Secret Religion - 73

I'm not religious in the way that the term is normally used; I don't follow any mainstream religion, dedicate myself to some higher entity or so on. (this one may have inferred from reading past posts.) I've seen, however, the way that things that wouldn't be necessarily defined as religion can easily take on the role of one. Take, for example, conspiracy theoricists: some people are willing to commit insane acts (such as bring a rifle to a pizzaria thinking that there is child trafficking in the basement) because of what they believe in. They're in a community with people who believe the same thing, often with a charismatic leader at the helm, and most importantly, their beliefs give them answers. Where do we draw the line as to what is a religion and what is not?

This makes me wonder if there are any things in my life that I treat as though they are my religion. The one that comes to mind immediately is my dedication to learning; I am constantly thinking about how I can learn, optimize my learning, plan out my learning, etc.. At this point, it pretty much dominates my life along with schoolwork and some social interaction. I think that it would be plausible for me to say that this drive to learn could be compared to a religion, though I would have to study the way that I behave based on it in order to get a compelling answer.
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