Are Sports Fans Simply Cultists?

Confession time: I can relate to true-believing Christians, because I feel the exact same way about the Green Bay Packers, the greatest sporting team in the history of the planet (despite abundant evidence to the contrary). Everybody needs a hobby; they’ve got their churches; I’ve got my team. And we treat them both the same way, with our ...
• rituals every Sunday
• altars (mine’s a 50-incher)
• vestments (mine are green and gold)
• sacraments (beer and pretzels for us, some tiny tasteless canapés for them)
• call-and-response chants (“Go, Pack, Go!” vs. “Hallelujah!”, “Praise the Lord!”, and “Amen!”)
• saints (Lombardi, Starr, Favre)
• demons (Bears and Vikings instead of Jews and Muslims)
• Mecca (Lambeau Field)
• holy scriptures (Packer Yearbook instead of Torah, Bible, Koran, Book of Mormon, etc.)
• miracles (Rodgers to Cobb vs. Bears, 48 yards in 2015, 75 in 2018)
• and of course our own promised land, which WE know is real, because we’ve been there 5 times (won 4 of ’em) and have the pictures to prove it!

So I totally get Christianity. It’s just like football!

But are we fans as crazy as those religioids? Well, the main difference is that we’re not proposing to napalm Soldier Field. Otherwise, a good case can be made that ardent sports fandom has all the earmarks of a religious cult. Let’s see if we can either make or deflate that case at this month’s Atheist Lounge.

This will be a virtual meeting conducted via Zoom. A link will be sent out at 6 PM on the day of the event to people who’ve RSVPed.