That argument is specious (look that word up if you don't know what it means).

I think the point you really want to make is that you can disrespect them as a group without disrespecting individuals, and that words and arguments are not hate crimes, unless you're actually committing some other sort of crime at the same time (such as actually encouraging people to kill someone).

"Hate crimes" are idiotic, anyway. You shouldn't make laws based on what was in a person's head when they committed a crime. What difference does it make whether you killed someone because they were black or because you didn't like their haircut? Yet many countries have laws that make the former more of a crime than the latter, bizarrely.

But that's neither here nor there. The word "cult" and the word "fag" are just words. They carry nothing more than a bit of negative emotional baggage. If you don't like someone calling you a "fag" or calling your religion a "cult", then grow a damn spine, you have no right to not be disrespected, or to not be called these things. It's not discrimination to use those words, any more than it's discrimination to call a person poor. If you treat them differently because of it, that's discrimination. The choice of word is irrelevant.

Really, a cult is nothing more than a small following of ideals that usually differ from the norm. Christianity was cult once in and of itself. I don't Mormonism is a cult simply because it's too big to be one I think.

I look beyond that and see an organization that has done tremendous amount of good in this world, and whose followers are generally know to be very friendly and helpful

They believe Christ is God (or part of) that makes them Christian and a religion. Whether or not the religion was founded on true principles doesn't change the fact that Mormons follow the teachings of Christ and God, in the Old and New testament, and are within their right to do so. They don't do any harm to anyone (I don't see them standing outside military funerals protesting saying it is God's work that they died), they just have an extra book.

Cults are something else entirely. LDS isn't a cult.

Considering that Marxism was the single greatest ideology of death during the 20th century, and due to population size, ended up causing more deaths than religions beliefs in other centuries combined, I am not going to say it is religion that did it.  Apparently, there is something that happens when you combine any ideology with government, that causes mass death and other horrors.  This should be expected, since the role of government is to act as collective coersion against its population, for the greater good.

In regards to abortion, the other side, if you want to pay attention, is that abortion takes a human life.  That is the argument.  You go down a big huge long line of arguments involving the meaning of viability and so on.  If you don't want to think or understand this, it looks merely like there is a desire to make life difficult for women.  The desire to block homosexual civil unions comes out of evangelicals who can't even figure out how to get married, so their collective guilt needs to get channeled somewhere.  And I say it this way, because the calling it marriage is part of the reason why it also gets blocked.  Idea is for homosexuals who want the full benefits of marriage, to get those benefits, not to suddenly cause people who think marriage is this, to change their definition of what they think marriage is.  If I had my druthers, I would have everything called marriage today, in civil courts relabelled "Civil Unions" by the way, and leave people calling it marriage on a personal level.

I would personally argue all religions are but that's just me.

Care to provide numbers to back up your absurd statement about Marxism? Also, if the actions of Stalin are to be blamed on Marxism then why not blame atrocities such as the Vietnam war on Capitalism?

A couple things about marriage. It is not and never was a Christian institution (it is currently a secular institution that allows, for example, Atheists to marry), it has been changed before (in this case, to include interracial marriage), several religious organizations support gay marriage (why are we allowed to discriminate against them?). Also, marriage was never sacred, it was simply meant to guarantee a man exclusive sexual access to his property.

so I was wrong about the definition of bigotry...yet I'm still not a bigot.  I just checked out those links, and bigotry is  " a person who is obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices; especially : one who regards or treats the members of a group (as a racial or ethnic group) with hatred and intolerance ".

a few points:

1 - I am not intolerantly devoted.  If religion could prove to me that any of its claims were accurate, I'd switch my stance in a heartbeat and I'd gladly admit defeat.  I'm simply going with science here, and logic dictates that religion as a whole is an irrational belief system regardless of what it's done for the greater good.  

2 - it's not 'my opinion'.   the difference between a cult and a religion is membership.  a cult is a reigious devotion to a particular figure or object. seriously, that's its definition.  another definition is "a relatively small group of people having religious beliefs or practices regarded by others as strange or sinister."  so basically, as long as the majority thinks a certain offshoot of a religion is strange or devious, then pretty much ANY religion can be classified as a cult. (Relaive to the people who aren't christians, all christians can be seen as weird.).  sure, that's stretching the definition a bit, but that's the point: the difference between a cult and a religion is membership, or how popular/mainstream the beliefs are.  Again, not an opinion, that's a definition.  

3 - I do not regard or treat the members of a group with hatred or intolerance.  Again, I have no problem with religious people, I have a problem with RELIGION itself.  I happen to agree with science in that religion is an irrational belief system with no evidence or proof backing it up, but I don't hate religious people unless they shove it in my face or try to force it on me.  in which case, I hate them for THEIR decision to push their faith on me and  be aggressive about it.  I'm plenty tolerant of people who are responsible with it.  if someone tried to force me to listen to Justin Bieber, I'd hate them, too.  

So yeah, not a bigot, none of the 3 aspects of bigotry are there.  I'm not devoted to hatred, just chosing a rational dislike for it.  I'm not just spewing opinion, I'm going by the actual definition.  I'm not hating people for being religious, I hate religion itself and I hate people for their decision to force religion on me, where that applies (read: a minority, but common enough to warrant angeer.)  Besides, int he KKK case, it's okay to be a bigot!  if I found someone who hated blacks, jews, gays, and all that stuff, I;d have every right to hate them for their beliefs.  argue agaisnt that all you want, you would hate them, too. 

If we go strictly by the definition of ''irrationality'' atheism is also an irrational belief system. The only thing that is rational is agnosticism

semantics.  the point still stands. Besides, this isn't about faith vs atheism or anything, this is about mormonism as a cult vs mormonism as a religion, and the meanings of those terms and the perceptions.  

That said, Atheism isn't irrational: if there's no evidence something exists, it's a fair assumption that it doesn't exist.  Agnosticism is the MOST rational of the belief systems, as it allows for the possibility for a god or no god, or multiple gods, but it's not irrational to believe that God is a manifestation of the human mind and therefore exists only as a metaphor.  Plenty in human history shows that we could very well have just made it all up.