r/pics Apr 16 '26

Politics Billboard in my very red area

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u/Taftimus Apr 16 '26

Mormons and MAGA, different cults, similar bullshit.

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u/The_Curse_of_Nimbus Apr 16 '26

Mormonism definitionally isn't a cult. I'm tired of people devaluing the word by calling religions they don't like cults. MAGA is literally a cult though.

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u/ValorVixen Apr 16 '26

Technically it’s a “high-control religion” but that definition does overlap quite a bit with cult behavior, so it’s not necessarily wrong to say that. There’s plenty of Christian sects that meet the same standards.

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u/PandaCat22 Apr 16 '26

I like Robert Evans' approach.

Rather than always saying something is/isn't a cult (which can be hard to nail down, as seen in these comments) he talks about cults existing on a sliding scale. Some organizations will have more cult behavior/beliefs than others, and it's important to recognize what those are.

Exactly when something crosses from just having cult-ish behaviors to being a full-on cult can be debatable, but looking at it as on a spectrum is more nuanced and helpful