Ask Lemmy

an atheistic commune

Your scale is off. Religions and cults are the same thing. The only difference is how accepting society is of them. There is no third option.

Not everything has an opposite. That is a trap of binary thinking.

An individual who thinks and acts rationally and who doesn't try to manipulate others.

Philosophy debate club with no membership

What's the difference between a cult and a religion?

About 100 years.

Religion and cult is basically the same thing with different connotative subtext.

The opposite of an oppressing group believing in farytales is atheism. It's weird there's a name for not believing bullshit, but there it is. Every religion is a cult, they are just of different scales.

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.

Normal society

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.

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.

ITT: no cult scholars. I am not one either.

I watch a lot of Knitting Cult Lady's content and I've read her book. From that I have a pretty good idea of what a cult is, which is an extreme form of group.

So I guess the opposite of a cult would be a solitary individual.

One point I keep seeing in these comments is religion. Religion isn't a cult, it's an idea. That ideology can be used by cults, but the idea itself isn't a cult. You can believe the idea all by yourself you don't HAVE to be part of the group.

Yes [insert religious group you're thinking of] is probably a cult. But it isn't one because of the idea, it's one because of controlling behavior and exploited labor and a bunch of other reasons.

Club

Normal lol

Atheism.

Technically speaking, all religions are cults. The definition of "cult" is just an organized practice of religion.

Intellectual freedom, with an appreciation of philosophy and scientific inquiry.

I think of cults as more of systems of control. MLMs, jobs (Theranos), large-group awareness training (nxivm), political groups (Maga), exercise groups (CrossFit), fandoms, book clubs, families, online groups, etc can all be cults.

I suggest the podcast IndoctriNation⁠ by Rachel Bernstein to see many ways these "systems of control" as she calls them can manifest.

I personally think that cult behavior is just normal behavior taken to the extreme so there really isn't an opposite. Maybe being alone with no relationships.

The various types of groups we are on family, friends, work, recreational, etc have various controls on how you act and speak. This isn't necessarily bad. You probably want to be a little different with family than with your hobby group. I explained the broader meaning of cults to my Dad and he said the Marines have those aspects. I think an important part to know if a group is probably fine is if you can leave with no issues. If there are consequences to leaving the group that's a huge red flag.

I suggest looking at the BITE Model of Authoritarian Control. Which is a useful tool to check if a group is a cult. You can read up on problems with this tool, but it's still a good starting point.

Edit: No one joins a cult. They join groups for positive reasons and then those groups either turn into cults or as they get deeper into the group the control parts are introduced.

We all probably brushed up against cults without knowing. You could go to an exercise/spiritual/hobby/other group and what you don't know is if you had gotten more involved and took the special classes, or volunteered and became a part of the in group you could have become a part of a cult.

Everything doesn't have to have an opposite, you know.

Philosophy?

There are different kinds of cults. Cult is a different thing from religion. It doesn't belong on the same axis. But we can continue the thought if we define it as religious cult.

The scale is about excessive binding, control, rituals, restrictions, belief systems. If the left is the extreme, then towards the right we have weaker restrictions upon the belief system. The belief becomes weaker, and the beliefs do not have to restrict other and own people's activities and beliefs.

Religion in the middle makes no sense. It should be the label on the scale. "Religious extremism" or similar. Maybe narrow, restrictive, totalitarian.

I don't know specific terminology for the right side. Maybe open or unrestrictive practice of religion.

Freedom.

Logic.

Defining characteristics of a cult: inside information and ritual, seperation from others and non believers, words and speech that are internalized and often only understood by cult members, heiradchy - often to one person or small group, loss of self, loss of independence, removal of physical items or required clothing, and generally there is an eventuality that those in power will begin abuse that is often sexual.

Now, the actual beliefs have nothing to do with it. Where a religion ranks in the scheme is debatable.

Cult is just what the big congregation calls the small congregation

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.