For me “liberation theology” is predicated on and pledged to the premise that reality is relational. How’s that for a pontifical metaphysical pronouncement? The Buddhists sum this idea up in the very polysyllabic Pāli term paticcasamuppāda, which can be translated as mutual origination. The nub of the notion is simply that the universe and all its contents are an ongoing and self-synchronizing collaborative creative effort of everyone and thing, the whole cosmic enchilada is the product of the organic and balanced blending together of the ingredients that each of us contributes.

Arguably at least, such is the foundational nature of being, and such is the foundational nature of what we call justice. Justice = the whole and healthy state of life that exists when we consciously and wisely work with the existential fact of relationality. I.e., when all of the parts and particles of our personhood, all of the facets and factors that go into forming a morally and spiritually high-functioning human being are evenly and elegantly integrated in each individual. And when society skillfully integrates and orders all of its priorities and values to promote such inner equilibrium in its citizens, when a socio-economic system systematically opts for the mutualism, equality, and unconditional respect for every individual’s integralness necessary to represent the fundamental reciprocality of reality.

Say what? When we both on the inside and societally reflect the deep truth of the universe’s underlying unity, when individuals marshal and marry together within themselves their best qualities to maximize their humanness, and then merge their maxed-out human potential into the collective potential of their community we create justice!

Conversely, when a society fails to cultivate the connectedness, coequality, and creative human excellence of its members it permits and perpetrates injustice. Our current socio-economic system is an egregious case in point. Capitalism actually explicitly encourages a selfishness and competiveness that dangerously flouts the relational Tao or modus operandi of existence. With its division of society into ethically depraved haves and economically deprived have nots, with its obscene concentration of the lion’s share of the world’s material wealth in the plutocratic hands of 2% of its population, capitalism rudely kicks human life seriously out of kilter. Such a socially, ethically, and spiritually out of kilter situation is inherently unjust.

What this means is that capitalism is not an originally good idea that’s unfortunately been corrupted, it’s a profoundly and pathologically unjust form of social organization that can never be adequately reformed or rendered morally righteous. Capitalism is a system that’s naturally inclined to produce people who squalidly lack balance and wholeness in their lives and personalities, who become pathetically one-dimensional in their single-minded pursuit of the almighty dollar, euro, or yen. In their futile quest for fulfillment through consumerism. In their limited understanding of themselves as Homo economicus.

And of course capitalism always and everywhere results in an inequitable and lopsided distribution of resources and riches. The capitalist system was designed from the start with total and cynical disregard for the deeper justice of existence. Its contempt for ethical and spiritual values always ranges from being thinly veiled to shamelessly in your face, but is never absent. No, capitalism is not a progressive idea that’s been perverted, rather it’s a perversion of the enlightened idea that the individual has an unalienable right to seek self-fulfillment into a justification for unjust greed. A greed that today has a small club of modern-day billionaire robber barons consigning and condemning the majority of humanity to one degree of poverty or another.

Genuine justice is an equation of fulfillment and interdependence. The fulfillment of the individual’s personal potential and sense of having a social purpose that transcends his puny ego, and the interdependence that’s both a necessary condition of and a natural outcome of human beings growing together. The damning ethical shortcoming of capitalism is that it has no such concept of organic justice and human flourishing, such humanistic and spiritual thinking is fundamentally alien to it.

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How true. The moral superiority of socialist values over capitalist values is self evident.

I'm personally an atheist, although I like the Christ and Buddha. Churches distort, in my view, the socialist message of the Christ to the point where it's an insult to my intelligence. They worship, but generally do not imitate or genuinely try to follow the teachings, of the Christ. I like that you mention Buddhist insights into interbeing and codependent origination, but although you mention liberation theology you don't delve into the things that make Christ a socialist.

This is important because, even for those of us who are not believers, Christ is sometimes a cultural hero (just look at atheist writer Richard Dawkins and his 'Atheists for Jesus' movement): Christ embodies a certain education in human values that we underwent as we were raised and I feel that the socialist ardor that we see today in many Latin American societies is the ripened fruit of Christ's message. There is no separation in the minds of Chavez and the indigenous residents of Chiapas between Christ's message and socialism.

To be specific:

1. He didn't believe in private property. He told his followers to carry only their sandals.
2. He had no use for money in his kingdom, saying instead 'render un Caesar what is Caesars' refering to the face on the coin.
3. He specifically said that his message was FOR THE POOR and for the poor only.
4. Most importantly: He told the rich man that he would have to SELL EVERYTHING and give it all to the poor before he could call himself a follower of Christ. This is, in essence, a socialist revolution and it's a pre-requirement for Christianity. What this means is that in his kingdom, there are to be no social classes and that everyone must share the class consciousness of the poor.
5. You mention that lack of community and human values are the side effects of capitalism and its symptoms. In the Gospels the prostituting and corrupting of humanity, of religion and of morals due to money and profit and wealth is tackled time and again in a very direct way: Jesus turned over the tables of the merchants in the temple, who were selling innocent animals to be killed for the sins of humans; Jesus criticized the value the priests placed on the gold in their temple in Matthew 23 and how they seemed to place more value in the gold than in the god who made the gold and the temple holy; and then Jesus himself was sold to his enemy by Judas.

We all know how today religion is big business: Mormons and Evangelicals are among the wealthiest interest groups in the nation. In the Middle Ages, the Catholic priests sold 'indulgences' to the rich for forgiveness of sin: there was no sin that was not forgiveable if you were wealthy enough. This is a problem that has pervaded religion throughout its history: money always corrupts religion. Period. End of story.

These are not incidental, but fundamental, aspects of Jesus' career as a prophet and of his teaching, and these points are eluscidated eloquently in the history of religion. The central message of Christ was revolutionary, but this revolution was kept in check throughout history usually by the same religious authorities that claimed to represent the message ...

If Marx, Trotsky and most proponents of socialism were atheists, as critics of liberation theology often (rightfully) claim, it's because they saw how the Christian message was taken over by people with dominant-class interests.

Hence the importance of liberation theology. For me, as an atheist, these are clear facts, but believers have difficulty dealing with these facts and liberation theology is a means to encourage a more honest dialogue about what people do with their religion when they get religious. We can use it as an opiate, or we can use religion, like Jesus the Christ and Siddhartha the Buddha, to awaken ...