At least atheists are right about religion ----- just wrong on God and an afterlife! Lucky for us religion is not true or many of us on Earth would go to their Hell as a penalty for not earning Heaven by paying for our salvation ------ by our time and money!
I suppose that is true to an extent but to me it hits the cult level when it exerts such control over trivial details of members lives and makes it very difficult for members to leave.
There are theological cults and sociological cults. Many Christians consider Mormonism to be both. Personally, I don't go hunting for theological heresy, only for irrationality or deception.
A sociological cult uses mind control techniques to manage the members. All knowing leaders, shaming and shunning, forced confessions, distrust of outsiders, and so forth.
Mormonism 'disproves itself' by the specific claims it makes, but FAILS to deliver on, this is unlike mainstreet groupes (except Catholics).
I attend @ Seattle Mennonite, "religion" is (to me, anyway) secondary to being with others of same RL values. We seldom chat about (claimed ) miracles.
Other religions are religion. The church is true-th. Jesus is the commander in chief, not that other guy. Thomas Monson is the most powerful man on Earth. You try to get a million people to watch a movie worse than The Dukes of Hazzard.
Mormonism is a fraudulent religion which was created for the sole purpose of enriching its creators. Human beings have a natural tendency to speculate about the nature of the unknown and over time these speculations are codified as religious belief. Mormonism did not naturally develop in this manner. Mormonism did not originate from an ecstatic experience, a schism in a pre-existing religion, or gradual changes in religious practice over a long period of time. It was deliberately created by a small group of conspirators for an express purpose.
Within the Zion Curtain, it's real as the people inside don't know it's fake. Outside of the Zion Curtain it's a fraud.
I think Joseph Smith had some ecstatic experiences, but not the ones he said he had. Methodist camp meetings emphasized the guilt-confession-forgiveness cycle, and I think he practiced that on his own sometimes. Joseph Smith, at least when younger, felt a lot of guilt for his personal sins and idle lifestyle.
Any angels he saw were most likely either purely metaphorical or inventions after the fact.
A cult doesn't have to be religious to be a cult. There can be self-improvement cults, political cults (think North Korea) and even some marriages can be have the characteristics of a cult (mind-control elements.) So you are right on about Mormonism not being a religion but it can be a cult and a non-religion at the same time.
And unless a religious person believes in every god ever presented, they are also atheist. And incredibly arrogant to believe they somehow found the correct god out of the thousands available for worship.