Religion and Religious Cults

What exactly is the difference between a religion and a cult. In my opinion, religion is something that is followed by a whole lot of people, while a religious cults is a group of people who believes in certain sayings and doings and just practices those and blindfoldely puts them into practice. About 2 days back, I happen to stumble upon a news which made me blog this.

Link to news on CNN:-
http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/03/31/cult.child.death/index.html

One year old boy was starved to death by his own mother, who had fed the baby well,9 months when he was still inside her. Javon was born in 2005 and later on his mom Ria, is believed to have join a cult group. Ria didnt want to go to college, neither did she want to work but she wanted to take care of the baby and this group promised it all to her. Since Javon didnt want to say "Amen" after his meals, the leader of the cult asked her to starve him, and thats believed to be the cause of Javons Death. And then according to the beliefs,the cult told Ria, that her son is going to ressurect one day, and she hid his body in a suitcase. And the body was atlast found in April 2008, about a year and half later. How can a mother behave like this to her own child? It disgusts me to come across news like these. It makes me wonder, how people are easily brainwashed into these cult organisations. Ria is just an example, there are many cults out there which practices many different things and there are some stupid people who join them too. Was Ria a mental patient, or was she just brainwashed, or are both the same. In my opinion these kind of cults should be wiped out and people should be freed from all these tortures. RIP Javon. And I hope Ria comes back to her senses soon, but she deserves the worst punishment she can ever get.