There are many religions which arise out of those beliefs. There are many religions and they tend to be mutually exclusive. Yet the spiritual is inclusive. It is the deepest sense of belonging and participation. Sometimes it succeeds and sometimes it fails.
Religion is a bridge to the spiritual-but the spiritual lies beyond religion.
The issues of abandonment, suffering, loss of hope and meaning evident in such cases, and the transitions from living to dying are essentially spiritual, and clearly not solely physiological, psychological, or social. The nature of suffering and the goals of medicine. Everyone has a transcendent dimension, a life of the spirit. The profession of medicine appears to ignore the human spirit. When I see patients in nursing homes who have become only bodies, I wonder it is not their transcendent dimension that they have lost.