No differences: there are at least 30,000 variations of "christianity. Just like with islam, every "house of worship" is a separate religion. With its moral focuses, reasons for soliciting funds,... Even each of the churches of the catholic illness is a distinct religion.

They are all based in the delusion of believing there are invisible almighty petulant critters. Therefore, no differences.

Groups can splinter into sects that are a protest against the authority of the mainstream doctrine.

Academically, the main difference between sects and cults is that sects are usually seeking a return to the 'purer' or 'more authentic' roots of their religion.

A cult offers something new or a discovery of something which has been perceived to be lost

Cults are now called New Religious Movements or NRMs due to the term 'cult' being deemed pejorative.

I drove route buses in the Amish country for years. I will never forget during the Branch Davidian stand off and tragedy I was working one of our routes that transports many Amish people (they are not allowed to drive cars or even have a license, but they can use public and for hire transportation). Normally the Amish are not overly talkative, though some more than others, especially if there are other Amish onboard. But when the bus was empty or only had English (non Amish) on board they would strike up a conversation. This particular guy had a newspaper with him, coming back from the city and was sitting up near me. After some pleasantries he asks "What do you think of these cults?" I almost swallowed my tongue! LOL Here sits a man with a long beard, no mustache, black clothing and a broad brimmed hat, who is not allowed to drive a car, has to farm using horses to pull the equipment, not allowed to have a phone in his house, or transact business on a Sunday, asking what makes people join cults! I acutally said "some people would consider your beliefs to be a cult." He just kind of chuckled it off and got off at his stop a few minutes later. So I guess the answer to the above would be if you believe in it, it is not a cult but rather a sign of your faith in ??? Something, someone, to whom you have ceded control of your life out of fear of missing out on something? I don't know, I have never felt the need to do that.

Google the B.I.T.E. model. that is an excellent definition of a cult.

What he said.

I think that a reason that a lot of the teens want to stay has to do with safety and their peer group, its a known environment which they’ve grown up believing in. You can't expect kids who have spent a numbers of years in that environment to be critical and tough minded.

It’s also a sign of how flexible the human mind is, and how we are more attached to people, the group and to safety than to particular beliefs.

Why do we need to distinguish between them?

A sect, at least in the US, is not synonymous with denomination or religion. It is a subset of a denomination or religion defined by somewhat different emphases or beliefs.

This is similar to the occasional debates about cult vs religion. The cynic's answer to that question is, "a cult is a religion that is relatively too new and/or too small to be accepted and popular".

Some try to confine "cult" to groups that have a strong control component, who invasively micromanage adherent's personal lives and isolate them from the wider society. But here again the cynics win out, because that is to some degree true of any religion -- and it's most certainly true of fundamentalism. It's just a subjective matter of perceived degree and overtness that fundamentalists are generally considered a branch of Christianity but not a cult, despite that they continue to devolve into increasingly cultish, controlling, paranoid, isolationist behavior.

I think it is better to just consider religion generally as a continuum with authoritarianism / literalism / inerrantism on one end and a more symbolic, metaphorical, liberal, loosely-held faith on the other. The closer you get to the authoritarian end, the more evident the failed epistemology of religious faith is and the more anti-intellectual and fact-averse they become. Anything toward that end is in danger of being "cultish", if it's not already.

To me, it's like asking; What's the difference between, crazy, and wacko?

I see very little difference between cults and any religion.

The stricter and more prescriptive the rules applied by cults/sects the higher the number of adherents it seems. Less intelligent types like a rigid set of rules and sometimes the crazier the better. It means they don’t have to do any thinking for themselves . Women in particular seem to like this sort of regime, especially as it will be male dominant. I have a feeling there is some sexual thing going on here too,especially with cults as these women follow slavishly their leaders and I think in some cases there are sexual rites involved. I watched The Path on Amazon which was about a fictitious cult and I think it may have been quite close to factual.

To me, cults have to do with control and manipulation on a criminal level. A sect is an off-shoot of a religion and not necessarily a cult, though some of them are cult-like. Either way, they're both creepy.

Jehovah's Witness is a Christian sect but it's also an apocalyptic cult. Same goes for Seventh Day Adventist. And their members are proselytizing morons. Also ignorant science deniers. So there are lots of valid ways to categorize them. ?

I like to define them as follows:
Religion = Crazy
Sect = A Special Kind of Crazy
Cult = Bat Shit Crazy

They're all the same to me.