Ex Jehovah witness are prime examples that religions are cults.

One man's cult is another man's religion. All religions are cults.

With standards that strict, fascism, socialism, comunism, capitalism, democracy, anarchy, liberalism, libertarianism, neo-liberalism, technocracy, monarchy, oligarchy, and basically every other political ideology would qualify as being cults.

To me it seems self evident that there is more than one way to believe and more than one way to organize a cult.

A religion is a cult because it has followers.

I disagree because the terms are wrong. The mechanics of cult and sect are different. The relationship between religion and sect is schism. Cult is a response to society and not specifically institutional.

I think the government should be promoting tolerance and understanding between peoples. In a multicultural environment religions will be automatically reformed towards a more tolerant outlook.

As far as I'm concerned, there is NO line between religion and cult.
They are the same.
There is no "test" which could classify one as being less harmful as the other.
They're both dangerous and evil.

Let me iterate why this wouldn't be a comprehensive measure

1. Mobilisation of armies in the past is only a problem if the religion still glorifies or holds such military action in high regard. More importantly what I would incline towards is the responsibility of the religion to handle those who claim committing unlawful acts in the name of that religion because just like advertising, you sent the wrong message or even left it open to a wrong interpretation so deal with it.

2. Do any of the preachings comprise of elements to support or instigate any action direct or indirect detrimental to the society by disrupting peace? Similar to my previous point, if you spread the message also be vocal about what you do not wish to spread.

3. Does the religion instruct it's followers to be intolerant towards other schools of thought? Could be any other delusional religion or a lack of one. That's ground enough to justify hate.

Although it might seem extreme, think of this had it been someone preaching anything anti national action would be taken immediately. Then why hesitate when it carries an equal or even more destructive capacity?

none of what you've said changes my idea of what a cult is. there is already a clear definition of that word, and it has to do with the isolation of the congregation, the supremacy of the cult leader (not the god, unless the leader claims divinity too), the brainwashing in terms of "i'm the only one who tells the truth and the rest of the world is lying," and probably some i can't think of offhand, but just because we know some religions have promoted and done bad things and bad people that doesn't mean we can suddenly identify them as cults. trumpism is a cult and it's not even a religion. scientology isn't a cult because it's new (it is) or because it has started wars (it hasn't). it's a cult because it meets the criteria i mentioned above, although the leadership is sort of spread out in a hierarchy.

g

Good luck redefining words.

Religious mental masturbation. Who the fuck cares!

I need to think and evaluate. Let us say, "does the leader" ...... define the leader. Using xtion, is that god, Abraham, Jesus, or some other leader in the now - ie a pope? At this point, I need more to flesh out an answer. Xtions have definitely used religion to hold genocides and murders and invasions. Do they now - some would argue yes; I would tend to say it is more a nuanced thing. Pretty much the same with muslims and hindus and budhists, although, all have recently done some forms of atrocities linked to their said religions. I will come back later and see what others have to say.