Cult

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Cult definitions coined from 1920 onward (See Scientology)^[1] refer to a cohesive social group and their devotional beliefs or practices, which the surrounding population considers to be outside of mainstream cultures. The surrounding population may be as small as a neighborhood, or as large as the community of nations. They gratify curiosity about, take action against, or ignore a group, depending on its reputed similarity to cults previously reported by mass media. And it even leaded to rising amount of | order essay concerned with cult.

The spelling c-u-l-t has at least nine defined meanings^[2] divided among positive, negative, and neutral connotations:

• Positive: In common or popular usage, "cult" has a positive connotation for fan groups of art, music, writing, fiction,^[3] and fashion devotees (see Cult following). "Cult" also has a positive connotation when used in the original and classic sense of veneration by any group of worshipers, though this meaning is usually applied to groups known from antiquity, including historic cults of the major religions (see Cult (religious practice)).

• Negative: Also in common or popular usage, "cult" has a negative connotation for new religious, extreme political, questionable therapeutic, and pyramidal business groups.^[4] Theological cults also have a negative connotation as defined by fundamentalist Christians to include both new and major religion groups.^[5] For these reasons, most, if not all, non-fan groups that are called cults reject this label.

• Neutral: In twentieth century and some current scientific usage, "cult" is a technical term with a neutral connotation^[6] (see Sociology of religion). Neutral usage of "cult" in sociological science has been partly replaced by the phrase new religious movement (NRM) – but not entirely: because not all sociologically-defined cults are new or religious, there was a formal objection to the term-replacing campaign as "politics of representation",^[7] and ultimately the public didn't accept the replacement term.^[8]

Between 3,000 and 5,000 neutrally-defined sociological cults existed in the United States in 1995.^[9] Since less than 200 groups have been reported by governments as cults entangled with the law,^[10] and less than 20 have been described as destructive cults,^[11] the vast majority of non-fan groups referred to as cults are well-behaved and known only to their neighbors. Template:Fact

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[edit] References

1. ↑ Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named OCRTMelton
2. ↑ "...in its original meaning, the term "cult" can be applied to any group of religious believers... However, the term has since been assigned at least eight new and very different meanings." —Ontario Consultants On Religious Tolerance: Cults, Sects and Denominations.
3. ↑ Star Trek has an extremely large following but can still be considered 'cult' due to the intense loyalty the franchise inspires; see Cult following
4. ↑ Richardson, James T. (1993). "Definitions of Cult: From Sociological-Technical to Popular-Negative." Review of Religious Research 34(4):348-356.
5. ↑ Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named MartinRise
6. ↑ Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named PopvsNeu
7. ↑ Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named PolOfRep
8. ↑ Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named NRMvsCult
9. ↑ Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named CultMidst
10. ↑ See the summarized cult reports of seven governments at List of groups referred to as cults in government documents. The largest summary #French parliamentary commission report (1995), includes 173 groups compiled from the French Report, 1995 (English translation), a Parliamentary Commission report authorized by the National Assembly of France.
11. ↑ —Ontario Consultants On Religious Tolerance: Doomsday, destructive religious cults

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How to start a cult

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