I believe cults sustained over time evolve into a religion.

I respect your belief and can understand where you're coming from but again, that's an easy misconception to make. look at the beginning to Jim Jones' cult, at first it was a pretty legit organization based in a local church, but eventually he came to the conclusion that he and his followers were superior and should be separated, which eventually lead to the infamous mass suicide. Now look at the creation of say, the Catholic church, Jesus told his apostles and disciples to go into the world and do good deeds, that no man was superior to another and to do as much good for another as possible regardless of their belief. I know there are some that don't go with that, but they make up the bottom few percent of fundamentalist that take the Bible at face value unfortunately including the old testament. A cult can never become a religion because it is based on an egocentric system of beliefs.

Jesus and his followers were interpreted as a cult because the leaders of that time feared a rebellion, the teachings and beliefs then are the same now. That's the main difference between a cult and a religion as I said before, cults beliefs and actions are geared towards themselves and their fellow members, that's what I was trying to get across when I referenced Jonestown. It was that they all saw themselves as so much better than the rest of us to the point of building their own town and secluding themselves, killing any who tried to leave. The mass suicide, which was brought about by fanaticism, is an unfortunate similarity in between a cult and religion. But when it comes to time, it is inconsequential. Scientology isn't a "cult" by strict definition, it's called a "Client Cult" because it's members are required to pay to be enrolled. What happens after that falls under ordinary cult behavior.

I'm pretty sure we're arguing about two different things here. What you are saying is a cult is where society has taught us is the line between the two, dividing it into good practices and bad. Separation from society is not always considered a cult, look at Buddhist monks or even Nuns (not completely isolated, but pretty close). There is a discrepancy between them in that there's not hatred towards non members, but wouldn't that eventually come into play in order for this cult to be accepted into society. I'm really trying to not offend you, so bear with me here.
Let me try and give it a play by play: We have a nonspecific cult, they are isolated from society socially ( if they physically isolate themselves, they're pretty much done for in societies eyes, forever labeled as a cult). Their religious leader tells them many things, some of which would currently be considered bad in society, some considered good. In order to gain acceptance and the status of a religion, they would have to adhere to the good, and either ignore the bad or loosely interpret it, otherwise society would label them as cult and they would gain no ground. Whether this happens immediately or eventually, change in interpretation does happen in religion. Once this cult becomes acceptable in societies eyes, they gain religion status. No religion has ever started out as accepted by society, they're always viewed as a threat at first, because they could unseat the current major religion. So they always start out as a cult, and are often blamed when things go wrong . Judaism became more or less of a cult as Christianity gained popularity in Europe, and after it became the major religion, the Jews were blamed for pretty much everything. Now we've moved beyond blaming other religions (for the most part) and they are accepted back into society. I've got more, so hold on for the next reply