Religion vs. philosophy of life

In a previous post (see also), I argued that religion is a form of life concerned with the organization/transformation/structuring of existential attitudes, of which “God” is the knot.

A question we might ask ourselves is: what's the difference between a religion and a “philosophy of life” (like Stoicism)? It seems that philosophies of life also consist in the organization and transformation of existential attitudes; they also propose an existential orientation and a way of living.

A first difference (or cluster of differences) is that, generally speaking, a religion frames existential attitudes in shared and communal rituals, practices, symbolism, history, narratives and so on. Philosophies of life generally have less of this.
I think this is a difference worth mentioning, because it generally allows religions to create more powerful and complex existential systems, to the point of creating a new form of life altogether. But I don't think it's the most important difference, since it's possible to do this without religion.

The most important difference is that the religious brings a personal/relational relationship to the world. In other words, to create a system of existential attitudes, religion calls for a personal relationship with the world that is more “subject/agent” than “object”.

I think we can perhaps draw a parallel with Buber's concepts of I-It vs. I-Thou, or the idea in psychology that we have a dedicated module to manage our understanding/interaction of intentional vs. non-intentional things.

But the basic idea is that religion calls for an existential relationship with the world as subject/agent rather than object; engagement with the world takes up certain codes of engagement with human social partners.

And this changes absolutely everything. An existential system based on a “relational framework” makes it possible to give form to deeply social existential attitudes (gratitude, protest, abandonment, trust...) in a social emotional and bodily grammar (prayer, song, hymns, celebrations...) It offers a kind of “soul” to the cosmos, bringing a closeness, a complicity...
A “relational/social” existential system is really something very interesting for us who are social animals, it makes the existential system very “natural” by drawing directly on our deepest essence, which is social.

The world becomes a kind of existential interlocutor/partner, framing existential attitudes in a living relationship and presence.
Where philosophies of life propose a way of inhabiting the cosmos, religion proposes a social relationship with the cosmos.