What is the Meaning of cult

Eschatology, Cult and Ideal Time
Eschatology
My own personal definition of eschatology is the meditation on the four last things—death, judgment, heaven and hell. The purpose of this is to gain perspective about one’s life in the here and now. Some people might think, “Oh, why would you want to meditate on such depressing things?” but they do not understand the purpose or that these things are not really depressing at all. There is nothing depressing about death when you follow it with the three other things—judgment, heaven and hell. To think of death as the final thing is depressing. But Christians of course think of death as just one of the four last things—and the first step to either heaven or to hell. Judgment sit in between death and the final destination and when one thinks about judgment one does not have time to get depressed. One can get scared, but depressed is not likely to be the feeling.
Eschatology is important because it gives the person an opportunity to put this life into perspective by showing that every action should be oriented towards the end that one desires because every action will be judged. Did you make good actions? You will be judged as good and be deserving of heaven. Did you think bad thoughts? Did you entertain them? Did you act on them? In that case, you may be judged deserving of hell. This is why eschatology is important. I do not think of it as Fr. Rodriquez does with his “end of time” chronocentricity idea, which is that the world is both and good and bad. Instead, I think of it somewhat in terms of the idea of cognitive dissonance, which was a term I was already familiar with. The idea that when one experiences cognitive dissonance, he must either change his thinking, change his actions or change his perception of the reality, is one that ties in with eschatology. For example, after meditating on the four last things, you are supposed to take action and change your life for the better in some way. But if you do not then you are probably going to be left with some cognitive dissonance, and that has to be dealt with in some way or another, so you might just end up convincing yourself that the four last things do not matter and are not that important.
Cult
For me, the definition of cult that I think works best is that given by Stark and Bainbridge—it is deviant religious group that has new or novel ideas and practices (Defining Cults/Sects, n.d.). However, I view any new religion as a cult. Protestantism, which has many sects, could be called a cult because it was essentially a deviation away from the Catholic Church. The first Protestants—Luther, Calvin, Knox, Zwingli—they are professed novel ideas and practices that were not in alignment with the Roman Catholic Church. They denied certain sacraments. Luther attacked the idea of the Holy Eucharist. They started their own religions and thus one could call them as the founders of cults. Each cult then break up into sects—so there are variations of the original cults—which also fits with the Stark and Bainbridge definition.
I do not agree with the idea that the distinction between a cult and a sect depends upon the tension between the group and the outside world (The Sect-Church Process, n.d.). Cult seems to have a more negative connotation while sect has a less negative connotation, but this does not sit well with me. I think attempting to define cult by the externals is to miss the point and to be focused on something else—i.e., how the world perceives the cult. That is not what should be given the focus, however. What should be given the focus is on how the cult defines itself: what are the people doing, what are they saying they believe, are their ideas different from what others think? Are they are a breakaway group or religion? These things would matter and determine whether the group is a cult or a sect in my eyes. For me, a cult is something to be avoided, as I tend to believe that the traditional way of doing things is the best, as that is what has been handed down from one generation to the next. If it worked for prior generations then it should probably still work for my generation. I think there is a lot of wisdom that is held in the past and it gets passed down to us if we are open to it. Cults seem to think that there is more wisdom in their own selves and that the lessons of the past are not important or can be tossed aside. I think there is probably a lot of hubris in cults and not enough humility, but I could be wrong on that as some members may be very humble. However, maybe they will move along after a while too and seek the old lessons of the past.
My thinking on this idea of cult was definitely shaped by the readings and the definition that I have given here is basically the definition that I liked best from the readings. It was the one that fit with my own sense of things, being more of a traditionalist in my outlook.
Ideal Time
As Fr. Rodriquez (n.d.) points out, Kimball defines the ideal time as that time when everything is good and perfect—either it came in the past or it will come in the future. I however do not spend much time thinking about the ideal time because I am pretty sure I am not in it. Instead, I focus on what I am doing now and whether that would fit in with the ideal time. I think that what we are supposed to do in this life is to try to make this life the ideal time for everyone. When you live by the golden rule, this to me says that you are working towards the ideal time.
I think that by imagining there was this ideal time that existed before people lose sight of what they are supposed to be doing now in the present. Eden is not coming back and that is just the way it is. There is no point getting excited about some earthly paradise because man is still going to be fallen and be suffering from original sin and there will still be death—unless one is talking about a time after time, in which case there will not be any death.
No matter how one looks at it, though, the fact is that the ideal time for everyone is actually right now because this is the time that God wants you to be in and He wants you to be in this time for a reason. That reason may seem mysterious to you at times, but it really does not need to be because the reason is always the same: the reason is to continue to know, love and serve God and to keep those two main laws that Christ gave to everyone: love God and love your neighbor. If you can do that you will be creating the ideal time in your own life and in your own community.
That is what I like to think about the ideal time. The readings helped me to sort out these thoughts and put them into perspective. I do not get too concerned about the concepts of the sacred and the profane in terms of the ideal time. I know what is sacred and I know what is profane—but the world we have is full of both and that is the way God wants it to be. If He did not want it to be that way, He would change it or snuff it out of existence. So I think what He wants us to do is to just accept the world as it is and live according to the laws He has given us because that is what He has said He wants us to do. If we do that, we will certainly be living in the ideal time—and that is what I think God wants us to realize. The ideal time is the time He gives to us—and if we use it the way he wants us to use it we will be rewarded with heaven, which of course has no time because it is eternal—so it would just be called the Ideal.

References
Defining Cults/Sects. (n.d.). Digital File.
Rodriquez, Fr. (n.d.). Cognitive dissonance theory. Digital File.
Rodriquez, Fr. (n.d.). Defining the sacred and profane. Digital File.
Rodriquez, Fr. (n.d.). What is chronocentricity? Digital File.
The Sect-Church Process. (n.d.). Digital File.