You seem to share with Neal a talent for stating your opinion as if it constitutes a fact.
The official position of the RCC was strongly opposed to religious freedom right from the time it gained political power through the late 19th century. I believe it did not officially accept the concept of religious freedom till the 1960s.
So was it a cult all that time?
BTW, I'm not trying to be ad hominem. I'm trying to get someone to come up with a rational definition for "cult" that would include Islam but not a great many religions, now or in the past, that are widely accepted in America today.
How about Islam is a 7th century version of Nazism and Stalinism with a healthy dose of cultism!
“”You seem to share with Neal a talent for stating your opinion as if it constitutes a fact.””
Actually, I was using the definition postulated by the Cult Awareness Network before the Scientologists bankrupted it and took it over.
“”The official position of the RCC was strongly opposed to religious freedom right from the time it gained political power through the late 19th century. I believe it did not officially accept the concept of religious freedom till the 1960s.
So was it a cult all that time?””
The difference is that they weren’t out hunting down and killing people who disagreed with them. Similar to people who left the RCC. I don’t recall that they had beheaded an apostate since the Spanish Inquisition. Or burned one, or what have you. Pronouncing that you’re excommunicated is quite a long trek from sending a hit squad after you.
“BTW, I’m not trying to be ad hominem. I’m trying to get someone to come up with a rational definition for “cult” that would include Islam but not a great many religions, now or in the past, that are widely accepted in America today.”
Then don’t start lumping people in with groups like the Know-Nothings and so on. A good starting place is that non-cults don’t try to kill people who leave, don’t harass them using the court system, or try to ruin them ( like Scientology does). Islam has a real physical and temporal death penalty for leaving. I can’t think of any religion here in the US that does that.