”They include not only the worship rites and sacraments of organized religions and cults, but also rites of passage, atonement and purification rites, oaths of allegiance, dedication ceremonies, coronations and presidential inaugurations, marriages and funerals, school "rush" traditions and graduations, club meetings, sporting events, Halloween parties, veterans parades, Christmas shopping and more. Many activities that are ostensibly performed for concrete purposes, such as jury trials, execution of criminals, and scientific symposia, are loaded with purely symbolic actions prescribed by regulations or tradition, and thus partly ritualistic in nature. Even common actions like hand-shaking and saying hello may be termed rituals.”
With such a definition, it isn’t much of a stretch to call about anything that isn’t clearly a tool ritualistic in origin.
I think that the point is that using current methods, future laymen will look at the work of future archeologists and through a misunderstanding of their terminology will think that there was a cult that worshiped snowmen.
Comments
”it’s always for ritual reasons, rather than more mundane reasons.”
In common English the definition of “ritual” is a lot more restricted than in sociology and archaeology. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ritual:
”They include not only the worship rites and sacraments of organized religions and cults, but also rites of passage, atonement and purification rites, oaths of allegiance, dedication ceremonies, coronations and presidential inaugurations, marriages and funerals, school "rush" traditions and graduations, club meetings, sporting events, Halloween parties, veterans parades, Christmas shopping and more. Many activities that are ostensibly performed for concrete purposes, such as jury trials, execution of criminals, and scientific symposia, are loaded with purely symbolic actions prescribed by regulations or tradition, and thus partly ritualistic in nature. Even common actions like hand-shaking and saying hello may be termed rituals.”
With such a definition, it isn’t much of a stretch to call about anything that isn’t clearly a tool ritualistic in origin.
I think that point is that using current methods, future archeologists will think there was a cult that worshiped snowmen.
I think that the point is that using current methods, future laymen will look at the work of future archeologists and through a misunderstanding of their terminology will think that there was a cult that worshiped snowmen.