There is no question that the Mormons have some very interesting and unique views. For example, Roman Catholics became very concerned because the Mormons were taking the names of deceased people and performing baptisms in order to make them Mormons. At the same time, the Mormon churches happen to hold an enormous amount of genealogical information on many people in the United States.

Despite this, one must ask if some of the most common beliefs held by Mormons is enough justification to call them a cult. Unfortunately, simply labeling Mormonism as a cult is extremely difficult. All in all, you might as well say the same thing each time an individual is asked to place community good ahead of personal advantage. In fact, when you think of it that way, even governments and marriages become cults.

If you study Heaven's Gate, Waco, and other cult based atrocities, you will soon realize that many of them have an enigmatic character who forms the belief system. Depending on the situation, they may even claim that some object provided them with special information, or some type of power. Without a question, this element is present in the foundations of Mormonism. As you may be aware, the founder, Joseph Smith Jr. claimed to have gained access to golden plates that revealed the story of Jesus and His visits to America after being crucified. Coincidentally, few people ever saw these golden plates. Today, if they exist, their whereabouts remains unknown.

It is interesting to point out that modern people would not call the Native Americans members of a cult. Nevertheless, a few decades after Joseph Smith died, a Paiute medicine man named Wovoka created the Ghost Dances based on a vision. Part of his teachings included asking native people to wear "magical shirts" that would stop bullets. As with Joseph Smith , Wovoka had a following of people that looked up to him. They were also willing to put their own well being aside in order to carry out the Ghost Dances. These people, in turn, were ruthlessly murdered as the FBI and other US governing bodies sought to stop these ceremonies. As may be expected, those "magic shirts" were every bit as useless as the claim that Hale Bopp was going to lift members of Heaven's Gate into an exalted realm.

Many people look at Mormonism and feel that it is a cult that has brainwashed millions of followers throughout the world. If you give the matter some thought, you may arrive at the conclusion that the very definitions of cult, religion, government, and group need to be changed. At the very least, these definitions should reflect a basic understanding about human social interactions and the need to co-exist in a beneficial way. That said, no matter how many organizations you try to label as cults, only the truth about the foundation of each group will serve to help people get free of it, and all of the manipulations that tend to occur when one person wants to gain something from others without giving a fair return.