What is the difference between a religion and a cult?

I think the difference (or similarity) is that a cult is a label used to allude to malevolent religious practices, by "religious" officials. In this sense, it's just a social manifestation of hard-wired human hypocrisy.

The pot and the kettle if you will.

To me, a cult is any organization where the will of individual members is subordinated to the will of a central leadership; where the leadership claims extraordinary powers to police members' thoughts and lives; and where absolute obedience and conformity are required in order to remain a member of the group. The beliefs of the group don't have to be spiritual in nature - most totalitarian political movements, from the Nazis to the Khmer Rouge, qualify as cults in my opinion.

On the other hand, a religious movement generally has to accommodate some range of dissent and opinion in order to grow beyond a certain size; that's why Scientology will never become a world religion.

A cult is an organized religion...or an organized set of beliefs. Doesn't always have to be negative either. The Catholic Church is a cult. Baptists are a cult. Methodists are a cult. Branch Dividians are a cult. Forgive Affirmed Spirits are a cult.

Life does not always seem FAIR!

Hi! I am a Forgive Affirmed Spirit and this is what I profess and try to act like.

Forgive Affirmed Spirit is the belief in a way of life that is a method of grief resolution and functional communication processing involving active listenning, sympathy, empathy and affirmation of shock, denial, anger, guilt, depression, loneliness and hope...a kind of ego-equilibrium seeking methodology.

A Greater Works of communication and action, a way to learn to love your enemies "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you AS IF YOU WERE THEM!"

And nobody is perfect! NOBODY! We are all judgeable, hopefully in a graceful discerning way! We are all doing our best every moment!

Humans judge everything as we are a part of it. Without difference, we have nothing to live for, nothing to witness. Sin is difference, the relative seriousness with regards to law and survival of other beings, is punishable by the courts. The best way to judge is with as much graceful discernment as one can muster in a given moment!

Life is the question(uncertainty) asked by the exhaling infinitely compacted imagination invention, or no thing, which is completely certain of everything, completely omniscient or all knowing.

When I die, I believe I will be in a new state, aware of all that is and yet divided into the nature of dust that I am in, whereupon my dust shall fall. My being will remain an infinite part of an infinite being and infinite knowledge without my material human being status of now. So there will be a change.

But my soul, my passions and discompassions, will move on to infinite places of comfort and challenge. Able to return to this state of uncertainty and free choice illusion for another ride when it is called effectively to do so.

So that the children of God, the creations of God, .. are actually part in parcel of that God or Creation Energy!

This life is a roller coaster ride. Enjoy your passion within it and whatever gathering of two or more in Forgive Affirmed Spirit to make it better can garner.

Healing be unto you and yours and me and mine in

Forgive Affirmed Spirit

A cult focuses on one charismatic individual, usually the leader and founder. A religion typically has more generalized dogma. Both can be quite destructive.

From Wikipedia:

"'Cult' typically refers to a cohesive social group devoted to beliefs or practices that the surrounding population considers to be outside the mainstream."

The problem is there is no widely accepted definition of the word "cult", so your question is difficult to answer as it refers to something that is difficult to pin down.

Religion is you what truly believe in your heart/soul/mind and Bodyas being the correct thing to do.

A cult is being convinced by others what to believe in.

A cult brainwashes people. They are addicted. If you would tell them to spend the rest of their life without going to church they couldn't do it.

tax breaks mainly, Churches get tax write-offs and cults get watched by the ATF.

A good public relations rep

They have different names?