer 11

Cults:

http://www.carm.org/cults.htm