Comment by Brendinooo

I've been re-evaluating the reflexive "cults are bad" instinct that Americans like myself seem to have.

Your implication is that 'cult' and 'ignorance, rage, greed...' are the same levels of undesirable. And like this guy said, when we think of cults we think of Kool-Aid and Waco.

But "cult" is a little word that covers a lot of territory:

- a system of religious veneration and devotion directed toward a particular figure or object

- a relatively small group of people having religious beliefs or practices regarded by others as strange or sinister

- a misplaced or excessive admiration for a particular person or thing

- a person or thing that is popular or fashionable, especially among a particular section of society

(Oxford)

The first one would be analogous to calling Christianity the Cult of Jesus, as a statement of fact. Neutral connotation, I think.

The second would include something along the lines of Jonestown, but really is just any cohesive group that believes something differently than you do. Really, that definition is so flexible and relativistic that it can be tagged to anything you disagree with. And it's possible that those beliefs and practices are edifying in nature, but you just get called a cult because your friends all do it together with you and everyone else just thinks it's weird.

The third would be something like Bieber fever or Beatlemania. Negative connotation.

The fourth would be something like iPhone/Android people, or a cult film. Neutral-ish connotation.

No definition truly captures what we think of as a cult: The charismatic leader that probably wants to have sex with all of his adherents, the coercion and conformity, the inability to leave.

I don't really know how he's using the word so I don't have a strong opinion about what kind of cult he's formed, but I wouldn't write him off instantly because he used the word.

At least I don't think so; I'm trying this argument out in public for the first time right now.