Cults and Religion

Thomas Wolfe said that a cult is a religion with no political power. How sad but true! Look at any of the recognized, mainstream religions of today and tell me which ones were recognized as actual religions from their inception. I can't think of any, personally.

Even the biggest one, Christianity, began as a cult, actively persecuted by the Romans as heretical and subversive. Interestingly enough, the word "atheist" was originally used by the Romans to describe Christians because of their refusal to worship the Roman pantheon of gods. Now, the Christians use it to describe anyone who refuses to subscribe to the Christian doctrine.

Emperor Constantine, who so many claim to have been the first Christian emperor, actually remained a pagan to the end, submitting to baptism only on his deathbed when he was too weak to resist any longer. He had tolerated the Christian sect because they had grown so numerous that weeding them all out had become a practical impossibility, which lent them a certain political advantage, but only after Constantine's forcible baptism was it recognized as an actual religion and elevated from cult status to that of a religion.

Since the Catholic Church became the dominant sect of Christianity, it has spawned a number of offshoots, which formed the base of the Protestant religions, but each one of those offshoots was considered a cult until time and popularity (not to mention wars and conquest) gained them a certain mainstream status.

The corruption which has contaminated virtually all of the mainstream religions is constantly driving people to seek, or form, their own spiritual groups. Most of these groups are tolerated as long as they stay "under the radar," but once they try to go public, or try to isolate themselves from society as large, they are denounced as cults, branded as dangerous, and attacked by the mainstream, who see them as a threat. A classic example is what happened in Waco, Texas in 1995, but that is such an involved subject I really can't go into it here. Suffice it to say, what we were told happened it only what the mainstream wanted us to know, and what little we were told was distorted by the media to serve the ends of the powers that be.

The danger in persecuting people who have unpopular views when it comes to religion and religious doctrine is that when those who defend themselves by adopting the tactics of a tyrant risk becoming tyrants themselves. In a country that prides itself on religious tolerance (even when that tolerance is becoming more and more illusory), such things should not be allowed to go on.