I didn't realize the word "religion" was up for debate. I don't understand your difficulty. It's almost as if you have a different definition of what it means to be religious than does everyone else. I use the Oxford Dictionary of English definition: "religion, the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods: ideas about the relationship between science and religion." How does your approach differ from this?
If we're (constantly) questioning terms like atheism, God(s) and the like, I can easily understand how 'belief in superhuman controlling power' would be a matter of debate. But this definition does say belief in AND worship of. And so that is possibly added to the debate, for what does worship mean?
My computer's dictionary says worship is: the feeling or expression of reverence and adoration for a deity
I don't right now feel like going through all the philosophical steps to establish the point of: if I believe and worship gravity as a god, and you tell me gravity for you is just a 'powerful force of nature' and then I view some scientific program talking about the great appreciation that science has for gravity, and how we all ought to really appreciate, and respect the force of gravity and yada yada yada, it is a wonderful great thing worthy of a full hour of TV viewing to mention just how great and awesome it is, one might think that is a bit worshipful in what it is conveying. That any branch of human study would spend a lifetime understanding and talking reverently about this powerful force would just make it seem all the more like it is treated like a god, but denied it is god - simply (perhaps only) because of the connotations associated with 'belief in god(s).'
Wouldn't help that gravity is invisible to the body's eyes and spoken about as something that to science has many mysterious aspects which we don't yet understand. But all of which (allegedly) make it more compelling as something to study, learn about.
If you have a belief in gravity as an exceptional, awesome force (of nature), impacting all of humanity and speak as if you have great reverence for it as a force, willing to devote your life to learning more about it, I'm thinking you done just made a religion around gravity - even if you wish to claim otherwise.