No, I haven't, not in any big way that would grab my attention and make me shudder. Maybe you should point out a few examples. I think it's probably wise to keep in mind that within any group, Christians, non-christians, muslims, athiests, you are always going to have some ignorant fanatics who deceive themselves and thus try to deceive others. Likewise it's probably wise to assume that the fanatics will get bully whipped by their own gang at some point, usually when it starts becoming too embarrassing to tolerate anymore..



Study it. They preach the bible to other Christians and non-christians, but their theology is light years away from biblical Christianity. It's much more than just about a prophet, they actually believe they will be gods and goddesses on their own planets.




I guess that always depends on who is drawing the line. You can define anything as a cult if you want to. Atheisim is a cult. MTV has it's own little cult. The Hell's Angels are a cult. Skinheads are a cult. People who collect stamps have their own cult. Depends where you decide someone is focusing that is not where you want them to be focusing I guess. A lot of people get accused of being in a cult by family members who disagree with their beliefs. I actaully was accused by my family of joining a cult for attending a Church of God instead of the Catholic church. They pretty much ostracized me for leaving the Cathiolic church years ago. Not like they ever went or anything. They went to quite some lengths in their accusations. I visited that church of God maybe 3-4 times, really I wanted just to know about other denominations. But in my family's eye's I had left 'their church' and therefore had joined a 'cult'. You tell me because I have no logical explanantion for it, but I have heard plenty of similar stories. I think a lot of the time people simply fear the unknown, even though they have no actual experience with the unknown item.

Cult is short for culture. I thought you were in favor of allowing people to beileve whatever they wanted? I would not go chasing people insisting they were part of a cult, why would you be so intolerant in your actions when in your words you state otherwise? Personally I don't think it's my business what other people want to believe and however it is they got there. I can share my beliefs with them, but I can never actually make them believe.

I like Margaret Singer's work, she defines things well. However, using scientology as an example that she was fond of, not all scientolgists are messed up, some are very successful and happy in their scientology. I'd say that if a person requires 'de-programming' then they had a different (possibly mental) problem to begin with.

Our culture leaves a lot of people feeling dispossessed, unwanted, maybe that is actually a bigger problem.

I'll never forget a conversation I had with a Catholic priest many years ago... I asked him about other denominations, common ones like Baptists, Assembly of God... he said quote unquote 'Oh , all of those are cults.'

I didn't say anything to him, but I know from my knowledge of history that that is the exact same logic that the Catholic church used hundreds of years ago to accuse people of being witches and burn them at the stake. I didn't expect to hear it from a priest in my generation however. Well, obviously they do still teach that even if they tell everybody otherwise. It's amazing the information you get from people when they consider you an 'insider'.