Religion and Baseball
The reading “Authentic Fakes, Religion and American Popular Culture” by David Chidester and “God in the Details, American Religion in Popular Culture” by Eric Mazur and Kate McCarthy along with the readings on Bruce Springsteen inspired me to write an essay on two of the most important things in my life, Religion and baseball. Religion is a very serious subject and very important. Baseball is my life. They both define who I am. According to these readings many Americans choose to consider popular cultures such as baseball, rock and roll, and Coca-Cola (among many others) as a religion. This paper will explore compare the aspects of the relationship between religion and baseball as a civil religion. By looking at the definitions of what makes up a religion, that is, religion, civil religion, and sacred space, we can deduce that baseball can be considered a religion.
It is important to first to define religion, civil religion, and sacred space.. In order to define the role religion plays in the public sphere, it is important to "establish a working definition of religion" (McGuire 5). The problem with this, of course, is we must then assume that a single definition for religion exists, and more importantly, that the definition is universally accepted. Unfortunately, there are dozens of different definitions of religion, each subtly different, which makes it difficult to understand and proves it is not universally accepted. It can be concluded from the different perspectives of many sociologists and theologians that, at minimum, religion is (or attempts to be) based on belief. It is composed of certain sayings with respect to life which seem to be true but there is no way they can be verified: they are simply accepted without proof. They are, like the basis of any religion, the basic beliefs from which all else follows.
The Social Contract. Rousseau "outlines the simple dogmas of the civil religion: the existence of God, the life to...