This is not a joke, but l heard a priest, a rabbi, and a minister on public radio. The commentator ask them the same question. After a bunch of stumbling around, their conclusion was size. So basicly it is a "My dick is bigger than your dick" scenario.

I personally think it is just number of members and social acceptance....

It's funny you ask that because christianity started out as a cult... I'm not entirely sure what makes a cult, though... Scientology is a religion but they operate more like a cult... At least I consider them a cult. Televangelists aren't a cult, but if you think about how their members will skip life saving treatments to send seed money, they can be considered a cult to some degree. I guess it's about the requirements to get in, the difficulty to get out, and the numbers..

Here's 14 characteristics of a cult:

[apologeticsindex.org]

Religion is a set of beliefs that a group of people agree is true. A cult is a group of people that can only be associated with other people who share their beliefs, they are constantly trying to recruit more people but have pretty much given over their entire lives to what the group leader tells them to do. Can the two overlap? Absolutely.

The snarky answer is that a cult is a religion that is too new or has too few followers to be considered respectable / acceptable.

In practice, cults are usually understood to have high levels of authoritarianism / control over members and their personal lives, in some sinister way. But really when you think about it, all of Christian fundamentalism actually fits that description.

Another way to think about it is that cults tend to be heretical from the viewpoint of Christian orthodoxy ... such as the historic creeds. Mormonism for example does not accept any of those creeds, in large part because Mormons reject sola scriptura, the notion that 100% of divine revelation is in the Bible and no more is needed (they have holy books in addition to the Bible). As such, despite being a pretty large religion and into its second century of existence, many conservative Christians regard Mormonism as a "cult".

In short ... the definitions are slippery. The term 'cult' has a negative connotation and so it's used by some to otherize people they don't agree with.

Definitions 3&4 from Webster's Dictionary:

3 : a system of religious beliefs and ritual; also : its body of adherents
4 : formal religious veneration : worship
So, there's that....

A religion is a belief system that you adhere to by your own choice. A cult is a group you belong to, where there are strong controlling forces, a strong pressure to conform, and coercive methods are used to keep you from leaving - such as the threat of shunning.

fuck all like the difference between murder and war