False teachings will never go away and will not come from outside. It always originated within the church. Many cult leaders were actually genuine Christians in the beginning. Jim Jones and his People Temple that led many to the suicidal tragedy was a conservative Baptist Pastor. Henry Drummond of New Apostolic Church was a devoted Pastor. David Burk, Moon, and many other church Ministers too were all respectful Pastors before turning to be cult leaders.

What had gone wrong? One single, common and major cause is the miss interpretation of the Bible. It is true that God can review Biblical truth to an individual He likes. But more often God does it in the Church, Bible studies, and Seminary where groups of God's people share and learn the Truth together.

No one will deny that God can heal you personally. But more often He will heal you through His chosen Physician. Seeking God's healing and refusing medicine help is the same as reading and interpreting Bible without the Church, Bible studies, and Seminary. You may die physically in the former case and spiritually in the later.

The Theosophical Society has its name from the Greek theo-sophia, literally divine wisdom. Theosophical Society has its root back to the first few centuries Christianity era of Gnosticism. Theosophy speaks in glowing term of Gnosticism which thrived and almost succeeded in doing irreparable damage to early Christian faith.

Transcendental Meditation has been teaching that TM is the core of all religions. Christians should no longer be confused and lost in the Biblical teaching. What Jesus says "the Kingdom of God is in you" or "Who ever sees me has seen the Father too" are meant for meditation.

Unification church or the Moony was established by a Presbyterian believer Sun Myung Moon. In 1945, Moon claimed he received a vision that Jesus paid a respect by bowing and praising him as the greatest teacher in the world. He interpreted the Bible to suit his own wish from the first book to Revelation.

I will not include Seven Days Adventist in the list because they have made some changes and accommodate vital Biblical teachings in to church recently

The New Age derives its belief in the inherent divinity of man that forms the divinity of all things. New Age says, "The Christ is not God, he is not coming as God. He is an embodiment of an aspect of God, the love aspect of God ."

In our modern days, these died hard Christian heretics are still very active among us. Pastor Edward Irving who started the New Apostolic Church and later Hermann Niehaus started to teach in 1890 that the work of the present day disciples is more important than that of the Biblical Apostles.

Lafayette Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology, claims his teachings as an "applied religious philosophy" and be a "church". They advocate gods, deny Christ, self attain salvation, and hell is a myth created by man to deter evil doing.

Spiritists repeatedly attempt to prove that the Bible endorses Spiritism. They cite Biblical characters including the apostles and our Lord Himself as mediums and encourage such practice.

Mary Baker Eddy and her basic Christian Science cryptic teaching sounds more like the mystic Hinduism than straight forward Christianity. It says, "God is all-in all. God is good, God is mind. God, Spirit, being all, nothing is matter. Life, God, omnipotent good, deny death, evil sin, disease. Disease, sin, evil, death, denies good, omnipotent God, Life."

Charles Taze Russel is the official founder of Jehovah's Witnesses and the Watchtower. He miss interpreted the Bible to compute the return of Christ in the year 1874. Later Russell changed the date to 1914. The return is a spiritual one and can not be seen. But the danger is the denial of the deity of Jesus Christ, the person and work of the Holy Spirit and many other vital Biblical teachings.

Mormonism. On the night of September 21, 1823, a praying boy of 17, looked up, and found the angel Moroni standing by his bed. Moroni told the boy to find a set of gold plates a book containing the "fullness of the everlasting Gospel" from the Savior to America. He found the next day the plates that become an addendum as the last book of the Bible.

False teaching or cult is not a new phenomenon in our church today. It is as old as the church history itself. We can read about them throughout the Bible. Jesus himself warns to watch out for the false prophets in Mt. 7:15. Paul pointed out to the Corinthians that such men are false apostles, masquerading as apostles of Christ. John too recognized them as wicked man who claim to be apostles but are not in Rev. 2:2.

In the second century Christianity, we had the Gnostic teaching that were bred up within the church. Gnostic Christian systematically distorted the Biblical teaching to the point that the ultimate God is not the creator of this cosmos.

Marcion Christianity came later and developed a Christian faith of two Gods system. He saw God in the Old Testament as harsh, inconsistent, and even tyrannical. But God in the New Testament is a God of love and mercy. Marcion's teaching that combined with Gnosticism had created "Montanism". Montanus, a converted Christian, proclaimed to his fellow believers that he was a prophet and the mouthpiece of God

Children of God twisted God's Agape (pure) love to mean all kinds of other lustful loves. David Burk, the founder of Children of God, came up with a technique to witness Christ and win soul by Flirting Fishing. God so loved the world and gave his body to die for the world, so Christian should do the same to offer love and the body to win faith.

It shows ignorance to jump on the name calling band wagon and start pulling the trigger at any religion you don't know the first thing about. The word "Cult" is way overused the truth is not many seem to know the definition. It does not mean any religion besides what you believe. Its over used like the word "Christian." Who really is a Christian? A follower of Christ.

What really is a cult?

A CULT is, to be short and to the point, a group of people (or a sect) that have an obsessive devotion to one person or thing, or principle. That involves a system of ritualistic worshiping.

With that information you can research different religions to see if they show idol worship to a certain person or thing or idea. Does it involve any ritualistic worshiping. Ritualistic means its something they do over and over again, a repeated procedure. Like repeating the same words. The best way to find out the truth about anything is to do the research yourself.

There are way to many made up beliefs and personal theory's and a large majority are not based on fact. You really can't believe anything you hear, even if it sounds really smart.

Look in the encyclopedia. Get some non-bias reading material on religions and then you can make your own decision on what a cult is, you might be very surprised what you find.

A Sopgirl's Guide to Cults. (No offence meant-none taken.)

Mormons: You get your own planet when you die. The more wives you have on earth, the more planets you get. Elite members get their own pair of magic underwear.

Scientologists: A cheap science fiction story by way cool writer, L. Ron Hubbard, about a space opera that happened 75 million years ago. Anyone who reads the story without paying the Board of Directors enough money will get pneumonia, and banned from the laying on of hands cure for life.

Jehovah's Witnesses: A social group of fat old women who shop at K-mart and knock on doors, begging for food. They don't celebrate holidays or birthdays. They believe that hospitals are evil and that Jesus was really the angel Michael and He died on a stake instead of a cross. Their core belief is that since 1884, God works behind a small desk in an office in Brooklyn, New York.

Quakers: Modern day peasants who live on a strict diet of oats and practice idolatry by praying to an image of their god imprinted on oversized cardboard canisters of oatmeal.

Seventh Day Adventists: Snooty pick and choose bible literalists who believe Saturday is the Sabbath since it is the literal last day of the week, but they ignore verses about God's command to stone their disobedient children.

Catholics: Pope loving, bead counting, ring kissing, altar boy buggering, genuflecting, Mary worshipping, candle lighting, superstitious folks who get marital advice from men who wear skirts.

Muslims: Ravenous, blood thirsty, Moon worshipping descendents of the damned and hellbound son of Abraham (Ishmael). Gene Rodenberry modeled his popular Klingon race on the television series "Star Trek" after these real life barbarians.

Hindus: Brown skinned, cow worshipping, rice eating people from far away lands.

Wiccans: Pale faced, overweight, body piercing, tree worshipping Satanists who get their kicks at renaissance festivals, playing Dungeons and Dragons and vandalizing Baptist churches.

Yogis: Sex addicted skinny granola crunchers who believe that if you can tie your body into a knot you will reach enlightenment through extended orgasms.

Vegans: Modern day witches who are seduced by evil spirits into mocking God by ignoring His order for us to eat meat (1 Timothy 4:1-3)

A few more are The Branch Davidians, The Moonies, The Nation of Islam, The Aquarian Concepts Religious Order, and last but not least:

Amwayism: Individual distributors under the control of unseen dark forces to do nothing but sell Tupperware products.

Is Scientology a religion or cult? Well I believe it is the worst aspects of both, with strange doctrine and nearly fanatical followers it definitely crosses the lines on both sides.

It seems to be based on the ideals of one man; L. Ron Hubbard. L .Ron Hubbard was an accomplished science fiction writer, adventurer, and explorer; at least that's what is written about him on the back of many of his novels. I am familiar with his writings but not on his adventuring and to my knowledge there is no discernible proof to back up the claims of his publishers.

However, he was a talented writer with a Hugo award and credited with one of the most read and respected science fiction novels of modern times, Battlefield Earth. An epic that I read a few times and thoroughly enjoyed on each occasion. All that aside, I must ask how that qualified him to become a religious founder? Great writer of a wonderful book? Yes. New messiah? I am afraid not. I feel he may have been guilty of believing his own press to the point of becoming totally enamored of himself.

In Battlefield Earth he gave an idea of his belief system during the rebuilding of human society near the end. However, with the novel Dianetics he laid the foundation for Scientology and began to formulate his religion. I don't believe he was the first to do so, nor sadly will he be the last, but the fact he just out of the blue deemed himself able to create an entire religion out of his own mind tells me how much he thought of himself.

We are talking about a guy who wore a cravat in 1984. That's right a cravat, one of those handkerchiefs worn by literary types of old. Sorry but that's just like getting a painting done of yourself in a Napoleon-like pose. He might as well have changed his name to a ridiculous unpronounceable symbol or something ("The writer formerly known as L. Ron Hubbard").