TLDR - what’s the question mark in the following scale
Cult(-1)……………….Religion(0)……………….???(+1)
Long version (a.k.a my stupid mind’s question that is keeping me awake):
My understanding of cult is a group of people with an absurd or even possibly nefarious belief system. Like something negative.
By that definition I would put religion in the middle (though a majority of it leans towards the cult side). A group of people that is very serious about what they believe in, no matter how illogical it is.
So with this understanding what would you call the positive side ? A group of people coming together to have a tradition and belief system just for the fun of it ? Is there such thing ?
an atheistic commune
Your scale is off. Religions and cults are the same thing. The only difference is how accepting society is of them. There is no third option.
An individual who thinks and acts rationally and who doesn’t try to manipulate others.
Not everything has an opposite. That is a trap of binary thinking.
Normal lol
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.
Normal society
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.
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.
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’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.
I know what you mean, but this is a fun exercise. The opposite of a Rat King clearly is a Cat Peasant. The opposite of an ant mill is trickier, there is no such machine that recomposes flour to make whole grains again, reversing the milling process, but the next similar thing would be making bread, so I pick Thermite Bakery.
If cults need to protect their members and beliefs from society and laws to survive, and with religions both support each other, then the opposite of an cult would be a society that needs to protect their members and laws from beliefs, taking drastic measures to separate their members from said beliefs. I guess some sort of atheistic authoritarian state would be the opposite, on your scale. So, North Korea? It doesn’t feel quite right because those authoritarian states depend on a cult of personality. Maybe some technocratic AI state? I don’t know if there is something simpler I’m missing.
The other way of thing it would be, the beliefs organization growing bigger and shallowing the society in that third stage, so people need to protect themselves from the big theocratic apparatus, taking drastic measures to restrict their members and separate them from the big theocracy, living in communities, farming and reading philosophy and cultivating science, educating each other? This is somewhat similar to the setting in V for Vendetta. Also reminds me of what people do in some places dominated by Islamic theocracy, a very cult like way of gathering in secret at houses, sharing banned books, and literally risking their lives for even discussing such things at their homes.
But I agree with you, OP needs to define better the difference perceived between cults and religions, so we can extrapolate a better answer.
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.
Philosophy?
I think this is closest to correct. If the metric is that cult members are kind of duped to go along with group think and philosophy is the practice of questioning belief and thought processes.
That positions philosophy as the meta-analysis end of the scale and cults as the automatic.
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)
Bowling league
