If engaging with person-like beings and not engaging with them are different, why put them in the same category? We can put them in the same category because both person-like beings and non-person forces are outside the reach of the methods of the natural sciences. They are both “supernatural.” Monotheistic, polytheistic, and cosmic criteria of religion all presupposes a belief in the supernatural.
References
Schilbrack, K. (2022). The Concept of Religion. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2022). Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2022/entries/concept-religion/
This difference raises a philosophical question: on what grounds can one place the practices based on these two kinds of realities in the same category? The many loa spirits, the creator Allah, and the all-pervading Dao are not available to the methods of the natural sciences, and so they are often called “supernatural”. If that term works, then religions in all three concentric circles can be understood as sets of practices predicated on belief in the supernatural.