Eventually we need to get beyond all the brands and marketing and understand what role any religion plays in society. Basically as the totem at the center of the village. The locus of focus, without which it would all go Tower of Babel and be scattered to the winds.

Think galaxies; The energy radiates out, as the structure coalesces in. Liberalism is the energy. Conservatism is the structure. We need them both.

The anarchies of desire, versus the tyrannies of judgement.

When the liberals run amok, it's like a forest fire burning down everything in its path. Every boundary just becomes one more mountain to climb and the letters never end. The effect is like a cultural Ebola virus, as it all melts into a smelly puddle.

When the conservatives run amok, it all goes spiraling into that vortex in the middle. Then those at the top of the political, religious, economic pyramid see themselves as the center of the universe.

Yet our reality, on this little blue dot, somewhere between the absolute and the infinite, is where the feedback loops between the forces driving us and those directing us are most complex.

Here is a good book on the origins of Western Civilization;

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/30250/30250-h/30250-h.htm

Safe to say, most people live on the surface, where the brands matter most, but we are reaching the point a lot of it is burning down, the reality check is in the mail.

Usually it is left to the historians to sit back and figure out how all the parts fit together and work, but this time, either we start doing it now, or the historians will be doing it around the campfires.