<link>

The accepted religions are just the oldest and most successful.

Hear hear!

I second that!

Good to see another guitar guy (I assume player also) that understands that all religions are cults and are based on the belief in myths.

Anyhow, long life guitar. While I love to play jazz guitar I love all types of music (as long as there is music in the music) and play all types.

All religions are cults in the sense that they have ritual and a group of adherents, but the charge leveled against Scientology is different. This statement is basically just a way to pick a fight by confusing the common and academic definitions. There is a difference between groups like Heavens Gate and the Roman Catholic Church that the common usage recognizes. This name calling confuses the issue and is a great way to not address the problem at hand. I am an atheist but think the overall impact of religion is not known, and needs to be studied before people go picking fights to knock it down. On the other hand groups that are commonly called Cults should have reasonable religious and non-religious people working together to minimize their harm.

There is a lot of research on the dangers of religion. I would say history has a lot to say about this overall impact of religion and it isn't a nice picture!

It is always mainstream religions and their followers that like to use the term 'cult' to imply that they are somehow different. But at the end of the day these so called mainstream religions (they are mainsteam only because of they have so many suckers) are based on the same foundation; believe in myths and lack of reason and logic.

Even established religions engage in cult behavior: Recruitment, exclusion of all opposing views, discouraging association with those who don't believe as they do, violence against outsiders, divine justification, divine knowledge, ostracism of drop-outs - the list goes on and on.

Any group that seeks to control your behavior by means of the divine revelation to its leaders should be classified as a cult by the popular definition. This is a characteristic of every major religion.

I don't see the problem. Will the statement, "All religions are cults," anger the religious? Of course it will. It doesn't make it any less true. Until the religious are ready to recognize that morality and knowledge do not flow exclusively through their dogmatic texts and beliefs, I see no reason to placate them with recognition that their faith is reasonable.

Just curious, but do you attend a church to make such claims? Because the church I attend, an non-denominational church that professes that Jesus is the son of God and came to save us, does none of the things you suggested. Any church that follows Christ and follows the truths and very words of God in the Bible will not do what you claim to be true.

Sadly enough, there are too many churches claiming to be Christian churches, that do not follow Christ but are blinded by traditions.

I encourage you to check out the book by Lee Strobel entitled 'The Case for Christ.' But be prepared, you may change your opinion by the end of the book.

Jeanine:

I grew up Catholic and still deal with all different kinds of Christians in my community. I've stopped telling people that I'm an atheist because they treat me differently. These people who have known me for years (some, all my life) now see me as a bad person simply because I don't believe in God. Nothing else has changed. I'm certain that a great number of Christians and individual congregations do not engage in any of the behavior I described above. In my experience, though, most either encourage at least some of that behavior or stand by silently while others do.

And Christians are but a part of "established" religion. Would you argue that Muslims don't act as such? How about Jews? All of the religions have, at one time or another, committed cultish acts, even sects of Christians persecuting other Christians. If you believe that this is all in the past, you really need to do some research.

Having said that and giving you the benefit of the doubt, I'll ask you the same questions I ask everyone:

How would your church treat a homosexual who wished to worship with them? How about a long time member who had come out of the closet or been outed?

How would your church feel about a member who had been found to have an abortion? How would the other parishoners treat her and her family?

How would your church treat a parishoner who, though otherwise devout, expressed the opinion that both of these things, however personally abhorrent they might be, are legal, personal and not within the province of the church to dictate?

Finally, if it were proven tomorrow that God did not exist, would you still be a good person? Would those you know still be moral people, even without a God or a Bible to compel them?

If you have a positive answer for all of these questions, then congratulations, you'll be the first.