One of the more remarkable experiences of my early adult life was attending a sales conference. I couldn't believe how much that business event felt like a _religious_ event to me. The format, the language, the emotions... I recognized all of these.
I'm no longer religious in the same way, but those experiences have made me particularly sensitive the power of faith and community. Once you know what you're looking for, you start to see it everywhere: in businesses, in politics, in fandom. People want belonging and a sense of being part of something greater than themselves. Belief in the supernatural is not required to engender that feeling.
The expertise in 'marketing' in this environment was incredible, and I've been both surprised and somewhat relieved to find that for the most part nobody 'outside the fold' seems to properly study how it works and apply it to stuff like selling their startup, especially startups that rely on some degree of community... Some do, but it's surprisingly rare to me.
For a brief time I got involved with the School of Life / Church for Atheists stuff in a desire to find some of what I've lost since leaving church, and I was astounded to find that they seemed to mostly try to emulate all the worst parts of what made 'church life' work.
For examples, the Evangelicals/Pentecostals figured out that rock concert-style Sunday services work to get people interested, but the attrition rate is terrible. Instead, to get people to stay and become part of the church, emphasizing the 'small groups' (~12 people meeting weekly) is by far the most effective strategy. Make people spend time in a small subcommunity and eat together, and you got a member!
So what does School of Life do with their 'Sunday Assemblies'? Awkwardly emulate church but neglect the 'small group' aspect, and hoping that somehow this is more successful than, say, the rapidly-dying Catholic/Protestant churches that mostly rely on boring Sunday services.
I agree, but feel like this is a not a bad thing most of the time (even though it can be), and I say this as an atheist in the traditional sense, with iconoclastic tendencies when provoked...
You see faith based reasoning and very strong emotional reactions to things that are not real.
As a Scot I can't help be amused that the greatest rivalry was between the Blues and Greens:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/104097.Sailing_to_Sarant...
Also it makes just as much sense like this: 'sports is to sex as pornography is to war.'
By adoption of sports, do you mean universal participation or spectation?
The former I suppose would be a net positive, if you limit the requirement to just making sure everyone does at least some physical activity every day, but if you mean that everyone should be required to play some sport as a significant pastime the negatives start reducing the net positive.
If the latter, I must vehemently disagree. We would probably be better off banning spectator sports entirely rather than making everyone watch.
doesn't seem to fit gp's "people who have done something" crietia.
No i was questioning GP's point. Nothing to do with Ellul. I personally don't care if the author has "done something"
Preserving once sanity while reading him is difficult enough, imagine what you would have to go through while you think through these things for years.
I guess it depends on what one means by "doing something."
I highly recommend Jacques Ellul's "Les nouveaux possédés." (translated in English as "The New Demons" [1]) an analysis written back in 1973 describing this exact process you're describing, i.e. modern stuff (rock stars among others) trying to fill the hole of the disappearing religion. Ever since I've read the book I cannot attend a big music concert or a crowded football match without thinking about it (before this pandemic started, of course).
[1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1362676.The_New_Demons