We're not allowed to forget they exist.

I'm also not allowed to forget about Coca-Cola. Or Taylor Swift. Or Meta. Or the sun.

And you should be allowed to forget about the first three because advertising is another awful mind virus.
- I really wouldn't be surprised if we eventually got a study saying 'Advertising is as bad for your mental health as cigarettes are for your physical health.'
- Are you not mad at the sun's PR team?
- I can't wait for lightweight AR glasses and ADBlock for real life.
- Agreed. I wish!
Or the sun
- You've waited your whole life for this moment.
I’m not a Bills fan but boy was I cheering them on yesterday just so we wouldn’t have to see her in the stands every 2 minutes.
- "Look at this famous person. Ain't she famous?"
  "Right you are, Ken, now back to watching the dystopia unfolding before our eyes..."
- Haters gonna hate 😘

And here you are talking about it and making the rest of us think about it.

Do you know another way to discuss this problem? And it is a problem. Sometimes you do have to bring something up to talk about how it's brought up as a brainwashing method.
- Just lump all of the religions in under the umbrella of freedom from religion.
It's like playing the game.
- Fuck. You.
I mean, this is an atheist community lol

What does “it’s giving cult” mean? Like it’s a cult around giving?

"It's giving [X]" -> it's giving [X] vibes -> it is giving the perception of [X]
- Like this:
  Gen Z is giving cringe.
Like, it's a cult that keeps on giving.
I am sure your human brain can figure out what they meant.
- Fuck you. It made no sense to me either.

Christianity can't really be a cult because it isn't centralized at all. There are definitely christian denominations with some cult like qualities, like the mormons and jehovah's witnesses, but christianity as a whole is definitely not a cult.

To be clear I'm definitely not saying christianity is good, it has as many problems as any other religion, it just isn't really a cult, if we apply the word cult so broadly it loses it's usefulness. If we say christianity as a whole is a cult, then we need a new word to refer to the actual individual groups within christianity that we would usually call cults. It doesn't really make sense to say that mormons and jehovah's witnesses are a single cult, so what would we call them? There's an important distinction to be made between a single group with strict control over its members and a general set of beliefs.

There is no requirement that a cult be centralized. Christianity and other religions are essentially fandoms(or tribes) organized (somewhat loosely) around shared principles. The major difference between a cult and a fandom is if it is deemed socially helpful or harmful by society (or the ruling class) at large.
- I usually use the BITE model when thinking about cults, and it's kind of difficult for something without any central government to be very culty with that definition. It definitely could be with a different definition though
- cults only recently got negative connotations.
  most cults are harmless.
Yeah, it's more like a franchise.
- That's sort of how Emo Phillips described it in his suicidal guy on the bridge joke.
  https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2005/sep/29/comedy.religion
- It's more like a category with a bunch of genres.
Well, there is the Vatican for the catholic church at least.
- That's still just one denomination though
Christianity can't really be a cult because it doesn't come from the Cult region of France, instead it's just sparkling brainwashing.
- Nah, he's an alright guy, it's the leaders of all of his fan clubs that are shit.
Cult Is just the English version of the French word culte which means the public practice of worship, devotion, adoration, veneration or exaltation. A lieu de culte is any place of worship like a church, a mosque, a synagogue, or a Babylonian temple. Le culte protestant is Protestantism, le culte du soleil means "sun worshipers," le culte de la performance means the veneration of productivity and competition, and a culte de la personnalité is the adoration of and obedience to a person - whether spiritual, political or entertainer.
This use of the word cult still makes the most sense in English, because we could say all of those French phrases in English and anyone would understand what they meant.
Therefore, by extension, all religions or sects that include devotion to a deity, person or idea are cults including Christianity as a whole and each of its denominations.
- Regardless of the etymology, that's clearly not how it's used in modern English. The person in the original post definitely didn't mean "It's giving theistic religion, friends"
It checks off all the boxes for being a cult. It being centralized isn't one of the requirements
where did you get that definition of a cult?

Cults are just non-mainstream religions

In a cult, the people running it know it's bullshit. In a religion, all the people running it who knew it was bullshit are long dead.
Cults are just desperate people giving up on thinking for themselves.
At a certain point I don't blame them. I would like to give up on this whole life thing too. I'm pretty tired and it shows in my eyes. If you look into them you can tell that joy once lived there but it's now an empty hollow. I'm not even kidding
The problem with let go and let God, the let God people want to skull fuck the corpse of human autonomy.

Is that a US-specific problem?

Speaking for myself, I can always go away, signal I'm not interested, or talk about it if I'm in the mood. It's not much different from any other topic from my point of view.

I also think the prevalence of religion in society is a pretty good reason to be somewhat familiar with the topic, even if you don't subscribe.

What if you had to hear fascist rhetoric all the time? Would you also walk away? Hot take here, I know but still
- Yes, that crosses a line. But still, I think I get your point. Maybe it really depends on how aggressive the religious community acts, and how dangerous their specific ideas are. The closer they come to fascism, the less I'd tolerate it.
American Christianity behaves a lot like an infectious disease. It wants you regardless of how much you hate it and does demonstrable harm to those who have it.
It's not even a Christianity-specific problem.

Why are atheists so obnoxious about it?

Dude, I wasn’t until you (not you OP; the royal you) brought it into my living room. Since you didn’t leave me alone about it for fucking decades and you decided to knock on the door of my house about it, fuck you. Now I’m annoyed.

I was fine letting you believe what you want, until you made it impossible to ignore you, even at my own front door. How would you feel if I knocked on your door asking you to accept satan or Darwin or whatever you think I believe? You’d fucking riot if I had teachers send their kids home with satanist pamphlets, yet I’m supposed to be fine when you sent my kindergartener home from school with bible study pamphlets.

Do you know how fucking hard it was to avoid you brainwashing my child in America? Every weekend retreat was secretly Christian. Everything from the Boy Scouts to many civic organisations offering weekend outings. I had no choice because sleepovers became indoctrination events, but cry as you will, I never had any influence over your kids. I wouldn’t, because your kid’s beliefs were your choice, not mine. I’d never even have considered a stealth Sunday morning church field trip after a sleepover – what even is that?!? Fuck everyone who does that.

Sorry, I’m still salty that I had to spend nearly two decades fending off attempts at indoctrinating my child when I was trying hard to make things his decision, not mine.

So kindly fuck off. (/end rant)

e: clarification

Thank you. Well said.

Imagine being so mentally weak that you feel like you are "forced" to think about Christianity. Just live your life wtf.

You are so mentally weak that you looked at the chicken.
- Lemme make a Lemmy post crying about it. XD
- What chicken? 😏

But what about the rich?!

I disagree. Religions seek to better each other and form an inclusive community. Cults seek to isolate and separate vulnerable people from their community.