From: utzoo!decvax!harpo!seismo!hao!hplabs!hplabsb!soreff
Newsgroups: net.religion
Title: Re: Ritual and Polytheism
Article-I.D.: hplabsb.1563
Posted: Sat Apr 16 23:50:39 1983
Received: Wed Apr 20 22:30:56 1983
References: utcsrgv.1285

I too, would like to see more emphasis on ritual as art form.
I think that ritual need not be connected with a theology, and suspect
that the portion of religion that satisfies psychological needs might
be largely the ritual rather than the theological or dogmatic portion.
I'm not certain how well a non-thelogically-based ritual can be used
as a differentiating factor to remind law/policymakers of the range of
individual differences.  Since the constitution provides for freedom of
religion, but not for freedom of ritual, I'm not sure if there are any
requirements that such a freedom be taken into account.
For example, if I were to hold some ritual act (eg. something like the
Japanese tea ceremony) regularly (say on each perihelion of Mercury),
with a group as friends, and if the participants said that the ceremony
was important to them, but was not deity-related, would the ceremony
be treated legally like a religious ceremony?
		Glad to see an interesting topic in net.religion,
		-Jeffrey Soreff (hplabs!soreff)