Ideologies

An ideology is a structured set of ideas that influences some area of life. It is a way of thinking around ideals of greater or lesser scope. For example, it can be said that supporting Real Madrid is a small ideology grouping thoughts around football. Likewise, environmentalism is an ideology around the care of nature.

A religion is a set of ideas and practices that lead man toward God.

Religions and ideologies resemble each other in that both contain ideas that lead to a way of acting. They differ in several respects:

• Religions refer to God principally. This is the fundamental distinction.
• Religions cover all human behavior and seek the general good of men. Ideologies are not so broad and seek more limited goods.
• Religions speak of another future life. Ideologies are limited to this life.

Although these differences exist, some ideologies cover many aspects of human life, and atheists use them as a substitute for religion.

We are not gods, but creatures. The human heart has been created to love, and always seeks goods and ideals toward which to direct itself. For this reason, it tries to reach the infinite Good that is God. If it is deprived of love for God, it seeks other things to be its gods.

- Some great ideologies that have been used as substitutes for religion are:

• Buddhism.- It is a very broad ideology or philosophy that does not reach the status of religion because it does not refer to God. It is a system of thought elaborated by a man called Buddha, which affects many aspects of life. As it proposes an austere and reflective lifestyle, it has done good to people, except in the search for God.
• Marxism is another ideology that tries to dominate human life entirely. It has been a failure that has done a great deal of harm and has filled many societies with hatred through its proposal of class struggle.
• Relativism.- This ideology also harms many people by leading them away from seeking what is true and good.
• Laicism.- These ideas aim to impose atheism on society, so that many moral norms disappear, with the resulting harm.