No difference whatsoever.
ALL religions are cults.
Every last one of them.

Sure, some religions have been around longer, and become mainstream, but
they're ALL still cults, and they're ALL still EVIL.

No. The only difference is that religions have political power as well as the religious sort, and so earn political respect.

The popular understanding of the word cult that comes to my mind first is:
“a religion or sect considered to be false, unorthodox, or extremist, with members often living outside of conventional society under the direction of a charismatic leader.”

But another definition is:
“a particular system of religious worship, especially with reference to its rites and ceremonies.”

It shares an etymological root with the word “cultivate.”

So take your pick, but I think, in popular use today it is intended as derogatory, and generally used to describe eccentric, non-mainstream religions.

I think both are cults. Some just got bigger.

The Earth is roughly 4.5 billion years old. If we take Christianity, it popped up 2000 years ago...which is an insignificant amount of time. Just because a cult popped up a year ago or 10 years go, doesn't make it any wackier than a "mainstream" religion. (And BTW, "Christianity" is talked about as if it was basically the same over those 2000 years, and that's not remotely true, either.)

So I'm basically in the camp who says I can't really tell the different between a cult and a religion...although I find both fascinating from a social/political/psychological (and maybe literary) point of view.

IMHO, they both brainwash people and both want your money and loyalty. In religion you follow a mythological sky daddy in a cult it's the person running the cult you follow. Either way you're drinking the kool aide because you have given up your ability to think for yourself.

In my mind, all religions are cults. The bigger they are, the more damage they do.

Using the modern definition of a cult, I think that all religions have some degree of cultishness. There is a gradient though from something like Scientology, very cultish, to Unitarianism, only slightly cultish.

IMO the characteristics of a cult are authoritarianism, deification of the founders, requirement for belief in a creed, holy scriptures claimed to be the inerrant word of God. Also cults use fear and guilt as a means of mind control. Some use actual physical punishment and intimidation and will not permit their victims to leave the group. Cults also hound you for money.

It would be an interesting project for someone to make a chart ranking various religions according to their cultish characteristics. Someone else, not me. It could be a group effort. I would rate the Baptists as only moderately cultish. They are very democratic but they are cultish in various categories.

Religions try and steal your time and money
Cults try and steal you.

I believe that there is a distinction between the two. The crucial difference is a cult is not mainstream and followed by only a small group of people. A cult is the following of a person, object or art form, certain movies for instance - that are not popular with the main cinema going public. In the religious sense, the devotion and worship around a central figure is much the same in both a religion and a cult, but in the case of most cults it is based around a living person, through by sheer power and magnetism of his (it’s almost always a man) personality, he convinces others to follow him...by brainwashing perhaps, or just by being clever in the art of persuasion. In religions it is not veneration of a living person, but a long dead messiah... although the Pope and other church hierarchy receive much adulation and veneration, they are not actually worshipped.

I think it makes some sense to distinguish between the two, but there is a pretty wide gray area at the boundary. In my mind cults tend to be smaller, more insular and more strict with beliefs and rituals. Even some christian denominations seem fairly tolerant of differences of belief, although belief in the supernatural seems to be a universal requirement. Mostly the size of the group and the strength of the Kool-Aid. I just had my brain washed and I can't do a Thing with it!!!

Size

I equate most orthodox and fundamentalist religious sects to cults, because there is so much about controlling their followers to the point of brainwashing, cutting off contact with family and others who don't believe as they do, sanctioned physical harm and abuse, and the feeling that they are the only ones who are right -- in other words, they become dangerous to members and to others. Most people who are more progressive or informal regarding religion I don't have a problem with -- people find what works for them, as long as they they don't put their beliefs before their relationships. My attitude is live-and-let-live: to be critical towards anyone who isn't a complete atheist is just as bad as the fundamentalists who are critical towards anyone who doesn't think like they do.

There is only one difference between a religion and a cult: social acceptability.
There are small, accepted religions and large unacceptable cults.

I tend to think that more "organized" a religion is, it is more dangerous. Cults are religions in infancy. As they get more accepted and organized, it becomes a "religion" and more dangerous because they influence more people. I tend to think religion as a tool for the powerful to wield against those without power. As it gets more and more accepted, it becomes more "civilized" on its outward appearances, and yet it becomes a powerful force of subjugation.

Like the Jesus cult that started in Roman times. It has become an accepted religion, and the impact that it had on the miseries of the world as a religion is incalculable.

There ae two main differences. The first is a matter of degree. In a cult absolute unquestioning loyalty and adoration for the human leader is required. Also, a cult may be political or philosophical, not just religious.

No difference in my opinion. The fact that religion is widespread just makes it a bigger cult

I know many here think there is no difference and others think the difference is just in the level of mainstreaming but the real difference, I believe (based on some light layperson-type research) is that cults have some specific characteristics true of some religions and not others. Some of those are a charismatic leader, isolation of devotees and brainwashing beyond the usual religious conviction, for example that every outsider is evil and a liar and a danger, that only the cult leader tells the truth, other accepted reality isn't real and so on. There is also often (maybe always? not sure) a sexual component, with the cult leader directing marriages and sexual liaisons (usually taking the sweet young things for himself). Now some of these elements may crop up in various manifestations of various religions but rarely are they the defining characteristics, as they are of cults.

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The difference between a religion and a cult is that at the top of a cult is a person or small group who know that the whole thing is a con. Whereas a religion is what you have after that guy has died.

All religions started out as cults. As they grew their status changed and they were called religions.

To my mind, a religion is a cult that has attained some acceptance & respectability. Cults have led to violence, but the histories of many religions are splattered with blood, especially in the West--religious wars, inquisitions, pogroms, crusades. There were Buddhist kings who fought wars, but they did so because they were kings, not because they were Buddhists.

All religions & cults brainwash, & the cults that become really successful at it become religions

Personally speaking here, I do NOT think there is much of difference between religion and cultism at all, since they BOTH have a central figure of worship, rely and depend solely upon their followers having blind faith in what they preach and teach, offer up, for the most part, that which can ONLY be attained AFTER Death and NOT before, etc, etc.

Some religions are pacific Quakers and Bahai's are 2 but most religions are cults violent brainwashing cults even Buddhists in Vietnam were suicidal fighters against invading Japanese French Australians and 12 million Americans....I was in a cult called the United States Navy '71'73 don't anyone here "thank me for my service" 3.5 million murdered SE ASIANS and ecocide sprayed Agent Orange everywhere

Is there a difference? No.