@jeeprs,
it is interesting though how the idea has persisted for so long and people are so willing to fight about it to the death.
the usual reasons guessed are fear of death and oblivion, fear of responsibility, fear of abandonment, fear of change, etc-always fear. i should think we could have imagined something more comforting than what most religions offer to alleviate our fears!
in my own history, i was brought up to be roman catholic, and by the age of 11 saw through all the hype and pitched the whole idea of religion into the dustbin. i didnt give it much thought for about 15 years. i never expected it to creep back into my life but little by little, in a whole new form it did return to co-exist with all my other beliefs and experiential conclusions in a non-threatening and useful way.
spirituality simply means that there is more to everything than what we can observe and measure. there need not be any sense of divinity or deity and in and of itself it is hardly able to provide a moral code. that is something we must work out for ourselves using the faculties we have and the experience we are exposed to.
the only reason i can think of that this intangible leaning exists is that it is a part of human nature, and that towards which we lean is also part of our nature-or we are part of it, doesnt matter which way you want to say it. (technically of course it would matter to a clever philosopher skilled in analysis, but for my purpose of understanding it does not matter). this tends to explain the feeling of not being whole-people often reach out to the opposite sex to complete them, or harmful things like addictions and obsessions, and have depression and loneliness that they cant explain-that feling of being alone in a crowd. i suspect it is because we are denying the better part of our own nature by throwing out all aspects of spirituality.
all that needs to be done is to separate the structure of religion from the experience of spirituality. then start with a blank slate and look at it again...