Religion Cults

Religion and Cult, when you hear those words you think one is a good, positive word and the other is bad and negative. You would not stop to think that the definitions of both words are positive. Their meanings when you look it up in a dictionary are closely related. But when you hear or see them you get very different connotation for them.

Religion is defined as "a specific set of beliefs and practices about deity often involving rituals, a code of ethics and a philosophy of life that are generally agreed upon by a number of people or sects". When you think of religion you get a positive picture such as people praying and worshiping a god or deity that is good. Without religion we wouldn't have Christmas or other religious celebrations. Religion is said to help people find themselves, and find happiness. All of these things that religion is here for is said to be good.

When you think of cult what do you picture? You probably don't think of the things that you associate with religion. Cult is detonated as "worship, reverential homage rendered to a divine being or beings." A cult is also "a particular form or system of religious worship." A cult could be a smaller religion at tension with the main religious group of the area, such as Hinduism in a Christian society. By looking closely at these definitions of the words religion and cult why don't we think of the two as being closely related to one another? Since the word "cult" was created its meaning has slowly been twisted towards negative ideas. If you didn't know what the definition of cult was, you would most likely think of evil people brainwashing others to think the world is going to end, like the Doomsday Cult. Some would think of people who go against the church.

".. If you believe in it, it is a religion or perhaps "the" religion; if you don't care one way or another about it, it is a sect; but if you fear and hate it, it is a cult." Leo Pfeffer. This quote, in short, sums up what religion and cult is today. They are at polar opposites of one another connotatively but their denotation resembles the other to an extreme. The word "cult" comes from a religious background that most people don't know of. Now one is used for a positive connotation and the other is used for negative connotation.