As someone who grew up with the intricate pantheons and mythology (and is continuing to learn and pass them on), I am familiar with them. :-) The distinction I'

As someone who grew up with the intricate pantheons and mythology (and is continuing to learn and pass them on), I am familiar with them. :-) The distinction I'm making is not about whether belief is an aspect or not (it is), but about how central it is. We may just have to disagree about what the Western misconception is :) and it's not central (ha) to your thesis anyway, but let me put it another way. With monotheism came the distinction between "true" and "false" doctrine/religion, and as a result, these religions (and especially Christianity, probably because of its early history against the backdrop of Roman religion) is uniquely concerned with what is "true": putting belief/faith as central. This strongly influences the Western idea of religion (and also the idea of separating religious from non-religious) as a whole. As contrast, consider the examples from Japan above, and this conversation: https://web.archive.org/web/20160810043644/https://musingsofhh.wordpress.com/2012/09/23/german-christian-in-dialogue-with-balinese-on-ramayanas-historicity/ https://web.archive.org/web/20160810043644/https://musingsof... (from https://books.google.com/books?id=T0kqBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA39 https://books.google.com/books?id=T0kqBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA39 )