If Jesus had no need for money why did he ask people for tithes? Let's face it Jesus was a capitalist who asked people for venture capital so as to grow his cult.
The bolded part (my bolding), caught my attention.
CULT - Any group which has a pyramid type authoritarian leadership structure with all teaching and guidance coming from the person/persons at the top.
The Abrahamic religions fall prey to this. Catholicism, for example, has a Pope and a structure of Bishops and priests, each a lower level of authority with all the teaching "at the top". By definition, it is a cult.
Let me toss out Scientology here (the reason will be apparent in the next paragraph), where all its teaching comes from L Ron Hubbard (Scientology has been decreed a
bona fide religion based on .... finances and headcount). I bring this up because its Leader is dead but still the teaching comes from one person at the top.
All Christianity is a cult as well under these strictures. There is a hierarchy of authority not in any way different from Scientology. Jesus is the authority who is dead, as well as the apostle Paul (who was the authority who really established the founding of Christianity as a religion). But the i]authority[/i] still comes from the "top" through these two individuals who are no more or less dead than L Ron Hubbard (except they have been dead a lot longer). That the religion confers a special status to these two authorities is of no consequence, as Scientologists confer a special status to their "spiritual leader" as well. Neither this fact nor the antiquity of the Christian folk being dead (or for that matter Mohammed or David Koresh or Jim Jones, etc.) is in anyway legitimized one over the other. BTW, each of these men have made grandious claims of self-importance, each claiming those who follow different paths are doomed to eternal torment.
Next:
a) The group will claim to be the only way to God; Nirvana; Paradise; Everlasting Life; Full Potential, Way to Happiness etc, and will use thought reform or mind control techniques to gain control and keep their members. This definition covers cults within all major world religions, along with those cults which have no OBVIOUS religious base such as commercial, educational and psychological cults.
All religions make these claims. Each claim to be the only way to god, that the others are wrong, and all use some form of mind control to gain and keep their members. Christianity uses heaven and hell, the concept of sin, a corrupted nature no one can escape, the requirement of a savior to ameliorate the gap between gods and men. Reincarnation is the device used by Buddhism and Hinduism, wherein the "punishment" is a repeatable life that would stress the soul in ways it stressed other in its previous life. Every religion cloaks itself under dynamics which affects commercial life (tithing for instance), educational (teaching the doctrine of the religion is inerrant even in the face of overwhelming proof contrary to the religious doctrine), and psychological (gods with a vested interest in the behaviors of men, who can see their sins, who are able to mete out justice -- all of these are severe and inescapable mental leveragings that dictate human behavior-- i.e., psychologies).
Next:
b) The group will have an ELITIST view of itself in relation to others, and a UNIQUE CAUSE.
c) THEY ARE THE ONLY ONES RIGHT - everyone else is wrong. THEY ARE THE ONLY ONES DOING GOD'S WILL - everyone else is in apostasy.
d) They will promote their cause actively, and in doing so, abuse God-given personal rights and freedoms. This abuse can be THEOLOGICAL, SPIRITUAL, SOCIAL & PSYCHOLOGICAL.
