So, You Want to Join a Cult - Follow Up - Part VI - So, You Think You're NOT in a Cult?

Cultishness is not just one thing, it exists on a continuum. On one end there's the People's Temple of Jim Jones, which ended with scores of dead adults and children, on another end there are groups where people live among us, with regular jobs and ordinary lives, but believe outlandish things. 

At several points in this series I have emphasized that what makes a cult isn't what you believe, it's what you do. Groups which are regularly characterized as cults often have beliefs that fall outside the mainstream, and are often viewed as "wacky", but what about those mainstream beliefs? Aren't they a little wacky too? 

The main reason that a belief is not considered crazy is that it's familiar. If you grew up in a "western" nation, it's likely that you were raised in a Christian family, in a predominantly Christian community. Even if you're not religious yourself, the underlying assumptions are bound to have influenced you. Assumptions that there is a God, that there's an afterlife that includes some version of Heaven and Hell, that praying is something that you do. But if you were brought up without any religious influences, how likely would you find any of those things? And if you are religious, are a regular church goer, your beliefs are a bit more specific: you believe that God exists as a Trinity composed of three "persons" who are at the same time separate and distinct, while the same; you believe that one of those persons became human due to a "virgin birth"; you believe that this person broke multiple laws of nature and physics (miracles); you believe that he was killed, but was alive again three days later and subsequently "ascended" into "Heaven" (when you know that there's nothing up there to ascend into)…and on and on. You believe these things because someone told you to believe them. There's no way to objectively checks these things out, no way to verify them, yet you choose to believe them. As part of your belief you accept the authority of leaders (they may be ministers, bishops, or even the pope) as they extrapolate the beliefs in the religious realm and apply them to political, social and family matters. Everyone who believes differently than you is wrong, society must be molded to conform to your beliefs.

Sure, you're not in a cult.

Maybe you think that you're not in a cult because you're not being brainwashed. But you cling to your beliefs and will not even consider that other points of view might be valid. If someone in what you call a cult thought like that, wouldn't you consider them brainwashed?

Okay, well, you're not drinking poisoned store brand Kool-Aid knock off, or letting your teenage daughter marry the Man of God. But those are just the extremes. There's plenty of cultishness in between free-thinking and group suicide.

Think about what you unthinkingly accept, and how you want those things to be imposed on everyone, and tell me again that you're not in a cult.