Ideologies And Religions

All religions are ideologies, but not all ideologies are religions.  Even some forms of theism have nothing to do with religion, such as deism or an agnostic theism that acknowledges the existence of an uncaused cause.  A religion is a specific type of theistic ideology that is associated with an organized religious system.  Some religions are more nuanced, socially complex, or moralistic than others, but their shared components of an organized theology and the potential for socially living out that theology make them religions.  Atheism, for example, lacks the possibility of being a religion because it has no organized theology.  No matter what some theists say, atheism cannot be a religion.

If it is not zealousness, moralism, or mere spirituality that makes a set of theistic ideas religious, why, then, do some religious people, typically conservatives, call any ideological system they are opposed to a "religion?"  Ideologies pertaining to evolution and secular approaches to social justice are two contemporary examples of philosophies that conservative Christians tend to think of in religious terms, although both are often asserted in nonreligious contexts (ethics, including the ethics of social justice, is philosophically connected to theism, but here I am focusing on people who embrace ideas about social justice apart from religious motivations).

Usually, conservatives call a nonreligious ideology a "religion" in a seeming attempt to highlight how erratic or irrational its adherents are, or at least the most vocal ones.  This is ironic because they are also normally the ones to defend religious beliefs rooted in tradition, personal experience, or something else that reduces down to unproven assumptions, but it is also clear that they are trying to attack an ideology based on the behaviors of its followers instead of its actual epistemological, conceptual, or moral nature.  Calling that ideology a religion is just an empty rhetorical tool or an expression of personal stupidity.

A political ideology does not become a religion when it is supported with vehement passion or incoherent motivations.  A scientific premise does not become a religion when it is protected from scientific criticism.  A theistic ideology does not even become a religion until it has at least somewhat organized, systematic followers and tenets!  If theism itself is not automatically religious, how could ideas that have no inherent connection to theism be religious in nature?  They cannot be!

An economic, scientific, or historical claim is simply not religious in nature unless it is logically associated with a religious concept--and not even all theistic concepts are religious ones, as specified above.  To call anything other than theologies like those of Christianity, Islam, or Greek mythology (even though Greco-Roman deities are not even true gods or goddesses in a conceptual sense) a religion is blatant dishonesty that exposes at least one of two things: the claimant's stupidity or their desire to dismiss an ideology by calling it a religion rather than refuting its tenets.  In many cases, both of these things are likely present.