When does a "sect" become a "cult?" -

[Tranhuviya]

Exactly what it says on the tin. A lot of out-there expressions of faith, like the Amish or the Mormons, are basically tolerated in America. But people like the Yellow Deli folks or snake-handlers are too fringe for this status. What, exactly, is the dividing line between "sect" and "cult?"

 

[trigon]

A "sect" is part of a wider religion that hold a different interpretation of part(s) of a religious text or lore, classic example being Catholics vs Protestants.

A "cult" deliberately separates itself from the wider faith that it originated from (or, if lacking a larger faith to splinter from, wider society) and rigidly enforces its core doctrine on its adherents. Top examples being the Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses.

 

[Wärring Ornac]

When they start wearing hood, painting sigils with blood, chanting obscure language, and gathering virgin maiden that just so happen to wear white dress

 

[1Tonka_Truck]

A cult needs isolation and undue power over the individual to function.

 

[Richardo Retardo]

The strain of Charismatic Pentecostalism that practices snake handling is pretty well accepted in certain regions of the US and thus would be considered more of sect than a cult by your definition.
It'd also be a sect according to @trigon 's definition.
I think the biggest differences are the communities' level of separation from wider society. Once you're on a compound you're in cult territory (with the exception of monastic orders obviously) but you can still be a city councilman even if you believe in Esoteric Hitlerism so long as you go to the neighborhood BBQs and act within social norms.

EDIT: P.S. Mormonism is basically Voodoo for White people.

 

[1Tonka_Truck]

EDIT: P.S. Mormonism is basically Voodoo for White people.

Does Voodoo have magic underwear?

 

[Autopsy]

Sect is a general definition for "anything fragmented off a pre-existing religion". Cults can be sects and sects can be cults but not all cults are sects and not all sects are cults.
Here are some broad categories that I just made up on the spot that seem to sift them down into meaningful

Cults

of Personality​

congeal around a single person and tend to be sects of a pre-existing religion or a synthesis of many religions where convenient to the divine personage. Example: Ramtha's School of Enlightenment, which tempts cultists with a pretty in-depth summer camp experience and promises of ESP for devotion.
Counterexample: The three messianic Abrahamic religions could all theoretically fall into this type but don't generally; this is because the Personality is dead and there are goals other than the edification of the divine personage.

of Esoterica​

tend to be new religions that are advantageous to a small group or encourage specific behavior. General pagan tradition is cherrypicked to support a goal. Example: Dianic Wicca, which attempts to use faith as a bludgeon to drive in extreme Feminist beliefs by enshrining a great number of pro-female and feminine divinity viewpoints as doctrine.
Counterexample: A very similar religion, the Fellowship of Isis, does not subvert these cherrypicked viewpoints to a greater purpose. There is a great deal of overlap in membership but at not obvious point is there a rallying cry to unseat or otherwise disabuse the masculine, unlike the Dianites.

of Mystique​

are relatively harmless until they're not. These are casual cults that people participate in often knowingly and willingly. It's not until they dig too deep in whatever weird lore they stole their schtick from and their beliefs start going sideways that things get real bad. Example: Heaven's Gate, a zany cali-cult with an emphasis on ayylmaos. You could argue it was a duo cult of personality but the actual draw in was that the worshipers were already big into UFOs and UFO lore and just wanted to make something more of it. Things got especially zany when the head honcho and thirty eight other people killed themselves through suffocation.
Counterexample: The entirety of /x/ or nearly the entirety of worshiping Buddhists, both of which have no idea what they're talking about.

of Desperation​

abuse the weakness of an individual to draw them in for the gain of a larger group. Many other cults are like this, but few treat desperation as the end rather than the means. Example: Post-Hubbard Scientology. He built a massive network of filching based on the almost intrinsic depression and anxiety of modern successful individuals. Modern religions are sometimes in this category depending on who's preaching and where.
Counterexample: Physical trainers, who do still rip you off, but can actually produce real and tangible results without organ donations or abducting you.

Notice that of these options listed, only Heaven's Gate is sectarian (based on Christianity immediately), and only really by technicality, and the counterexamples simply lack the actively exploitative components of the examples but otherwise aren't all that different. Aside from the "mass suicide" stuff.

 

[Richardo Retardo]

Does Voodoo have magic underwear?

When you look at the anthropological explanation for Mormon temple garments they're not that different form Voodoo fetish items. But I was more referencing the Mormon view of God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit as independent material entities not connected by the trinity. Mormons treat them (And the wife of God) each as separate deities that function in a very similar way to the Loa of Voodoo.
Not to mention that Mormonism is Christianity distorted to complement the American world view and in a similar way Voodoo distorts Catholicism to fit the Haitian world view.

 

[Lord of the Large Pants]

The difference between a religion and a cult is that a religion lets you leave.

 

[Big Meaty Claws]

The difference between a religion and a cult is that a religion lets you leave.

Islam is more of a cult than a religion in that regard.

 

[REGENDarySumanai]

Islam is more of a cult than a religion in that regard.

Well, Radical Islam is. Then again, a radical of any religion is when you follow the holy book to the letter and not use it as a general guideline, give or take. Of course, using it as a guideline requires you not to follow the more violent acts of said holy books.

 

[Iwasamwillbe]

Counterexample: The entirety of /x/ or nearly the entirety of worshiping Buddhists, both of which have no idea what they're talking about.

What precisely do you mean by this?

 

[Autopsy]

What precisely do you mean by this?

Buddhism ain't easy; if you want to be taught Genuine Buddhism™ you need someone with a right and proper Lineage, but most of the right and proper Lineages died out a millennia ago. An infinitesimally small minority of total Buddhists even attempt to follow these requirements in learning.
There's a whole slew of traditions and beliefs exactly like that which are just inconvenient enough for modern believers to completely and utterly disregard despite once being held as necessary and integral parts of Buddhist practice.
Western profiteers, Fedoras, and bored Pagans who all wanted to turn Buddhism into their perfect hippie religion and make crazy cash off of it didn't help.
edit: throw in orientalism and blatant mistranslations to "fix" parts of the teachings and you're even further off base if you live anywhere but Tibet.

 

[Iwasamwillbe]

Buddhism ain't easy; if you want to be taught Genuine Buddhism™ you need someone with a right and proper Lineage, but most of the right and proper Lineages died out a millennia ago. An infinitesimally small minority of total Buddhists even attempt to follow these requirements in learning.
There's a whole slew of traditions and beliefs exactly like that which are just inconvenient enough for modern believers to completely and utterly disregard despite once being held as necessary and integral parts of Buddhist practice.
Western profiteers, Fedoras, and bored Pagans who all wanted to turn Buddhism into their perfect hippie religion and make crazy cash off of it didn't help.
edit: throw in orientalism and blatant mistranslations to "fix" parts of the teachings and you're even further off base if you live anywhere but Tibet.

So anything other than Pre-Sectarian Buddhism isn't Genuine Buddhism™? How does that even make sense. I thought the Guatama Buddha actively encourage people to not strictly interpret his rules and to follow their own path to enlightenment as long as they basically recognized what he said as truthful.

 

[REGENDarySumanai]

Buddhism ain't easy; if you want to be taught Genuine Buddhism™ you need someone with a right and proper Lineage, but most of the right and proper Lineages died out a millennia ago. An infinitesimally small minority of total Buddhists even attempt to follow these requirements in learning.
There's a whole slew of traditions and beliefs exactly like that which are just inconvenient enough for modern believers to completely and utterly disregard despite once being held as necessary and integral parts of Buddhist practice.
Western profiteers, Fedoras, and bored Pagans who all wanted to turn Buddhism into their perfect hippie religion and make crazy cash off of it didn't help.
edit: throw in orientalism and blatant mistranslations to "fix" parts of the teachings and you're even further off base if you live anywhere but Tibet.

The genuine ones will escape Saṃsāra, while the others will not escape Saṃsāra, eternally being reborn until they manage to escape. Though you are right about mistranslations and holy texts, just look at the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, the Christian Bible/New Testament. All translations comes from translations of translations to the nth degree. The Koran doesn't really suffer from that problem because modern Arabic is descended from Quranic Arabic, which is still spoken.

 

[queerape]

Cults are usually centered around a strong personality and one person's word unquestioningly. In sects and religions, there are usually multiple sources and authorities. Even religions centered around a person like Christianity and Islam have multiple other figures like the Sahabah and the Saints and Popes etc, and have multiple texts even if one is central (Writings like those of St. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, Letters to Romans, Galicians and Corinthians adjacent to the Gospels in Christianity, and the ahadith of Islam). Cults typically don't have that level of sophistication in their texts or authorities. In sects based off of a religion that exists, there is still is multiple authorities yet the key principles are still followed. In cults, there is little resemblance or only a passing resemblance to the mainstream and the head personality's influence dwarfs that of anyone in the source tradition's.

 

[Iwasamwillbe]

All translations comes from translations of translations to the nth degree.

And that's why it's generally better to defer to the earliest known manuscripts, for they most likely have the least mistranslations and/or are the most accurate to the original texts.

 

[Y2K Baby]

A "cult" deliberately separates itself from the wider faith that it originated from (or, if lacking a larger faith to splinter from, wider society) and rigidly enforces its core doctrine on its adherents. Top examples being the Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses.

How do we end the Mormon menace

 

[The Shadow]

How do we end the Mormon menace

give them caffeine and they melt like the Wicked Witch of the West

 

[Snuckening]

There's been lot's of different definitions, list of criteria, back-and-forth arguments, etc about how you define what is and isn't a cult (sometimes by cults themselves, to define themselves out of the running. IIRC a couple of the "cultbuster" groups linked below are Scientologist groups. No doubt some other cults do it too), whether groups like Scientologists, 7th day Adventists, Moonies, Westborough Baptists, NoI, 5% Nation, etc qualify or not. AFAIK there's no definite consensus, but recurring ideas are stuff like

-having a charismatic leader who's basically beyond question,

-the idea that your group has special info other's don't (usually about the apocalypse, the leader being the Messiah, etc),

-isolating members from outside society

-esp isolating members from non-cult family and friends

-strict "in group/out group" deliniation

-the group excercises excessive control on members, "brainwashing"

http://andynaselli.com/sociological-characteristics-of-cults

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2009/may/27/cults-definition-religion

http://cultdefinition.com/

https://www.christianitytoday.com/iyf/advice/faithqa/what-is-cult.html

http://cultresearch.org/what-makes-a-cult/

Google "what is a cult" or similar and you get dozens of these checkpoint lists, of varying sketchiness