I include the Christian right as a cult, as would most rational Christians. Thank Cthulhu I was raised an Episcopalian and at least had a concept of critical thinking. (I'm an agnostic now, and was always liberal, but still acknowledge my ethics to have originated in religion. Had the religion turned out to have really stood for those things I might not have rejected it. Rand, at the time, was actually a bridge away from that. But Carl Sagan was a more positive one.
I've been reading a bunch of material about the CR this week, and will be for a bit, because I'm putting together a project, comics or prose, related to them. And not kind. And the thing that bothers me? I thought the initial plot I came up with was far-fetched.
Now, reading about them, watching JESUS CAMP and stuff like that which is like wading through sewage...I think my ideas are tame. Seriously. We have no idea what's going on in that dark side of America.