The word religion is derived from the Latin religare, to bind. What binds, whom does it bind, and why? Leaving aside any orthodox explanation, it stands to reason that it is "We" who are bound. What binds us? Not chains or shackles, of course. Religion may be said to bind usby rules, laws, or injunctions only. And why? To make us slaves? To disallow us the birthright of free thinking or free action? That is unreasonable. Just as relgion must have a sufficient motive, so its motive in "binding" us must also be good. What is that motive? The only rational answer we can give is that religion binds us by rules laws, injunctions, in order that we may not degenerate, that we may not be in misery-bodily, mentally, or spritually.
Bodily and mental suffering we know. But what is spiritual suffering? To be in ignorance of the spirit. It is present, always, though often unnoticed, in every limited creature, while bodily and mental pain come and go.
Is not the definition of religion already given consistent with the above-mentioned motive of the word "binding", the root meaning of relgion? Now religion cannot lie merely in getting rid of something, such as pain, but it must also lie in getting hold of something else. It cannot be purely negative but must be positive, too.