[asknemo]

Buddhist philosophy without the religion part is actually allowed in East Asia. You can claim to be interested in purely Buddhist philosophy and not the religion here without any problems, and there are experts and communities in such too. Nobody gets offended by that. The religion part is kept for the masses, and is considered a choice.

I suspect that, since Buddhism is relatively new to the West (and mostly Zen Buddism?), the religion part is naturally more dominant. The Buddhist philosophy/religion duality will likely develop in the West too one day. It just takes time.