Now, that you know exactly what is a sect nowadays. Perhaps, you want to know what are the differences between a religion and a sect, don't you ? But if you do not see our article about the definition of the word “sect”, so we recommend you to read it before.

 

 

First of all, it's necessary to know that originally a religion and a sect are difficult to tell the difference if you use the etymological definition given that a sect is a sort of new religion. The most important difference should be that a sect could be dangerous, and a religion could not. So, a group become sectarian at the time he stop being religious. And now, you are probably asking yourself, “but what is exactly a religion then?” Here's the answer : a religion is a belief in and worship of one or several gods, and normally there's no excess. And this latter, is what a “sect” does nowadays.

Now, here's a list of some differences between a sectarian group and a religious group :

Religious group	Sectarian group
Respect of civil rights and freedom of humanity	Force the adepts of submission
Add value to family : it's important	Family is considered as an ennemy
Permission to leave the group without impacts	If someone leave them : he'll be threaten
Understand that there's no answer for eveything	Have got simple answers for complex questions
Not support sexual relations between the clergy and the faithfuls	Can submit to the adepts sexual excess by the leaders
Talk clearly about his convictions	Hide his convictions
Encourage the participation	Force the participation
Money is not necessary	Money is a target
Help the faithfuls to hide his spiritual necessities	Exploit the spiritual necessities in order to control the adpet
Encourage the participation into the society	Encourage the separation with the sociey
Answer to their criticismes with respect	Threat his critics

 

Despite everything, there are not a lot of countries which consider groups with sectarian drifts (like Scientology, Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormonism, etc..) as sects. Indeed, these sects are usually judged as religions, or as non-profit-making organizations. For example, Scientology is considered as a sect only in France, Belgium, Germany, Russia (where they are of the opinion that it's an “religious destructive organization”) and Italy.

Nevertheless, the position of South America is more.. complex. As you probably know, South America is sub-continent very Catholic. But even so, since a couple ten years, there's a lot of sects. Obivously, they are not heaven-sent ! And guess who helps their implantation in the Latino ground ? The South America's neighbor of course : the USA ! Indeed, this country sent sects (Mormonism and Jehovah's Witnesses), especially during the “Cold War” in order to brake the Communism's advance, in the Peru, Ecuador, Chile, Guatemala, Bolivia, and Argentina in particular. You also have to know that since their implantation, the Mormons and the Jehovah's Witnesses had been preaching the submission to the Uncle Sam (in other words : the USA).