As we have seen, religion may bind people together because of the hopes and/or fears it creates and it may bind people together because of the appeal its symbolism holds. Yet, this is what it has in common with other forms of denominational ideology, if not with ideology in general. Religion may furthermore incorporate a cosmology, but every comprehensive ideology does, and also philosophical weltanschauungs do. A religious cosmology may indeed present 'the world to man as a theater in which purposes are unfolded larger than his own' --masculine words which were uttered elsewehere-- but this obscure formulation somehow hints at religion's normative nature or imperative function which, again, is not typically religious either. Even dogmatism is not typically religious, as political disciplinary thought, for instance, may be equally dogmatic. To say that political ideologies, unlike religions, are not comprehensive will not do, for especially dogmatic political ideology tends to become 'complete' and 'integral' -- as has been shown. (It starts, then, to affect practically all aspects of people's lives, like the naming of children, their initiation and marriage, introducing its own rites, public holidays and idols to be worshiped.) Such political ideology has also been called "religion" or "secular religion", but if so, it is not its dogmatism, comprehensiveness or exclusivist content in itself which justifies labeling it "a (secular) religion".

One part of the definitions of religion furnished in traditional dictionaries and encyclopedias has always been belief in a god (or God, whoever's given name that may be) or something to the same effect like worship of or service and worship of a god or attitude of awe towards a god (if not God). Another part of the definitions usually relates to the belief in, or service and worship of, or attitude of awe towards the supernatural. Many people (supposedly monotheists) prefer to conceive of religion in the first place as 'belief in God', thereby relegating polytheism to 'belief in the supernatural'. But neither the belief in one god nor the belief in two or more gods, or for that matter demons, makes a comprehensive ideology into a religion, because there are also religions (or pure variants thereof) which are not theistic, nor demonistic. Adherents of those religions do somehow have supernatural beliefs tho. So the characteristic feature of religion is not its theism or demonism (if it does acknowledge one or more gods or demons), but its supernaturalism. It does not follow that religion is a synonym of supernaturalism, since supernaturalist feelings, thoughts or actions need not be part of a comprehensive ideology, that is, a denominational doctrine. Magic, for instance, is the use of means believed to have supernatural power over natural forces. But also if magic involved ideological principles, they would even in combination have a specialist character and not the completeness a religion has or purports to have. This difference between magic and religion is not that significant, however: both try to keep house by sweeping make-believe rooms with make-believe brooms. And, naturally, both the supernaturalism of magic and the supernaturalism of religion is past belief.

The question which obviously arises in this context is What belief is supernaturalistic? To say that the supernatural relates to 'an order of existence beyond the observable universe' may be correct but it will not do as a definition, for there are enough things which cannot be observed and which may be taken to exist nevertheless without falling into supernaturalism. Everyone's ontology has to incorporate entities which are not observable; if not attributes and relations, for instance, then at least sets or functions. What is typical of supernaturalism is that it demands the belief in (many) more nonobservable entities or sorts of entity, or a (much) more unusual nonobservable entity than necessary for any adequate ontology, and than needed to explain how the world actually was, is or will be, can be or should be. (The foremost problem with supernaturalist thought is that the existence of the nonobservable entity postulated, or its powers, does not explain anything. On the contrary: it forestalls or delays every explanation.) The next issues are of course What is an adequate ontology? and What is explanation?. Problems relating to the former issue we have dealt with in the first and second chapters of this book, and the question of explanation is very much related to questions of truth and relevancy, and of what should and should not be held true or relevant. These problems have been dealt with in the previous two chapters, and altho the final answers have certainly not been provided there, it should have become sufficiently clear what kind of beliefs are definitely on this side of the fuzzy border and what kind of beliefs are definitely on the other side of the fuzzy border between non-supernatural realism or agnosticism and supernaturalism.

Characteristic of religious ideology as a supernatural phenomenon is the lack of intellectual humility, the arrogance to claim the absolute truth of beliefs and the literal inerrancy of scriptures without proper observation or proper argumentation. This does not apply to those systems of disciplinary thought in which a supernaturalist belief is presented as a form of symbolism. In such systems it is done as if a certain entity (or its powers) or a certain relationship between entities exist, while the truth of the belief in such an existence is not claimed. The belief is hypothetical, so to say. However, where religion or the interpretation of a religion is not explicitly symbolical, its supernaturalism is an institutional violation of the principle of truth. It violates truth regardless of whether only a few or most of the members of a community share the nonsymbolic supernaturalist belief. For collectivity may make superstition into a religion, it does not make it into a true belief.

The supernatural essence of religious thought need not lie in the belief in nonobservable entities like gods and demons, or in entities with supernatural powers; it may also lie in more abstract contentions. The most notorious examples of such contentions, besides those which concern the creation of the whole world, come from religious eschatology and soteriology. Eschatology is the supernaturalist belief in and about the end (the last moment) of the present kind of world. It builds on a thorough separation in human history between its imperfect present and an everlasting final stage of completion (a 'kingdom-come' in grossly monarchistic terms). In this final stage a prophet is said to return, a last judgment is said to be passed or a new age is said to commence. Admittedly, the notion of an imperfect, or possibly imperfect, present is inherent in every ideology as a normative doctrine. What is supernaturalistic about eschatology is the absolute assertion that the 'perfect times' not only should but will and must come, and this preferably inflated with the most gaudy of expectations.

Soteriology does not just show the believer the way to salvation, as every ideology takes pains to save people from what it considers evil; it guarantees a way to salvation, a promise only a supernaturalist ideology is willing to make. In combination with eschatology soteriology teaches how to become part of the chosen, eternally happy ones who will survive the horrors of history. Like dogmatism, eschatological and soteriological beliefs are not typically religious either. (The end of eschatology need therefore not coincide with the end of religion.) Also a political specialist ideology may pass very explicit eschatological and/or soteriological judgments. But when such an ideology grows more and more into a 'total' system, it takes the form of a religion precisely because of the supernaturalist content of its eschatology or soteriology.

If a denominational doctrine is religious because of its supernaturalist content and because of the literal interpretation of its scriptures (or part thereof), it follows that a nonreligious denomination may have either no supernaturalist content at all or have a symbolic interpretation of its supernaturalist content. So not only a religious ideology may be either theistic and/or demonistic or not, this analysis shows that also a nonreligious ideology may be either theistic and/or demonistic or not. Perhaps, this does not tally entirely with traditional usage according to which also the liberal forms of denominationalism in which (mono)theist, sacred scriptures are interpreted in a symbolist fashion are called "religion". Yet, the reason for using this terminology is that a symbolist supernaturalist form of denominationalism does not violate the principle of truth in the way nonsymbolist supernaturalism, or 'religion' in our sense, does. The fact that a book is religious does not automatically make every reader of that book a religious believer, that is, someone who takes it seriously and literally. However, someone who does not take it seriously or literally lies if 'e does not make this clear. The result (the violation of the principle of truth) is the same then.

Religion as supernaturalist denominational thought sacrifices truthfulness or the courage to admit that one does not (yet) know. Now, there is a way in which it may also sacrifice these values, but which is not directly and necessarily related to its content. It concerns certain attempts to take possession of persons and small children as purported believers. This occurs, for example, when religionists profess that people could and would have a faith by birth. They are, then, not interested in what human beings actually believe to be true and relevant but in what they say or acquiesce in and, worst of all, in what their parents say or acquiesce in, or used to say or acquiesce in. Taking birth (or in a wider sense, ethnicity, nationality or race) as criterion of religious belief, these religionists treat people or people-to-be as mere bodies which ought to assume a certain role and utter certain statements because of their biological relationship with other bodies. What is really in people's minds is then immaterial. Such a materialist conception of a 'faith by birth' is the institutionalization of a collective lie which must have been prompted by the desire to save mortal religions from dying out. How unfortunate are those who had, or still have, such a faith forced upon them by birth.