Religon Versus Spirituality

This is something that I wrote for my Comparative Religions course. I thought it was an interesting thought. So I decided to pass it on here.

What is religion? Does it differ from “spirituality,” a currently fashionable word?

Religion is something that is secondary to spirituality. Someone’s choice of religion comes out of his or her spirituality. Religion is an offshoot. Religion contains the practices, traditions, rites and rituals through which you express part of your spirituality. Here is a good way to put it: religion is something I do, spirituality is who I am. And what you do always comes out of who you are.
Spirituality contains an identity, a ‘soul.’ Religion, as most could attest to, sometimes seems to be soulless. That is because our choice of religion does not reflect our true spirituality. Spirituality is contained in our identity. As such, there are a lot of different thing that factor into it; our upbringing, childhood environment, immediate environment, parental situation, personal taste in music, this list is endless. Religion is not this way. Religion is a container of specific thoughts, ideas and things. In other words: religion is objective, spirituality is subjective.