[haswell]

As a former Christian, I never experienced anyone avoiding the idea that we were participating in a religious system. In fact, it was a matter of pride, and part of how the church encouraged its members to differentiate themselves from the world.

> Years later when I was exploring Buddhism, no Buddhist I met wanted to refer to Buddhism as a religion.

Having spent hundreds of hours exploring this topic over the last few years, I have to point out that this is because many forms of Buddhism aren't religious at all.

The differences between Christianity and Buddhism in both the underlying philosophical ideas and the manner in which most people practice those ideas could not be more stark.

And as I mentioned in a sibling comment, Zen is a good example of an explicitly non-religious form of Buddhism.