I'd hate to be wrong but I might be, putting this out here. I don't think that ancestor worship really counts as a religion in the sense of the earlier conversation because it isn't used to explain how the world was made, how or why the world works, and doesn't really concern anything supernatural except affirmation of some afterlife; it could be PART of a religion, but on it's own, at least to me, it really isn't in the same sense.
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Anyway, that's quite a large and healthy culture that isn't religious.
I'm sure there are many who'd disagree.
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And where do you draw the line between religion and philosophy? We can see obviously that liberalism isn't a religion, and Christianity is a religion, but what about Confucianism, Taoism or Buddhism?
I'd say that line is very visible but I just might not be able to see the grey too well. Confucianism is a philosophy, concerned mainly with social and personal interactions, government, ethics and one's effect on the natural and social worlds.
Religions, like Taoism and Buddhism, may be concerned with some or all of these ideas but are also inclusive of beliefs concerning creation, afterlife, gods, the supernatural and mysticism, such as feng shui, or a universal battle between the forces of good and evil (yin-yang). And any of these beliefs may be used as rationale for philosophical ideals.
Whenever someone talks about Eastern religions, it seems like some form of PC, xenophilia and popular opinion causes them to pussyfoot around classification. Just because these religions are not analogues with our pantheons, afterlives, and traditions, doesn't mean that they aren't the same societal concepts (religion) and didn't develop for the same reasons.
