# Does a rational reason exist for distinguishing between "religion" and "cults"?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-a-rational-reason-exist-for-distinguishing-between-religion-and-cults/671605
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [October 18, 2013, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-a-rational-reason-exist-for-distinguishing-between-religion-and-cults/671605 "2013-10-18T20:45:44Z")
**Posts on this page:** 17
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)
#### Post date: [October 18, 2013, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-a-rational-reason-exist-for-distinguishing-between-religion-and-cults/671605/21 "2013-10-18T22:57:44Z")
> [@Kobal2](#):
>
> Also interesting (I’m learning as I tell you !) : as part of this weird legal arrangement, the archbishop of Strasbourg and the bishop of Metz are both appointed by the French President rather than the Pope. [Sez here](http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Droit_local_en_Alsace_et_en_Moselle#La_religion) it’s the only place in the world where that’s the case.
A similar situation exist in China. China allows religious groups to exist in China but it doesn’t allow any foreign control over those groups. One result of this policy is it won’t allow the Vatican City to appoint Bishops to China’s Catholic community.
In China, the Catholic Church is controlled by the [Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Patriotic_Catholic_Association) not the Vatican City. However the Catholic Church does not officially recognize the CPCA’s authority.
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### Author:  [@WilyQuixote](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WilyQuixote)
#### Post date: [October 18, 2013, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-a-rational-reason-exist-for-distinguishing-between-religion-and-cults/671605/22 "2013-10-18T23:05:05Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#):
>
> One relatively objective standard I’ve heard is that in a cult, the majority of the members converted from another faith. In a religion, the majority of the members were raised in the faith. It’s something of a rule of thumb but it does give weight to the idea that religions are generally more established in the mainstream than cults are.
That sounds like the scholars definition of “cult”, analagous to the now more widely used “New Religious Movement”, used to describe religious movements established less than 50 years ago. An organisation that young will obviously have have a majority of members who are converts. In this context, cult has a very different meaning from common usage.
It does not provide a reason for why governments (not comparative religion scholars) should differentiate between a religion and a cult.
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### Author:  [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)
#### Post date: [October 18, 2013, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-a-rational-reason-exist-for-distinguishing-between-religion-and-cults/671605/23 "2013-10-18T23:06:33Z")
I would say that a cult is the tadpole form of the religion.
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### Author:  [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)
#### Post date: [October 18, 2013, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-a-rational-reason-exist-for-distinguishing-between-religion-and-cults/671605/24 "2013-10-18T23:34:00Z")
> [@Lobohan](#):
>
> I would say that a cult is the tadpole form of the religion.
So all religions began as cults, and all cults will become religions?
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### Author:  [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)
#### Post date: [October 18, 2013, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-a-rational-reason-exist-for-distinguishing-between-religion-and-cults/671605/25 "2013-10-18T23:48:35Z")
> [@Musicat](#):
>
> So all religions began as cults, and all cults will become religions?
I would say that most religions started as cults. Or at least crazy offshoots of more established faiths.
I can’t think of one off hand that didn’t.
As for all cults turning into religions, certainly not. If it prospers it gains credibility. Take Mormonism. It’s demonstrably the work of a dirtbag grifter, but people give it weight because it’s more than a century old and has millions of adherents.
Does the Westboro Baptist Church hold hope of someday becoming a large scale religion? Probably not. Many cults peter along and just fail to thrive. Most probably die with their charismatic leader.
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### Author:  [@simster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/simster)
#### Post date: [October 19, 2013, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-a-rational-reason-exist-for-distinguishing-between-religion-and-cults/671605/26 "2013-10-19T00:40:42Z")
> [@WilyQuixote](#):
>
> Any one of these points could apply to a number of mainstream religions. The penultimate point in particular is applicable to virtually all religions.
>
> Yeah, I actually meant to write “mormons”, not Jehovah’s Witnesses -I had that Pit thread open in another tab and my mind just mixed the two around.
absolutely - to a degree - the point I was making is that the ‘cults’ as opposed to mainstream ‘run of the mill church’ exert a higher degree of control over those things - the local ‘church of christ’\* will not, for example, throw you to the curb for getting a membership at the Y or going to a christian bookstore - nor will the pastor take offense if you question some point in his sermon.
so - its the totality of those controls, the fear, etc - that make a ‘cult’ a ‘cult’ as the term is currently used.
\*an example only - I do not know what the particular denomination does or does not do, only that during my ‘born again’ phase, I was never tossed out for questions or independant study
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### Author:  [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)
#### Post date: [October 19, 2013, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-a-rational-reason-exist-for-distinguishing-between-religion-and-cults/671605/27 "2013-10-19T00:57:01Z")
> [@](#):
>
> France regards Scientology as a cult, not a religion,
I would be curious to see how that is expressed in French with an explanation by a native French speaker. Taking the Telegraph’s author’s word for it is placing a bit too much trust in an unknown “authority.”
There are four general meanings of the word cult as it is used in American English.
1. as a direct cognate translation of the Latin _cultus_, meaning any well-organized set of religious beliefs. In this sense, all the various sects and denominations of Christianity and Islam could each be called cults, as could Judaism or its individula groups, Hinduism or its individual sects, etc. (Various pronouncements coming from the Vatican upset people when they erroneously think that the RCC is using the term in the manner of definition #3 when they are actually employing it in the original Latin and someone is running it through a bad translator.)
2. any religious group with a strong connection to a living or recently-deceased leader. In this case the LDS could be called a cult only up until the death of Brigham Young, at which point the direct connection to Joseph Smith was broken. In a like manner, Christianity would be a cult of Jesus, in this sense, until the death of the first generation of Apostles.
3. a nominally religious-based group enforcing control over most to all aspects of the lives of its adherents in the manner of Jim Jones, etc.
4. any religious group opposed by various fundie groups.
If French law actually uses the word cult, (or some cognate), to indicate definition #3, then they have a basis for their laws in that it they appear to distinguish between belief, (however profound or absurd), and coercive behavior based on beliefs.
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### Author:  [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)
#### Post date: [October 19, 2013, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-a-rational-reason-exist-for-distinguishing-between-religion-and-cults/671605/28 "2013-10-19T01:59:52Z")
> [@tomndebb](#):
>
> If French law actually uses the word cult, (or some cognate), to indicate definition #3, then they have a basis for their laws in that it they appear to distinguish between belief, (however profound or absurd), and coercive behavior based on beliefs.
It doesn’t.
As I said, while we do make the same informal distinction between “religions” and what we call “sectes” as y’all, it’s meaningless legally speaking.
Efforts were made in this direction back in the 90s following a rash of Jim Jones style mass suicides instigated by the “Ordre du Temple Solaire”, which made all the headlines and prompted parliamentary inquiries to try and curb that sort of thing ; but legislators essentially ran into the same problems raised by this thread when trying to define what, exactly, made a given religious or pseudo-religious group a “noxious sect” or “coercive movement”. Much like pornography, they knew it when they saw it, but… yup.
Also, the whole freedom of religion thingy.
Hence the more recent switch in legal playbooks that led to the current indictment of Scientology, namely going after individual crimes then going from there to demonstrating that the organizations themselves are at the root of those crimes. Same process as RICO, essentially.
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### Author:  [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)
#### Post date: [October 19, 2013, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-a-rational-reason-exist-for-distinguishing-between-religion-and-cults/671605/29 "2013-10-19T04:01:02Z")
Religions don’t make it hard for you to leave. Cults do, to the degree, in some extreme cases, of locking members up at night.
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### Author:  [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)
#### Post date: [October 19, 2013, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-a-rational-reason-exist-for-distinguishing-between-religion-and-cults/671605/30 "2013-10-19T04:27:12Z")
> [@Trinopus](#):
>
> Religions don’t make it hard for you to leave.
Not true at all. Many factions of Islam will inflict retaliation up to and including death on people who convert from Islam. And Christianity’s history on the matter isn’t very nice either.
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### Author:  [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)
#### Post date: [October 19, 2013, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-a-rational-reason-exist-for-distinguishing-between-religion-and-cults/671605/31 "2013-10-19T05:09:31Z")
Oops, good point. I was thinking of U.S. experiences.
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### Author:  [@Mosier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mosier)
#### Post date: [October 19, 2013, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-a-rational-reason-exist-for-distinguishing-between-religion-and-cults/671605/32 "2013-10-19T05:09:58Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#):
>
> Not true at all. Many factions of Islam will inflict retaliation up to and including death on people who convert from Islam. And Christianity’s history on the matter isn’t very nice either.
Maybe a better clarification would be that cults seek to isolate you, while religions don’t. Or, at least not to the same degree. Or, even better, religions are social groups while cults are antisocial groups.
Edit: I wouldn’t be opposed to calling the “apostasy = death” Islamic groups a cult. There are plenty of Christian cults too, to be honest.
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### Author:  [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)
#### Post date: [October 19, 2013, 5:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-a-rational-reason-exist-for-distinguishing-between-religion-and-cults/671605/33 "2013-10-19T05:16:09Z")
Much as I enjoy mocking religion, I do think that the “cults are new, religions are old” thing is a bit facile.
For instance, if I described a particular group as “cultlike”, that certainly means SOMETHING, albeit something sometimes hard to clearly define, and it doesn’t have anything to do with whether that group game into existence 20 years ago or 200 years ago.
If a new religion popped up next year whose members lived normal lives in normal houses, retained healthy relationships with their family, were free to join or leave this religion whenever they wanted to with no pressure of any sort, knew all of the beliefs of the religion from day 1, but did go to church twice a week where they discussed how ancient Greek gods and ancient Norse gods now live in the Internet, and how best to follow their precepts towards a better life… I think it would be somewhat misleading to call it a cult.
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### Author:  [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)
#### Post date: [October 19, 2013, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-a-rational-reason-exist-for-distinguishing-between-religion-and-cults/671605/34 "2013-10-19T05:35:07Z")
> [@](#):
>
> **Der Trihs** : Many factions of Islam will inflict retaliation up to and including death on people who convert from Islam. And Christianity’s history on the matter isn’t very nice either.
Actually, modern Christianity has a good record of **not** retaliating when someone chooses to leave that denomination. (Think Anglican, United Methodist, Presbyterian, for example.) Any exceptions that include death are unfamiliar to me, although there may be some.
I have left three denominations without the least bit of a problem. I left for varying reasons – none of them theological.
Thank you for your more careful phrasing.
**WilyQuixote** , welcome to the Straight Dope! Are you related to Donkey Honky?
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### Author:  [@WilyQuixote](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WilyQuixote)
#### Post date: [October 19, 2013, 7:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-a-rational-reason-exist-for-distinguishing-between-religion-and-cults/671605/35 "2013-10-19T07:07:08Z")
> [@tomndebb](#):
>
> I would be curious to see how that is expressed in French with an explanation by a native French speaker. Taking the Telegraph’s author’s word for it is placing a bit too much trust in an unknown “authority.”
I echo that sentiment. I don’t particularly like the Daily Telegraph as a source (at least its not the Daily Mail) but the story has been repeated in other sources with no additional information.
The closest I could find to a French law were parliamentary commission reports. [see post 19 for a link] I do not know what status if any, the reports have in the French legal system. Nor do I know what legal effects, if any, would follow from the inclusion of a particular group. Nor do I know how the reports are considered by the wider public at large.
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### Author:  [@WilyQuixote](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WilyQuixote)
#### Post date: [October 19, 2013, 7:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-a-rational-reason-exist-for-distinguishing-between-religion-and-cults/671605/36 "2013-10-19T07:08:09Z")
> [@Zoe](#):
>
> **WilyQuixote** , welcome to the Straight Dope! Are you related to Donkey Honky?
Thanks. And no.
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### Author:  [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)
#### Post date: [October 19, 2013, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-a-rational-reason-exist-for-distinguishing-between-religion-and-cults/671605/37 "2013-10-19T14:35:05Z")
> [@WilyQuixote](#):
>
> The closest I could find to a French law were parliamentary commission reports. [see post 19 for a link] I do not know what status if any, the reports have in the French legal system. Nor do I know what legal effects, if any, would follow from the inclusion of a particular group. Nor do I know how the reports are considered by the wider public at large.
The reports are purely advisory, they have no judicial implication.
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