Online Cults

A "cult" is hard to define. The term is used very subjectively, and usually pejoratively. Typically the most fervent anti-cult movements are run by religious people, and that's a slippery place from which to argue against differing beliefs. The concept is inevitably tied to fringe - and harmful - religious beliefs, practice, and institution, but the details are very fuzzy.

Nonetheless, this is how I imagine cultists on the Internet.

We've talked before about how the Internet has given atheism a loud platform, but what about new religious movements? While the numbers did indicate that non-religious numbers were on the rise, we can't necessarily assume that the "no religion in particular" category excludes people that participate in cults, since they might not even think of it as a religion. We also know that the Internet can be very insular, allowing for strange community quirks to develop.

Since we're talking about online religious movements, we won't include the movements that started before the Internet.  Even though Heaven's Gate had a (hilarious) website in the mid-90s, we wouldn't count it because they got their start in the 1970s.

Let's explore what the Internet has come to offer by way of new religious movements.