re cults who keeps them going in article sbuckley sfu ca sbuckley fraser sfu ca stephen buckley writes muttiah thistle ecn purdue edu ranjan s muttiah writes mr clinton said today that the horrible tragedy of the waco fiasco should remind those who join cults of the dangers of doing so now i began scratching my head thinking a bad sign don t the mainstream religions in this case christianity or the th day adventist in particular just keep these guys going isn t mr clinton condemning his own religion after all isn t it a cult too bad thoughts these well it depends on whether you take the literal dictionary definition of cult and say all faiths are cults or if you take a more social context view of cult which allows you to recognize mainstream religions as socially acceptable and cults as groups that involve techniques of brain washing and all the other characteristics that define oppressive probly not the best word cult behaviour my understanding of the academic use of the word cult is that it is a group of people oriented around a single authority figure it need not be religious however i have seen plenty of religious cults including some that mainstream eric
