@Matias all that might be true, but I decline to believe what is suggested in the quote that philosophies and ideologies are somehow defacto religions of some kind. Philosophies and ideologies are debatable, with strengths and weaknesses, that at least have the potential to help us move forward, whereas religions are universally repugnant, non rational, and do nothing but retard our development and progress, and I include the mumbo jumbo of eastern religions that the middle class "spiritual" set like to get into.

@TiberiusGracchus All the principles have existed since our first thinking. When the label was applied does not negate that reality.

Liberalism::: All the principles have existed since our first thinking. When the label was applied does not negate that reality.

@TiberiusGracchus, @Matias This is life. The few who are evil too often become rulers. This does not balance what most humans have thought is moral behavior. Tell me how you would have been any different 3,000 years ago?

@TiberiusGracchus Recent articles support that our behavior of cooperation is one of the major factors contributing to our survival. And, of course there have always been those few who are evil.

@Matias Cooperation is the basis of liberalism: free speech, freedom from religion, equal rights for all. That is cooperation. That all these concepts were gathered, and then labeled, is what happened 'recently.'

@Matias ""Your definition of "liberalism" is too... liberal"" Thank was worth a chuckle.
Obviously ants are models of human motivation.
AronRa explains liberalism:

To be fair progressivism is the other side of the coin during the current year.

@nosferatu_cat You're right, not capital “G” god, but almost divine. Many Buddhists venerate their founder, Gautama Buddha, as a demigod. Some traditions claim a miraculous birth, while other traditions believe The Buddha was an avatar of the god Vishnu.

Granted, Buddhism is not the patriarchal, authoritative Jehovah/God/Allah type of religion, but it has its monastic system and is, in many Asian countries, politically involved. Until recently, I had thought Buddhism to be a pacifistic almost harmless religion, then I saw footage of Buddhist monks leading violent persecution of the Rohingya minority in Myanmar.

@Beach_slim What in the hell does your comment have to do with the previous discussion? Your comment is extraneous, irrelevant, and ill-informed.

@Beach_slim You are back at your usual tricks -- hurling false insults at someone when you cannot respond with logic and facts.

@Beach_slim Stop playing stupid and deceptive games.

@Beach_slim Your assertions are as bad as your games. The price of real estate in Japan is simply due to the fact that the geographically small nations is home to 200 million people -- not to socialism. The real estate crash in Japan several years ago, was due to speculation gone wild -- nothing else. A simple case of too much money chasing too little land. It is amazing at the false crap that ideologues manufacture to blame on "socialism." Keep trying: You may yet get something right.

@Beach_slim You still have no clue of what you are talking about. Keep trying. You will eventually get something right.

The point the author is making is that ideologies are not physically real, they are created by people, there's no right or wrong because they are just norms people believe in, but don't exist in the physical sense, much like how religions are. For example what is human rights, animals don't have a concept of rights, it's unnatural, it's only because humans make the idea a thing. It's just a different perspective of looking at ideologies

Look at N. Korea. They've deified the the kim family, humans tend to make ideals seem larger than life and hold those that represent them almost as high.