Any set of beliefs and/or traditions justified exclusively through magical thinking.

A collective, institutionalised set of traditions and/or beliefs that are justified chiefly through appeal to the authority of tradition and/or arbitrary authority figures.

New Age philosophy ranges. I think that the term is a grab bag term. Some of it fits quite clearly into magical thinking. It also can in some circumstances be extremely anti-judgmental in some circumstances - perhaps to the point of becoming an authority.

To expend on your own criticisms: Quakers do not fit, Unitarians do not fit, Christian Anarchists may or may not fit. I don't know enough about eastern religions to place them in your definition.

Your definition fails to understand the aspect of philosophy and ethics within religion.

When you talk about tradition you are entering a completely different field. I think that in this case you have added something that is dicey. Government is not religion, and yet there is the appeal to the authority of tradition. The point is not that that you are somehow wrong - but we have gone from describing religion to describing the family that religion belongs to. Government, Religion, Charities, Political Action Groups, etc. etc. Part of the problem is that Science belongs to a different family. It is not as easy to describe religion as 'not science'.

If you wanted to explore this idea further I would recommend Systems of Survival by Jane Jacobs. It describes the morality of work. This is an extremely narrow examination of morality.  Dawkins, for example, has no place within the book. He is presenting a meta issue to the book.

I don't have a definition of religion. I tried. Bluntly, I am not up to the task.

This is what religioustolerance has to say:

The English word "religion" is derived from the Middle English "religioun" which came from the Old French "religion." It may have been originally derived from the Latin word "religo" which means "good faith," "ritual," and other similar meanings. Or it may have come from the Latin "religãre" which means "to tie fast."

Defining the word "religion" is fraught with difficulty. Many attempts have been made. Most seem to focus on too narrowly only a few aspects of religion; they tend to exclude those religions that do not fit well. As Kile Jones wrote in his essay on defining religion:

    "It is apparent that religion can be seen as a theological, philosophical, anthropological, sociological, and psychological phenomenon of human kind. To limit religion to only one of these categories is to miss its multifaceted nature and lose out on the complete definition." 1

All of the definitions that we have encountered contain at least one deficiency:

*    Some exclude beliefs and practices that many people passionately defend as religious. For example, their definition might include belief in a God or Goddess or combination of Gods and Goddesses who are responsible for the creation of the universe and for its continuing operation. This excludes such non-theistic  religions as Buddhism and many forms of religious Satanism which have no such belief.
*    Some definitions equate "religion" with "Christianity," and thus define two out of every three humans in the world as non-religious.
*    Some definitions are so broadly written that they include beliefs and areas of study that most people do not regard as religious. For example, David Edward's definition would seem to include cosmology and ecology within his definition of religion -- fields of investigation that most people regard to be a scientific studies and non-religious in nature.
*    Some define "religion" in terms of "the sacred" and/or "the spiritual," and thus require the creation of two more definitions.
*    Sometimes, definitions of "religion" contain more than one deficiency.

My favourite definition is:

  1. Barns & Noble (Cambridge) Encyclopedia (1990):

       

 "...no single definition will suffice to encompass the varied sets of traditions, practices, and ideas which constitute different religions."

There are a series of different definitions of religion at the site for those who are interested.

_{aspiring to genteel poverty}