THERE IS MUCH confusion about the term "cult." Its basic meaning is simply the worship of a deity or the rituals of that worship. Historically it has been used to refer to unorthodox or unconventional groups whose beliefs are different from the traditional religions of the society in which they exist.
Because many people believe that their religion is the one true faith, they may call any other religion a cult, meaning the group holds mistaken or heretical beliefs. Thus the term is a subjective one. Often it is used in a derogatory way to demean the members of another group. In today's world, where no one religion dominates a culture and many religious traditions exist side by side in a country or a city, it is even less clear what groups should be called cults.
The use of the term as a derogatory stereotype increased through the 1970s as the.....
This is a free excerpt of 150 words. This section contains 3,628 words.
Cults article
Read the rest of this article.
This article contains 19,908 words
(approx. 66 pages at 300 words per page).
Order our Cult (disambiguation) Article
