A destructive cult is a religion or other group which has caused or has a high probability of causing harm to its own members or to others. Some researchers define "harm" in this case with a narrow focus, specifically groups which have deliberately physically injured or killed other individuals, while others define the term more broadly and include emotional abuse among the types of harm inflicted.
Some researchers including John A. Saliba, Julius H. Rubin, and Lorne L. Dawson assert that the term is used to discredit the groups it is applied to, and to unfairly compare them with historically more harmful groups and movements. Authors including Peter A. Olsson, Steven Hassan, and Masoud Banisadr have linked destructive cults with terrorism, and have used the term to characterize Osama bin Laden as a destructive cult leader.
Read more about Destructive Cult: Physical Harm, Emotional Harm, Criticism of The Term, Cults and Terrorism
Famous quotes containing the words destructive and/or cult:
“Having books published is very destructive to writing. It is even worse than making love too much. Because when you make love too much at least you get a damned clarte that is like no other light. A very clear and hollow light.”
—Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961)
“By Modernism I mean the positive rejection of the past and the blind belief in the process of change, in novelty for its own sake, in the idea that progress through time equates with cultural progress; in the cult of individuality, originality and self-expression.”
—Dan Cruickshank (b. 1949)