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 ?
The only difference between religions and cults is the size.
And age!
I was told it’s time.
Scientology is pretty new, and pretty big.
~3/4 century.
Not much relatively but they’re getting there.
On the age scale, they’re barely a blip. On the size scale, they’re massive enough to disappear people with zero accountability.
They’re a full-blown religion.
Do they still have the abulity to do that? they seem to have been way more quite recently or they could just seem less crazy compared to the general state of the world.
The only difference is the person using the word.
The difference is the likelihood any given person overhearing could be offended.
Depending on whether offense is intended.
In practice it doesn’t matter
Nah, cults have other characteristics too, like a particularly charismatic leader, a tendency to have an extreme us-vs-them mentality, a desire for isolation rather than spreading the ‘good word’ far and wide, etc. There are definitely things that distinguish a cult of 100 people from a religion of 100 people, for example.