TLDR - what’s the question mark in the following scale
Cult(-1)……………….Religion(0)……………….???(+1)
Long version (a.k.a my stupid mind’s question that is keeping me awake):
My understanding of cult is a group of people with an absurd or even possibly nefarious belief system. Like something negative.
By that definition I would put religion in the middle (though a majority of it leans towards the cult side). A group of people that is very serious about what they believe in, no matter how illogical it is.
So with this understanding what would you call the positive side ? A group of people coming together to have a tradition and belief system just for the fun of it ? Is there such thing ?
Not everything has an opposite. That is a trap of binary thinking.
An individual who thinks and acts rationally and who doesn’t try to manipulate others.
Club
Normal society
ITT: no cult scholars. I am not one either.
I watch a lot of Knitting Cult Lady’s content and I’ve read her book. From that I have a pretty good idea of what a cult is, which is an extreme form of group.
So I guess the opposite of a cult would be a solitary individual.
One point I keep seeing in these comments is religion. Religion isn’t a cult, it’s an idea. That ideology can be used by cults, but the idea itself isn’t a cult. You can believe the idea all by yourself you don’t HAVE to be part of the group.
Yes [insert religious group you’re thinking of] is probably a cult. But it isn’t one because of the idea, it’s one because of controlling behavior and exploited labor and a bunch of other reasons.
Normal lol
I’ll answer your question with two more questions:
What’s the opposite of a rat king? What’s the opposite of an ant mill?
Also I have to question your whole premise of the relationship between religion and cult. Where a cult is the bad kind of something and a religion is the neutral, default kind.
A religion is just the final form of a successful cult that got big enough and old enough that it no longer needs to take the drastic “cult-like” measures to restrict its members and separate them from society- because it has thoroughly infiltrated and colonizied that society to such an extent that being born into that society is enough.
The opposite of an oppressing group believing in farytales is atheism. It’s weird there’s a name for not believing bullshit, but there it is. Every religion is a cult, they are just of different scales.
I think of cults as more of systems of control. MLMs, jobs (Theranos), large-group awareness training (nxivm), political groups (Maga), exercise groups (CrossFit), fandoms, book clubs, families, online groups, etc can all be cults.
I suggest the podcast IndoctriNation by Rachel Bernstein to see many ways these “system of control” as she calls them can manifest.
I personally think that cult behavior is just normal behavior taken to the extreme so there really isn’t an opposite. Maybe being alone with no relationships.
The various types of groups we are on family, friends, work, recreational, etc have various controls on how you act and speak. This isn’t necessarily bad. You probably want to be a little different with family than with your hobby group. I explained the broader meaning of cults to my Dad and he said the Marines have those aspects. I think an important part to know if a group is probably fine is if you can leave with no issues. If there are consequences to leaving the group that’s a huge red flag.
I suggest looking at the BITE Model of Authoritarian Control. Which is a useful tool to check if a group is a cult. You can read up on problems with this tool, but it’s still a good starting point.
There are different kinds of cults. Cult is a different thing from religion. It doesn’t belong on the same axis. But we can continue the thought if we define it as religious cult.
The scale is about excessive binding, control, rituals, restrictions, belief systems. If the left is the extreme, then towards the right we have weaker restrictions upon the belief system. The belief becomes weaker, and the beliefs do not have to restrict other and own people’s activities and beliefs.
Religion in the middle makes no sense. It should be the label on the scale. “Religious extremism” or similar. Maybe narrow, restrictive, totalitarian.
I don’t know specific terminology for the right side. Maybe open or unrestrictive practice of religion.
What’s the difference between a cult and a religion?
About 100 years.
Based on maga, I would say 8 years.
Philosophy debate club with no membership
I actually think you’ve nailed the task with this
Yeah they were probably the only one in their philosophy debate club
I was made treasurer of the philosophy club by emailing the list at college to join. We met one time because the president and VP were excited someone joined.
There were no funds to manage.
There were no funds to manage.
Or so you kept claiming
Sounds like a cushy gig 🤣
I’d never want to be part of any club that’d have me as a member
I have a good mind to join a club and beat you over the head with it.
Your scale is off there… it should probably be more like:
cult(-100)...religion(-80).................atheism(0).................?'A group of people that is very serious about what they believe in, no matter how illogical it is.
It’s pretty easy to invert that statement: a group of people that is very unserious about what they believe in? That would be folks like DIscordians, the Church of the SubGenius, Pastafarians, etc.
A cult is just a religion that’s too small to have sects and too young to have legitimacy.
When people started worshiping a guy nailed to a torture device and said he was God, the Romans thought they were lunatics, because that’s genuinely unsettling. The eating his body thing doesn’t help either. It’s just that they won.
Philosophy?
I think this is closest to correct. If the metric is that cult members are kind of duped to go along with group think and philosophy is the practice of questioning belief and thought processes.
That positions philosophy as the meta-analysis end of the scale and cults as the automatic.
