Part of the problem with the way both political ideology & religion are discussed is that while both are clearly determined by social rules—we defend our ID’d ‘team’ for ex—when we discuss them we focus on the content of their individual cognitive *beliefs*

Now, we *also* tend to make very broad social grouping assessments, can recognize campism & team dynamics somewhat in others, & liberals will speak of religions & ideologies as social groupthink, but this idea isn’t generalized

—SOME PUTATIVELY COUNTER INTUITIVE FACTS ABOUT INDIVIDUAL RELIGIOUS BELIEF AND HOW SOCIAL FACTS RESOLVE THEM—

So , for example, during the Holocaust, religious *individuals* were more likely to resist the Nazis than secular ones, but members of left wing *groups* tended to resist until defeated. However on an individual level, left wing belief or voting pattern didn’t predict resistance.

When one looks at these two instances social ties, identity, group relationships, participation in organizations, social capital, firmness of identity, & exposure to other people’s, and NOT on their beliefs, the above pattern is incredibly easy to explain.

This—and not for any reasons of ‘horseshoe theory’—also why extreme & counter hegemonic ideologies *in general* attract people attracted to other kinds of extremes & perceived counter hegemonic views in general, which, for many people includes prejudices, conspiracy & reaction

—ON THE CONFLATION AND REIFICATION OF COGNITIVE & IDEOLOGICAL FACTS WITH MATERIAL ONES AND ITS ROLE IN REACTIONARY GRIFTERS AND RECRUITERS—

In the US, and to a lesser extent other Anglo countries, the fact that the education & university system are so tied to a specific kind of progressive liberalism, multiculturalism, & so on, leads many people to believe these are hegemonic.

This combined with a certain kind of personality type & demographic background (i.e. young white men) is why you get so many edgelords who think their racism & prejudice are contrarian, bc they experienced school as all the ideologies being ‘pushed’ on them

Their individual social & personal marginalization, and unconscious expectations of the privileges they believe they should have had, focalizes on the education, cultural & social system, leading them to believe in false hegemony.

This—combines with right wingers, grifters & conspiracy peddlers,esp w social media—is why you get so many people who think there’s some kind of multi cultural conspiracy & hegemony or think that the Holocaust & Jews are afforded some unique hegemonic position in the system

—DEFINING RELIGION THRU A DISCUSSION OF THE LEFTISM AND RELIGION COMPARISON**—

**why it is valid—but not for the reasons people usually think,—and why this is not a bad thing

When people push back on the comparison of Marxism or leftism to religion, it’s usually because they have a negative view of the latter. But once you realize that religion & theism—let alone specifically Protestantism—are not the same thing, the comparison is neutral or positive

Because a religion is just an organized movement of people w codified common scriptures, institutions, & rituals, reciprocal social ties & in group dynamics, and a scriptural &/or doctrinal &/or charismatic belief system based around according meaning & significance to the world

This kind of definition leads many people to say ‘well what isn’t religion’—and this was even an internal debate in religious studies decades ago, esp as concerns NRMs or political ideologies—but pay attention to the specifics of this (provisional synthetic) definition

While it is certainly more general than an overriding focus on theism, supernaturalism, scripturalism, & spirituality, *especially as individual cognitive belief*, it actually ISNT so broad as to include all wide ranging social movements & institutions.

I also follow religious studies & differentiate spirituality—the individual component of these beliefs—and religion, two concepts & configurations which are highly correlated in practice & history, but are NOT necessary or sufficient for one another.

—ON FUZZY SET CATEGORIZATIONS USING AN EXAMPLE FROM PHILOSOPHY OF BIOLOGY—

Having understood that typology, we can now relax the above definition somewhat, and create a fuzzy logic categorization—philosophers often do this with fuzzy concepts like ‘life’, ‘consciousness’, ‘religion’, ‘science’ etc

Basically we say that a phenomena has n features A, B, C, ...n. If a phenomena has all three ABC we say it’s an instance. If it has none we exclude it. If it only has two AB, AC, BC, we say it is X-like, or whatever, and if it only has one feature A, B, or C we make a judgment

In the case of defining life, one such categorization is that it has a C(ontainer), M(etabolism), & R(eproduction). All things with CMR are living, but then there are border cases like candle flames, viruses, memes, AI, that only have two.

But we don’t usually say that something being bounded on its own makes it lifelike. there are still plenty of phenomena (in fact most brute physical ones) that don’t meet any of the three categories. That unique comparisons like stars or solar systems get included is a good thing

Counter intuitive analogies & comparisons actually make for more rigorous analysis, not less.
—END OF EXPLANATION OF METHOD—

—DEFINING RELIGION IN A FUZZY WAY—
My provisional fuzzy set definition of religion.
—Social movement, &/or organizations &/or institutions
—Shared rituals, &/or traditions &/or common focal points of totem & taboo
—Common basis in scripture &/or charismatic leaders &/or doxa

—Mechanisms for creation & maintenance of shared symbolic, cultural, social, interpretive, & meaningful ties, &/or beliefs, &/or experiences
—Some mechanisms for organizing the significance, &/or meaning, &/or ecstasy &/or spirituality of existence, social life & experience

These last two may be seen as actually one category if you prefer, as they are simply arguably the two sides of the action/reflection dichotomy. If you notice, my definitions are recursively fuzzy—fuzzy membership criteria for fuzzy membership criteria.

This expresses my view that there are no (or at least very few) wrong ways to eat a rhesus & That the sub criteria are sufficiency criteria while the meta criteria are necessity criteria.

Thus we have 4/5—let’s say 4.5 necessary criteria—each which has usually 2 or 3 sufficient criteria.

So, in my version, a full blown religion must meet all of the 4.5 necessary categorical criteria, but usually only meet *some* of the sub criteria in each, although *some* religions meet *all* of these sub criteria.

A phenomena is religion-like if it meets multiple of the 4.5 categories but not all—even if it meets all of the sufficient criteria within one of the 4.5. For example, law & economy meet all of the ‘social’ sufficient sub criteria but don’t meet all 4.5 necessary criteria.

It’s clear, however, that organized Marxism, therefore bears quite a lot in common with religion as it meets, in some instances, all 4.5, but in most instances usually more like 2-3. Ditto anarchism.

Organized Science meets the first 3/4.5. ScientISM meets the last 1.5. And those who mix them both—i.e. New, but not classic, atheists—meet all 4.5.

—THE SANTA CLAUSE 2: THE ESCAPE CLAUSE—WITH SPECIFIC REFERENCE TO MASS PARTY MOBILIZATION AS MEETING THE CRITERIA OF RELIGION BUT THE FACT THAT WE ALL FIND THAT COMPARISON CRINGE**—

**in the strict scholarly sense, of course

For those of you made anxious by the above method, I will add an escape clause for you—otherwise known something like the law of pornography, i knows it when i sees it which is this world

—Pragmatic ‘Escape Clause’ for the uncomfortable
A. Where a phenomena can be clearly recognized as something *other* than religion—economy, politics, parties—we can say that the phenomena in question is *at most* religious in a secondary fashion

B. Similarly, if we see something and just KNOW it feels like religion, and can offer reasons other than vague prejudice, anti theism, & derogatives we can say that it is *at leadt* secondarily religious

C. With regard to both A & B, and to the 4.5 preceding categories, we can try our best to understanding if a phenomena meeting these criteria does so out of necessity or contingency, intrinsic or extrinsic, & necessity or sufficiency reasons.

This escape clause exists as much as for myself as it does anyone else, because there are some phenomena which meet all of the above, and which logically we can’t really exclude even for a purist, but we don’t want to say are religious in nature

The key example of which I am thinking is party politics & mass mobilization, especially where there is a social club component (think Weimar Germany SPD, KPD, or NSDAP), or an identity & ecstatic component like the Dems & GOP of today.

But without being edgy or glib, we really can’t logically distinguish these from religious phenomena even by more purist, conventional, scriptural, spiritual & theistic criteria. But we all get a sinking *ugh* feeling when this comparison is made—so? Escape Clause!

We say these phenomena are *secondarily* religious—and part of that is the necessity/sufficient, intrinsic/extrinsic, and necessary/contingent aspects.

This is because mass party mobilizations nexessarily & intrinsically meet criteria 1 (social institutional ones), but only contingently, extrinsically & sufficiently meet the last 1.5 criteria (action/reflection + spirituality)

As for meeting criteria 2 & 3 (ritual/totem & taboo, and charisma/doxa), we have a more difficult time. Starting with (3), This is because there are political parties & mass mobilizations based on rationalization & interest, not just doxa & charisma.

Therefore we say mass party mobilizations intrinsically meet criteria (3) but do so only contingently—bc even tho most mass party mobilizations *do* rely on both doxa & charisma, not ALL of them do let alone fundamentally so.

Criteria 2—shared totem & taboo & ritual is complex for the opposite reason—while mass party mobilizations do nexessarily meet this criteria in practice, it is *extrinsic*—it inherits it by virtue of other social phenomena

So how does mass party mobilization fare?

As you can see, this fuzzy set categorization method saves us a TON of conceptual difficulties, allows plural & provisional definitions, and allows us to do cross disciplinary analyses or analyses of adjacent phenomena without losing our fundamental core

Note that this method can also be quantitatively & computationally operationalized, Where phenomena can be quantitatively analyzed as sharing key features & even substantive statistics can be analyzed within & between these categories

In fact, such a categorical & causal analysis in statistics allows us to study interaction & conditional causal effects without excessive headaches.

—AN UNFORTUNATELY LOBG ASIDE PRAISING THE VIRTUES OF THIS METHOD WITH REFERENCE TO SOCIAL SCIENCE AND SPECIFICALLY WHY ‘THE BELL CURVE’ IS FULL OF SHIT, AND THE CAUSES OF INEQUALITY BUT HAS LITTLE TO DO WITH RELIGION—

For example, when trying to suss out the effects of race, class, gender, education, geography, & so on, one can pre classify in this manner (although as any statistician or methodologist will tell you, you must be VERY careful in doing so) & then analyze the statistics

This allows us to discover correlations that wouldn’t have appeared—even as interaction effects—in the data otherwise. It also highlights mechanism, mediation, moderation & sources of individual & social variation ahead of time.

What’s more, this can even be operationalized in a dynamic fashion, so that in time series one can trace the emergence & disappearance of categories, and even the quantitative predictors of shifts in qualitative categories.

In a book I quite like ‘Intersectional Inequality’ by Ragin & Fiss, they re analyze Herrnstein & Murray’s findings from ‘the Bell Curve’ and using only 6 main variables absolutely *eviscerate* their results (vs. the Fischer analysis which uses so many controls its unwieldy)

Using only a few categories & variables for individuals & their parents —race, gender, income, test scores, education—one shows how contingent social factors, generate putative variation in test scores & their relations to life outcomes.

So, categorizing people by race & gender AND their parents race & gender, using test scores & life outcomes as quant mediators & outcomes, and using SES & education of subject & parent as both category & outcome one sees plain effects right away

What this method shows that multiple advantages are more strongly correlated with poverty escape for white people than black people—in other words, not only do white people have more privileges, but their privileges benefit them *more*.

Conversely, another way to put it, is that among black people, high test scores & education correlate with poverty escape at a lower rate, indicating that *these variables alone do not cause the poverty*

For parental SES, household composition/background one finds:
1. Significant mean differences between black & white families
2. Among white Families, these categories vary by gender by only 10% but
3. Among black families the gender differences are very wide

So, *not only do white fanilies start off with significant advantages & absences of disadvantages relative to black families, they do so in a more evenly internally distributed manner while for black families they vary substantially across gender lines*

What this helps show is that statistical analyses that do not account for the above stack the deck in favor of the researchers preferred racist findings. Statistics detects variation, so if variation is disguised, so are statistical effects.

Using their composite variable they find 58% of white men & 57% of white women have ‘favorable family circumstances’ whereas only 47% of black men, and 33% of black women do. There are clear differences in mean, AND internal variation.

When you use only one index or group subjects together, mean differences appear smaller, & less variable diminishing the effect, when using composite measures & disaggregated indices, they appear much larger.

When analyzed this way we discover several results:
1. White families have, on mean, substantially more advantages & fewer disadvantages
2. White fanilies’ are more homogenous in advantages & disadvantages on mean

3. Black families have substantially more disadvantages & fewer advantages on mean
4. Black families are substantially more heterogenous in mean advantages & disadvantages

5. The causal effect of more advantages for white families is stronger than those same advantages among black families for escaping poverty, while the causal effects of disadvantages were stronger for black families

In other words, white fanilies hAve more privileges & fewer set backs than black families, are less variable in the these privileges & setbacks, and are rewarded more the privileges they do have & punished less for the setbacks than are white families.

This evidence, combined with other theory & analysis, is a strong & clear basis for inferring discrimination, for showing that variables assumed to cause poverty are actually its result, & for showing that correlated privileges means but the variation thereof vary across groups

This is taking me WAY off topic so I am going to conclude it quickly by reference to other social science results.

In Bruce Western’s work ‘punishment & inequality in America’, in his work with Petit on unions, prisons & inequality, and in ‘The Color of Law’ & ‘Crabgrass Frontier’ on housing discrimination we learn a lot of lessons

For example, mass incarceration year on year increases racial inequality, that deterioration of labor unions causes wage & income inequality, that most wealth disparities are traceable to homeownership & geographic cluster effects on inequality.

And finally a study on occupational mobility & inequality found it secularly declined over the last century, even as variables meant to reduce it, like falling official discrimination & rising high school attendance & education rose.

Housing wealth explains the origin of a wealth disparity, a mechanism of its reproduction, & a clustering effect that magnifies it in space & time. Differential Imprisonment & labor union changes provide mechanisms for widening racial & labor inequality.

The occupational mobility study shows how this can’t be accounted for by genetics or by falling education or whatever. And combined with the Ragin & Fiss effects, shows how it is reproduced across generations & then disguised in the data!

we know spatial agglomeration & clustering effects explain a static portion, contribute to the dynamic reproduction, & magnify & shape the outcomes of other causes of income, wealth, education, crime, policing, prison, labor market, privilege & poverty levels & inequality

So, these two methods—set theoretical classification, examination of variables as both causes & effects, & the tying of quantitative & qualitative in dynamic models, on the one hand, and spatio-temporal clustering, aggregation, path dependence & magnification allow us to

Basically explain in a parsimonious fashion, a substantial portion of nearly every economic, political & social phenomena of interest. And this actually goes for religion as well

Indeed, if one categorizes across religion, race, gender, and income, and then sections it along spatial, temporal, & social clusters, locations & networks, so much variation in political views, religion, & behavior becomes explicable!

And so with that back to the actual subject of the thread

—END OF TERRIBLY LONG ASIDE ON STATISTICS AND INEQUALITY AND RETURNING TO THE MAIN SUBJECT OF RELIGION BEFORE HOPEFULLY BRIEFLY CONCLUDING—

Having defined religion in this social & fuzzy manner, all aspects of it become more apparent and we are no longer chained to simplistic belief based analyses centering on individualistic theism.

For example, understanding the similarities & differences between atheism, New Atheism, anti-theism, agnosticism, and ignosticism (the belief that atheism is incoherent by even the question of theistic belief is incoherent), now becomes a lot easier along these lines

Furthermore, understanding the differences & similarities between religions, NRMs, cults, conspiracy theories, mass movements, ideologies, parties, spirituality, scriptures & so on, becomes a lot easier as well as their transformation over time.

Just as Europe exported its form of nationalism for better & mostly ill to the rest of the world—nations came to exist *after* nationalism, mostly in response to aggression by others, and are no older than the last few centuries, most ‘nations’ only 100-150 years old

So did they export their version of religion, especially Protestantism & its Anglo variants. Look at all the settler colonies—US, Australia, NZ, South Africa, Canada, the number of British colonies & the further imperialism & cultural spread of the US

Now add in the imperialism & colonialism of the Dutch, & Germans, who are also distinctly Protestant. While France, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, & Italy are mostly catholic, many have large traditions of secularism & atheism.

So between the highly Protestant cultural exports, colonialism, settler colonialism & imperialism of UK, Germany, Netherlands, US, Australia, NZ, South Africa, Canada, & all their empires or colonies etc—Nigeria, Zimbabwe, India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Japan, China, etc

And between the French Revolution, & the inperialism/colonialism/influence of the French, Belgians, & Spain & Italy in the last century, spreading secularism, ‘free thought’, etc

And given that the Protestant, Secular & Catholic empires & influencers spread nationalism by imitation/inspiration/example, by indoctrination & force, and by resistance & counter formation so much of this becomes obvious

All of these cultural processes, capital & social links, imperialisms, colonialism & secular colonialisms spread the three kinds of nationalism, and 2/3 spread primarily Protestantism & secularism/free thought all of this becomes obvious

It is no accident that the forms of fundamentalist Islam New Atheists focus on found their origins primarily in places under British and /or American control, that those under the French were more secular & nationalist, with Iran being an exceptional case.

It’s also not an accident, then, that in Latin America, colonized primarily by France, Spain, & Portugal, and settled later by multi national & multi ethnic groups comprising Italians, Jews, Lebanese, Syrians, Palestinians, and others, Catholicism is a progressive force

It’s not an accident that Protestantism is a force for reaction in all the Anglo settler colonies & much of MENA & Africa, & that atheism, while resembling Protestantism in these places, is a progressive force in these places.

While atheism is often regressive force in Europe & sometimes Latin America, where it is associated more with the far right & nationalism.

And it also highlights how atheism in the Anglo countries, once it lost its ties to the left & to resistance to the Protestant religious order, & therefore became acceptable among the powerful, morphed into New Atheism, Which is reactionary in much the same way Protestantism is

And this is why New Atheists, while they assimilate all models of religion to Protestantism,focus most of their attention on bashing minority religions in their countries like Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, animism, paganism, etc, & the Christianity they attack the most is Catholicism

This also goes a while to explain why atheism in East & South Asia is primarily neutral, as it either isn’t really ‘atheism’, as we understand it, but *non theistic religion* OR it is tied to secular political movements in the absence of Western religious influences

Similarly, the rise of Hindu nationalism in India, white nationalism in the settler colonies, Muslim fundamentalism in the Arabian peninsula, & various reactionary forces elsewhere are all predictions of this model.

And the understanding of Marxist Leninism parties & society in the former USSR & Soviet Bloc as a religion in the non pejorative sense, its suppression of other religions, & the religious & national character of opposition (Orthodox, Islam, Judaism, Catholicism etc)

Goes a long while to explain why, in those countries, a large population is still Atheists & secular, but religion is on the rise, and primarily tied to nationalist & right wing movements.

But this typology of religion doesn’t just work for Western religions or contemporary religion—it works for Buddhism, Shintoism, Jainism, Hinduism, Daoism, Sikhism, Baha’i, Zoroastrianism, Confucianism, Animism & Paganism where these can be considered religions or not.

And it works for religion in antiquity & in the old empires, such as in the Biblical Middle East, & the Persian, Greek & Roman empires.

Combined with the insights about space, the nature of invented traditions, the role of nationalism in creating nations & post hoc legitimation, it goes a long while to explaining how Judaism, Christianity & Islam went from peoples to religions & how they formed their texts

It similarly helps explain the emergence of Buddhism, Hinduism, Zen Buddhism, Jainism, & Sikhism, and *their* assemblages of their texts.

In fact, these insights about nationalism, nations, social movements, parties, politics, religions, spirituality, traditions, texts, & space/time/social networks work across an absurdly large range of historical & cultural cases, explain a lot, without compromising rigor

Or specificity, or nuance, or cultural & historical uniqueness, and they make many successful predictions & reproductions. They also inherently allow analyses that violate them, in that they’re open to being incomplete but not still consistent.

And so, with that, I am done. I could link to other threads I’ve done on these subjects before, and to source threads, but to be quite honest, i actually really don’t feel like doing so rn, so if u DM me I’ll do it tomorrow