The cults

[Nakosis]

MAybe she was speaking of cults as a regular religion not destructive.

Cult: : a religion regarded as unorthodox or spurious. Spurious, basically false.

Whatever religion a person feels as false they might call a cult.

So this thread being about dangerous/destructive, false religious groups. Though I suspect there are folks who see any religious belief as dangerous and or destructive.

Who sees Christianity as the most dangerous cult on the planet?
And, is it more dangerous than Scientology?

 

[Riders]

Cult: : a religion regarded as unorthodox or spurious. Spurious, basically false.

Whatever religion a person feels as false they might call a cult.

So this thread being about dangerous/destructive, false religious groups. Though I suspect there are folks who see any religious belief as dangerous and or destructive.

Who sees Christianity as the most dangerous cult on the planet?
And, is it more dangerous than Scientology?

Well its true there are going to be people here who look at this idea from different viewpoints. i don't see Christianity as a cult. I criticize it alot but not a cult except some churches. My old Pentecostal church, Pentecostal churches who have a strict dress code like mine did and you have to speak in tongues to get saved its a cult, Christian science os, FLDS, Im not sure about the LDS, different Christian groups, the AMish, depends on what group.

I don't believe the main stream Baptist churches are cults but I do believe they are very very mislead and a false church represent themselves as truth.

 

[lostwanderingsoul]

How the hell are Paganism and Zen Buddhism cults? Paganism isn't even an organized religion and there's no authority that all Neopagans recognize.

Just saying. How do you define a cult and why are they bad?

 

[Riders]

Just saying. How do you define a cult and why are they bad?

I guess if you use the term for regular religion then all religions are cults, that would not be bad. But add destructive cults, and they are groups who one way or another hold you hostage to the church, by physically not letting you leave if you in their commune or holding you hostage by threatening you with hell.

My old church for instance did, they said those who left the church, who were addicts before or had issues before they were in church would go back out and get into trouble again with their addictions and issues.

Some of my old Pentecostal churches threatened with hell fire, were the only ones who are going to heaven, every other church , they use to say that Trinity mainstream churches were actually Pagan and under the rule of the Catholic church. Your going to hell if you leave the church.

Other ways, would be like brainwash like my church did by praying in tongues and crying and running around loud Christian emotional music for hours, its a form of mind control, they wouldn't let us leave till the service was through and you were brainwashed by the end of the service, no one goes home till we are all talking in tongues.

Once they started praying over you there was no getting out. There were constant bible studies going to church every other day etc. That type of thing.........yes it was an escape for me truly like cults are for alot of people.

 

[dianaiad]

"Cult" is a word that, basically, means 'your beliefs are weird and I don't like you." Everybody who seriously uses the word has a list of things that a group must be in order to qualify as a 'cult,' very much as fundamentalist Christians have a list of things that 'must be believed' in order to be a 'real' Christian. All those lists differ from one another, from person to person. Shoot, I've even seen such lists differ within the same person, depending upon the time of day or mood.

But they all boil down to this: "cult" means "your beliefs are weird and I don't like you," and "Christian" means "someone who believes the same things I do."

Now this thread has, it seems, been full of people who are, sort of, making the point I am here, but they are being funnier about it.

The fact is, every single religious belief is a 'cult,' according to every single dictionary out there. There IS no list of things that 'must be believed" in order to make a group a 'cult." The word tells us something very clear...not about the group being labeled, but about the one doing the labeling.

ALL that said, if we are going to get specific, perhaps we should wonder which extreme religious group is the most dangerous to themselves and others, physically. I have one or two nominees, actually....and Scientology might be on it, because of the 'sea org." the FLDS might be...but they have been so incredibly clobbered and embarrassed by their leadership that I don't think they are more dangerous than the weird "we got stuck in the sixties" hippie commune living in the hills about fifty miles from me. ANY group which blindsides and brainwashes the membership and encourages things like 'shunning,' etc., can be dangerous.

But once you start throwing the "c" word around, pretty much every group I know about has been targeted. Shoot, I know one group that absolutely insists that Catholicism is a 'cult,' in the pejorative sense of the word. Certainly my own belief system has been called one, and so has every Protestant group out there, by those who don't happen to agree with beliefs or practices. You know..."your beliefs are weird and I don't like you."

Cult.

What happens to groups which are labeled 'cults,' by the greater society around them? Hang in there. I'll tell you. After their leader is arrested and sentenced for child abuse (he was guilty of that, no question), the commune in which his victims live is invaded on the pretext of a phone call they knew was fraudulent, by SWAT teams, snipers, canine/cop teams in full riot gear with tanks at the ready, and all the women and children (remember, these were the victims of said child abuse...) were put on Baptist church buses

and hauled away to detention centers, children...even nursing babies...taken from their mothers. Even after the state of Texas was told, in no uncertain terms, that what they did was unconstitutional and illegal, the state refused to release the women and children because...."if we release them, we won't be able to hunt around and see if there is anything we can use to keep holding them."

Remember; these women and children were supposed to have been the VICTIMS, and the alleged perpetrators were left behind in the compound, able to do whatever they wanted, including leaving the area.

And this was celebrated and supported, because of course the FLDS was/is a cult. Therefore they deserved what they got. Right?

So while I don't have a problem acknowledging that there ARE dangerous and extreme groups out there, I have a real problem with the word 'cult.' It allows way too much freedom in making people one doesn't like into targets, whether they really are 'extreme' or not.

BTW. I am not FLDS. I don't LIKE the FLDS. Their beliefs are weird and I don't like the culture they have developed.
But I really, really, REALLY don't like what happened to them...and the way what happened to them was allowed, supported, encouraged and downright celebrated. And that is what happens to groups that everybody else thinks of as a 'cult.'

 

[Riders]

"Cult" is a word that, basically, means 'your beliefs are weird and I don't like you." Everybody who seriously uses the word has a list of things that a group must be in order to qualify as a 'cult,' very much as fundamentalist Christians have a list of things that 'must be believed' in order to be a 'real' Christian. All those lists differ from one another, from person to person. Shoot, I've even seen such lists differ within the same person, depending upon the time of day or mood.

But they all boil down to this: "cult" means "your beliefs are weird and I don't like you," and "Christian" means "someone who believes the same things I do."

Now this thread has, it seems, been full of people who are, sort of, making the point I am here, but they are being funnier about it.

The fact is, every single religious belief is a 'cult,' according to every single dictionary out there. There IS no list of things that 'must be believed" in order to make a group a 'cult." The word tells us something very clear...not about the group being labeled, but about the one doing the labeling.

ALL that said, if we are going to get specific, perhaps we should wonder which extreme religious group is the most dangerous to themselves and others, physically. I have one or two nominees, actually....and Scientology might be on it, because of the 'sea org." the FLDS might be...but they have been so incredibly clobbered and embarrassed by their leadership that I don't think they are more dangerous than the weird "we got stuck in the sixties" hippie commune living in the hills about fifty miles from me. ANY group which blindsides and brainwashes the membership and encourages things like 'shunning,' etc., can be dangerous.

But once you start throwing the "c" word around, pretty much every group I know about has been targeted. Shoot, I know one group that absolutely insists that Catholicism is a 'cult,' in the pejorative sense of the word. Certainly my own belief system has been called one, and so has every Protestant group out there, by those who don't happen to agree with beliefs or practices. You know..."your beliefs are weird and I don't like you."

Cult.

What happens to groups which are labeled 'cults,' by the greater society around them? Hang in there. I'll tell you. After their leader is arrested and sentenced for child abuse (he was guilty of that, no question), the commune in which his victims live is invaded on the pretext of a phone call they knew was fraudulent, by SWAT teams, snipers, canine/cop teams in full riot gear with tanks at the ready, and all the women and children (remember, these were the victims of said child abuse...) were put on Baptist church buses

and hauled away to detention centers, children...even nursing babies...taken from their mothers. Even after the state of Texas was told, in no uncertain terms, that what they did was unconstitutional and illegal, the state refused to release the women and children because...."if we release them, we won't be able to hunt around and see if there is anything we can use to keep holding them."

Remember; these women and children were supposed to have been the VICTIMS, and the alleged perpetrators were left behind in the compound, able to do whatever they wanted, including leaving the area.

And this was celebrated and supported, because of course the FLDS was/is a cult. Therefore they deserved what they got. Right?

So while I don't have a problem acknowledging that there ARE dangerous and extreme groups out there, I have a real problem with the word 'cult.' It allows way too much freedom in making people one doesn't like into targets, whether they really are 'extreme' or not.

BTW. I am not FLDS. I don't LIKE the FLDS. Their beliefs are weird and I don't like the culture they have developed.
But I really, really, REALLY don't like what happened to them...and the way what happened to them was allowed, supported, encouraged and downright celebrated. And that is what happens to groups that everybody else thinks of as a 'cult.'

And if you were to ask any ex Scientologist or X FLDS folks being pursued and followed by Scientology and FLDS as they do Im sure they would not agree with you. Your not gonna tell me my old church was not scary and destructive either sorry. We've been held in the church against our wills for long periods and it was very scary, you have no idea.

 

[whirlingmerc]

So what are the major big cults which are most dangerous in the country of the USA today? Id say Scientology is up there and any terrorist groups like Muslim terrorists, not regular Muslims but the extremists,FLDs? Which ones and what is being done about it?

How are we as a society affected by cults? Id like to start a series of threads or maybe just this one dedicated to ideas in dealing with cult life.I was a member of the UPC church some consider it extreme Fundamentalism, I believe its a cult, the ones with dress codes are.

You have to be baptized their way the name of Jesus instead of the Name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost and speak in tongues and dress their dress code to be saved.

So does anyone here who has survived a cult have any opinions on the worst and what can be done about it.

The student handbook in Urbana Il had some good advice. If you see a guru like figure who takes away your individual responsibility for your decisions you should have some healthy caution

I would be a bit cautious calling groups cults. Some people use it in a technical theological sense. Some in a sociological sense. It might be too broad a brush stoke to be helpful sometimes.

I would also be a bit cautious with the word fundamentalism. There is not a precise definition and it's often used to caricature groups

 

[RedhorseWoman]

Just saying. How do you define a cult and why are they bad?

Again, I think that "high control religion" is a better descriptor. Cult is too general to be particularly useful in determining the "cult status" of any religion, IMO.

Here is a list of qualifiers from the FreedomOfMind website that are often used to determine if a sect is actually a "cult" or "high control religion."

The BITE Model
I. Behavior Control
II. Information Control
III. Thought Control
IV. Emotional Control



Behavior Control

1. Regulate individual’s physical reality
2. Dictate where, how, and with whom the member lives and associates or isolates
3. When, how and with whom the member has sex
4. Control types of clothing and hairstyles
5. Regulate diet - food and drink, hunger and/or fasting
6. Manipulation and deprivation of sleep
7. Financial exploitation, manipulation or dependence
8. Restrict leisure, entertainment, vacation time
9. Major time spent with group indoctrination and rituals and/or self indoctrination including the Internet
10. Permission required for major decisions
11. Thoughts, feelings, and activities (of self and others) reported to superiors
12. Rewards and punishments used to modify behaviors, both positive and negative
13. Discourage individualism, encourage group-think
14. Impose rigid rules and regulations
15. Instill dependency and obedience
16. Threaten harm to family and friends
17. Force individual to rape or be raped
18. Instill dependency and obedience
19. Encourage and engage in corporal punishment

Information Control
1. Deception:
a. Deliberately withhold information
b. Distort information to make it more acceptable
c. Systematically lie to the cult member
2. Minimize or discourage access to non-cult sources of information, including:
a. Internet, TV, radio, books, articles, newspapers, magazines, other media
b.Critical information
c. Former members
d. Keep members busy so they don’t have time to think and investigate
e. Control through cell phone with texting, calls, internet tracking
3. Compartmentalize information into Outsider vs. Insider doctrines
a. Ensure that information is not freely accessible
b.Control information at different levels and missions within group
c. Allow only leadership to decide who needs to know what and when
4. Encourage spying on other members
a. Impose a buddy system to monitor and control member
b.Report deviant thoughts, feelings and actions to leadership
c. Ensure that individual behavior is monitored by group
5. Extensive use of cult-generated information and propaganda, including:
a. Newsletters, magazines, journals, audiotapes, videotapes, YouTube, movies and other media
b.Misquoting statements or using them out of context from non-cult sources
6. Unethical use of confession
a. Information about sins used to disrupt and/or dissolve identity boundaries
b. Withholding forgiveness or absolution
c. Manipulation of memory, possible false memories
Thought Control
1. Require members to internalize the group’s doctrine as truth
a. Adopting the group's ‘map of reality’ as reality
b. Instill black and white thinking
c. Decide between good vs. evil
d. Organize people into us vs. them (insiders vs. outsiders)
2.Change person’s name and identity
3. Use of loaded language and clichés which constrict knowledge, stop critical thoughts and reduce complexities into platitudinous buzz words
4. Encourage only ‘good and proper’ thoughts
5. Hypnotic techniques are used to alter mental states, undermine critical thinking and even to age regress the member
6. Memories are manipulated and false memories are created
7. Teaching thought-stopping techniques which shut down reality testing by stopping negative thoughts and allowing only positive thoughts, including:
a. Denial, rationalization, justification, wishful thinking
b. Chanting
c. Meditating
d. Praying
e. Speaking in tongues
f. Singing or humming
8. Rejection of rational analysis, critical thinking, constructive criticism
9. Forbid critical questions about leader, doctrine, or policy allowed
10. Labeling alternative belief systems as illegitimate, evil, or not useful
Emotional Control
1. Manipulate and narrow the range of feelings – some emotions and/or needs are deemed as evil, wrong or selfish
2. Teach emotion-stopping techniques to block feelings of homesickness, anger, doubt
3. Make the person feel that problems are always their own fault, never the leader’s or the group’s fault
4. Promote feelings of guilt or unworthiness, such as
a. Identity guilt
b. You are not living up to your potential
c. Your family is deficient
d. Your past is suspect
e. Your affiliations are unwise
f. Your thoughts, feelings, actions are irrelevant or selfish
g. Social guilt
h. Historical guilt
5. Instill fear, such as fear of:
a. Thinking independently
b. The outside world
c. Enemies
d. Losing one’s salvation
e. Leaving or being shunned by the group
f. Other’s disapproval
6. Extremes of emotional highs and lows – love bombing and praise one moment and then declaring you are horrible sinner
7. Ritualistic and sometimes public confession of sins
8. Phobia indoctrination: inculcating irrational fears about leaving the group or questioning the leader’s authority
a. No happiness or fulfillment possible outside of the group
b. Terrible consequences if you leave: hell, demon possession, incurable diseases, accidents, suicide, insanity, 10,000 reincarnations, etc.
c. Shunning of those who leave; fear of being rejected by friends, peers, and family
d. Never a legitimate reason to leave; those who leave are weak, undisciplined, unspiritual, worldly, brainwashed by family or counselor, or seduced by money, sex, or rock and roll
e. Threats of harm to ex-member and family

A group need not meet all of these criteria, but any group that coincides with a number of these points is one to be wary of.

 

[dianaiad]

And if you were to ask any ex Scientologist or X FLDS folks being pursued and followed by Scientology and FLDS as they do Im sure they would not agree with you. Your not gonna tell me my old church was not scary and destructive either sorry. We've been held in the church against our wills for long periods and it was very scary, you have no idea.

I'm not disputing your experiences, or that some groups are not very dangerous. I'm not going to tell you that your 'old church' was not scary and destructive. I believe you when you say it was. However, from many of the responses you got to your OP, which utterly dismissed your description of the dangerous nature of your 'old church,' you need to think about the difference between the word 'cult,' and "dangerous and destructive." They aren't synonymous. The word 'cult' is too....er....squishy to use. One cannot be precise, OR explain just how nasty a group actually is, with 'cult.' Remember: every group has been called a 'cult' by somebody.

My response, then, wasn't a defense of your old church, or calling you mistaken when you described how nasty it was. I was just explaining how 'cult' doesn't help you explain how nasty it was, and perhaps why so many posters reacted with jokes about the word, instead of engaging with you about the reality of the extremism of the church you got out of.

There are extremist groups out there, for certain. Some are religious. Some are political. Some are nastier than employing psychological mind-numbing. Some get really, really ugly. ....and some of us are just believers in a doctrine that the folks around us don't agree with, think are weird and don't like.

When that happens, persecution can also happen, and when people who believe in 'ugly' things get persecuted, then the ugliness of their doctrine/practices get washed over.

Look at me: I know very well that the FLDS has ugly beliefs and practices: forced marriages of young girls (which is why Jeffs is in jail...) throwing young men who are utterly unprepared for the outside world out of their system because there just aren't enough women to supply the 'need,' shunning, ....all those very bad, extreme, behaviors and beliefs.

But when the society around them figures that the 'cult' label justifies SWAT teams and snipers, and nobody thinks twice about how all the VICTIMS of this raid were 'arrested' and confined in detention centers, separated from their children....I hope that you can see that this has, to anybody with two thoughts to rub together, completely overridden the 'ugliness' of their beliefs. They are now the victims of a gross injustice, not the perpetrators.

That all came about because of the word 'cult.' I still don't like their beliefs or their practices, but because of that raid....because someone around them used "cult," the constitution was thrown right out the window...

They really should not have used the Baptist buses, y'know?

 

[RedhorseWoman]

My old church for instance did, they said those who left the church, who were addicts before or had issues before they were in church would go back out and get into trouble again with their addictions and issues.

.

This is something that might possibly have some validity. From what I've observed, many people suffering with addictions who join a high control religion simply switch their addiction to a religious addiction and probably tend to be some of the most zealous members.

If they leave, they've never really learned how to deal with their addictive personalities, so it's quite likely that they could revert to old familiar behaviors simply because they've never really learned how to deal with their addictions.

On the other hand, JWs who leave are generally considered to have left because they couldn't live up to the high moral standards of the religion and because they wanted to engage in immoral behavior. It's difficult to convince an active JW that anyone could leave simply because they no longer agreed with the beliefs of the group or because they discovered that the organization's ethics and morals were not up to par.

 

[RedhorseWoman]

"Cult" is a word that, basically, means 'your beliefs are weird and I don't like you." Everybody who seriously uses the word has a list of things that a group must be in order to qualify as a 'cult,' very much as fundamentalist Christians have a list of things that 'must be believed' in order to be a 'real' Christian. All those lists differ from one another, from person to person. Shoot, I've even seen such lists differ within the same person, depending upon the time of day or mood.

But they all boil down to this: "cult" means "your beliefs are weird and I don't like you," and "Christian" means "someone who believes the same things I do."

Now this thread has, it seems, been full of people who are, sort of, making the point I am here, but they are being funnier about it.

The fact is, every single religious belief is a 'cult,' according to every single dictionary out there. There IS no list of things that 'must be believed" in order to make a group a 'cult." The word tells us something very clear...not about the group being labeled, but about the one doing the labeling.

ALL that said, if we are going to get specific, perhaps we should wonder which extreme religious group is the most dangerous to themselves and others, physically. I have one or two nominees, actually....and Scientology might be on it, because of the 'sea org." the FLDS might be...but they have been so incredibly clobbered and embarrassed by their leadership that I don't think they are more dangerous than the weird "we got stuck in the sixties" hippie commune living in the hills about fifty miles from me. ANY group which blindsides and brainwashes the membership and encourages things like 'shunning,' etc., can be dangerous.

But once you start throwing the "c" word around, pretty much every group I know about has been targeted. Shoot, I know one group that absolutely insists that Catholicism is a 'cult,' in the pejorative sense of the word. Certainly my own belief system has been called one, and so has every Protestant group out there, by those who don't happen to agree with beliefs or practices. You know..."your beliefs are weird and I don't like you."

Cult.

What happens to groups which are labeled 'cults,' by the greater society around them? Hang in there. I'll tell you. After their leader is arrested and sentenced for child abuse (he was guilty of that, no question), the commune in which his victims live is invaded on the pretext of a phone call they knew was fraudulent, by SWAT teams, snipers, canine/cop teams in full riot gear with tanks at the ready, and all the women and children (remember, these were the victims of said child abuse...) were put on Baptist church buses

and hauled away to detention centers, children...even nursing babies...taken from their mothers. Even after the state of Texas was told, in no uncertain terms, that what they did was unconstitutional and illegal, the state refused to release the women and children because...."if we release them, we won't be able to hunt around and see if there is anything we can use to keep holding them."

Remember; these women and children were supposed to have been the VICTIMS, and the alleged perpetrators were left behind in the compound, able to do whatever they wanted, including leaving the area.

And this was celebrated and supported, because of course the FLDS was/is a cult. Therefore they deserved what they got. Right?

So while I don't have a problem acknowledging that there ARE dangerous and extreme groups out there, I have a real problem with the word 'cult.' It allows way too much freedom in making people one doesn't like into targets, whether they really are 'extreme' or not.

BTW. I am not FLDS. I don't LIKE the FLDS. Their beliefs are weird and I don't like the culture they have developed.
But I really, really, REALLY don't like what happened to them...and the way what happened to them was allowed, supported, encouraged and downright celebrated. And that is what happens to groups that everybody else thinks of as a 'cult.'

I don't think that beliefs should be the criterion for judging whether or not a religious group is dangerous or destructive. Rather than beliefs, I think that actions such as those described in the BITE model I previously posted are more indicative of whether or not a group should rightly be labelled as a cult or high control religion.

 

[lukethethird]

Cults are a reason to question all of religion.

 

[SomeRandom]

The Westboro Baptist Church?

I don’t normally use the term “cult” as a pejorative. But some hardcore sects of various religions do cause me to give them a side eyed glance every once in a while.

 

[Desert Snake]

Leah Remini.
Is speaking about other groups also.

 

[MJFlores]

So what are the major big cults which are most dangerous in the country of the USA today? Id say Scientology is up there and any terrorist groups like Muslim terrorists, not regular Muslims but the extremists,FLDs? Which ones and what is being done about it?

How are we as a society affected by cults? Id like to start a series of threads or maybe just this one dedicated to ideas in dealing with cult life.I was a member of the UPC church some consider it extreme Fundamentalism, I believe its a cult, the ones with dress codes are.

You have to be baptized their way the name of Jesus instead of the Name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost and speak in tongues and dress their dress code to be saved.

So does anyone here who has survived a cult have any opinions on the worst and what can be done about it.

Yes I believe, I did survive one.
It is a big cult with over a billion members.
I was a member because I was born to it by my parents who were then members.
Thank God, I am no longer a member!

The Council of Ephesus in 431 sanctioned the cult of the Virgin as Mother of God; the dissemination of images of the Virgin and Child, which came to embody church doctrine, soon followed.
https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/virg/hd_virg.htm

In the US there are many cults and I have read them in books, movies and documentaries.

If a religion sells baloney unproven ideas and falsehoods, I believe it should be included as a cult.
There is only one truth and many lies.

 

[BilliardsBall]

So what are the major big cults which are most dangerous in the country of the USA today? Id say Scientology is up there and any terrorist groups like Muslim terrorists, not regular Muslims but the extremists,FLDs? Which ones and what is being done about it?

How are we as a society affected by cults? Id like to start a series of threads or maybe just this one dedicated to ideas in dealing with cult life.I was a member of the UPC church some consider it extreme Fundamentalism, I believe its a cult, the ones with dress codes are.

You have to be baptized their way the name of Jesus instead of the Name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost and speak in tongues and dress their dress code to be saved.

So does anyone here who has survived a cult have any opinions on the worst and what can be done about it.

The cult of atheism is the most deadly known to man (Freud, Darwin, Stalin, Hitler, ReligiousForums.com) IMHO.

 

[dianaiad]

I don't think that beliefs should be the criterion for judging whether or not a religious group is dangerous or destructive. Rather than beliefs, I think that actions such as those described in the BITE model I previously posted are more indicative of whether or not a group should rightly be labelled as a cult or high control religion.

I like 'high control religion," It describes what the group is and why it is a problem. I don't think, however, that you got the point about the word 'cult.'

 

[Katzpur]

A lot of people use the word "cult" to refer to any group they personally disapprove of. I don't really think a religion can justifiably be called a "cult" unless there is an attempt to isolate its members from their families, friends and associates on the outside and threatens them (and it need not be a threat of physical harm) if they try to leave.

 

[Quintessence]

The cult of atheism is the most deadly known to man (Freud, Darwin, Stalin, Hitler, ReligiousForums.com) IMHO.

Um... what? On what basis do you claim that a diverse forum full of theists and atheists both is part of a "cult of atheism?" Are you trying to make a joke?

 

[ManSinha]

Um... what? On what basis do you claim that a diverse forum full of theists and atheists both is part of a "cult of atheism?" Are you trying to make a joke?

I think your answer is in the post above

A lot of people use the word "cult" to refer to any group they personally disapprove of.