re: #96 Decatur Deb

For religion-tolerant atheists, check in at any decent university anthropology department. Most there are non-religious, and most know what religion is for. Cultures that don’t find a way to organize the World of the Non-existent tend to become non-existent.

People need rituals. You don’t have to believe it (half the time I don’t believe in the afterlife. God, yes. Heaven, no.) but people need ways to structure the changes in our lives.

Birth, death, weddings, the cycle of the year (via the life of a religious figure like Christ or the seasons) and so on. It’s funny being Episcopalian because so many of the words of our Book of Common Prayer got used by Hollywood that most people think of weddings and funerals by the words of the BCP: Ashes to ashes, dust to dust …, in the midst of life…, Dearly beloved, we are gathered together here in the sight of God - are all from the prayer book and are used by many without realizing that.

Now I’m the first to admit these are not the only or even best rituals. Just that people need rituals and these are the things they will need psychologically even if everyone became non-religious overnight.

But I do like my smells & bells and serving the cup last Sunday for Easter with it’s aspergillum & thurible & exsultet are what do it for me :)