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 ?
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.
Sounds like a cushy gig 🤣
There were no funds to manage.
Or so you kept claiming
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.
Religion and cult is basically the same thing with different connotative subtext.
The only difference between religions and cults is the size.
And age!
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
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.
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.
This is reductive at best.
I would love to see a good faith discussion on this because I’ve thought about it for a while.
Cults to Consciousness has an episode with Andrew Gold on this topic.
On religion vs cult? I can expand as a religious studies scholar
Yes please
What’s the difference between a cult and a religion?
About 100 years.
Based on maga, I would say 8 years.
Community.
They’re all groups of people with some kind of shared purpose or values. Cults are harmful and power based. Communities are helpful and consent-based. Religions can fall either way, or somewhere in the middle.
This or “support group”. Community implies those already around you. Something like AA would fit the bill for something that is similar to religion or a cult but positive and affirmative.
Support groups for sure, but I was more thinking of things like sporting clubs, dog parks, skate parks, artistic communities, soup kitchens, men’s sheds, book clubs. Third spaces.
Anything where participation is voluntary, hierarchy is absent or minimal, and people come together to share interests, resources, time, or company.
Atheism.
Technically speaking, all religions are cults. The definition of “cult” is just an organized practice of religion.
Some atheists treat atheism itself as a cult. I’d go one step further. My choice is Agnosticism.
I’m happy to say I don’t know. Maybe we are all on the back of a giant turtle. If the turtle was big enough, we wouldn’t be able to tell. It’s all good.
Some, sure. Most, no.
Atheism is simply the state of nonbelief in a deity. It requires no declaration nor even conscious thought. I don’t believe in leprechauns, but I don’t belong to an anti-leprechaun cult.
e: you’re likely atheist about Ra, Thor, Sheba, and Quetzalcoatl, right? Most atheists feel the same about Yahweh, and aren’t likely to bring it up unless you do. Most will even hold out for dozens or hundreds of times. Many Christians seem oblivious to how often they reference their religion in casual conversation. Often, Atheists only have to say it once.
Atheism is simply the state of nonbelief in a deity.
Atheism is a spectrum too. At one end you have small-a atheists who would believe in a deity if presented with compelling proof. At the other end you have people with a fervent belief in no deities who would not be persuaded by evidence.
I think you’ll find vanishingly few even fervent atheists who wouldn’t be persuaded by actual evidence. I know some percentage of fervent atheists would say if real evidence of a god were presented, they wouldn’t follow it because it’s a monster (I’m in this camp), but I don’t believe any real percentage would stick their fingers in their ears and say lalalala. That’s kind of the opposite of what atheism is about. It’s literally about evidence.
That’s kind of the opposite of what atheism is about. It’s literally about evidence.
Maybe I’m being nitpick-y, but I think you’re pointing at one small part of the whole and saying “that’s it, right there. All of it”. Atheism is literally about what you don’t do - believe in any god. Some atheists come to that point through consideration and self-reflection. Others don’t.
You’re right, and that’s fair. I guess I was talking about general atheists in one breath, then the specific vocal atheists OP seemed to be talking about in another.
I shouldn’t generalise like that. Atheism is simply the lack of belief in a god – any god. And there are many gods. You can be atheistic about any of them.
What you are referring to, is people who are called atheists, not atheism itself.
Atheism is indeed just a simple definition. If anyone does not believe in any deity, they are atheists, whether they want to or not.
It’s as simple as something being a spoon.
Now, those atheists come in various degrees. That’s what you keep referring to. That is about a measure of intensity.
Some atheists are not even aware they are. Others are proud to be and will declare so, in various degrees.
Just wanted to clear that detail up.Lotta downvotes in this thread. Seems like some of you feel like I’m disrespecting your non-beliefs. 😜
Proof of a powerful entity is just proof of something we haven’t seen before. If it can be observed directly or indirectly it becomes something that exists, which is why nothing is supernatural.
The concept of a deity can’t exist alongside proof, as they are no longer a deity.
I’m an atheist as far as real life goes but absolutely love deities and the supernatural in fiction/role playing games like D&D, media, etc.
Newly minted atheists are like new linux users. Once they’ve broken their chains, they’re often quite loud and obnoxious about it.
You can’t really blame people who were raised in religious environments and have newly discovered intellectual freedom, though, right? Sure, they can be obnoxious sometimes, just like we all are when we learn a new thing that’s blown our minds. They’ll grow out of it, and we should have patience, like in all things.
That’s the “some” I had in mind, and you’re right.
Same here… but I guess I could also be considered atheist in some ways. It really depends on what your definition of a god is. Maybe we are in a simulation created by something else, but if we were manufactured it seems more likely the creator was as imperfect as we are.
It’s all terminology and labels.
Do you belong to a theology? No? Then you’re an atheist. But that label has a stigma, so some opt for a different label.
Are you gnostic? No? Then you’re agnostic. No one talks about gnosticism out of religeon or philosophy, so they know what you mean. But the subjects of gnosticism and theism are two different things.
But it also feels oversimplified when I put it that way, since these things a less black and white and fall more on a spectrum.
That said, do you play golf? No? Then you may also be an a-golfer, an a-tee-ist.
Which label you chose may be based on how much the stigma bothers you or how much of a troll you are.
I’d go one step further to gnosticism.
Cult = listen to my communications with God
Religion = let’s all get together and approximate communication with God
Gnosticism = communicate with God.
The definition of cult is not an organized practice of religion.
This is a r/atheism edge lord response.
Maybe you should try picking up a fucking dictionary.
Merriam Webster:
-
a religion regarded as unorthodox or spurious
-
great devotion to a person, idea, object, movement, or work (such as a film or book)
-
system of religious beliefs and ritual also its body of adherents
OP clearly didn’t mean definition three nor does the average person. Your aggressive response is childish. Maybe grow up?
When the major religions start practicing what they actually preach, then maybe they wouldn’t also fall into the first definition. What many do is both unorthodox and spurious.
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Everything doesn’t have to have an opposite, you know.
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.
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.
Logic.
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.
Cults and religion are the same. The only thing that differentiate them is time. If you have a systematic set of illogical beliefs that have been around for a few years or decades or even just one lifetime, it’s more likely to be called a cult. Give that group a lot more time and it will be called a religion.
As for your question … I don’t think it’s anything the opposite of religion / cult but rather which belief system. I think as humans, we will always come up with some sort of belief system because we will always want to. We’re just wired that way.
And to me the best belief system is one where we value one another no matter what, who, where, why or how. That includes honoring, respecting even those who don’t believe what you do. A belief system where we honor all life, human, animal and organic. A belief system where we do our best not to harm one another or any life around us.
If we could that, then following a religion wouldn’t be so bad because the belief system would be used to actually benefit all life.
Science
Science club!
Removed by mod
A cult is basically just a religion that is not large or old enough to force people to take it seriously. It just so happens that small, new religions are also extremely volatile and unstable and prone to extremely stupid decisions
Not everything has an opposite. That is a trap of binary thinking.
Intellectual freedom, with an appreciation of philosophy and scientific inquiry.
