Yes, I would day it is in the nature of religion to devise meanings for, that is reasons for, suffering. Dissipation of ability seems to be the prime agent of diminishing meaning and growing feelings of unworthiness, uselessness, helplessness and despair; the anguish of nihilism. This is what it means to suffer. Pain, however terrible, is bearable if there is an end in sight; a return of power. Meaninglessness and the worst suffering consists in the negation of all our possibilities.

If this weakness of disempowerment can be justified ( "the meek shall inherit the Earth"), a meaning is found.

It's not a matter of "telling religion to get back in its box labelled 'faith'. Faith is meaning, given via feeling, and that is what religion does. It is not an instrument of knowledge like science or an inventor of new ways of thinking like philosophy. Only poetry, as a medium of meaning, is like religion, but the difference is that the meaning in poetry is ever newly created, not enshrined by culture and tradition. Of course new interpretations of religion are always possible, and it is when this occurs that it comes closest to poetry and even surpasses it in its cultural and existential embeddedness.

As you say a sense of community and kindness also give meaning to those who are suitably receptive, but such things usually flourish in a medium of shared values, which brings us back to faith.

The idea that meditation can put you in touch with a 'wisdom of the ages' is pure romantic fantasy, in my view.

Well, it worked for me.

How do you know it is a 'wisdom of the ages' you are in touch with as opposed to merely unfamiliar ideas or a fantasy?

I have experienced altered or 'heightened' states of consciousness during meditation just as I have during sexual encounters, when painting, when writing, when playing or listening to music, when dreaming, when trekking in the wilderness (particularly when alone for more than a few days), when surfing, with LSD, Mescaline, Psylocybin, MDMA and even Cannabis or alcohol . What am I supposed to believe the fact that I can alter my brain chemistry in these various ways is pointing to?

You have already declared 'All explanations are given in material terms, including subjective explanations of experience, whether they be accounts of emotion, desire, aspiration or whatever.' So, whatever explanation I give will be intepreted accordingly, so I'm quite happy to leave it, thanks.

I was just pointing out that all explanations are inevitably given in material terms, and that I think the fact that we cannot give an explanation, or any account at all, of anything 'immaterial' provides us with good reason to stop talking (or more appositely, to stop purporting to be talking) about 'it'.

Not all explanations are given in 'material terms' - only the explanations which materialism will consider.

'"I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail."

~ Abraham Maslow