Philosophy or Religion

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...[R]eligion always refers to a specific set of beliefs, i.e. Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, etc.

The term philosophy can be used in two senses: In the general sense it refers to the rational investigation of the truths and principles of being, knowledge, or conduct. (source). In a narrower sense, you can use the word to refer to a specific set of philosophical theories, such as stoic philosophy or Kantian philosophy. It would be these narrower subsets of philosophy which might be considered parallel to a particular set of religious beliefs. ...

How do you make the distinction between philosophy and religion?

Answer: philosophy in general is the rational investigation of truth, whereas religion often makes the same kind of truth claims but doesn't claim to base it on reason or rationality, but instead it is based on other things like faith. The key difference is that they are different epistemological positions — philosophy has a system of logical principles in place to arrive at conclusions whereas many religions (such as Christianity) allow for other sources of knowledge (i.e. faith).

Are there some philosophies/religions that are hard to categorize as being one or the other?

Answer: In principle, it could be a problem to categorize them but in practice it is not very difficult. Why? Because virtually all religions with even a modest following carry with it a set of traditions and rituals which philosophies do not. Put simply, religions have practices and philosophies do not. Theoretically, you could have what might be considered a religion without any practices, but it's not very common.

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Another distinction between the two is the strength of belief. Religion puts an emphasis on one’s belief as the core of his religiosity. This connects to the concept of faith – the strong belief in something even if there’s no empirical evidence of such a thing or phenomenon existing. Philosophy, by contrast, will only believe if a certain subject under argument is proven to be true by using tested means of reasoning. If there’s no clearly identifiable and explainable reason for such, then it is not immediately accepted as the truth.

Summary:

1.Philosophy is a big discipline that encompasses many subject matters as opposed to religion that is just considered as one of the subsets of philosophy.

2.Philosophy does not include the practice of rituals unlike religion.

3.Compared to philosophy, religion has stronger beliefs and highlights the power of faith.

4.Religion has more beliefs in the superstitious and the supernatural.

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