An unfortunate term, commonly used by people whenever discussing and analyzing religion, has been the word, ‘cult’. Whenever the majority of folks make use of this term, it really is little more than an adult, more polite version of the First Grader’s term “poopy headâ€. In other words: it is intended to come across insulting, while making virtually no sense at all.. The reason for this is actually very effortless to see.
In the eyes of Christian Protestant fundamentalists, if you are not following the concepts from the Christian faith strictly, you are a cult. Their original intent may have been to merely belittle the other ‘wrong’ Christian denominations, but by their narrow guidelines, all Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, etcetera (nearly two thirds of the planet’s population) are, in their eyes, cults.
Unfortunately, that's only part of the problem. Together with arguments over issues such as the number of sacraments, Protestant fundamentalists consider neither Roman Catholicism nor any of the Eastern Orthodox faiths to be following the bible faithfully there are. That makes roughly ninety three percent of humanity to be members of a cult. Finally, these people also think the majority of the other Christian Protestants to have drifted from biblical fidelity By their definition, the only ones who aren’t belonging to cults are them!
If viewed from the outside, it’s easy to assume that anyone who adheres to the strict doctrines that a lot of the religions, have clearly lost their ability to think straight, so consequently must have been brainwashed by a cult. The iron is that all of these ‘cult followers’ look at their biblically strict, narrow-minded accusers as being the genuine cults. When you put it all together, and put a check in all of the boxes, we’re ALL in a cult! The Baptists are pointing fingers at the Catholics who're pointing fingers towards the Protestants â€" and pretty much everyone is pointing fingers at the Mormons.
How useful is a distinction that fits everyone? You might as well just call them all doodyheads!
So, is there any way to redeem the word, so that it has some meaning of value? The main issue is that those creating the definitions are missing neutrality. They've got an agenda. What we need is another person to provide us a neutral means for identifying a cult â€" a person devoid of personal interest What we need is to have a neutral 3rd party to give us parameters for identifying a cult. One such individual could be referred to as a ‘religion anthropologist’.
This particular person (or group) studies religion looking from a scientific viewpoint. Sometimes they have got a particular religion to which they adhere, and some times they do not. This will make some members of the organized religions rather uncomfortable. If the anthropologist is a member of a religion â€" any religion â€" the others scream “bias! bias!â€, and anything the anthropologist says must be wrong because they have a personal bias.|If it happens that that particular person belongs to a particular religion, all the others shout, ‘Bias! Bias! -- and ignores anything stated.
However, if said neutral individual doesn’t have a specific religion, that other people shout, “Atheist! Atheist! â€" making anything stated irrelevant on the basis of an automatic opposition to all religious beliefs. Drama and accusation aside, how do these neutral parties define cults?
Essentially, most anthropologists use a ‘five point system’ in determining whether or not a specific group â€" religious or otherwise â€" needs to be classified as being a cult. These five points are usually presented in question form regarding the group.
The Questions are:
1. Is there a charismatic, strong leader in control?
2. Does the group squash individuality along with independent thinking?
Three. Does the group pressure members to end/avoid friends as well as relatives who do not belong?
Four. Do they apply financial pressure and abuse for the welfare of the group, even at the personal expense of the adherent?
5. Is there a separation as well as isolation from the nearby community?
The issue with this method is that it’s still not completely black and white. If all 5 questions are answered “yesâ€, then it definitely qualifies as being a cult. If not a single one of these questions are answered “yesâ€, then it's undeniably certain the group is not a cult. If only it were that easy. The hard part is when, as is the case with most groups, the answer is “yes†to some number of questions between those 2 extremes. You can pretty much view it all on a ‘sliding scale’, in which the more yes responses you find, the greater the likelihood it is that the group under review needs to be classified as a cult any solid answers, so the best we can do is really a sort of sliding scale.
Let’s have a look at some situations you may perhaps already have heard about.
1 Case Study of a Cult -- The People’s Temple. This is the name of the church founded by the Reverend James Warren “Jim†Jones â€" over nine hundred folks that killed themselves at Jonestown, Guyana in 1978.
Take into consideration those ‘five questions’|Ask yourself the aforementioned five questions:
(a). They had Jones as a leader â€" strong as well as charming.
(b) they thought as a group and were not permitted to generate any ideas to call their own.
(c) Friends as well as relatives were kept at arm’s length, and not being involved in any church activities;
(d) they had been basically forced to give all they owned to the church, who took care of the necessities the church perceived them to have. As well as finally,
(e) When they could no longer maintain their isolation from their neighbors, they moved to a jungle deep in South America.
They uniquivocably meet all five of criteria. The People’s Temple was a cult.
The next Case Study is the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Founded in the late 1800s by Charles Taze Russell, these are the folks that you are likely to come across when they knock on your door.
Again, consider the ‘5 questions’:
(a) They don’t have a particular leader, charismastic or otherwise.
(b) Since independent Bible review is the core of their religion, they don’t have any type of ‘group think’ policy.
(c) Witnesses ask people they don’t know along with relatives to share what they believe they've learned;
(d) While it is frequently true that Witnesses commit a lot of their time and energy in pursuit of converting other people, there does not appear to be any financial pressure â€" not any more so than any other church promotes tithing.
(e) It's their lack of separation from their nearby community that often has them at odds with their neighbors.
They rate a zero on the list, so they are clearly not a cult.
Bottom Line: determining properly whether a group is actually a cult is unrelated to their biblical interpretations, and must instead be made on sociological criteria unrelated to the spiritual beliefs of the group. Groups adjudged to be cults may or may not be dangerous. There's no causative relationship, although anything that encourages you to subjugate your ability to think for yourself, is not good for the soul.
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