In my opinion religion, faith and spirituality are truly distinct and separate things. I grew up in a ultra-religious evangelical Christian family so I know that many if not most people confuse at least two or all three of these as parts of one thing. I just have never been able to see it that way.
First, I see spirituality as being a trait that every person possesses. Just about everyone is born with it to some degree, it's all in how you develop it. A good friend called spirituality a "meta emotion" or emotion about your emotions. I think he's really on to something there. I'd say emotion is too narrow a term, but certainly in the "meta" aspect, or a way of "jumping out of the system" to awareness about awareness, or consciousness reflecting on itself, some attempt to sense higher meaning and purpose... I think that's on the right track. Transcendence is the word.
What I don't believe is that it can be objectively tied to any one belief system. Your faith may be something that helps you develop a spiritial sense, but really that is only a subjective validation of a single faith. In other words, there are many independent paths to spirituality, just because you happen to find one does not mean that it is the only true one.
Richard Dawkins describes faith as an example of a meme, or a set of ideas that replicate more or less consistently. Like their biological equivilant the gene, a meme can mutate as it is transmitted from one person to another. But some memes are bundled in a form to ensure they continue unchanged. There are even "viral" memes that contain instructions that they must be passed on. Christian faiths have spread like this for centuries. They typically come with the ideas that a) this faith is the one true faith and b) it is your duty to spread the faith.
Thus the faith meme has a mechanism to defeat your mental immume system: your skepticism and your analytical skills, in addition to a mechanism to ensure its continued spread.
Religion seems to me as a system of control, a hierarchical power structure, a self-maintaining sytem of authority. It can be local or it can be global but basically it's all about maintaining itself. Anyone in the structure has a vested interest in ensuring the structure survives. By nature, such structures are very very conservative: the only acceptable change is that which will help preserve the religion. Any other potential change will be strenuously suppressed. Faith is the most important tool for control, but it's just one weapon in the arsenal. Traditional rites, majestic temples and indoctrination are other powerful mechanisms. Another it to instill a need for repentence as a prerequisite to experience spirituality. I'd say that is mental slavery.
The friend I talked about earlier once joked that he'd like to go up to a priest and ask "just between you and me, you know it's all bullshit, right?" On the theory perhaps that, any rational person will ultimately come to that conclusion. I think that most would answer in the negative unfortunately; they're true believers whose rationality has hit a limit on some level.
One thing that is tough to deny however is that the conversion experience for many people seems to be genuine. Somehow an awakening moment of spirituality can be induced. Evangelicals use a variety of ways to make people susceptible, but it still seems to be a real experience. Once it happens though, then they can hit you with the faith meme. If you buy that, then they have a good chance of hooking you into the religion. This is how it has gone on for millenia....
