Is buddism a cult?

In the same way Christianity is a cult.

It’s not a cult, it is a religion.

In the English-speaking countries since about the 1960s, especially in North America, the term cult has taken on a pejorative and sometimes offensive connotation. This largely originated with highly publicized cults that purportedly exploited their members psychologically and financially, or that allegedly utilized group-based persuasion and conversion techniques. These techniques may include brainwashing, thought reform, love bombing, and mind control, whose scientific validity, modern and historical use, and effectiveness (for religious conversion) are discussed within the linked articles.

Any group of people who worship a fat guy sitting cross legged must be a cult. Did they offer you Kool Aid?

if you have grown up with the ideas of one religion, a presentation of the ideas of another can seem very strange. Especially when the two are as different as buddhism and christianity. don’t be afraid, buddhism is not a cult. i would advise reading an introduction to it, this will help you to understand it better. also, try to recognize that a lot of what is said in buddhism is metaphorical.

sorry, princeton, but you need to grow up. cult is just a term used for a minority religion by the practitioners of the majority religion.

After watching how the Catholic church choose’s the pope….I think a cult is just a gathering of similar interests. Why is this word cult looked down upon? Oh…wrong section for that

There are some parts of buddhism that essentially focus on worshipping the Buddha - either as a means of eventual enlightenment through imitation of a role model OR because they believe true enlightenment is possible for only a VERY small minority of the population and the best the rest can do is adore one who has attained it.

In my studies of the subject (and I am a Christian) it does not seem to me that this was the intention of the Buddha himself. He seemed to have a conception of self-improvement that hinges on increasing one’s level of awareness and basically listening to but not indulging the wishes of the ego…. in other words, to quietly but persistently tell your monkey mind that YOU (what freud would call the superego) are in charge and will be calling the shots from now on.

I cannot remember the source for my final point - that the Buddha himself admitted that at the very point of enlightenment there was a force or awareness OUTSIDE OF HIMSELF that catupulted his consciousness to the next higher level - and that submission to that OTHER was an integral part of the process. Of course, this seems to fly in the face of everything I can find on the subject - every source I find seems to focus on his disavowel of God.