Dec 15 2011

How to tell the difference

Categories:

Religion

by PZ Myers

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(via Sac City Freethinkers.)

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59 comments

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1

Sandiseattle

15 December 2011 at 9:05 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Point? or just FYI to everyone?
2

anchor

15 December 2011 at 9:19 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Looks like astigmatism…which is what prevents people from seeing the relevant self-same and cleanly single circlular region.
3

anchor

15 December 2011 at 9:21 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Uh…”circular region” [cleans glasses].
4

Sandiseattle

15 December 2011 at 9:24 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

sad thing is, i read ‘circlular’ as ‘circular’. It’s the thought that counts maybe?
5

Sastra

15 December 2011 at 9:25 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Cults appear to be made of religious people who forgot that religion is kind of kidding around about all that stuff it says.
6

larsrasmussen

15 December 2011 at 9:33 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

The difference between cult and religion is just a matter of time.
7

starskeptic

15 December 2011 at 9:35 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

..well – religions are just cults with more members…
8

erikjensen

15 December 2011 at 9:37 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

I used to buy the idea that a religion is just a really big cult. But one of my friends (admittedly a small sample size) joined a cult. He gave up all his money and possessions to the cult, temporarily lost his ability to reason, was not allowed to make any important life decisions (job, living arrangement, female friends, etc.), and had almost no contact with any people outside the cult except for the purpose of recruitment. These are common characteristics of cults, not characteristics of small and non-mainstream religions like maybe Bahai, Parsi, or Wicca.

I don’t care what people believe. I care how they behave (their politics, how they treat one another, how they treat non-believers, etc.). I just can’t put a Presbyterian in the same category as a Branch Davidian.
9

ariamezzo

15 December 2011 at 9:48 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

I have a friend who used to be pretty reasonable and rational, and then she joined the cult of Zeitgeist and now she’s a Holier Than Thou tool preaching that we can reach utopia if we just get rid of money. I’m the irrational one because society has blinded me and has conditioned me to think inside the box so I’ll remain enslaved to money.

/facepalm
10

starskeptic

15 December 2011 at 9:49 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

…religions are cults with visitation rights…
11

crowepps

15 December 2011 at 9:50 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

@ erikjensen
Any difference between your friend’s experience and, say, becoming a cloistered nun?

Those are common characteristics of abusive cults, but I’m sure you could find at least one Wicca group out there, or group of ultra orthodox jews led by a charismatic rabbi, or Prebyterian megachurch with a superstar pastor, that had all of those some rules for their converts as well.
12

timberwoof

15 December 2011 at 9:53 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

This guy has a way to classify organizations according to their cultiness: http://www.neopagan.net/ABCDEF.html
It’s a series of questions based on his definition of cult which is more nuanced than just “a religion without a lot real estate”. A lot of the questions illustrate the dangers of cults.
13

copasetic38

15 December 2011 at 9:56 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

I lol’d. Much better bed time material than depressing rape statistics.
14

erikjensen

15 December 2011 at 10:03 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

@crowepps
I’d say there is a continuum here. The individual nunnery or group of orthodox Jews could certainly be cult-like. My point is that there are serious, practical differences among religious groups and that the term “cult” has meaning to me. If my kids at 18 joined the Wiccans, I’d just find it odd. If they joined the Branch Davidians, I would abduct them.
15

Zinc Avenger

15 December 2011 at 10:07 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Of course cults and religions are different.

Every religion wishes it was a cult.
16

Sastra

15 December 2011 at 10:09 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

There are some technical details which are supposed to differentiate cults from less destructive or extreme versions of religion:

Robert Lifton defined five tried and true methods destructive groups use to ensnare and keep their flocks corralled (Lifton, 1989).
1)Totalism – This is an us against them philosophy, which is used to achieve complete separation from the past, which is portrayed as filled with the satanic or unenlightened.

2) Environmental Control – Everything that perspective recruits see, eat, and do every waking minute is carefully manipulated.

3) Loading the Language – This is the jargon of the cult, which take the form of quick easy phrases and statements that only have meaning to the cultists. Such jargon encourages isolationism and cloning.

4) Demand for Purity – All actions are judged by the cult’s definition of purity, which is crafted by the leadership to suit their needs. Such definitions are applied in an absolute, black and white, manner. Anything is acceptable in the pursuit of this purity.

5) Mystical Leadership – The cult leader endows himself with a mystical mantle, often an agent of divine powers on Earth. Confession and denunciation to the leader are ingrained. The victim acquires a pawn-like attitude, wherein devotion and obedience to the leader supersede standards of morality or self-preservation, even unto choices of life and death.
(http://www.theness.com/cult.html)

I’ve also seen cults defined in terms of deception — meaning, more so than the usual supernatural b.s.

There is one characteristic, however, that all true cults seem to share, and that is the deliberate use of deception. The details of their belief system are revealed to recruits only in stages, calculated to draw them in, step by step, without scaring them off up front. You have to reach the inner circle (level 5) of Scientology, for example, before you learn that we are all allegedly possessed by the banished spirits of alien beings, and that this is the true cause of human suffering. Mainstream beliefs, rather, are completely up front with their beliefs and make no attempt to conceal them.

(Not sure where I got that last clip from)
17

SallyStrange, Spawn of Cthulhu

15 December 2011 at 10:09 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

A cult is an embryonic religion.

The particularly violent ones are miscarriages.

God is definitely pro-choice when it comes to religions.

It’s the evolution of religion!
18

Jafafa Hots

15 December 2011 at 10:11 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

It’s actually much simpler.

If you’re in it it’s a religion. If you’re not in it it’s a cult.
19

Sastra

15 December 2011 at 10:15 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

If I watch it, it’s a movie: if you watch it, it’s a cult classic.
20

osmosis

15 December 2011 at 10:51 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

One side of my family is caught up in a cult, and I can say with confidence that a cult is not merely ‘a group with which I disagree.’
It’s about living in a fantasy world and denying basic realities that everyone else accepts.
21

Woof

15 December 2011 at 10:59 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Religion: A tax-exempt cult.
22

shouldbeworking

15 December 2011 at 11:14 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

I couldn’t tell the difference between a cult and religion until I had to go to a cousin’s funeral. My aunt was religious and would speak to a nonbeliever, a cousin tried to convert me.
23

raven

15 December 2011 at 11:15 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

A cult is the church down the street.

There might be a difference between cults and religions but there is a huge amount of overlap.

The worst are what are known as mind control abusive cults. The Jehovah’s Witlessnesses and Mormons are among them. One defining characteristic of abusive cults is how hard it is to leave them.

If it is hard, it is an abusive cult. You can leave the Mormons or JW’s but it might cost you your family and all your friends.
24

SallyStrange, Spawn of Cthulhu

15 December 2011 at 11:26 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

It’s about living in a fantasy world and denying basic realities that everyone else accepts.

For a religion, it’s basic realities that some people accept, and lots of other people also deny.
25

mikeg

15 December 2011 at 11:28 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Hitch has died.

http://spinozasbicycle.blogspot.com/2011/12/horseman-has-gone-forth.html
26

magistramarla

15 December 2011 at 11:30 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Hey guys,
I just read that Christopher Hitchens died today.
A great mind in the freethinking world has passed.
27

johnlee

15 December 2011 at 11:43 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

I’ve just woken up to see the sad news about Christopher Hitchens.
A true giant. Goodbye, Christopher, and thank you for the wit.
28

raven

15 December 2011 at 11:44 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

I just read that Christopher Hitchens died today.
A great mind in the freethinking world has passed.

Sad.

That sound you hear in the distance are the xian ghouls gathering.
29

jimmythe hat

15 December 2011 at 11:52 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Off topic, but this needs to be said. After the seizure of some climate deniers computers and equipment in relation to the infamous Climategate hack, Anthony Watts has sent his flying horde of screaming monkeys to harass and in one instance, so far, issue a death threat over at Greg Laden’s blog. He seems sort of shaken up.

Anthony Watts

Greg Laden
30

Wishful Thinking Rules All

16 December 2011 at 12:27 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Off topic as well, but I just heard Hitchens died. Fuck.
31

Snivelling Little Ratfaced Git

16 December 2011 at 12:31 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Damn. Fucking cancer. Bullet got the wrong bloke.
32

CompulsoryAccount7746

16 December 2011 at 12:48 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Another distinction that circulates in Anthro iirc:
– Religions primarily gain members through birthrate, and insist they’re the vital foundation of the community.
– Cults primarily depend on converts, and condemn the rest of society (expecting to one day replace it or watch it all end).
33

tkreacher

16 December 2011 at 12:49 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

I have nothing eloquent prepared. I’ve had a bit too much to drink.

I still need to say something.

Hitchens was near the top, well, no, probably the top of my list of favorite orators/writers on the subject of religion alive.

Like all of us, from literal star stuff back to star stuff – no fucking magical nonsense need be involved. That is awe inspiring and wondrous enough.
34

hannahkp

16 December 2011 at 1:04 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

How very sad. Here’s to you Hitchens, one of the greatest thinkers of our time. You will be missed.
35

Jem

16 December 2011 at 1:15 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Hitchens was the man. He was an eloquent and fierce writer and speaker. His death is a great loss to the world. I’ve had a few drinks in his honor tonight and about to commence watching some of his best moments on youtube.
36

anchor

16 December 2011 at 1:50 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

I just saw Hitch is gone.

I wish there were words. Man, there’s just no preparing for it, no matter how inured one is to expectation or the inevitability of it. He’d have known what to say (he always did) and the silence speaks, deafening
37

The Rat King

16 December 2011 at 1:50 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

All things die, what is important is how we live.

Hitchens lived strong.

Here’s to your memory, Christopher. Slainte!
38

Aquaria

16 December 2011 at 2:32 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

1)Totalism – This is an us against them philosophy, which is used to achieve complete separation from the past, which is portrayed as filled with the satanic or unenlightened.

2) Environmental Control – Everything that perspective recruits see, eat, and do every waking minute is carefully manipulated.

3) Loading the Language – This is the jargon of the cult, which take the form of quick easy phrases and statements that only have meaning to the cultists. Such jargon encourages isolationism and cloning.

4) Demand for Purity – All actions are judged by the cult’s definition of purity, which is crafted by the leadership to suit their needs. Such definitions are applied in an absolute, black and white, manner. Anything is acceptable in the pursuit of this purity.

5) Mystical Leadership – The cult leader endows himself with a mystical mantle, often an agent of divine powers on Earth. Confession and denunciation to the leader are ingrained. The victim acquires a pawn-like attitude, wherein devotion and obedience to the leader supersede standards of morality or self-preservation, even unto choices of life and death.
(http://www.theness.com/cult.html)

Christer fundies, in a nutshell. Also the GOP.
39

Aquaria

16 December 2011 at 2:37 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Aw, man. Hitch is dead. Didn’t always agree with him, but I was in awe of his writing ability and his fierce stand for atheism. His “down on his lousy knees” runs in my head whenever I see yet another christer foaming at the mouth about the gays, and then when they’re caught.
40

rwgate

16 December 2011 at 2:50 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Just checking email before calling it a night, and I saw in the NYT that Hitchens had died. I didn’t always agree with him, at least as far as his support for the war in Iraq, I used to read him regularly in the Nation. His book “God is Not Great” is on my bedside table, well worn, and soon to be read again.

He will be missed.
41

chrisdevries

16 December 2011 at 3:04 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

RIP Christopher Hitchens

He was always the most contrarian of the Four Horsemen, and I did not always agree with his positions, but damn, he could write. His greatest legacy are the thousands of people for whom that writing proved pivotal in ending their relationship with religion. I knew this day was coming soon and am glad that his suffering is finally over.
42

orchestrator

16 December 2011 at 3:12 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Having on the one hand played organ for many different church services, and on the other being raised in the San Francisco Bay Area with its many many cults, I think the distinction between a church and a cult is pretty obvious. To conflate the two is not only sloppy thinking, but dangerous in a way.

Here’s the reason – if we take the tack that there’s virtually no difference between a cult and a religion, then how can we distinguish which one of our friends needs to be rescued? And please, no cracks like “huh huh, all of them” – I’m of an age where people that I knew went to South America with Jim Jones and literally “drank the KoolAid.” No, it’s a serious situation. The other reality is this: to equate the two may harshen the definition of the word “religion,” but it thereby softens the definition of the word “cult.” And real, dangerous, brainwashing cults exist, are much more harsh and destructive in an immediate way on their members than most widespread religions.

If you want a real distinction, it’s whom do they prey upon? In the case of religion, it’s pretty much anyone they can get in the door, with a steadily aging average. In the case of cults, it’s quite often the young and unsuspecting, who can be easily exploited, often in extremely horrible ways – sexual abuse, brainwashing, and mass suicide being the most obvious. I’ll grant that many mainstream religions have anywhere from a touch to a double helping of cult-like interference in their communicants lives, but we as skeptics should at least exercise our skepticism on the notion that all cults equal all religions in every important way.
43

osmosis

16 December 2011 at 4:13 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Fundamentalist churches are all cults, almost by definition. Once you start denying scientific knowledge because it conflicts with your interpretation of genesis, you’re hooped.

It’s a very slippery slope: denial of evolution requires denial of the science underlying it. You can’t just deny the evolution part, you must also deny the fossil record, radiometric dating, and on it goes. Before long you pretty much deny all of science.
44

crissakentavr

16 December 2011 at 4:17 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

This is the chart of someone intellectually weak, not the argument of a scientist or skeptic.

I’m quite a bit disappointed. Cults don’t require mysticism or deities or symbology, even.

The comments have the answers, tho, so no need to repeat.
45

'Tis Himself, OM

16 December 2011 at 4:58 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Goodbye, Hitch. Sic transit gloria mundi.
46

tsig

16 December 2011 at 5:46 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Cults are more fun religion makes more money
47

terryg

16 December 2011 at 6:04 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

So sad to hear about Hitch. It really disoriented me for a minute – I was (am) listening to “Stephen Fry & Friends on Christopher Hitchen” when I read about him, here. Thank you sir, for your eloquent fury.
48

AussieMike

16 December 2011 at 6:38 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

A great way to remember Hitchens…and he sings at the end!!

http://www.youtube.com/user/hitchenschannel
49

jentokulano

16 December 2011 at 7:57 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

#20 One side of my family is caught up in a cult, and I can say with confidence that a cult is not merely ‘a group with which I disagree.’ It’s about living in a fantasy world and denying basic realities that everyone else accepts.

Still, defines religion. I can substitute my family for what you said (particularly the family member involved with J Dobson).
50

holytape

16 December 2011 at 8:10 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Fucking cancer.
51

peterh

16 December 2011 at 8:11 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Shouldn’t that slice on the left read “mainstream grudging and/or indifferent acceptance”?
52

steve oberski

16 December 2011 at 8:40 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Religion: large, popular cult

Cult: small, unpopular religion
53

eddyline

16 December 2011 at 9:28 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Some wit once wrote “the main difference between a religion and a cult is whether its prophet is alive or dead.”
54

Doubting Thomas

16 December 2011 at 9:59 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

I tried my 3D glasses on it. Religion still looks like bullshit.
55

orchestrator

16 December 2011 at 12:39 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

People are really missing the point here. I think we all distrust and despise religion so much that we are willing to reserve any kind of critical thinking about it, myself included.

However, the distinction between a cult and a religion is a big one. A religion is exoteric – in other words, everyone in a specific culture is expected to know its rules and abide by them. The sacred texts are a part of everyday life, with places and people named after the legendary figures in those texts (“Ain’t that right, Joe-Bob?”). In essence, the function of religion is to regulate mass culture, and keep us all in line.

On the other hand, cults are esoteric. They are essentially mysterious, in the ancient sense of the word – they have “mysteries,” which are only revealed little by little as the communicant becomes ever more devoted. This devotion is tested by a set of trials, after which the cult member becomes part of the ruling body. Often, membership in such cults is kept secret from society, or at least low-key. The hoi-polloi are not welcome.

That’s the difference in a nutshell. And just because we are able, with the benefit of the internet, to immediately find out everything there is to know about a cult, doesn’t mean that now all cults are equal to religion. They aren’t (read my previous comment above). One uses the machinery of common culture to effect thought control, while the other uses aggressive tactics that usually divorce its members from common culture. The two can be mixed, but that does not make them the same identical practices.
56

chigau (違う)

16 December 2011 at 1:24 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

orchestrator

On the other hand, cults are esoteric. They are essentially mysterious, in the ancient sense of the word – they have “mysteries,” which are only revealed little by little as the communicant becomes ever more devoted. This devotion is tested by a set of trials, after which the cult member becomes part of the ruling body. Often, membership in such cults is kept secret from society, or at least low-key. The hoi-polloi are not welcome.

So Roman Catholicism is a cult?
57

orchestrator

16 December 2011 at 2:16 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

chigau

Look up the definitions of esoteric and exoteric – that is the thrust of my statement. And I acknowledge that religions and cults blur the lines between them.

Please don’t be one of those debaters that pecks at side issues. Acknowledge or debate the worth of the basic meaning of your adversary’s point.
58

leonpeyre

16 December 2011 at 3:05 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

The artist forgot to include “Demands financial sacrifices from its members”.
59

Sili

16 December 2011 at 6:08 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

A religion is a cult with an army and a navy.