On 06 Feb 2013, at 20:06, meekerdb wrote:
On 2/6/2013 1:25 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 06 Feb 2013, at 04:00, meekerdb wrote:
On 2/5/2013 11:02 AM, Craig Weinberg wrote:
On Tuesday, February 5, 2013 1:14:07 PM UTC-5, John Clark wrote:
On Tue, Feb 5, 2013 PM, Craig Weinberg <[email protected]> wrote:
> Unpopular religions are denounced as cults.
A religion is just a cult with good PR.
It's interesting. I would be curious to know whether every
established religion intentionally sought legitimacy at some point,
What would that mean? Legal? Where there is official government
recognition of religion (and probably tax breaks) the answer would
be that they sought the recognition. And all that you can
consider 'established' have sought adherents. But "legitimacy"??
I'm not sure how that world can be attached to "religion".
In my country, that is the case. Religions have to be recognized by
the government. If not they are classified as sect, and are
forbidden (like scientology). It is awkward and arbitrary, but
that's simply the case.
I'm curious. How do they get recognized?
Arbitrarily. basically great known religion are accepted (the
Abramanic one and, Hinduism, Buddhism). With the other you have to be
careful when recruiting, and try to look like an association without
financial interests. Typically a sect will be considered as such if
people complain on sectarian activity, the most typical one being the
subtraction of the children from the parents.
Do they have to apply, or does the government have some standard
(numbers?) by which they automatically get recognized? Do they have
to file some statement of doctrine/theology/dogma with the
government so that it can be determined whether a group is a
splinter sect or a different religion? Is Mormonism recognized?
It is not. Now if there are enough people adhering, and if the
religion is widespread in some places, they can have a chance. Most
people accept this state of affair, because we do have an history of
"bad sects" leading to collective suicide. Scientology has oscillated
between some form of acceptance and reject. Eventually, when too much
people complains, like it has been the case for scientology, the
government get its attention turned on them, and they disintegrate the
sect, which sometimes come back with another name.
Jehovah witness are tolerated because they are numerous, and
considered as a variant of christians. Most male members were sent to
jail, though, because they refused the military service, when it was
obligatory for all.
Bruno
Brent
The result is that sect become secret societies, so it is even
harder to get rid of them, or for adherent to ever been able to get
out of the influence. It is a real social dramatic problem. Then
corruption makes also some sect still developing, like notably
scientology.
Bruno
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