Nah, cults are always bad, and this does not exclude religion. the core ways to avoid cults are, don’t trust someone to be an authority when they want it and don’t stay when someone insists you cannot leave. If you don’t want to leave a thing, that’s fine, whatever, but don’t accept demands to not consider leaving, that’s screwed up.
edit 1y later: I’ve come to believe that religion without cult is at least able to be kind of good, though I grew up in a religion with a high cultiness score (much higher than the rationality community’s, which isn’t great either). I now often claim a major way to immunize against the negative consequences of cults is to realize there are alternative structures that do what makes cults ever sound like a good idea (ie, looser ones that don’t respect a central leader, that don’t involve blind obedience, that don’t isolate you, that don’t provide an unquestionable belief system). If you like something, and it looks like a cult, consider trying to dispel the groupthink elements and get rid of unhealthy social structure without necessarily deleting the spirituality. Cults are sort of parasites on spiritual groups, imo. If someone is telling you to obey without thought, that’s a very bad sign; obeying with thought but you can’t say no, similarly bad sign; etc. (note for autistic folks: unless it’s to run away from a literal fire in the building or similar seconds-scale emergencies, I guess? if the emergency allows time for thought, you should get to use it, imo)
Nah, cults are always bad, and this does not exclude religion. the core ways to avoid cults are, don’t trust someone to be an authority when they want it and don’t stay when someone insists you cannot leave. If you don’t want to leave a thing, that’s fine, whatever, but don’t accept demands to not consider leaving, that’s screwed up.
edit 1y later: I’ve come to believe that religion without cult is at least able to be kind of good, though I grew up in a religion with a high cultiness score (much higher than the rationality community’s, which isn’t great either). I now often claim a major way to immunize against the negative consequences of cults is to realize there are alternative structures that do what makes cults ever sound like a good idea (ie, looser ones that don’t respect a central leader, that don’t involve blind obedience, that don’t isolate you, that don’t provide an unquestionable belief system). If you like something, and it looks like a cult, consider trying to dispel the groupthink elements and get rid of unhealthy social structure without necessarily deleting the spirituality. Cults are sort of parasites on spiritual groups, imo. If someone is telling you to obey without thought, that’s a very bad sign; obeying with thought but you can’t say no, similarly bad sign; etc. (note for autistic folks: unless it’s to run away from a literal fire in the building or similar seconds-scale emergencies, I guess? if the emergency allows time for thought, you should get to use it, imo)