Maybe, technically, just like pretty much ever other religion. It's not a big deal. People that are in a cult/religion tend to be happier and love longer.

Mormonism is a cult. But then, so is Catholicism.

Look up the meaning of the word "cult". It's actually a synonym for "religion" - it's just that "cult" carries a negative connotation, and thus is only ever used by people of one religion to denigrate people of another religion.

And for the record, most religions are dangerous in one way or another, because they encourage closed-mindedness. As was so well-put by Tim Minchin (Australian musical comedian), "Science adjusts it's beliefs based on what's observed. Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved."

Look up the word cult in a dictionary and guess what you will learn cult=religion.

I'm LDS, and there are a lot of misconceptions about our religion. We believe in christ like other christian faiths. We do however believe that God has a perfect body of flesh and blood and so does Jesus. We believe that God, Jesus and the holy ghost are separate entities. We believe that we are all spirit children of god and were chosen in a pre- existence to come to earth. We believe that we believe that after death you go to either spirit paradise, or spirit prison until the second coming where everyone is ressurected into separate glories of heaven. Terrestrial, Telestial, and Celestial. We believe that there is always progression even after death. We believe that the most righteous of the Celestial kingdom can become as god, and we believe that everyone can become as god.

Sorry for the rant, just wanted to clear things up.

We study the old testament and new testament as far as they are translated correctly, as well as the cornerstone of our religion The Book of Mormon, which is another testament of Jesus Christ. We also study the doctrine and covenants which is revelation for modern day saints. And the pearl of great price which consists of the book of Moses and the book of Abraham. Our president is a living prophet who receives revelation from god and relays it to us through general conferences every six months.

I'm not trying to convert anyone ( though I wouldn't be sad if you were converted :) ) but I just wanted to give you a bit of our beliefs to put to rest all the wild speculation, and anger towards us.

Personally, I believe Mormonism is a cult because according to books like Richard Abanes' "One Nation Under Gods: A History of the Mormon Church" ( http://www.amazon.com/One-Nation-Under-Gods-History/dp/B0058M6RXO/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1339999499&sr=8-1&keywords=one+nation+under+gods ) the Mormon higher ups fire and ex-communicate any professor from their universities that seeks to reveal certain elements of Mormon history and unlike most Christian churches they have councils like The Strengthening Faith Commission that is charged with keeping tabs on how Mormons live their lives and that they don't make any anti-Mormon statements in their letters to the editors, etc, and the ones that do are typically brought before disciplinary councils, etc.

Also, their religion has kooky ideas ( http://youtu.be/IGFAph3lWqw and http://youtu.be/2Gm6JYFdnD8 ) that are in no way supported by archaeology or anything else in Christianity like the whole thing in The Book of Mormon about American Indians being the descendants of the Hebrews and Elohim living on the planet Kolob ( http://youtu.be/WwYm_mKQ3Gs ) an assertion of Joseph Smith's that he apparently gleaned from an Egyptian text called "The Book of Abraham" though all Egyptologists say that that particular text had nothing at all to do with what Smith said that it did ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ac_fLUHiBw ) .

A good youtube video about Mormonism in my opinion is http://youtu.be/f5dflaTV3JM from youtube's Styxhexenhammer666 ( http://www.youtube.com/user/Styxhexenhammer666 ) which basically says that due to its Expansionist and Fundamentalist tendencies Mormonism is actually more dangerous to the United States than Islam.

And then there's a lot to the point that was made earlier that all organized religions are in fact cults since most of their assertions are contrary to what is actually known through archaeology, linguistics, and science in general.

No more so then say baptists... and i mean honestly... you could only wish that most religious groups did as much good as the mormon church.

They do a LOT of good, are one of the more active charitable christian groups out there... and seem honestly to generally be a lot more positive and generally nice then people on average.

So even if they were a cult, good for them. We'd probably be better off if there were more Mormons out there.

I wouldn't exactly say that the Mountain Meadows Massacre was a good thing ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_Meadows_massacre ), and I'm not sure if there's anything analogous to it in Baptist history.

Well... the inquistion.  Since they branched off from catholics after that.

I mean... seriously... 1857?

Don't the LDS fund a lot of the BSA stuff? Which is good, though I hear they discriminate against certain people (homosexuals, atheists). Which is fine, as long as it's a private organisation.

Asking if "Mormonism is a religion or a cult" is the same as asking "Is Elton John a homosexual or a fag?"

It's just plain impolite disparagement to the group to label them as a cult considering the implication of the labels these days.