The Varieties of Religious Experience

I've taken up The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James. It's for book club. I recall trying to read this in my college years and thinking how wordy and vague and evasive it seemed. Perhaps his skeptical self was tip-toeing around to avoid religious scandal.

Being one of he founding figures of Pragmatism, James deftly avoids defining religion with any precision. After all, pragmatists favor working definitions - sketched in sand, not carved in stone.

It's true, though, that "religion" is not the easiest thing in the world to define. There is some disagreement, around the edges, about what gets included in the concept. Remember the fundamentalists who claimed Secular Humanism was a religion?

I think the idea of religion involves a supernaturally based moral and metaphysical system. The question then comes up - what about modern, super-secularized versions of Buddhism and Christianity - are they still religions?

It's a good question,
And I'm open to suggestions.