About your last point: it's called the "literary present tense" or "historic present tense". It's related to the present tense used in newspaper headlines.
Though I agree that the jargon use of "religion" here is misleading. It is how a sociologist might understand the term, and drawing the connection can lead to some insight, to to say it is religion outside of that academic context sheds no light. It is absolutely not "literally worship" in the etymological sense of "declaring something to be worthy".
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About your last point: it's called the "literary present tense" or "historic present tense". It's related to the present tense used in newspaper headlines.
https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/510247/use-of-pr...
https://style.mla.org/literary-present-tense/
Though I agree that the jargon use of "religion" here is misleading. It is how a sociologist might understand the term, and drawing the connection can lead to some insight, to to say it is religion outside of that academic context sheds no light. It is absolutely not "literally worship" in the etymological sense of "declaring something to be worthy".