THESIS
- The core idea of my socioeconomic research methodology is that the West has adopted “humanism” as its dominant religion, using “religion” in the functional sense proposed by Gustave Le Bon in The Psychology of Crowds (see the resources section). This approach aims to move beyond frameworks that treat “capitalism” as an all-explaining concept, and instead examine the system of beliefs, values, and ultimate ends that shape collective behavior and institutional legitimacy.

WORKING DEFINITION OF HUMANINSM
- By “humanism” I mean a largely non-theistic religion (not necessarily atheistic) that places the human being at the center of lived experience and organizes social action toward maximal human realization (well-being, autonomy, prosperity, capabilities, and the extension/optimization of life). In this frame, value and legitimacy are ultimately derived from the human person: dignity, suffering, development, and security.

A GENEALOGICAL HYPOTHESIS: THE DISPLACEMENT OF THE THEOLOGICAL CENTER
- As a working hypothesis, humanism can be located within a long spiritual tradition: faced with persistent existential questions (“where do we come from, where are we going, what are we doing here”), human beings developed shared belief systems that helped stabilize cooperation and thereby made civilization possible. Broadly, these systems evolved from animistic and shamanic forms into polytheisms (e.g., Greco-Roman) and later into monotheisms (Hebrew and Zoroastrian, among others), culminating in Christianity as the majority religion and a decisive cultural force in the West.

Over time, Christian monotheism arguably lost its centrality as the ultimate explanatory and normative foundation. Through processes associated with the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and modernity, a lived experience emerged in which God is no longer the normative and epistemic center, but the human being is. Existential answers are reallocated: from the divine to reason, science, and human capacities.

NIETZSCHE AS A DIAGNOSIS OF SYMBOLIC REPLACEMENT
- In this reading, Nietzsche captures the phenomenon sharply: replacing a theological foundation with a “scientific” one does not necessarily remove the inherited moral structure; it can instead reframe and justify it in new terms. The methodological point is not the literal slogan, but the diagnosis: a religion may change its explicit object while retaining psychological and normative continuity.

INSTITUTIONS AND “SACRAL OBJECTS” IN MODERN HUMANISM
- In its modern consolidation, humanism organizes legitimacy around entities conceived as human creations and, simultaneously, as instruments of order and progress. In this formulation, the institutional triad concentrating authority and future expectation is:
•	The nation-state (order, protection, distribution, cohesion)
•	Science (operational truth, explanatory capacity, control of the unknown)
•	Technology (transformative capacity, expanded power and comfort)
This is not presented as a formal theology, but as functional equivalents: sources of meaning, trust, obedience, sacrifice, and promised futures.

INHERITED MYTHS: “HEAVEN” RECONFIGURED AS A TECHNOLOGICAL PROMISE
- I also argue that the shift to humanism preserves not only parts of inherited morality but also structural myths adapted to modern language. The most relevant—especially amid accelerated technological change—is the myth of paradise: the final reward that justifies present effort and social discipline.
As transcendence and an afterlife lose dominance, the promise is displaced toward a “heaven on earth”: an expectation of full realization through scientific-technological progress, expressed in transhumanist terms.

THE TRANSHUMANIST PROMISE (NARRATIVE FORMULATION)
- In its strong form, this promise includes:
•	Radical life extension (immortality or extreme longevity) and rejuvenation via genetics, biotechnology, and advanced medicine.
•	Ubiquitous security enabled by surveillance, analytics, and decision systems (the “all-seeing eye” as a metaphor for permanent supervision).
•	Suffering management and affect stabilization through pharmacology, neurotechnology, or nanotechnology, aimed at reducing sadness, anxiety, or pain.
•	Access to superior intelligences (AI) to resolve questions, optimize decisions, and reduce uncertainty.
•	Work automation (robots and autonomous systems), shifting human time toward leisure, consumption, and experience.
•	Virtual worlds and the metaverse, blurring physical and digital reality, expanding sociality, entertainment, and new forms of presence.
More speculative cultural extensions also appear: digital reconstruction of identities (e.g., “replicating” the deceased in virtual environments), or attributing spiritual qualities to machines. The methodological point is that technological imagination tends to reactivate ancient symbolic structures (salvation, presence, transcendence) in secular vocabulary.

RECONFIGURATION OF HUMAN TIES AND THE ECONOMY OF DESIRE
- This framework anticipates major changes in human-to-human relations and in human-machine relations. Transhumanism implies functional convergence between person and technical system (prosthetics, interfaces, autonomous agents, algorithmic mediation).

CLOSING: RISK, DISCIPLINE, AND THE INNER CONFLICT
-On this view, we are entering a historical transition comparable—by systemic impact—to major technological revolutions of the past. The normative stance is prudential: as fire required domestication and control, the current technological cycle requires literacy, governance, and limits to avoid adverse effects, dependency, or capture by those who control infrastructure.
The primary “battle” is framed as an inner and cultural conflict: preserving freedom, values, and constitutive human traits against technical systems and incentives that may erode them. Operationally, this translates into analyzing how the humanist frame and its technological promise reorder institutions, incentives, legitimacy, and collective behavior.