Can we establish an objective difference between cults and religions? The OPA 
The texts are often published newspaper articles reproduced so they do not disappear from the canvas, they do not necessarily reflect the editorial line of Network publications Parental Europe but are intended to inform parents more fully by offering various insights on issues particularly controversial.
Anne Morelli is deputy director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Study of Religion and secularism of the Free University of Brussels.
by Anne Morelli - SPS letter AFIS No. 283, October 2008
www.pseudo-sciences.org
Can we establish an objective difference between cults and religions?
answers to this question usually fuse: cults are harmful, dangerous, monitor closely, religions, they have a good base (although sometimes perverted), they fill the natural and human aspirations are infinitely respectable.
This distinction is not only widespread among believers of the great "religions" but is also found in many free-thinkers and rationalists, at least in some European countries like France, Germany, Austria and Belgium Franco-phone.
But this difference "obvious" between sects and religions do not withstand analysis.
When Belgium, the Parliamentary Commission on sects, held in 1996, decided to consult experts on the subject, she brought from different universities and different specialties teachers, including myself. Only theologians have asserted criteria to distinguish "good" bad religions [1]. Without making a concerted way, other teachers, faced with the question "What is the difference between cults and religions? "Answered with a high degree of unanimity that it was not reliable criteria for separating from each other.
All objective criteria devised to characterize sects (group size, longevity, sacrifice of personal life, unconditional power of the chief distinguishing marks, obedience, off the "normal" life ... etc.) could be applied to major religions or at least some forms they have taken, such as monasticism [2] or convent life.
We will review some examples of these pseudo-criteria distinguish between sects and religions.
Money and sex
Mr Homais will tell you, cults want your money and seek to dominate or exploit your sex drive. In a small test controversy [3] I had fun comparing the situation described for the sects, Catholicism of my childhood.
Three of my aunts had entered the convent all Jeunet. Their order had it not properly tamed their sexual urges and also in their case, stifled longing for motherhood? Was it really less serious than marriages in which Mr. Moon is grouped marry his young followers after the knot have assessed their chances of good relations? Why they do they scandal and not imposed on religious chastity? All religions they aspire not to control the sexuality of their members? They are passionate about their practices, but want to know and plant their forbidden.
My three aunts had entered the convent accompanied by a large dowry which assured them of not having to perform manual work degrading. But if they had decided - thus sowing the disgrace for the whole family - to leave the convent, this amount would have NOT been returned. When a financial scandal shaking the Vatican or the Capuchins, Padre Pio devotees, are convinced of embezzlement, one dares say - or even believe - that these scams are an intrinsic part of the Catholic faith or are a normal consequence its structures.
But if a sect "forgets" to pay taxes or benefits (such as the priests once did) of distress or sympathy for a per-son to be given gifts or inheritances challenged thereafter These malpractices will obviously not be presented as fatal exceptions, but as practical features and inherent sects.
Nuisance
The harm could be a criterion of distinction between sects and religions if it could be objectified.
What is harmful? To "hurt"? Depriving yourself of certain foods like the Carthusians, who also never sleep a few hours straight, and are cut off from his novel and the rule of silence that isolates in a universe we can, from the outside psychotic judge?
The penitent Catholics who flagellate themselves, are certainly entitled to do since is not masochism punishable by law, but this behavior is more or less "harmful" than Krishna vegetarian?
Also we saw the mass suicide cults practice [4]. This behavior, universally condemned in the case of them is magnified with respect to major religions. Pilgrimages to Masada, above the Dead Sea, invariably end with a chorus of admiration about these 2,000 Jews who were - more or less voluntarily [5] - committed suicide in order to maintain their faith and their customs and not be Romanized.
The number of deaths caused by "cults" or religions, the struggle is too unequal. While cults may field a total of only several dozen victims (but very effectively publicized), every day victims of hatred supported by hundreds of major religions are: it does no good to be Catholic in Algeria, Iraq, Jewish, Muslims in India, Hindu Pakistan, a Jehovah's Witness and Baptist in Israel in Ukraine ...
In this area, the results of independent contractors that are small sects are pathetic against those of large multinational religion.
Indoctrination versus catechesis
Few find it offensive that define children by religion of their parents' small Jewish, Muslim children, small Catholic ... And no association fighting for the rights of the child rebels see them participate in the "Catho Pride "nor attend mosques or synagogues. It rarely condemns violence as an abuse implied that governs the choice of the future Dalai Lama, abducted baby on his family.
But words are obviously a weight to value or devalue a group. What's more honorable than to "pass on his faith to their children or send them to Sunday school?
But when it comes "sects" are immediately speak of indoctrination, which contributes to the idea of mental abuse to the child or the future "follower". The latter term is itself pejorative because it is an honorable religion, we speak rather of faithful or believing. It is understood that if one adheres to a "sect" that can only be the result of an intensive brainwashing. Some laws even claim the fight by calling him "mental manipulation". But this term applies only sects, not the honorable citizen who converted to Islam or Christianity as a result of a spiritual process respectable. The conversion is often described as immediate, however: St. Paul on the road to Damascus or Constantine Milvian Bridge were hit by a sudden revelation. If a devotee of Krishna or Pentecostal tells a similar story, it is hardly taken seriously ...
The definition of cults in legislation and regulation
"Officially, Canada does not know what a cult. Without legal definition, the fight is very cautious, even discrete. Speaking Europe, however, many laws restrict drastically the sectarian drift, to make Public lists of organizations to the limit of defamation. Comparison of two in the fight extremism. [6]
The same caution is observed in Switzerland. In 1998, the Federal Council stated: "... he can not have specific legislation relating to qualified groups or wrong because of" sects "by the public. The only distinction between religious communities know that Switzerland is the status of public law that may allow the cantons to certain communities. However, it is not the Federal Council to determine which group should address whether the indefinable category of "cult", or conduct a specific policy against certain religious groups, as long as they respect the principles of our rule of law and the laws. However, if the activity of certain groups came to cause serious disruption, art. 50, paragraph 2, of the Federal Constitution provides that the cantons and the Confederation may take the measures necessary to maintain public order and peace among different religious communities. The situation we see today in Switzerland does not seem to call them such action by the Federal Council. [7]
In contrast, France and Belgium are much more engaged in anti-cult but torn between, on one hand, their desire to maintain public order and protect the citizen and, secondly, that to respect individual liberties, these states have established agencies responsible for risk prevention and fight against the cult phenomena. However, the working groups have addressed this thorny question were immediately confronted with the difficulty of working on a legally non-existent concept. These commissions have issued non-exhaustive lists of associations considered sectarian, but in both Belgium and France, these lists were the subject of considerable controversy and criticism, and were officially discontinued. [
In France, Decree No. 392, 2002-1 28 November 2002 establishes, to the Prime Minister, an interministerial task of vigilance and combat against sectarian (MIVILUDES) [8]. It states that: "... failing to legally define what a cult is, the law criminalizes all acts which are detrimental to human rights, fundamental freedoms or who pose a threat to public order, committed the specific context of the mental control. The law called About / Picard [9], the source of article 223-15-2 of the Penal Code in 2001 complete the offense of fraudulent abuse of weakness by extending the existing tort situations physical or psychological hardship. Thus, it is immaterial whether this drift is committed by a sectarian movement, a new religious movement, a religion of the Book or by a quack health. Once a number of criteria are met, the first being put under the subjection, the repressive action of the state is destined to be implemented. [10]
In Belgium The Center for Information and advice on harmful sectarian organizations, CIAOSN was created by Act of June 2, 1998, following a recommendation by the parliamentary commission of inquiry, investigation "to develop a policy to fight against the illegal practices of sects and the danger they pose to society and especially for those minors. [11]
In his "Preliminary provisions", the Act states: "For the purposes of this Act, the term harmful sectarian organization, any group-oriented philosophy religious, or claiming such, which in its organization or practice engaged in illegal activities harmful harms individuals or society or undermines human dignity. The harmful nature of a sectarian group is considered on the basis of principles enshrined in the Constitution, laws, decrees, ordinances, and international conventions for the Protection of Human Rights ratified by Belgium. [12]
NdV
Small religion = cult?
One might think that the difference between cults and religions can be measured the objective yardstick of the number of believers (in the "sects" will be employed preferably one just pointed out, to designate the pejorative term of followers).
is far from clear.
In Brussels there are twenty-two rooms of the Kingdom of Jehovah's Witnesses, most crowded, and four synagogues which themselves are rare. But it would not occur to anyone to put on an equal footing Honourable Judaism and Jehovah's Witnesses.
Maybe because we reserve the term religion in the oldest religions? Also false. Reference Krishna is the millennium, the Anabaptists are several centuries old but that does not prevent them from being labeled "sect" and not religion.
For us at least. Because you can have a different label depending on where you are. Mormons are considered "cult" by our government but form the majority of believers of the State of Utah where they do not necessarily marginal.
Belgium provides a rather nice example of the double vision that can have the same group. The French Minister of Education has distributed to students a small booklet setting guard against "dry-ing," with a list of names of the movements that must be wary. There are explicitly cited the Steiner movement, whose schools are recognized and subsidized by a few miles away Flanders!
If neither group size nor his seniority as a criteria for distinction between cults and religions, one can imagine the psychological hold on the members or the difficulty of leaving the group will finally provide a solution to our problem. But the directors of conscience, the submission required of novices and the difficulties (physical or psychological) in order to leave very recently also invalidates this criterion.
rationality of some and not others?
It may be convenient to imagine that we believe in sects and spread nonsense, contrary to what is broadcast in religions.
Obviously the doctrinal content of "cults" often enough to surprise us. Those awaiting the return of Christ, other than such aliens, or the reunification of families through all their generations ...
This is certainly not rational but in the religions to which we attach respect, it is not about waiting for the Messiah, the parousia [13], the virginity of a parent or return the dead to life?
These "nonsense" are part of our culture and we learned not to laugh or at least not to do so in private, but objectively the issues that have tapped the theologians for centuries (unaccompanied baptized are they in purgatory? is Mary remained a virgin during childbirth is lying? What is the nature of the "soul"? ...) did nothing about sound.
What difference then?
Il est pourtant évident que « sectes » et « religions » ne sont pas des synonymes et que le premier terme est entaché d'un sens péjoratif. Dans un livre balayant cette double classification depuis l'Antiquité jusqu'à nos jours [14], nous avons essayé de comprendre comment et pourquoi les groupes religieux étaient enregistrés sous l'une ou l'autre étiquette.
La réponse la plus évidente est que l'honorable label de « religion » est octroyé à l'un ou l'autre groupe par le pouvoir politique. Ceux qui n'ont pas eu droit à cette appellation contrôlée sont étiquetés « hérésies » ou « sec-tes », selon les époques.
Aux premiers vont les honneurs et le respect mais ils doivent en échange légitimer le pouvoir politique. Les autres groupes religieux sont à surveiller, poursuivre, voire exterminer sans que rien dans leurs comportements sociaux ni dans leurs croyances ne les prédispose à ce sort particulier.
C'est le pouvoir politique qui décide du sort des uns et des autres et légifère en ce sens. La liste de sectes « nuisibles » et les subsides publics aux grandes religions (plus ou moins officiels selon les pays) sont à comprendre dans cette logique.
[1] Voir les interventions du jésuite Denaux et du père Ringlet : http://www.vigi-sectes.org/rapport/....
[2] C'est-à-dire le système de vie des moines.
[3] Lettre ouverte à la secte des adversaires des sectes, Labor, 1997.
[4] L'exemple le plus couramment avancé est celui de l'Ordre du Temple solaire.
[5] Voir à ce sujet le récit de Flavius Josèphe.
[6] Quartier Libre – Le journal indépendant les étudiants de l'Université de Montréal – « Lutte contre les sectes en Occident – Entre laxisme et "sectisme" », article de Thomas Gerbet et Vanessa Gauvin-Brodeur - http://www.quartierlibre.ca/spip.ph ....
[7] http://www.parlament.ch/f/cv-gescha ....
[8] http://www.miviludes.gouv.fr.
[9] On the About / Picard, it is noted that in its resolution 1309 - "Freedom of religion and religious minorities in France" - the Parliamentary Assembly of Council of Europe "calls on the Government French to review the law and clarifying the definition of "offense" and "perpetrator".
[10] http://www.miviludes.gouv.fr/-Le-di ....
[11] http://www.ciaosn.be/lecentre.htm.
[12] http://www.ciaosn.be/loi.htm.
[13] That is to say Christ's return to earth to judge the living and the dead, back to which Christians are to believe based on the Creed.
[14] "Sects" and "heresies" of antiquity to the present. Relationship to power, Alain Dierkens and Anne Morelli (ed.), Brussels University Press, 2002. Available online.
Posted on the website of the AFIS Username Science 20 January 2009
LD (Le Figaro) with AP on 07/01/2009 