[wordbank]

> If you believe you have to meditate to not go to flaming eternal hell, that's religion.

Buddhist "hell" is purely logical, there're no concepts in vanilla Buddhism that are not logical. You're not getting to hell for "not meditating".

The hell is not eternal and you will go out of it eventually when you'll get better understanding of the universe. You're going to hell not because some god or Buddha say so but because the universe works that way: angry and violent mindstreams flow into worse states until they realize they should stop behave like they do.

For people who're opposite to the idea of any other worlds but their own, there's a view that "hell" is just a state of unbalanced mind and not some kind of dimension for your afterlife.

[smokeyj]

If Budhism is simply a pragmatic and empirical guide to happiness, is it really a religion?

[wordbank]

Yes, because it have become an institution and transformed into rules of society in many countries. Many people are using it as a cargo cult without studying its philosophy and many monks are behaving in non-mindful ways.

The teaching and the religion around it are like science and public knowledge about it. Of course many people know some laws of physics but not everyone is capable of building a rocket.

[smokeyj]

Not that they're very distinguishable but that sounds more like a government than a religion.