Via negativa: Since liberalism is (in principle) an ideologically fluid and multi-perspectival way of being-in-the-world, defining "liberalism" is often an ironic and troublesome work-in-progress. So maybe the best way to characterize (rather than define with rigid boundaries) what it means (to me) to be a liberal is first of all to recognize what one is not--or at least
hope one is not. Liberals tend to deplore dogmatism--without being dogmatic about it. Any kind of strenuous attachment to belief that closes the mind to alternative ways of thinking and valuing, of being-in-the-world, a liberal wants and needs to avoid. I say "want" because the freedom and pluralism that liberals value can also become a kind of dogma--if that makes logical sense--as any "conservative" will readily tell you. So a liberal, as liberal, is open to the possibility of being dogmatic, or at least trying to understand the need for being dogmatic--because this is also a form of otherness within his openness. Still, dogmatism is deplorable to a liberal as a kind of visceral reaction, which is why liberals and conservatives often fight. Conservatives of all stripes, economic to religious, at least appear to love and cherish dogmatism, or are overly attached to one way of looking at an issue. So liberals are not conservative--although they are in principle (if not in practice) open to the possibility of being conservatively embedded within certain (liberal) traditions (as we'll see later)--which is also why liberals also often find the "conservative-liberal" dichotomy overly simplistic (but it's useful, so I'll use it here).
Because liberals are averse to dogmatism, they typically are not "religious" in the more traditional sense of a strong attachment to, or following of, a particular religious tradition. Liberals tend to enjoy religions from some intellectual and emotional distance. We love to critically and playfully absorb metaphysical and "spiritual" possibilities, but cannot (or don't feel compelled to) take any one system too seriously, if nothing else because this would limit the free play of our metaphysical musings--and might precipitate the slipper slope into dogmatism. So the most consistent of liberals would not typically be rabidly atheist, either, since most atheisms must necessarily be dogmatic--how can anyone really "know"? So (consistent) liberals tend not to be atheists nor religious in any traditional sense.
Liberals are certainly NOT fundamentalists. The idea of killing someone for the sake of belief is abhorrent to most liberals--although we certainly do enjoy some brutal (but playful) intellectual beatings of any kind of fundamentalist. So liberals are not
not sadistic, and certainly unwilling to be masochistically attached to, or willing to perform, any kind of self-immolation for the sake of belief or tradition. Even "sitting" as in Buddhist zazen for a long periods of time seems a little too "religious." Although killing fundamentalists for the sake of freedom is certainly more possible than killing liberals, but only in freedom's defense--yes, another slippery slope. So liberals are typically not sadistically or masochistically attached to any one "religion." Liberals like to play with religion and religionists-- serious play but play none-the-less. We are, if you will, the real "children of God," with no-God, no-foundation, total annihilation as a real metaphysical possibility. For liberals, issues of "God" are real mysteries--and will probably remain so until death.
Liberals don't like philosophical foundationism either--although Mahayana iterations of "nothingness" or "emptyness" are often appealing (more of this later) as a kind of foundational, non-foundation. This category is, of course, only meaningful for philosophical types. Plato's absolute and logical "Forms" behind the ever-changing and fuzzy irrational appearances (or "shadows") are not abstract metaphysical objects of worship for many liberals. Logic, reason, mathematics...are intellectual tools (or "bombs" to use Foucault's metaphor) to break down and destroy dogmas, including the dogma of Reason itself, for the sake of more freedom--although a temporary winter home based on reason and science is more palatable than one based on dogmatic religion or philosophy. So neither dogmatic belief nor reason can provide a foundation for the liberal construction of an intellectual home. Even practical reason or science can only provide temporary relief from the wondering and ever expanding horizons of a true liberal.
