I've always had a pretty hard time defining what a "cult" is. When I was growing up in Baptist churches, Baptists pretty much defined cults as "non-Baptists." Okay, so it was a little more complicated than that. For some reason, Catholics weren't in a cult, although they were certainly not Christians. (or so I was taught.)

Pentacostals? Almost always cultists. Mormons? Definite cultists. Seventh Days Adventists? They worship on the wrong day. Cult cult cult! Jehovah's Witnesses? Is there something lower than a cult? If so, that's them.

In my experience, cult is a word that some religious people use to disparage other religious people, with an objective definition being pretty much impossible.

The word cult originally meant the collective ritual practices of a particular religion. It still means that in French.

Once I was about 16 years old, I stopped believing what Baptists taught. For the next couple of years, however, I pretended to still be a Baptist so they wouldn't reject or otherwise hurt me. (Theirs was the only world I was part of at the time, and conformity was enforced pretty harshly.)

But when they talked about other religions being cults, when they tried to define cult, I kept seeing them shining lights back on themselves.

I was afraid of them. With excellent reason. And they were just ordinary Baptists.

It's all a cult, man.