Lyn, to me it seemed like you missed the biggest point of my post in your hurry to be offended and feeling criticized.
To me as a Finn a liberal means something, to someone from different country and cultural heritage a liberal means something completely different. Even talking to another Finn that would have gone to the same school and had the same education as me, the meaning would be different.
To me the crux of the problem is the fact that people have the tendency of judging the Amarrians by their own worldviews and cultures, therefore giving meanings to word 'liberal' that are not there.
Personally I feel that as roleplayers playing within a predetermined setting, we should strive to honor that setting by trying to work with the information that we get from PF to create worldviews for our characters that are consistent with the world and the cultures they inhabit.
What I was trying to get through was the fact that a liberal Amarrian 20k+ years in the future has very little in common with the worldview of a liberal whatever in the year 2011.
With the Amarrians we are talking about the only culture that has pretty much been unchanged since its conception. Technologically, philosophically, economically and spiritually. There has been situations where the technological advancement could have leapfrogged forward , but the Amarrians rejected change by labeling such urges as heresy therefore as something that is against the basic teachings of their religion. (I am referring to the Takmahl technological advancements in the areas of cloning and biotechnology about 2k years ago in the past.)
What I am referring as the basic teachings of the religion, are Reclaiming and the burden of Sin.
As a society and culture we are talking about something that is quite unfathomable by our standards.
There is no religion in the world that equates to the religion of the Empire.
When your holy Scriptures hold every aspect of life, it would come to reason that the religion itself covers every aspect of life.
Like Kama Sutra was compiled by a holy man as a way of having a perfect marriage (there is more than fancy snus-snus there) so has the Scriptures been compiled as a blueprint for a perfect society that cultivates the Spirit of Man by bringing spirituality and holiness into every single thing that you do in your life.
There is a right way of making breakfast in the name of God, there is a right way of making love in the name of God, there is a right way of making War in the name of God, and it is all covered within the Scriptures.
Then the modernizing of the religion and substantial economic reform.
Think.
What does that mean.
Trying to shift power from the old power block that already has their power set in stone by the basic concepts of the religion and the power structure that is in place.
So that the liberal Holders would have that power themselves.
By changing the religion so that they can make more profit.
Like Tash-Murkon did, they made their fortune by taking out the middle men while dealing with foreign cultures.
So, liberal Holders want to change the Reclaiming and the burden of Sin.
It would be profitable for them to industrialize the production as much as possible, get rid of a whole class of people in the economy (the artisans) by using standardized goods and opening up greater markets by changing the definition of Faith into lip service.
You get a cheap labour force by freeing the slaves and having them in a economic prison like in the Gallente Federation, you would also have a disposable work force from the artisans that could not compete with the cheap goods flooded into the market from the other empires and from the factories.
With the Faith being nothing else than holding a Symbol of the Faith, you could basically deal without any middle men with anybody (pretty much making Ni-Kunni and the Khanid Kingdom obsolete.)
It's just very hard for me to think that the word liberal, in liberal Holder, means anything morally good.