death cult
Worship of mortality
A death cult is a religious or ideological group centered on death—whether through worship, ritualized killing, or belief in imminent apocalypse.
The term extends to any movement seen as glorifying death or leading followers toward destruction: Critics called the suicide bombers members of a death cult.
Often used pejoratively to characterize groups the speaker views as dangerously nihilistic or self-destructive.
- martyrVictim for beliefs
- blood sacrificeRitual killing for deities
- human sacrificeRitual offering of life
- sacrificeGiving up something precious
- ideologyStructured belief framework
true believer · obsession · Aum Shinrikyo · afterlife · end times · last days · Jonestown · funerary rites · radicalization · eschatology · mortality · fanaticism · holy war · ritual · terrorism · worship · morbidity · psychopathy
- fanaticismfanaticism, zealotry, zealot, fanatic, extremism
death cultfertility cult
Worship centered on reproduction
celebration of life · vitalism · natalism · humanism · prosperity gospel
death cultestablished church
Officially recognized national religion
world religion · civic religion · benevolent society · fraternal organization
death, cult, deaths, dead, deadly, deathly, deaden, deadness, cults