Over-thinking the Tao with Dostoevsky's Men

I've been simultaneously studying Dostoevsky and Eastern Religion. In East-West Literary Relations we were reading Notes from Underground while at the same time, my 1000-level Religion class was discovering Hinduism.

 My adventure into Dostoevsky continued with The Grand Inquistor and Dream of a Ridiculous Man. My comprehensive proficiency is Eastern worldviews expanded into the Confucian philosophies and Taoism.

My studies (specifics will follow) have not only influenced, but perpetuated my investigation into the basic principles of the "human condition" on societal, familial, and individual levels.  I am trying to expand the human condition into an intergalactic viewpoint, as in a fictitious intergalactic society with a "conscientious condition". The conscientious condition is the set of distinctive and inexorable features of conscientious intelligence in a society or culture.

In my investigation, I ask myself a few general questions:  

-What is the definition of a religion?  

-Why do religions exist?  

-What regulations should be in effect in order to ensure liberty, peace, and equality? 

-Is morality too relative/subjective to be universalized?  

-What is the essence of man?

-Furthermore, what is the essence of conscience? 

-Can conscience be regulated? 

-If there was a Canon to govern intergalactic morality, what would it look like?  

-What constitutes having a conscience?

I'll answer the first question here with my definition of religion: It is a change in a person's conscience (interchangeable with spirit or soul) caused by acceptance of an Ultimacy (a purpose and direction for life).