By now it has become a worn-out cliche that 'all science is ideological' (and that solely the speaker's own ideology would be 'scientific'). Even to say that 'all science is ideological' presupposes that there is a difference in meaning between science and ideology, that scientific thought is another aspect of thought, or side of social life, than ideological thought. It may be true that in practise, when science and ideology are conceived of as social activities, the person who is involved in scientific activities (often) does things which are ideological as well, or which can only be justified or explained in ideological terms. Yet, by distinguishing persons doing scientific work from other persons it is admitted that there is indeed something like 'scientific work' which has at least one quality distinguishing it from all other types of work. And the same applies to someone thinking or doing something which is ideological. Our first concern is therefore: what differentiates 'science' and 'ideology'? Whether all scientists are persons who are at the same time ideologues is, then, a logically contingent matter, and itself a question of empirical science, which may or may not be replaced by an empirical presupposition in ideology.

It has been said that the scientist (as scientist) confines 'imself to explaining 'the facts of experience' or 'how things happen in the world', that 'er explanations or hypotheses 'can be tested by an appeal to the facts'. This description is far too simplistic, but it rightly shows the scientist's primary concern with facts and --in our terminology, especially where statistics play a significant role-- modal conditions. Nevertheless, it is often ideology too (whether religious or not) which purports to explain how things did happen, happen and/or will happen in the world. In other words: much ideological thought is also about facts, or about factual and modal conditions. Yet --as has been argued-- the primary function of ideology is not to explain the world but to support certain interests. On this view every ideology is not only to the exclusive interest of one class or other, this is also its very reason for existence. It has been pointed out, however, that ideology is employed here by the same theorists in at least three different senses. Firstly, as people's whole system of ideas 'to describe the world and to express their standards, feelings and purposes'. Secondly, as all nonscientific disciplinary and all moral or legal thought. And thirdly, as all nonscientific disciplinary thought and all moral or legal thought (disciplinary or not) which serves the interests of some class or group. Subsequently it has been demonstrated that theories which are not largely speculative or fanciful can serve class interests as well as theories which are, and that the latter theories need not serve the interests of a 'class' in the socioeconomic sense. (If class could also denote the group of people adhering to the ideology in question the entire claim would obviously lose its force.)

What clearly distinguishes ideology from science also in this debate, is that ideology is at least partially normative or evaluative, that is, normative in a doxastic sense, with respect to the ground-world. This is most evident when theorists refer to the moral and legal concepts or rules involved in ideological thought. Ideology not merely describes reality as it is (believed to be), or some aspect of reality, it also propagates adherence to certain norms and/or values or --as has been said before-- it also encourages obedience to a moral or legal rule. In the event that the ideology is successful this results in certain practises and the possible emergence of a more or less organized social entity. According to one theorist, 'ideology' must manifest itself simultaneously as a set of ideas or doctrines, a set of practises and a more or less institutionalized social group. To call a system of thought "an ideology", however, it is not necessary from a logical or semantic point of view that it be manifested in certain practises and institutions, altho it probably should from the standpoint of the ideology itself.

Insofar as an ideological doctrine is concerned with facts and modal conditions, its function is (purely) informative, insofar as it is concerned with norms, values or moral and legal rules (also) imperative. Some theorists may insist that ideology has in addition to these two functions an emotive function. But to put these three functions side by side on one level does not properly reflect the relationships between them, because what is emotive (and perhaps also informative) about an ideology is in the first place meant to get the normative message across. An ideological normative doctrine distinguishes itself from a philosophical normative doctrine at least in that it also uses nonargumentative means, such as nonlinguistic symbols, to communicate. Nonargumentative does, then, not mean counter-argumentative or irrational, nor does emotive mean emotional; one should rather think of an artistic symbolism and the socialization of the doctrine which furnishes it with its emotive content (which often is indeed irrational and emotionalizing, but need not be so). This emotive aspect is not an end in itself as it may be in the field of art. In ideology it is a means to another end: in general, the promotion of the doctrine's norms or values.

The range of the subject-matter or interests of an ideology may vary considerably. If the subject-matter is specific, or if the ideology serves the self-interests of a specific group, the ideology is --as we shall call it-- ' specialistic'. Political ideologies are typically specialistic, for instance. On the other hand, if the ideology's range is in principle unlimited or total, the ideology is ' comprehensive'. It is then that one may speak of "a weltanschauung" or "cosmology", that is, a more or less unitary, total conception of the world or of the ground-world. However, to be ideological such a weltanschauung has to demand a commitment to a way of life, has to be able to mobilize people for actions, and to convince them of the wrongness of other actions. When a comprehensive ideology has become part of their daily existence, people live, as it were, under the denomination of this ideology. The name of this world outlook or cosmology is then their 'denomination'. That is one reason why we shall use the expressions denomination and comprehensive ideology (in the sense of one particular doctrine) as synonyms. (A term like confession is by its very etymology of course unacceptable.) Denominationalism (in a noncondemnatory sense) is, then, the recognition of and adherence to denominational principles and the devotion to denominational interests. This is also a traditional meaning of denominationalism except that it has been exclusively used to refer to religious ideology (and often only as organized on a local level). Tho religion is indeed a mode of comprehensive ideology (or 'denominationalism') which has played an important part in humankind's history, a particular comprehensive ideology (or 'denominational doctrine') need obviously not be religious (and whether it is organized on a local, national or international scale is not a substantive issue). What differentiates religious and nonreligious denominations is not our present concern, as this is a matter of the further subdivision of only one of the departments of disciplinary thought: that of ideology.

We do subsume 'religion' under the heading of 'ideology' or, to be precise, 'comprehensive ideology'. Those who present religious thought as a separate department of thought besides ideology (and philosophy and science) do so for ideological reasons: they try to conceal that every religion is a kind of ideology itself. Especially when religion has a meliorative, and ideology a pejorative connotation, the desire to do so may but too strongly be felt by religious believers. In societies or subcultures where it is considered legitimate to find fault with 'ideologies', while those who criticize 'religions' are blamed for being intolerant, the contention that religion would not be a form of ideology plays a crucial role in the immunization strategy of 'parties of God ' and suchlike groups. Their claimed separation of religion and ideology is merely meant to make religion immune to any kind of fundamental criticism. Such a cowardly immunization strategy may be especially successful in some circles when the adherents of a particular religion traditionally belong to one race or ethnic group, because it can then be insinuated that the attack is not on the religious ideology but on the race or ethnic group in question. (As a matter of fact, the original, objective meaning of ideology was theory of ideas. This doctrine was intended to reveal the source of people's prejudices. It was the monotheist, religious establishment of the time in conjunction with a political dictator who saddled ideology for many years to come with a negative connotation.)

Not only the different connotations of ideology but also the nature of the relationship between 'ideology' (also when referred to in a nonpejorative sense) and 'religion' has often confused people. They have thus been seduced into calling nonreligious denominations or ideologies "secular religions", or into calling ideologies such as nationalism "religions". Altho correctly noticing that secular denominationalism and religion, and also nationalism and religion, have a lot in common, these people did not realize that what they have in common is not something typically religious, but ideological (or in the case of nationalism and theistic religion perhaps more specifically the exclusivist content of the ideological thought). Even specialist, political ideologies have been described as "religions" because of their ability to bind a society with ideals and hopes, if not fears. (Religare, from which religion probably derives, means to tie back or to bind.) Yet, whether a particular ideological system is a binding, societal force or not, is not essential to its being ideological, and therefore there are even not etymological reasons to treat ideology and religion as synonyms, and least of all, to subsume ideology under religion instead of the other way around.