My sister is studying Religions and Cults as part of her Criminal Justice major. She's finished college, but she's taking another four years of school now to train herself. She wants to join the FBI and all of that good stuff.
Yesterday I was sitting on the sofa, watching the Phillies game, when I heard laughing. I looked over at her laptop and she was studying Heaven's Gate and Marshall Applewhite. She wasn't laughing at the Mass Suicide, but at the cult itself. I even got to see an initiation video was hysterical as well. So my family starts talking about it and we all start to laugh and make fun. During this I start to think to myself "Isn't Christianity just as deranged as this? Is it really much more believable than this?". You see, my family doesn't know I'm an Athiest. They are all Christian though. I just found it funny. Your laughing at some stupid cult, while you continue to believe in your own religion which isn't realistic eithers.
That's been bugging me for a little while now and I just wanted to hear what others think.
(https://www.happyatheistforum.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg24.imageshack.us%2Fimg24%2F167%2Fjackassa.jpg&hash=221b9a6aa29d6128690d755712940af42391db1a) (http://img24.imageshack.us/i/jackassa.jpg/)
Ladies and gentlemen, Marshall Applewhite.
Two differences between a cult and a religion: time and membership.
At one point, every religion was a cult. ;)[/size]
Curio is right I believe there are several refences to "the new Jewish cult" refering to the early christianity, it old Roman and Jewsh writings.