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I'm tempted to make poor taste jokes but really I've got nothing other than what is the difference between a cult and a religion?
Obviously there's some judgement in there, but I'm a little rough on the distinction
this post was submitted on 02 Sep 2023
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Cults just say the quiet parts out loud.
According to the cults website the other guy mentioned “cults have a strong tendency to harm and control their members” so… Mainstream religions tend to have numbers on their side I guess, but a mass delusion is still a delusion.
But surely every religion is essentially control. As for the barn aspect, that's very interpretable.
This is just confirming my bunch that the difference is really spelling (as a non-bitter ex-Christian. Gosh, I am sounding bitter, however!)
Age....
A cult that has been around long enough tends to be called a religion.
Do Exclusive Brethren count? I worked for one of their companies as a teen, they were weird
Yes, they count.
Exclusive Brethren houses are designed to have a special windowless sound-proof room for locking their children in when they need to be punished. I know an architect.
Well that’s horrifying
There's going to be some Roman Catholic Church level of abuse uncovered one day, pretty sure. When you're baking oppression into ya blueprints you're deeply into it.
Until the 90s there was Centrepoint in Albany.
Wow. I vaguely recall the name but I was just a little kid when that all broke. I didn’t realise how much shit went down there. That Wikipedia article makes for quite a read.
Here’s a website - cults.co.nz - not looked at it in much detail, but it seems to have lots of info.
Lmao they have a "False religion" key, so any religion what isn't Christianity falls under that key.
Also this... "Abortion - There is probably no greater danger to New Zealanders than abortion. The physical danger to babies is obvious"
Keyed as a cult
A shame it's from the Christian lense, I feel like it would be a lot more balanced from a non-religious perspective
Don't need to say "I feel", deffo would be more balanced if the list of cults wasn't written by someone in a cult
"I don't want to gatekeep people culting ... But those guys are full of shit" - *flicks hair all sassy-like
Wow there is some pretty whacky groups and people on the list. Love that they’ve for the advance + freedom parties there too.
That website seems to be run by someone with... very specific ideas.
Their glossary defines several beliefs about god, including atheism, as "a false belief".
Scientology
Do they have much of a presence here?
They have a branch office up in Auckland at the former Whitecliffe College of Arts and Design building in Grafton, the last census counted 321 Scientologists although they claim to have 3000-5000 followers here. So they dont have much of a presence here, but still too much
Even 300 is too many, although there are worse options.
Just out of curiosity what out there could be worse? Scientology are pretty evil, cant think of any worse myself
Destiny church are a scary bunch, and beyond that there's the more murdery groups such as the Manson family.
I've met a few people from this doomsday cult. Pretty out there.
That wiki article got more nuts the further I read. How people still believe after all those failed prophecies is beyond me, and the idea that this group demands young female members meets Korean beauty standards is even crazier. Thanks for the share.
Yeah it's amazing especially meeting people who have likely never even been to Korea yet they are caught up in this thing.
there are a lot of weird and small cults in NZ.
Oh there is the business roundtable or whatever they are calling themselves these days.
They merged with the NZ Institute and collectively they call themselves the NZ Initiative now. You'll see them in media quite often being quoted as though they're presenting a consensus of experts in things rather than promulgating the desires of the fairly extreme idealogues they've always been.
It's a part of their deception. Keep changing the name so the people get confused and can't hold you accountable.
NATLFED comes to mind when you say that, nothing to do with NZ, but the weird convoluted structure so no-one knows who is responsible for what