How is liberalism a form of religion?

[moon777light]

not sure which subforum this belongs to

I am finishing the Sapiens book by Yuval Noah Harari and im currently on the religion chapter. He speaks how all things people commonly intrepret as ideologies are actually religions. And so most people who scoff at religious people are somewhat hypocrytes since they are blindly part of one. Id like to reveal to myself as many blind spots that i have as possible. 

This is the defintion of religion: 

Religion: A system of human norms and values that is founded on a belief in a superhuman order

Most Western people simultaneously believe in nationalism, capitalism, and liberalism. Liberalism by definition says that humans have been endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights. they also believe that "humanity" is a quality of individual humans Its apperently impossible to say you dont believe in god and that you believe in equal human rights/liberalism or whatever because these human "rights" are only made up in the imagination of humans, a superhuman thing? In nature there is no real rights/justice/equality. he later argues that "without recourse to eternal souls/Creator God, it becomes embarrassingly difficult for liberals to explain what is so special about individual Sapiens." 

Same for communism, where they had prophetic book "Das Kapital", had martyrs, heresys, and missionary-like ways of spreading their idea. 

 

So does that mean we all have been blind to our strong stage blue ways of thinking/living/what we believe in? that we think were above the religious people where we havent stepped much ahead of them? 

 

 

 

[Gog]

The earth-moon problem has been bounded between 9 and 12, so?

[moon777light]

what?

[Leo Gura]

He's got that backwards, religion is a kind of ideology. Ideology is not a kind of religion.

Liberalism is not a religion, it is an ideology.

[lmfao]

@moon777light Religions are simply a subset of a ideologies, the way I see it. I cant be bothered to research enough into the semantics of how you define religion neither can I be bothered to research (read some shit cuz im lazy) into what liberalism exactly is so as to say whether liberalism is a religion but I'd be pretty confident in saying liberalism is an ideology and also a religion if what you typed was right.

5 hours ago, moon777light said:

not sure which subforum this belongs to

I am finishing the Sapiens book by Yuval Noah Harari and im currently on the religion chapter. He speaks how all things people commonly intrepret as ideologies are actually religions. And so most people who scoff at religious people are somewhat hypocrytes since they are blindly part of one. Id like to reveal to myself as many blind spots that i have as possible. 

This is the defintion of religion: 

Religion: A system of human norms and values that is founded on a belief in a superhuman order

Most Western people simultaneously believe in nationalism, capitalism, and liberalism. Liberalism by definition says that humans have been endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights. they also believe that "humanity" is a quality of individual humans Its apperently impossible to say you dont believe in god and that you believe in equal human rights/liberalism or whatever because these human "rights" are only made up in the imagination of humans, a superhuman thing? In nature there is no real rights/justice/equality. he later argues that "without recourse to eternal souls/Creator God, it becomes embarrassingly difficult for liberals to explain what is so special about individual Sapiens." 

Same for communism, where they had prophetic book "Das Kapital", had martyrs, heresys, and missionary-like ways of spreading their idea. 

 

So does that mean we all have been blind to our strong stage blue ways of thinking/living/what we believe in? that we think were above the religious people where we havent stepped much ahead of them? 

Yep pretty much.

In regards to the last paragraph, all of us have unhealthy expressions and healthy expressions of each stage.

You could probably say that the degree to which someone is "ideological" in their thoughts, beliefs, actions and behaviour is purely a function of "ego". Even if a person isn't subscribed overtly to an external ideology which someone has written in a book (like various religions, political beliefs, philosophical beliefs, metaphysical beliefs and etc which are written in books and given various names like "christianity" or "liberalism" for example) they will still exhibit the same patterns of thoughts and action of someone who does formally believe in some ideology. We all make assumptions, have skewed perceptions, examine the contents of our conciseness with a lens which wishes to confirm what we already think we know and etc. It's kinda of like how Leo said that despite the fact that not many things can be 100% classified as a cult, there are an extremely number of things which have cult dynamics.

We all have ideological thinking, even if I profess myself to have non. I'm inclined to just simplify things and say that "ego" is the root of ideological thinking (since you can probably build extensive models of "ego" which confirm this idea if you were interested enough to do it, which someone like Leo probably is). Part of the reason I'm typing all of this is because your last paragraph made me think about how ideological thinking caries across the different stages in SD and I've gone off on a tangent. There is more to be said about Ideological thinking which isn't sufficiently described by just mentioning stage blue (ofc I know you weren't implying the converse to what I just said in this sentence). 

The set of all possible patterns of thinking which arise in a particular stage will on average contain "less" ego (I'm treating ego like its something which can be quantified in this sentence) than the average amount of ego found in the set of all possible patterns of thinking in the adjacently below stage. Maybe.

Edited February 2, 2019 by lmfao

[ValiantSalvatore]

@moon777light Mostly I assume it is just stages of SD, it is also comparable to a libertarian stance of freedom and autonomy, what is so great about an individual like that? His influence, his life, his money, his family, his friendships, his world, his privileges, his intellect, his status etc. 

Yet, I feel what is missing often is a differentiation and integration approach to all of those hierarchies of systemic values ranking and personalities and biological predispositions. That form a gestalt. Same with liberalism what is so great that a human being has his integrity or "irreproachability" being protected by the legislature or in the constitution. Country etc. The protection itself creates the worth. Which has been created since human stories and their tragedies keep unfolding, while we take lessons and draw meaning. For instance, Victor Frankl's book a means search for meaning. Displays this in the most gruesome scenarios of the second world war. It is as if meaning is created either as a result of great suffering, because of a dedication to love, or the will to will itself meaning the creation of a will. 

21 hours ago, moon777light said:

Liberalism by definition says that humans have been endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights.

I agree with that, yet I had to google the word unalienable meaning that it can't be uttered? Or are not being able to remit once rights to another. I can't sell my right of freedom of speech to a kid in St. Lucia. The same with him selling his right, I remember that Ken Wilber.. addressed one point of that we do not have enough global (male) human rights. So, I can't tell how that would look like. For instance, Nestle buying wells in Africa to procure water for the poor. Another a capitalistic form of colonialism? Considering their products. 

 

21 hours ago, moon777light said:

to say you dont believe in god and that you believe in equal human rights/liberalism or whatever because these human "rights" are only made up in the imagination of humans, a superhuman thing? In nature there is no real rights/justice/equality. he later argues that "without recourse to eternal souls/Creator God, it becomes embarrassingly difficult for liberals to explain what is so special about individual Sapiens."

Most likely this exactly becomes the point, as long as no storytelling or philosophy exists. If we can't create any meaning or (have a quadrant like an approach) or multi-perspectival approach, not aperspectival. It will be reduced to one flatland. So, any reading in that regard will help to grow horizontally in any quadrant. Which is great to know the map and the obstacles appearing on the multi-level parkour. It still this theory was built and extracted out of others. Most human beings have a couple of quadrants covered or let's say body, mind, and family. Is what most western countries run on, without including the aspect of values inside these concepts. (Success, compassion, intellect etc.) Or rather politeness in tight cultures and not loose cultures. Like Canada or the U.S. Comparing Japan, "Germany".  https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/culture-conscious/201306/some-it-tight-some-it-loose

What I want to say is everything will be reduced to one flatland approach. I would love to draw from history but I can't yet. But let's say you are a samurai in Japan and were injured in a fight joining Rinzai zen cloister afterward and everything is reduced to a spiritual flatland. Or a mad scientist only caring about his objects of creation. All of these stories I feel more and more are there to create meaning, even one's own story, as an avid journaler. Attaching meaning, extracting concepts and principles, is great or can be. Yet, what I've read in an article about Vajrayana is and this is going to be sexist. Women often embody the wisdom function, let's say mother nature takes to care for heaven's sake. While men often embody the aspect of practice. 

Anything is special about an individual as long as one can entertain that notion regardless in which aspect. Yet, no idea how this is an experienced concept like, besides that, I would even care less and would love everything... so, in that regard. Knowledge is power and concepts are hindering, it is scary to let go of that, while it is a safety need in regards to everything almost. So, not consciously trying to think and doing nothing while still retaining knowledge is quite bewildering. Hope this was somehow useful !

[moon777light]

thanks guys