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this post was submitted on 05 May 2026
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Maybe one day someone will get me to understand the difference between religion and cult.
Religions are mainstream, cults aren't.
You see, in a cult there's a guy at the top who knows it's all bullshit. In a religion that guy died ages ago and scholars aren't sure if he existed to begin with.
Cult: a small unpopular religion.
Religion: a large popular cult.
Or, if you prefer:
Though that kinda falls apart in the Scientologist's case. They have acquired a lot of real estate since Zappa first made that statement.
Iirc Frank clarified this as how many locations the cult has, not actual land ownership totals
Not surprised that he would update it as things changed.
About 100 years.
Specific structures of exploitation maybe? I've been in some cults and in some religions and the cults has structures that the religions did not. That being said, I have seen "religions" that used to have or do have those structures. It's very hard to define. I like using Steve Hassan's BITE model but, like with any model it has a specific type of cult it is examining.
It's why the cult I'm currently working on starting has none of the oppressive structures. I'm an absurdist.
It's only a difference of being recognized by some form of ruling authority
Cults blackmail, torture, and murder.
But religions extort, torment, and kill.
See it's completely different.
Some cults call themselves religion. There are definitely many religions that have never extored nor tormented nor killed.
Such as?
Name one
I didn't make the claim but would Jainism meet your criteria?
Every religion on on day 0 was just a new cult that someone started
I was gonna say that most religions do as well, but honestly the overlap is almost concentric circles
If you make the circles the size of their members, yes.
But if you make the circles all the same diameter, then no.
Usually the big ones have a history of some abuse.
Concentric, so the former. Likewise there are non religious cults