So I am 22y/o taking a Religions class in a community college in the South. I really respected my professors opinions and views on religion so I emailed my professor to ask him, frankly, what he thought about Mormonism and its cultish tendencies.

I basically told him that so many things seemed cultish to me. The very secret temple ceremonies, the fact they force member to pay tithing, the manipulation they use to try to convert people (I explained to him that while in high school, 2 women missionaries tried telling me Joseph Smith was illiterate and with faith he was able to read the golden plates but later I found out he read them through a hat!), the fact that they literally tell their members what to wear/what not to wear, and the most annoying to me of all.....the fact that they all speak in this judgmental, arrogant conviction about how they KNOW the church is true blahblah

Well, he emailed me back and said that he doesn't really like the word cult because it's so vague and he doesn't even know how to begin to apply it. He said that everyone thinks everyone is in a cult. People think Catholics are cultish, Baptists pretty much think every other religion is cultish, etc etc. And that the secret-ish things have origins from freemasons (which I already knew), even Sikhs wear undergarments like the Mormons, and that he believes Joseph Smith has a really, really, really, different take on Christianity.

Ummmmmmmmmm thanks but that tells me nothing because I already knew about all of that!!! This is a professor who has told us he was Atheist, now he's Catholic and pretty religious. So there's no possibility of him maybe being Mormon or having some ties to them. I really couldn't figure it out. I thought this guy with a Bachelors, Masters, and PhD in Theology and Religion could help me out......

Since the word "cult" has a number of meanings, and academically can be applied to most any religious group, I think you need to start with a ready knowledge of the definition YOU mean (which is: "coercive group," etc.).

Google "cult checklist" to see a number of different explanations of what cult/"coercive group" actually means, and...

...be SURE to go to Steve Hassan's site: www.freedomofmind.com and check out what is there. Hassan's "definition" (which contains a number of very specific points) is one of the most widely accepted explanations of what the word means(in the "coercive group" sense), both throughout academia and also by the general world at large.

You could combine Hassan's list with some of the other lists you will find from a Google search, or just simply use Hassan's list and systematically explain why every point on his list corresponds to what is true of Mormonism.

Good luck!

He is employed by a public, secular college, and probably goes to well-practiced lengths to be non-judgmental and non-offensive.

Sleep with someone else then....

Stumbling Wrote:
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> Sleep with someone else then....


Well this went south pretty quick.

I guess I would say to not be too disappointed in the prof. he just sounds like a guy that will attempt to be positive about crap.

He is probably too positive about the crap in this cult, but maybe he has low exposure to the cult. Get on the internets and find plenty of info about this cult and why you should run from it and don't worry about what low effort thinkers can provide you about the direction of your life.

Well, he answered your questions, you just didn't like his answers. Perhaps you should just go find someone who will agree with you.

(obviously I posted this in the wrong place, DOH....)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/19/2013 06:40AM by Stumbling.

I think you wanted him to reaffirm to you that Mormonism is a cult and he wasn't willing to do that. That is okay. A lot of folks on here classify it as a cult and that helps them recover.

When all facts are put on the table it is a lot harder to definitively say. Not everybody, even experts, agree on the status of Mormonism. If you want to feel like it is a cult then stay here for reassurance because you might not find it guaranteed anywhere else.

You should send him a link to http://packham.n4m.org/cult.htm

I have some objections to many of the arguments Packham makes, but by far it is the most comprehensive and academically sound explanation as to why Mormonism is a cult. I would be interested to hear your professor's take on it.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/19/2013 12:52PM by snb.

Lots of people on this site think it's a cult.

Some think it's a tribe.

I think it's a business.

Nobody agrees 100% on everything.

Christians define cult differently than most on this board might ; and that would be that a religion or sect is considered to be a cult if its beliefs are centered around the teachings or writings of a person other than Jesus Christ and the Bible.

Mormonism fits this definition but religions whose teachings are Bible-centered are not.

Your professor is wrong, at least in this part of his understanding.




nevermoar Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> So I am 22y/o taking a Religions class in a
> community college in the South. I really respected
> my professors opinions and views on religion so I
> emailed my professor to ask him, frankly, what he
> thought about Mormonism and its cultish
> tendencies.
>
> I basically told him that so many things seemed
> cultish to me. The very secret temple ceremonies,
> the fact they force member to pay tithing, the
> manipulation they use to try to convert people (I
> explained to him that while in high school, 2
> women missionaries tried telling me Joseph Smith
> was illiterate and with faith he was able to read
> the golden plates but later I found out he read
> them through a hat!), the fact that they literally
> tell their members what to wear/what not to wear,
> and the most annoying to me of all.....the fact
> that they all speak in this judgmental, arrogant
> conviction about how they KNOW the church is true
> blahblah
>
> Well, he emailed me back and said that he doesn't
> really like the word cult because it's so vague
> and he doesn't even know how to begin to apply it.
> He said that everyone thinks everyone is in a
> cult. People think Catholics are cultish, Baptists
> pretty much think every other religion is cultish,
> etc etc. And that the secret-ish things have
> origins from freemasons (which I already knew),
> even Sikhs wear undergarments like the Mormons,
> and that he believes Joseph Smith has a really,
> really, really, different take on Christianity.
>
> Ummmmmmmmmm thanks but that tells me nothing
> because I already knew about all of that!!! This
> is a professor who has told us he was Atheist, now
> he's Catholic and pretty religious. So there's no
> possibility of him maybe being Mormon or having
> some ties to them. I really couldn't figure it
> out. I thought this guy with a Bachelors, Masters,
> and PhD in Theology and Religion could help me
> out......

I'd go with the professor's understanding over any "Christian" definition.

The Christian definition would claim that Hinduism, Islam, Buddhists, Judaism, Taoists, etc, around 53% of the world's population, are members of a cult.

Also, while Christians might disagree with it, Mormons are as Christ centered as everybody else. Christians are just as guilty as Mormons of worshiping a "make your own Jesus."

"Cult" can mean any system of religious practice and ritual. However, respectfully, I think you misunderstand the Christian definition of "cult." Per Christianity, world religions like Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, etc. are just that--religions, albeit false. The "cult" definition is applied to groups that have some claim to be Christian, but clearly deviate from the most basic Christian doctrines (trinity, deity of Christ, to name a few). These cults fall into two types: Correction Cults and Replacement Cults.

Mormonism is a "Correction Cult." All of the other Christian churches have perverted the Bible and strayed from "real" Christianity, supposedly as Jesus and his apostles practiced it. Correction cults typically have a prophet or other kind of revelator who received special "scripture," which no other Christian group has to correct these "errors." The cult is the only "true" Christian group, and its members the only "real" Christians. And obviously, those of you (the majority) who've lived it, well you know the rest (mind control, shunning, control, authoritarianism, etc., etc.)

Replacement cults are a little harder to explain. But I'd say they are basically all-new religions that spring up in largely Christian societies, so they attack Christianity as false first (think Scientology, the UFO cults, etc.).

My problem is that it really isn't that easy to form a definition of a cult based on Christ or as a comparison to religion. Based on your first sentence one of the characteristics of a cult is that they claim to be Christian (despite the fact that you can't define with any certainty what it means to claim to be Christian). That couldn't possibly be a characteristic of a cult.

So, I didn't necessarily misunderstand the Christian definition, rather, I poked some very easy holes in the argument. The Christian definition that notmo gave didn't fit. Neither does yours. It is really really hard to define cults in the way you guys are trying to define them.

Not only is the definition vague and not very solid, it is also very Western centric. What about Hare Krishnas? Theravadas? 18th century Wahhabism? Historically I think there can be an argument that Zoroastrianism or even Sufism at first could be considered cults. None of these groups every once claimed to be Christian.

I haven't ever heard of replacement or correction cults, but that is an interesting notion. Are there any resources detailing these things?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/19/2013 12:29PM by snb.

By that definition, baptists are definitely a cult since they focus more on what Paul said than anyone.

Remove teachings from the bible that didn't come straight from jesus and you've got yourself a pamphlet!

Spoken like a good little member of my DW's ward.

Do you disagree? Or would you like to modify your definition?

No, I don't agree...

So you'd like to modify your definition, then?

You lost me here:

"the fact that they all speak in this judgmental, arrogant conviction about how they KNOW the church is true blahblah"

No, that's not a fact, and no, they don't all speak that way. Trying to get a professor to affirm your dislike of the Mormons is just another example of bigotry at work.

I don't think the LDS church is true. However, the biased image of it you've conjured in your mind isn't true either.

Realize that many peoples' interactions with Mormons are largely positive. I've said it elsewhere, but it bears stating again: you're not superior to the Mormons. They're individuals, too, and your attempt to denigrate them (using your professor, no less) speaks more of you than it does of them.

As a religion professor he's going to take an objective look at religions without becoming emotionally involved. There are many religions with "crazy" beliefs or unusual practices and, as he pointed out, sometimes different religions have beliefs and practices that are somewhat in common with one another.

I think his answer was very diplomatic and reasonable. His job is to teach the beliefs of a variety of religions, not label or vilify them. But if you're looking for labeling and vilification, you will find plenty of it online, including here (and I'm not saying that's necessarily a bad thing, there are multiple sides to every story).

I agree with the professor about having difficulty applying that kind of definition to religions.

And many "cult experts" use different standards when considering any religion to be a cult.

Someone else mentioned Steven Hassan. He uses criteria that could be applied regardless of most doctrine.

What I mean by that, for example is the belief in the garment.

Believing that an article of clothing is sacred and blessed is found in many religions and wouldn't be considered cultish per se. But having "garment checks," and making people feel inferior because of their underwear choice is cultish.

I would also say that if this religious professor values his job - he'd never call any religion a cult.

Because certain cult members would try very hard to get him fired for "singling out religions" and being "bigoted."

Raptor Jesus Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I would also say that if this religious professor
> values his job - he'd never call any religion a
> cult.
>
> Because certain cult members would try very hard
> to get him fired for "singling out religions" and
> being "bigoted."

A most excellent--and important!--point, Raptor Jesus!

I believe you are using the word cult in the "coercive control", "undue influence", "totalist groups" sense?

Several checklists have been developed by various people to be used to evaluate groups for coercively manipulative tactics. Lifton, Hassan, etc.

Any type of group can be evaluated this way. Some "religious" groups will fit the criteria of a coercively controlling organization very closely others will not fit that profile well at all.

Some groups that use cult tactics are not religious in nature. There are business cults, self help cults, political cults and others.

In my opinion, the Mormon church does use cult tactics and fits the criteria very well.

Check out the Salty Droid site. I especially like his series on Sheeple, parts one through five.

Also read George Orwell's essays on totalitarianism versus democracy.

Cults in the sense that you mean are not fundamentally defined by religion, they are defined by coercive control. They come in different packages.

I too am dismayed that religion professors do not seem to grasp this important point, since coercively controlling groups often use religion as their vehicle.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/20/2013 10:01AM by CrispingPin.

You're unsatisfied with your religion professor? You get no sympathy from me. I took a BOM class at BYU that was taught by Joseph McConkie.

People in religious academia are not likely to label big churches in America; same thing happened to me. My religious studies prof, a female PhD who is a cult expert sought after as someone who can "label" cults, said that the Mormon church is NOT a cult...anymore. She believes that a cult "has evil at the core" and we are talking kidnapping, a body count, sexual crimes etc. Also the Mormon church is really too large and rich to be a cult. Cult like approaches...yes. But it's not a cult and the word "cult" will never work to get Mormons out of their religion.

I think religious academia are showing a lack of leadership and doing a disservice to the rest of us in glossing over this area. There are important distinctions to be made in the tactics used by "religious" institutions. They are stupid not to realize that Mormonism is primarily a business cult disguised as religion.

They are unable to see it from their particular academic discipline, the bad perspective, the blinders that puts on them. They can't see the problem from that vantage point, ironically, I think. They probably get into a certain amount of group think, too.

I really don't like it. Could it be compared to Carl Ichan investing in Herbalife and giving that whole excuse-for-a-business validity? It's an abusive business model, it is scam world, it should not be legitimized by business people. It's a big, rich scam, nobody has died, presumably? (though many have lost lots of $$) it is clever and is financially opaque, and thus hasn't been caught yet...but that doesn't make it right.

Also anecdotally, my daughter is friends with the son of a local progressive Protestant pastor in our town (they are both 18). He wryly referred to Mormonism in conversation as "America's favorite cult"...I assume his mother, the seminary-educated pastor, shares his attitude? So I do think maybe some common sense people whose life work is in religion do actually understand the problem.



Edited 6 time(s). Last edit at 07/20/2013 03:14PM by 2+2=4.

I think the academics who are more likely to understand the problem are those who work in social psychology and related areas.

I agree with your professor. Early Mormonism was definitely a cult, but Mormonism now doesn't look anything like it used to. It now employs cult like approaches, but is too dissimilar to what most experts would consider to be cults.

Now, I completely agree with your criticism of her thoughts about how to get Mormons out. The same things that help people get out of cults are things that will help people get out of Mormonism. If people want to identify Mormonism as a cult because it helps them deprogram then there is nothing wrong with it. If your professor had experience with some of the people here she might see that.

There are other useful reasons to clearly identify it as a group that uses cult tactics other than just in trying to de-program as an ex mormon....

One reason would be to clearly mark it as a coercively controlling group to the wider unsuspecting world so that innocent non-mormon bystanders would not get sucked into it, thereby causing damage (as attested to on this site) to themselves and their families.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/20/2013 05:40PM by 2+2=4.