Cult Versus Religion Analysis

Religion can be defined as the belief in and worship of a controlling, divine power, especially of a god or multiple gods. A cult can be defined with three main qualities: the first being a less amount of practitioners or participants than there are in the prevailing religion, the second being the concepts and beliefs of a cult must be outside of the mainstream of religion, and the third being that there is an iconic figure or thing to which admiration is shown and proved to. In other words, the practices of a cult has to be radical of the prevailing concepts (disregarding the admiration of a figure or thing). The differences are proved instantly by observations the definitions of the contrasting religious practices and practicers. To start off, in this case, the size off the practitioners and believers matter. Rationally, if more people are doing something, (more) people will regard it as a valid, credible practice. But, if there are less participants of a smaller group on the sidelines of the prevailing force (being religion in this case), (more) people will view it as an invalid, irrational, and a non-authoritative practice. A cult is much smaller in size of followers and practicers than there are in religion. Stemming off from size, the validity of the philosophies, beliefs, and actions of the group consisting of a smaller amount of people would be considered as less significant, rational, and credible to society. If less people are doing it, the cult would be deemed as a minority of society and something that is outlandish to the standards and philosophies of religion, therefore classifying it as it is. Oppositely, religion has many, almost an uncountable amount of participants and practicers which are engaged in religion daily, societally, and popularly; it much more widespread, accepted, and mainstream than that of a cult. Another defining quality of a cult is a the factor of admiration in the direction towards a figure, object, or other “thing”. This is where the two terms come into leveled playing field, and somewhat of similarities begin to emerge. A middle ground exists between cults and religions. It all begins with the similarity between the definitions of cults and religion which proved to be the starting point of the crossovers which will be explained shortly. Both religions and cults have a principle which holds core to the foundations: the admiration, worship, and following/attending to a higher (divine) figure, thing, or theory. From this, as time progresses, changes occur as cults can transform to religions, and religions can transform to cults. Let’s use Christianity (Paul) for an example. Paul began as a cult, with a small number of practitioners (only himself), a radical idea of Jesus being a direct descendant of god, and looked up to Jesus, worshiping and admiring him. The stage of a cult’s existence is set; but Paul went around and picked up a surprisingly large amount of followers which, through the process of historical diffusion, turned into an exponentially large amount of practitioners who participated and agreed with Paul’s theories and beliefs. Also, with the popularizing of his ideas and a large percent of society practicing those beliefs, the ideas of Christianity transitioned from those sitting on the sideline of society to those which had a large role in religious life, becoming mainstream. All along, they kept on admiring the overarching figure which guided the religion, Jesus. Now, everything that began as a cult turned into something that is the exact opposite of a cult--a mainstream, greatly practiced religion. The cult’s status transitioned into a religious status, which proves how a cult and a religion have similarities and a middle ground between the two exists, one that allow one to transition into the other interchangeably.