Religion = Ties That Bind (at least in Latin)

I was listening in the car to Harold S. Kushner's audio book, The Lord Is My Shepherd: The Healing Wisdom of the Twenty-Third Psalm. Dr. Kushner claimed that the Latin root of the word "religion" means to bind together, like a ligament, and that religion has this function in communities.

I looked at a couple of on-line dictionaries to see whether his claim checked out. Those dictionaries indicate that the word religion is "perhaps" derived from the Latin religare -- to tie back, to restrain, to tie fast. See the associated entries at dictionary.com and Mirriam-Webster.

So far Dr. Kushner's book is quite interesting. He is also the author of such books as When Bad Things Happen to Good People.