Economics as Religion (AFL-CIO blog on Greece) --Socialist Progressives Group

[socialist_n_TN]

10. I've got a couple of minutes and I think it's worth the time for an aside.......

about that ideology or religion thing. There IS a difference and there are similarities between the two and when you confuse the two you do a disservice, mostly to religion. Religion is based on faith. And faith is belief without proof, but more than that, it's belief without the possibility of EVER having proof. Science won't take on religion because there's no way you can test for "God", ergo it's not an area that's suitable for scientific research.

Ideology, OTOH, CAN be tested. The belief structure is akin to faith, but it's a belief in an idea that CAN be scientifically tested, at least as far as you can actually test sociological ideas. And that's the difference. When someone says they believe in God and you don't, there's no way to actually settle this difference scientifically. But with ideologies, there are tests you can make and inferences and conclusions that you can draw from actual data.

So that's why this article IS shaky on the conclusion that neo-liberalism is like a religion. It's an ideology because data can be tested.