I am actually responding  to Jim Stone's original article. He says that " religions relate practitioners to a reality that transcends the mundane world revealed by sense perception; we might call it a 'supermundane reality.' " In short. religions have a God. or at least most do , that  they have some sort of supernatural features to them.

But they have other features, also. They have rules of behaviour, some of which are specific to a religion, such as eating or not eating , worshipping (in temples, churches, synagogues for the main religions). They are social functions, separating  our "in group" from "the others" . So these factors could define a religion also, irregardless of a supermundane reality.

But again, they have rules  which define moral behaviour. Many websites will demonstrate that the Golden Rule is espoused by all religions, ,either in its " Do unto others' version  .or the version "Do not do to others that which you do not want done to you". And many  expand it in various ways that further define how we should behave morally  - the ten commandments, the five do's and five don'ts of Buddhim etc. So are not these factors what defines a religion? A definition which is separate from the supernatural . A definition that is also at the core of the simplest of ethical theories on right and wrong - do no harm, do good 


Yet again there is a third categorisation - the theories that tell us that we, along with religion, are a  product of our evolutionary history. That we are genetically wired into systems of beliefs that gives some reassurance  that the next harvest may not be wiped out; or that our sick child may recover. Or that we live forever, albeit perhaps in some other form. 

The institutionalising of human  practices may be yet a fourth categorisation,,, We have developed methods of succession for our rulers, far more humane than those of the Roman or Byzantium empires , systems for treating the sick, looking after the poor, systems for detecting, assessing and treating offenders against us . All far from perfect, but is not religion just another instiutionalised system for mankind? This one for meeting any one of the three causes above; or all three together. We have developed and institutionalised systems of all types over the centuries; most of them still evolving, most bringing some  improvement to  mankind.  Religion is just another institionalised sytem    


Peter Bowden