You can have a evil cult that is an offshoot of a religion that teaches good things. And also a good cult in a religion that teaches bad things. Right now I want to deal with both these questions in short order.
Section (1): The question of religion. A religion needs a few requirements. If it teaches things about the physical world, then, we need to ask if what it says actually corresponds to reality? [External consistency]. Is it self consistent? [Internal consistency.] If it teaches some moral system, does this system correspond to what common sense tells us is moral? This is called "phenomenal conservatism." That is, things are the way they seem unless some convincing piece of evidence show otherwise. This is a forgotten principle in the world of philosophy, but none the less it is very important. It seems to me that murdering 10 million people for the fun of it is wrong and if a religion teaches otherwise then it is up to the religion to bring convincing evidence.
I will say here my own point of view so you know where I am coming from. I think all people don't care about evidence. People care about being part of a group. This desire to be part of a group goes against even the instinct for self preservation as we see in the 15,000 Kamikazes in World War Two. Their group was more important to them than their personal survival. All the more so when it comes to group identity, people don't care about logic or evidence (especially to Americans to whom books are just words). The only time this can change is when group identity itself is that of believing in material or logical evidence as it is the case in the Judaism of Maimonides.
Cults. Today instead of cult let me deal with cult apologetics. Because of group identity people will ignore and twist evidence that goes against what their cult says. The only way I can imagine how to change this is to join a group that believes only in following logical evidence or material evidence e.g. Maimonides. I.e. there are beliefs in areas that there is no evidence or scanty evidence. But these beliefs are contingent on evidence. it is understood that any future evidence can change the nature of belief. E.g creation something from nothing. To Maimonides if this would be disproved we would have to accept it. This is a serious statement for him because to him the entire Torah rests on Creation ex nihilo. That means that if it would be disproved, then the Torah itself would lose it foundation. [The view of Maimonides is what is known as Monotheism.
That is that God made the world something from nothing, and he is not the world nor is the world him.According to the Torah God has no substance nor form, and so he did not create the world from his substance. He created in יש מאין from nothing. ex-nihilo.
Cults try to pretend they keep Torah by doing lots of external rituals while their inner core is טרף and נבלה. That's the reason the Gra put his signature of the document of excommunication.
God would never ratify the message of a false prophet. That so
many religious leaders and teachers fell under the spell of Nathan from Gaza attests
to the fact he was not a peripheral figure in the mystic circles, but his influence with regards to the movement’s adoption and approach to
the kabalah of the Ari was decisive. This taken by itself
represents should represent a devastating blow to the propagandists of a new
movement, but when coupled with the other little known facts about the
origins of these mystic circles should lead any and all Jewish people desirous of being
led to the truth that this movement was nothing but a successful deviation of
historical Torah. I do not want to go into it in detail. But it is simple to draw the line between the dots.
Section (1): The question of religion. A religion needs a few requirements. If it teaches things about the physical world, then, we need to ask if what it says actually corresponds to reality? [External consistency]. Is it self consistent? [Internal consistency.] If it teaches some moral system, does this system correspond to what common sense tells us is moral? This is called "phenomenal conservatism." That is, things are the way they seem unless some convincing piece of evidence show otherwise. This is a forgotten principle in the world of philosophy, but none the less it is very important. It seems to me that murdering 10 million people for the fun of it is wrong and if a religion teaches otherwise then it is up to the religion to bring convincing evidence.
I will say here my own point of view so you know where I am coming from. I think all people don't care about evidence. People care about being part of a group. This desire to be part of a group goes against even the instinct for self preservation as we see in the 15,000 Kamikazes in World War Two. Their group was more important to them than their personal survival. All the more so when it comes to group identity, people don't care about logic or evidence (especially to Americans to whom books are just words). The only time this can change is when group identity itself is that of believing in material or logical evidence as it is the case in the Judaism of Maimonides.
Cults. Today instead of cult let me deal with cult apologetics. Because of group identity people will ignore and twist evidence that goes against what their cult says. The only way I can imagine how to change this is to join a group that believes only in following logical evidence or material evidence e.g. Maimonides. I.e. there are beliefs in areas that there is no evidence or scanty evidence. But these beliefs are contingent on evidence. it is understood that any future evidence can change the nature of belief. E.g creation something from nothing. To Maimonides if this would be disproved we would have to accept it. This is a serious statement for him because to him the entire Torah rests on Creation ex nihilo. That means that if it would be disproved, then the Torah itself would lose it foundation. [The view of Maimonides is what is known as Monotheism.
That is that God made the world something from nothing, and he is not the world nor is the world him.According to the Torah God has no substance nor form, and so he did not create the world from his substance. He created in יש מאין from nothing. ex-nihilo.
Cults try to pretend they keep Torah by doing lots of external rituals while their inner core is טרף and נבלה. That's the reason the Gra put his signature of the document of excommunication.
God would never ratify the message of a false prophet. That so
many religious leaders and teachers fell under the spell of Nathan from Gaza attests
to the fact he was not a peripheral figure in the mystic circles, but his influence with regards to the movement’s adoption and approach to
the kabalah of the Ari was decisive. This taken by itself
represents should represent a devastating blow to the propagandists of a new
movement, but when coupled with the other little known facts about the
origins of these mystic circles should lead any and all Jewish people desirous of being
led to the truth that this movement was nothing but a successful deviation of
historical Torah. I do not want to go into it in detail. But it is simple to draw the line between the dots.
