IS AYN RAND OBJECTIVISM A RELIGIOUS CULT?
Any philosophy, any ideal, any system can be make into a cult, or religion, if there is no element of free exchange and if everything is authority driven. Your appeal at the end of your question about not being able to have an intelligent conversation about capitalist ideology unless we consult your authority is actually very funny. Capitalist & socialist ideologies can and have shown psychopathic trends depending upon those leading them. Randism has in it’s history has both been a cult and a philosophy. The philosophy is separate from the cult, regardless if some of it’s members don’t see it that way, and can judged against the only meaningful bar in philosophy: reason. At least we can say the cult of Rand never controlled the levers of political power like the cult of Marxism did. May both Marxism and Randism, as religions, pass into the dustbin of history. Then maybe we can examine them rationally as philosophies without the fanatic howls of believers. Add: I would say in theory soc