Are political parties like religions?

[Red Economist]

The more extreme political parties such as Fascism and Communism are not exactly "secular" as they establish an offical state ideology. consequently, they have strong similarities to theocratic systems in the role ideology plays in politics and society. Conservatives, Liberals and Social Democrats generally share a commitment to liberal systems of government and therefore retain more secular views. Overall, political ideologies do rely on many of the same emotional and intellectual drives as religions to comprehend and change the world according to an intellectual system and set of values, but that it because religion was the politics of its day and the seperation between politics and religion is still historically recent from the 18th and 19th centuries. its not that politics is like religion, but that religion was once the basis for understanding politics.