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I always thought that cults tended to be the last stage of a relegion.

Ie, everything's going fine, then the leader does same crazed s**t and bam! it's a cult.

Correct me if I'm wrong. Christianity came from a cult at the time of the Roman Empire.

i don't understand how religon can be a "corruption" of the human mind. religon is basically believing in divine entitiy(ies).



right.. AND wrong.. christianity is defined as the religon OF christ.. Christ IS sorta like God but.. isn't? *that's a theological concept* so.. any religon that believes in Christ is a christian religon...

these christian religons are branched out in three.. protestantism, and catholicsm and judeaism. (keep in mind that protestanism is believing the basic concepts of Luther) and catholicsm (the religion led by God through the pope) and judaeism (traditional worship of God).. any other christian religon goes into these branches... ie.. lutheran.. episcopalian, neo catholicsm, jehova's witness... blabla.. *not islam.. that's not christian*

yep.. 3nodding



lol.... only the famous cults xp

Cults are more like how they say they are. Mostly because they come up with rediculous notions dealing with religions when they arn't true at all.

There however circles people may go to for knowlage that they wish to obtain. Which goes under the subject of wicca and all of the such, then you have your covens. A cult though is one claiming to speak to god when really its either a demonic spirit possessing the person to make others believe and go to their side or its a group of people who wish to purge all that does not fit their religion for the sake of sin or what not.

Religion to me is merly just hope and nothing more. To have faith in what is to come that everything will be okay in the long run. The idea of religion today though is how the universe was created and who is god and the belief system of such that explains life its self and why it is the way it is.

My personal opinion on religion...its for faith only not to become part of peoples lives because that was never intended of its purpose. It was just for wishing for the best of hopes. But...as the saying goes you cannot lead a horse to water if they do not want to go. Which there for means you can't force a learning on one who does not want to be taught.

religons are cults just whith more radilest and power

It depends what definition of cult you're looking at. There are so damn many, it's perhaps not worth getting worked up over. It's the trouble with the social sciences: no agreement on definitions creates so much wasted time.

From what I understand Christianity is simply a modern rip off of Judaism and elements of Mithraism (Roman monotheist cult involving worship of Mithrai, who had 12 disciples and did similar things to Jesus, this originated from Persia), so Christianity is a hybrid of many ancient cults.

N.B: Cult is an abbrieviation of 'cultural religion' i.e: the religion of a particular culture, so it does often mean cults are smaller.

me too, and i have studied the history of religions.

in africa, ireland, japan, all over the world, early religious forms centered around an individual who was supposed to sense realities across boundaries. he could see the future, see over hte horizon, see the deep past, and even sense the land of death.

they were also sensitive across age and gender lines, and often wore clothing of the other gender, partly to show their otherness.

which may be where we get the idea of priestly robes?

but that doesnt sound like a cult.

in fact, these were often not popular charismatic leaders; people feared them, and they could be made to live outside the village for that reason, even though that exposed them to danger from animals and bandits.