Religion and Spirituality: What’s the Difference?

Our local National Public Radio affiliate broadcasts a weekly radio program called “The Reluctant Therapist,” in which the host interviews experts on subjects related to mental health.  Today’s subject explored the difference, if one exists at all, between religion and spirituality.

To me, this comes down in large part to how one defines the words.  The broad sense of the word religion, as it applies to practices like Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, and Jainism, seems indistinguishable from spiritualism, in that adherents hold belief systems to the effect that there are dimensions to human conscious that transcend the mental and physical functions of our bodies.