Whats the difference between a cult and a religion?
An easy, and not very good, answer is: one person’s cult is another person’s religion. I don’t agree. A cult usually has a person as its leader, and that persons ideas, interpretation of sacred texts, and interpretation of reality, become the beliefs of the followers. One easy way of avoiding cults is the notion, “Principles, not people.” This means that the rules, the ideas, the principles are what are important. But the people who bring you the ideas, or practice them with you, bring their own prejudices and motives, and they can easily lead you away from the principles. We say that the US is a “Nation of laws, not of men.” Meaning, no matter how wonderful you are, no matter what position you have in government, if you break the law, you can be arrested and convicted. Imagine if we had a president who changed the law so that he could do what he wanted – and say it was legal!! So, a religion does NOT follow a living leader, but a set of principles, often in the hands of committees (bi
