Recognizing that all language is transcendent (the significance of signs or words is not reducible to their physical existence as a collection of letters or sounds or body language) does not make one Platonic. Again, the difference is between the Platonic worship of the idea, i.e. the putative philosophical content of the sign, and the anthropological interest in the form of the sign as a sacralizing agent that helps bond a community on a shared scene: e.g., is the sign a philosophical concept, the name of a god/spirit in a tribal ritual, or the mark of an unquestionable imperative “the science is settled and we must reduce carbon [or we are acting like Holocaust deniers]” in a postmodern victimary religion.
I think your definition of religion is a good starting point but then your last sentence suggests you don’t quite grasp how meaning is continuous in the collective whose domain is that of representations that transcend their materiality – e.g. you can’t well explain a painting in terms of a collection of paint blotches.
