Again I’m not saying that religion is better or worse. Actually this is a defense of religion as a framework for defining belief.
I’m arguing that secularism when taken on face value lacks the tools to recognize it’s own belief system.
I know trivial beliefs e.g. today was 85º – we can agree that calling those religious would not be useful.
Using your original logic, -any- belief can be religious in nature. “Today was 85” -is- religious from your original position because perhaps people ritualistically check the weather every morning like a prayer. The weathermen are like priests disseminating knowledge, and small talk is used to find other weather checker cultists.
It does not matter what belief Id offer up, because it will match your original definition because your original definition is so broad as to be meaningless. Other comments have already said this in fewer words. If you are unable to identify what it would look like if you were mistaken, then you shouldn’t be confident that you are correct. So how could someone identify the difference between a secular belief and a religious belief?
Truly a bonkers assertion when secularism includes enormous institutions to fund and perform tasks as various as the hard sciences to the most abstract philosophical investigations and the entire gamut of cultural production around and between.
The average person doesn't much participate in these institutions but the average Catholic hasn't read Humanea Vitae either.
People are often not secularist because they don't reflect, usually they have specific reasons that they are aware of and that they might question in the future.
I think this was true, at a certain point in or for a window of time, but it certainly isn't true today. There are well known axioms that are not-to-be-challenged, and doing so risks expulsion (i.e. Excommunication). So maybe what's happening is Secularism is going through its own phase of Fundamentalist Revival.
This is a poisonous reversal of reality, to the extent that I wonder if you're just trolling.
Fact is, more religious people, especially the evangelical Christian sect that is most vocal and influential in America, is not about examining implicit beliefs, nor is it open to debate. It's about falling into line, and adopting a strict set of ideological beliefs that are not negotiable. In fact, religion is often explained in terms of faith as an opposition to analysis: after all, if your first principle is that you believe in something, why question further?
In contrast, modern secular culture, although not immune to tribalism and ideological blindness, is much more open to building belief through analysis and understanding, i.e. the scientific method.