Ask Lemmy

Not everything has an opposite. That is a trap of binary thinking.

An individual who thinks and acts rationally and who doesn't try to manipulate others.

Club

Normal society

Normal lol

I'll answer your question with two more questions:

What's the opposite of a rat king? What's the opposite of an ant mill?

Also I have to question your whole premise of the relationship between religion and cult. Where a cult is the bad kind of something and a religion is the neutral, default kind.

A religion is just the final form of a successful cult that got big enough and old enough that it no longer needs to take the drastic "cult-like" measures to restrict its members and separate them from society- because it has thoroughly infiltrated and colonizied that society to such an extent that being born into that society is enough.

ITT: no cult scholars. I am not one either.

I watch a lot of Knitting Cult Lady's content and I've read her book. From that I have a pretty good idea of what a cult is, which is an extreme form of group.

So I guess the opposite of a cult would be a solitary individual.

One point I keep seeing in these comments is religion. Religion isn't a cult, it's an idea. That ideology can be used by cults, but the idea itself isn't a cult. You can believe the idea all by yourself you don't HAVE to be part of the group.

Yes [insert religious group you're thinking of] is probably a cult. But it isn't one because of the idea, it's one because of controlling behavior and exploited labor and a bunch of other reasons.

The opposite of an oppressing group believing in farytales is atheism. It's weird there's a name for not believing bullshit, but there it is. Every religion is a cult, they are just of different scales.

I think of cults as more of systems of control. MLMs, jobs (Theranos), large-group awareness training (nxivm), political groups (Maga), exercise groups (CrossFit), fandoms, book clubs, families, online groups, etc can all be cults.

I suggest the podcast IndoctriNation⁠ by Rachel Bernstein to see many ways these "system of control" as she calls them can manifest.

I personally think that cult behavior is just normal behavior taken to the extreme so there really isn't an opposite. Maybe being alone with no relationships.

The various types of groups we are on family, friends, work, recreational, etc have various controls on how you act and speak. This isn't necessarily bad. You probably want to be a little different with family than with your hobby group. I explained the broader meaning of cults to my Dad and he said the Marines have those aspects. I think an important part to know if a group is probably fine is if you can leave with no issues. If there are consequences to leaving the group that's a huge red flag.

I suggest looking at the BITE Model of Authoritarian Control. Which is a useful tool to check if a group is a cult. You can read up on problems with this tool, but it's still a good starting point.

What's the difference between a cult and a religion?

About 100 years.

There are different kinds of cults. Cult is a different thing from religion. It doesn't belong on the same axis. But we can continue the thought if we define it as religious cult.

The scale is about excessive binding, control, rituals, restrictions, belief systems. If the left is the extreme, then towards the right we have weaker restrictions upon the belief system. The belief becomes weaker, and the beliefs do not have to restrict other and own people's activities and beliefs.

Religion in the middle makes no sense. It should be the label on the scale. "Religious extremism" or similar. Maybe narrow, restrictive, totalitarian.

I don't know specific terminology for the right side. Maybe open or unrestrictive practice of religion.

Philosophy debate club with no membership

A cult is just a religion that's too small to have sects and too young to have legitimacy.

When people started worshiping a guy nailed to a torture device and said he was God, the Romans thought they were lunatics, because that's genuinely unsettling. The eating his body thing doesn't help either. It's just that they won.

Your scale is off there.. it should probably be more like: cult(-100)...religion(-80).................atheism(0).................?'

A group of people that is very serious about what they believe in, no matter how illogical it is.

It's pretty easy to invert that statement: a group of people that is very unserious about what they believe in? That would be folks like DIscordians, the Church of the SubGenius, Pastafarians, etc.

Community.

They're all groups of people with some kind of shared purpose or values. Cults are harmful and power based. Communities are helpful and consent-based. Religions can fall either way, or somewhere in the middle.

Philosophy?

Intellectual freedom, with an appreciation of philosophy and scientific inquiry.

Defining characteristics of a cult: inside information and ritual, seperation from others and non believers, words and speech that are internalized and often only understood by cult members, heiradchy - often to one person or small group, loss of self, loss of independence, removal of physical items or required clothing, and generally there is an eventuality that those in power will begin abuse that is often sexual.

Now, the actual beliefs have nothing to do with it. Where a religion ranks in the scheme is debatable.

Freedom.

Religion and cult is basically the same thing with different connotative subtext.

Bowling league

Cult is just what the big congregation calls the small congregation

Atheism.

Technically speaking, all religions are cults. The definition of "cult" is just an organized practice of religion.

At the far end of the spectrum, with no judging and only help, is a food bank.

Everything doesn't have to have an opposite, you know.

Belief , like the traditional cult of the ancestors in China, where you have no "priest" or "guru", it is just a bunch of people relying on elders to mimick the rituals, but in fact nobody remember it well, it is all disorganized, and nobody is really checking for "correctness" as much as checking if the commitment is done with intent. So the opposite of having a strong vertical domination by one person (cult) or an organized institution (religion) is a weak control of the rites by anyone (belief)

Logic.

Cults and religion are the same. The only thing that differentiate them is time. If you have a systematic set of illogical beliefs that have been around for a few years or decades or even just one lifetime, it's more likely to be called a cult. Give that group a lot more time and it will be called a religion.

As for your question .... I don't think it's anything the opposite of religion / cult but rather which belief system. I think as humans, we will always come up with some sort of belief system because we will always want to. We're just wired that way.

And to me the best belief system is one where we value one another no matter what, who, where, why or how. That includes honoring, respecting even those who don't believe what you do. A belief system where we honor all life, human, animal and organic. A belief system where we do our best not to harm one another or any life around us.

If we could that, then following a religion wouldn't be so bad because the belief system would be used to actually benefit all life.

Science

A cult is basically just a religion that is not large or old enough to force people to take it seriously. It just so happens that small, new religions are also extremely volatile and unstable and prone to extremely stupid decisions