Serious question- what does cult-like mean? Growing up Southern Baptist, for some reason my family had a big book of cults on our shelf that I loved to read. The point of it was to warn you that these "cults" aren't real Christianity and control people's lives, I just thought it was fun to read about all the crazy things people came up with. Later I realized that the Southern Baptist church probably also fit under crazy things people came up with and controlling people's lives, but I digress.
I think the word "cult" is a semantic weapon to use against people who are doing things that make people feel uncomfortable. I guess an example of this would be some people who are primativists and call into question civilization itself, but I've learned a lot from these people even if disagree with much of what they think. Lierre Keith comes to mind.
Once we start banishing people for eating grits or shunning non-paleo relatives we can call it a cult, but the fact that blogs like Whole Health Source or Mark's Daily Apple are some of the most popular shows we are opened minded to 20% or eating fermented grains or pretty much doing what's best for YOU. That's the crux of paleo- it's not about eating for other people or some cause, it's about making YOUR life better.
Me? I'll continue to have my weekly bowl of cheese grits and to date my boyfriend who eats narsty breakfast cereal every morning.
Edit: Yipes, right after I wrote this I saw the new Free The Animal post about Don from Thepaleodiet.com deleting his link to Richard's site because he endorsed eating potatoes! This is exactly what I don't want the paleo movement to become. Having now met hundreds of fellow paleo dieters in person, the ones that seem the healthiest are not the purists. In many ways I would like to not be associated with such a movement and would like my own philosophy to be called evolutionary eating or something, but paleo has kind of stuck.
