Religions and Cults

A religion is simply a cult that's accumulated enough years under its belt to be thought respectable. But if you dare to venture back to the origins, you'll see the markings of a cult every time. For example, here's Deuteronomy, chapter 7, from the Jewish Publication Society's translation of the Tanakh, or Hebrew Bible, which contains the Five Books of Moses and 19 other books (Judges, the various prophets, Kings, etc). Pay special attention to the God-authorized genocide of the inhabitants of Canaan, the animosity toward religious freedom of non-Israelites, the separatism, and the issue of chosenness. (HaShem is Hebrew for Lord. G-d is how Orthodox Jews spell God; in that way, should a document be destroyed, the word God would not be destroyed.)

1 When HaShem thy G-d shall bring thee into the land whither thou goest to possess it, and shall cast out many nations before thee, the Hittite, and the Girgashite, and the Amorite, and the Canaanite, and the Perizzite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite, seven nations greater and mightier than thou;

2 and when HaShem thy G-d shall deliver them up before thee, and thou shalt smite them; then thou shalt utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor show mercy unto them;

3 neither shalt thou make marriages with them: thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son.

4 For he will turn away thy son from following Me, that they may serve other gods; so will the anger of HaShem be kindled against you, and He will destroy thee quickly.

5 But thus shall ye deal with them: ye shall break down their altars, and dash in pieces their pillars, and hew down their Asherim, and burn their graven images with fire.

6 For thou art a holy people unto HaShem thy G-d: HaShem thy G-d hath chosen thee to be His own treasure, out of all peoples that are upon the face of the earth.

7 HaShem did not set His love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people--for ye were the fewest of all peoples--

8 but because HaShem loved you, and because He would keep the oath which He swore unto your fathers, hath HaShem brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.

9 Know therefore that HaShem thy G-d, He is G-d; the faithful G-d, who keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love Him and keep His commandments to a thousand generations;

10 and repayeth them that hate Him to their face, to destroy them; He will not be slack to him that hateth Him, He will repay him to his face.

11 Thou shalt therefore keep the commandment, and the statutes, and the ordinances, which I command thee this day, to do them.

12 And it shall come to pass, because ye hearken to these ordinances, and keep, and do them, that HaShem thy G-d shall keep with thee the covenant and the mercy which He swore unto thy fathers,

13 and He will love thee, and bless thee, and multiply thee; He will also bless the fruit of thy body and the fruit of thy land, thy corn and thy wine and thine oil, the increase of thy kine and the young of thy flock, in the land which He swore unto thy fathers to give thee.

14 Thou shalt be blessed above all peoples; there shall not be male or female barren among you, or among your cattle.

15 And HaShem will take away from thee all sickness; and He will put none of the evil diseases of Egypt, which thou knowest, upon thee, but will lay them upon all them that hate thee.

16 And thou shalt consume all the peoples that HaShem thy G-d shall deliver unto thee; thine eye shall not pity them; neither shalt thou serve their gods; for that will be a snare unto thee.

17 If thou shalt say in thy heart: 'These nations are more than I; how can I dispossess them?'

18 thou shalt not be afraid of them; thou shalt well remember what HaShem thy G-d did unto Pharaoh, and unto all Egypt:

19 the great trials which thine eyes saw, and the signs, and the wonders, and the mighty hand, and the outstretched arm, whereby HaShem thy G-d brought thee out; so shall HaShem thy G-d do unto all the peoples of whom thou art afraid.

20 Moreover HaShem thy G-d will send the hornet among them, until they that are left, and they that hide themselves, perish from before thee.

21 Thou shalt not be affrighted at them; for HaShem thy G-d is in the midst of thee, a G-d great and awful.

22 And HaShem thy G-d will cast out those nations before thee by little and little; thou mayest not consume them quickly, lest the beasts of the field increase upon thee.

23 But HaShem thy G-d shall deliver them up before thee, and shall discomfit them with a great discomfiture, until they be destroyed.

24 And He shall deliver their kings into thy hand, and thou shalt make their name to perish from under heaven; there shall no man be able to stand against thee, until thou have destroyed them.

25 The graven images of their gods shall ye burn with fire; thou shalt not covet the silver or the gold that is on them, nor take it unto thee, lest thou be snared therein; for it is an abomination to HaShem thy G-d.

26 And thou shalt not bring an abomination into thy house, and be accursed like unto it; thou shalt utterly detest it, and thou shalt utterly abhor it; for it is a devoted thing.

I submit that this has cult and folktale written all over it. The Bible is full of things like this, many of them contradicting each other. These verses seem to say that Yahweh chose the Hebrews for no particular reason; he just loved them on some arbitrary basis. (And loved no one else?) This suggests that Yahweh gave them the law because he had declared them holy and had made an earlier promise to Abraham. On the other hand, Exodus suggests that Yahweh declared the Hebrews holy only after they received the law. Which is it? The voluminous rabbinical commentaries offer a variety of conflicting interpretations, just as you might expect. That's what apologists do with ambiguous and contradictory texts that had been handed down orally for hundreds of years. 

I do not mean to pick on Judaism here. This criticism is not unique to it. And remember: Judaism is the basis of the other Abrahamic religions; without it, there'd be no Christianity or Islam or Mormonism.