Is the Roman Catholic Church a cult?

[Prometheus Bound]

A few friends - Evangelicals and Charismatics - have mentioned in casual discussions with me that Roman Catholicism is considered a cult. (I was raised a Roman Catholic, and as far as they know I am a practicing Catholic.)

I've Googled the subject and come up with googles of information on the subject pro and con.

Any thoughts?

[SemiCharmedQuark]

1. What is their definition of "cult"?

[Prometheus Bound]

12. Yes, that's what I must ask them.

They tend to use the passive "is considered a cult". When you ask "considered by whom" they say "by experts who study cults". Well, then you have to define "experts". Some cult "experts" argue that the RC Church is a cult; others argue the opposite.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

13. I don't think it's that different from other religions. I was born, baptized, and confirmed as a

Catholic. When I'd had enough, I just quit going to church. Nobody hunted me down or put a horse head in my bed.

[YOY]

18. +1

All my family still talks to me.

Know of a evangelical or two who do not share the same luxury upon discovering disagreements with their faith.

[Schema Thing]

22. +2 : Jehovah's Witnesses are a cult

[begin_within]

2. All religions are cults.

All religions, period. Even science is a cult.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

14. "Science is a cult"

What is your definition of a cult?

[begin_within]

15. Forced belief system

and science is nothing but a bunch of man-made beliefs, including a belief on what constitutes "proof."

[SemiCharmedQuark]

17. Do you think "math" is a cult?

[begin_within]

30. Yes

Numbers are an entirely man-made invention. Nature doesn't use them.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

48. So you're saying...

That the belief that nature doesn't use numbers is a cult...

[SemiCharmedQuark]

50. Are "pants" a cult?

[ChadwickHenryWard]

27. Not this sophistry again.

I find it hugely ironic for somebody using a computer to decry science as a cult and to question its methods. If not for the scientific method, there would be no semiconductors. If there are no semiconductors, there are no integrated circuits, and thus no microprocessors. A computer would take up a whole house, and thus you wouldn't have one. So you couldn't regale us all on the Internet about the flaws of scientific beliefs of what constitutes proof.

[begin_within]

31. In fact this site is a cult, though you will certainly never admit it.

[rd_kent]

37. Can I have some of the drugs you are on?

[ChadwickHenryWard]

44. Oh, I get it.

All nouns are cults. I gotcha. :thumbsup:

[rd_kent]

36. Perhaps the most asinine statement ever made on DU

You sir, take the cake with that one. Truly bizarre....

[skepticscott]

51. And where did you get the idea that science

"proves" things? Not surprisingly, you have a laughable misunderstanding of the scientific process.

And I assume that your New Year's resolution is to rid your life of every product of the "cult" of science. I'd get busy on that, if I were you.

[rd_kent]

34. You are half right.

All religions are a cult. Not sure how you think science is a cult, thats wrong.

[Odin2005]

42. WTF? Science is the ANTI-CULT.

[jdp349]

49. if every belief system is a cult than the term is meaningless and has no descriptive value

[rzemanfl]

3. No, it a business and a hugely sucessful one. n/t

[geckosfeet]

4. Of course it is. Granted, it is a big one with enough clout to enforce social

acceptance.

But it has schools (madrasah anyone?) and training facilities (missionaries) worldwide.

Granted - the church does some charitable work but, it is a rigid intolerant organization that imposes its doctrines on an international scale.

[Warren Stupidity]

5. A cult is a religious organization that some other religious organization doesn't like. nt.

[pissedoff01]

6. Evangelicals and Charismatics are not?

http://www.religio.de/cudef.html

1. ABUSE OF INDIVIDUALITY They adopt a "groupness" mentality. They are not permitted to think for themselves apart from the group and only accept what they are told.

2. ABUSE OF INTIMACY Relationships with friends, relatives, spouses, children, parents etc are broken or seriously hampered.

3. ABUSE OF FINANCES Pressure to give all you can to the group. In non-communal groups, members usually live at the lower socio-economic strata, not because of a lower income level, but because they are always giving money to the group for some reason.

4. "US VERSUS THEM" MENTALITY Isolation from the community in general. Anyone and everything outside the group is seen as "of the devil" or "unenlightened" etc. Their enemies now include former friends; the Christian church; governments; education systems; the media - the world in general. Those who are involved with these in any way see such involvement as a "means to an end".

5. ABUSE OF TIME AND ENERGY The group controls and uses almost all the members time and energy in group activities. They are usually in a constant state of mental and physical exhaustion.

6. ABUSE OF FREE WILL They must unquestioning submit to the groups teachings and directions and their own free will is broken. Their "will" actually becomes the groups "will" without their realizing it. This is done either by coercive methods including low protein diets and lack of sleep, or over a period of time through intimidation. Both methods make heavy use of "guilt".

[GMA]

8. Huh. This sounds like high school to me.

Smile.

[Dogmudgeon]

9. Also: The Blogosphere.

:evilgrin:

--d!

[provis99]

19. I think your definitions just defined "America, the Cult"

either the definitions are too vague, or we really are a big cult of 300 million members.

[Donnachaidh]

7. wow. mr pot, kettle is on line two

cognitive dissonance - it's not just for politics anymore....

[YOY]

10. If the RCC is a cult and Evangelicals and Charismatics are not then I'm a ghostbuster.

I was raised Catholic. Left quite easity. Nobody fought me. Nobody shunned me. Still talk to quite a few relations who know full well that I don't give a shit about mother church any more. I know a few folks who left evangelical or southern baptist faiths. The situation is not so friendly.

One does not hear Catholics bitch ad nauseum about evangelicals.

One does hear evangelicals bitch about everyone else including Catholics. One of the reasons why I tell evangelicals to fuck off and I tell Catholics that "born agains" don't even consider them "Christians": because fuck ups need to fuck off an dstop clinging to religion for their shortcoming and most Catholics need to know just who they are in bed with politically.

[izquierdista]

11. No way

Cults have few followers. Manson had less than a dozen. Heaven's Gate was less than four dozen. Jim Jones had less than a thousand, so he was a cult. If you have more than ten-thousand followers, you become a respectable "sect", and more than a million makes a mainstream religion. With as many followers as the Catholics have, they could believe that every word an old fart in a white dress says is infallible, and no one would call them a cult.

[Schema Thing]

16. Numbers do not make a cult

[izquierdista]

39. I beg to differ

One person is crazy and deluded. A bunch of crazy and deluded people is a cult. Millions of crazy and deluded followers are called religions.

[Schema Thing]

40. grouping crazy and deluded does not make a cult

Your point is obvious and has merit wrt religion in general, but as someone who grew up in a religion that really fits the commonly accepted definitions of a "cult", I'm painfully aware of the difference between merely believing in things for which there is no evidence, vs willingly having virtually *every* aspect of your life controlled by group leaders.

[montanacowboy]

20. Not so much a cult as a racket

White men power structure keeping women in the home having babies they can't afford denying birth control and abortion everywhere they can while they live like kings. Yes, I am a catholic (that is ex) born and raised in the church but believe me it's a racket -

[onehandle]

21. Asking about anything about this at DU, especially in this room is a mistake.

The church is involved with a lot of indefensible stuff, but it's not all bad and the majority of Catholics don't agree with what is bad.

But here at Intolerance Underground, all you're going to get is blanket hatred of all things and people Catholic.

[Prometheus Bound]

23. I must have upset someone, given the unrecs, but some of the responses make it worth it.

Nice range of attitudes that helps me look at the issue in different ways.

[Laura902]

24. no, not at all

a cult has to be a smaller number of people an roman catholics make up a large number of people in this country and world as far as religions go a cult is "a relatively small group of people having religious beliefs or practices regarded by others as strange or sinister"

[Ozymanithrax]

25. I've met several Right Wing Christians who do not think Catholics are Christian...

Goes back, at lest, to the days when Queen Elizabeth I had it taught from the pulpits in England that Irish Catholics weren't human and so killing them wasn't a sin. The conflict between Catholicism goes back to Luther, Calvin, Henry VIII and other protestants.

Now, as long as they Catholic church opposes abortion and supports right wing political ideology, they can be allies. But right religious Christians mostly believe Catholics are going to hell for idolatry.

[Laura902]

26. Most christians don't do as they preach anyway though

........considering their tremendous hypocrisy, there are good decent christians though.




"I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ"-Mohandas Gandhi

[Walk away]

28. I think the catholic church is a cult...just like all religions.

It's one of the big ones that pull in entire families instead of a fringe cult that has to pick off it's questionless followers one at a time.

Just because it doesn't try to alienate you from your family doesn't mean it isn't a cult. Your job is to supply the cult leaders with money and instill and drill the cult's tenets in your children or anyone else who will listen. Most catholics start teaching their children their weird myths as facts as soon as the kids can talk.

What could be creepier than a toddler sleeping under a statue of a man bleeding to death while being tortured? I have seen it. You would have to be brainwashed to raise children with threats of eternal hell. No normal healthy person would abuse children that way.

[Warpy]

29. Yeah, I tell the difference this way

A cult is a religious group formed around a charismatic leader.

A religion is a cult that has survived 100 years after the death of that charismatic leader.

[parkia00]

32. Sorta...

All religions started out as a cult. When they become established and more accepted by society, they morph into a religion.

[rd_kent]

33. The only difference between a church and a cult is the size of the congregation.

[saltpoint]

35. No.

[dtotire]

38. Catholics Are Definitely Mainstream

As are Methodists, Episcopalians, Congregationalists,American Baptists(not Southern).
Fundamentalist Christians are definitely not.

[Odin2005]

41. All religions are just socially acceptable cults.

[rd_kent]

43. Ding ding ding! Winner!

[YOY]

45. Incidental, your friends are morons.

But then again...you already said they were.

[ZombieHorde]

46. I don't know, but it is a hate group. nt

[CatholicEdHead]

47. RCC overall? No, some sub-sects, Yes

The Roman Catholic Church overall is not an cult, you can come and go as you please. There are many sub-sects in the Church which would be considered quasi- to full cult. It is sad but those types which lean that way have the ear of power in Rome for the present, but it will change in an generation or two.