[api]

IMHO religion has little to do with spirituality. I'm not necessarily saying it's all bad, just that it's all about politics, philosophy, enforcing a certain set of norms to allow cooperation, etc. The relationship of religion to spiritual experience is along the lines of the relationship between space themed fiction like Star Trek to actual space flight.

[fsloth]

I would rephrase this as that religious practices of unfamiliar religions can have very little relationship to an individuals spirituality. Obviously some people are very strongly tuned to the religious practices of their religion.

Large organizations such as churches all have politics and structure beyond the "core service" they provide. And as social groups they evoke tribalism, cliques, etc, etc. The religious services are one aspect of these organizations that are designed to offer spiritual experiences to the congregation. The organization specifies the framework for these events. The fact that the organization has other aspects as well does not mean it would not fulfill this core service. Does it fulfill it, and to whom, is another question entirely.

We probably still lack proper psychological vocabulary to discuss spirituality as a phenomenon of human psyche in disconnect from the metaphysical frameworks that religions offer.

As an atheist, I feel "spirituality" - in this context it means perhaps most of all a certain mood and a state of mind - is very important to me. I just don't connect it to any religious framework. I understand that you mean that organized religion does not necessarily have anything to do with spiritual experience but I still think it's quite incorrect to make this into a generalization.

[tomsthumb]

Religion is a classifying term for a variety of cultural languages in which the vast majority of spirituality has been framed throughout history. Saying they have little to do with one another is, at best, uninformed.

One does not necessitate the other, but that does not mean they are anywhere near as dissociated as you suggest.

[Alex3917]

> The relationship of religion to spiritual experience is along the lines of the relationship between space themed fiction like Star Trek to actual space flight.

If you look at actual definitions of the word 'religion' used by academics who study religion, there is actually a pretty tight relationship. E.g.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lM-yinhpOgQ