The Never Ending Pool

Or is the distinction artificial anyway?

Was Joseph Smith no more of a fraud than the founders of other revelation-based religions?

Boodles: Is it a slow poison or the only thing that makes life worth living?

for a fascinating take on joseph smith, read harold bloom's the american religion.
my own opinion is that mormonism is, like islam, a borrowed revelation based primarily on a scrambled misreading of jewish scriptures.
it is not a cult, as it did not proceed directly from a heretical interpretation of existing dogma, neither is it a true religion as it is at source without originality.
it is rather, like "Modern Times," an alternate reading of pre-existent materials, told in a dominant voice that attempts to obliterate those from whom it has plundered.

We need a glossary already to even begin to comment. What constitutes a cult? Is it as Wurlitzer seems to claim, a religious organization that "proceed[s] directly from a heretical interpretation of existing dogma?" Or is it merely a religion which the majority of the public regards as "fringe" in some sense? This latter is closer to the most commonly accepted definition of cult and probably does define Mormonism everywhere other than in Utah.

to be exact, the cult is not the religion itself, but the group adhering to it.
generally, the cult forms around an individual who has fabricated a charismatic heresy.
jim jones is an example of a cult leader who emerged from a christian heresy.
other christian cults include the children of god and the love family.
smith, on the other hand, did not break away from an established religion to create a wayward sect. he was so audacious to have founded a church on what he declared was a new revelation for the new world.
certainly, a cult formed around smith, but this cult did not grow into what would become the Mormon constituency. it was long after smith's death that the new religion flourished in the state of utah and parts of Idaho.

Some of my friends and I tried to start a cult in high school. We drew up a list of the things we were supposed to believe, and we had special hand signals that only people in the cult would understand. What we never figured out was how to get anyone else to want to join us, considering that we were the kinds of kids who nobody usually asked to join them. But we did have some cool T-shirts made.

wurlitzer wrote:

QUOTE:
for a fascinating take on joseph smith, read harold bloom's the american religion.
my own opinion is that mormonism is, like islam, a borrowed revelation based primarily on a scrambled misreading of jewish scriptures.
it is not a cult, as it did not proceed directly from a heretical interpretation of existing dogma, neither is it a true religion as it is at source without originality.
it is rather, like "Modern Times," an alternate reading of pre-existent materials, told in a dominant voice that attempts to obliterate those from whom it has plundered.

An intelligent, thought-provoking answer like that makes me almost glad I started this thread.

I love your last point, which is witty even if it isn't true.

wurlitzer wrote:

QUOTE:
to be exact, the cult is not the religion itself, but the group adhering to it.
generally, the cult forms around an individual who has fabricated a charismatic heresy.
jim jones is an example of a cult leader who emerged from a christian heresy.
other christian cults include the children of god and the love family.
smith, on the other hand, did not break away from an established religion to create a wayward sect. he was so audacious to have founded a church on what he declared was a new revelation for the new world.
certainly, a cult formed around smith, but this cult did not grow into what would become the Mormon constituency. it was long after smith's death that the new religion flourished in the state of utah and parts of Idaho.

And this is an equally good follow-up.

But how does your definition of a cult not apply to Christianity?

Charismatic leader -- check. Went around luring men from their employment and revelled in the attention of women of easy virtue (see the passage about Mary of Magdalene massaging his feet with expensive ointment and wiping them dry with her hair; also his rather pathetic, vainglorious excuse to the disciples for allowing this expensive waste of money that could have been used for the poor... Some things never change!)

Broke away from an established religion -- check. Not only that, his followers alleged that the holiest books of that religion actually foretold his coming. And in the NT, those same followers virtually wrote the Jews out of their own religion, making them the villains of the new one. You can't get more heretical than that.

To start a wayward sect -- check. Ask the Pharisees. Or the Romans, who viewed Christianity as "superstitio", i.e. a new cult superimposed on the faith of their own ancestors, and hence impious and disrespectful.

I don't believe Jim Jones rose from the dead. Check.

to be sure, the christianity of the gospels was a heresy within the Judaic religion. but the christianity we know today has little to do with either the leader or the tenets of that cult. it was instituted over 300 years later by constantine, with the Christ of the gospels replaced by that of madman paul who recast him as his own personal savior. subsequently, the protestant schisms are heresies within the catholic religion, with just as few ties to the original cult. while all variants of christianity can be traced back to the formation of the roman catholic church, none can be traced to the life and times of christ himself.
as for the anti-semitism, this also originated with the romans, who destroyed the original apostles out of fear that is was a jewish insurrection. so, it was not the christians who wrote the jews out of their own religion, but the romans who murdered most of the jews with whom the religion originated.
so...i agree that the original group of thirteen christians was a cult, but disagree that the religions we know today as catholicism and christianity has much to do with said cult.

religion/cults - same thing.

just religion is more socially acceptable for whatever reasons.

I don't mean to offend anyone, but I would recommend looking up the subject in the book about the history of Allegheny County, New York. That should shed a different light on the subject.

wurlitzer wrote:

QUOTE:
to be sure, the christianity of the gospels was a heresy within the Judaic religion. but the christianity we know today has little to do with either the leader or the tenets of that cult. it was instituted over 300 years later by constantine, with the Christ of the gospels replaced by that of madman paul who recast him as his own personal savior. subsequently, the protestant schisms are heresies within the catholic religion, with just as few ties to the original cult. while all variants of christianity can be traced back to the formation of the roman catholic church, none can be traced to the life and times of christ himself.

Well, I wouldn't call Paul a madman. Have you read his letters? Some of the finest writing in the New Testament. Agree that Pauline Christianity is actually a different thing from the "original" Jewish Christianity. But he made a narrow religion centred around a single people into the world's first universal religion, open to everyone whatever their race, social or legal status, or gender, and to free and slave alike. That's true, whether you regard Christianity as ultimately pernicious, as I do, or not. It was the world's first mass democratic movement, at least until it became the state religion of the Roman Empire.

QUOTE:
as for the anti-semitism, this also originated with the romans, who destroyed the original apostles out of fear that is was a jewish insurrection. so, it was not the christians who wrote the jews out of their own religion, but the romans who murdered most of the jews with whom the religion originated.

Well, it's true that the Romans under Hadrian crushed a huge Jewish insurrection inspired by a false Messiah and inflicted a terrible retribution by destroying the Second Temple and expelling all Jews from the province it renamed Palestine (Aelia Palaestina). Jews were not persecuted on racial or religious grounds, but for political reasons. But of course, it was the beginning of the diaspora, when the Jew "wandered the earth, an exiled man."

What happened next was that the Gospels, especially those written after the above events (John in particular), deliberately downplay the role of the Jews in founding Christianity in an understandable attempt to mollify the Roman authorities. The terrible passage in Matthew in which the Jews ask for the blood of Jesus to be on their heads and those of their children's children goes even further, scapegoating the Jews for the death of Jesus with terrible, horrific historical consequences which few Christians can admit to in good faith even today. Conversely, Pontius Pilate, who we know to have been a particularly vicious Roman prefect, is portrayed as kindly and well-intentioned, if too easily swayed by the mob. Pure fiction, of course. (The whole Barabbas story is a fabrication anyway -- there was no such custom of releasing criminals on festive occasions.)

Roman persecution of Christians elsewhere in the Empire was hugely exaggerated by the Church Fathers in order to inspire potential recruits: "The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church."

Ultimately, though, the Christian religion succeeded because it offered people -- particularly those excluded from the life of the Empire - something better than paganism (although obviously decidedly inferior to philosophy).

QUOTE:
so...i agree that the original group of thirteen christians was a cult, but disagree that the religions we know today as catholicism and christianity has much to do with said cult.

Fair enough, I think I agree. Though of course Christianity by and large remains centred on the life and example of Jesus Christ, which is surely what attracts the vast majority of adherents to the religion. It's certainly the only thing, with the writings of Paul, that still moves me personally about Christianity, I have to say.

What I think is definitely a cult within Catholicism is the worship of the Virgin Mary and the Saints, which, as Gibbon pointed out, represents a recrudescence of polytheism within a supposedly monotheistic religion (leaving aside the argument as to whether Trinitarianism already marks the beginning of that process).

Who cares as long as their happy and leave you alone ?

Still Mack wrote:

QUOTE:
Who cares as long as their happy and leave you alone ?

I agree. If the Christians stay out of politics and don't try to mold our society into one that only they comfortably enjoy, we should not concern ourselves with it.