Daniel Dennett calls for the naturalistic study of religion. I'm all for it, if by "natural" you mean the natural capacity of human beings to look for the infinite. I propose that -- before you do a naturalistic analysis of religion -- you do that sort of analysis of mathematics. In particular, give an account of how, when you know a number or equation, you can know that someone else at a different place and time cab be aware of the same number/equation/and of its unchanging truth. Once you've given an adequate account of this, you might be ready to ponder religion's quest for a being most perfect and all knowing.
How about defining it as an instance of functional complexity? And treating the list of properties as following necessarily from this definition? Okay, this is very diamond-in-the-rough (or perhaps zirconium...) but here goes my thoughts on the matter: (Complexity) Many diverse parts (functional) acting for the sake of the whole I think I need to add something like "not as the instrument of another" or something like that. Given that they act together as one whole and given entropy, etc., the organism will need to posses more order than its surroundings (homeostasis). It will therefore need to take in energy (nutrition), which it will use to sustain its readiness to interact with its environment so as to preserve its own being (homeostasis again?), but which will eventually break down (death), so that in order for that life form to continue it will need to duplicate itself (reproduction), which, upon occurring, will involve both development (growth) to maturity and...
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