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LINK Is Sport a Religion? | Psychology Today Australia

Sport and religion … I always thought of the similarities between the two … good old Karl was right about the numbing effects of religion on people's minds … He would probably come to the same conclusion when it comes to mass-mediatised sports

PontifexMarximus 8 July 7
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28 comments

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5

I agree and I would tend to include owning pets in the category of a religion.

perhaps with the exception of goldfish

4

I say no. Religion is fake, sport is real. Because someone cares deeply for a subject or a person doesn't make it religion. If you love your wife or husband is that a religion? The article's initial premise that the same words are used in sport and religion: Faith, sacrifice, prayer etc. is just not true. You can pin those words on anything someone feels deeply about if you want to but that doesn't make it a religion.

lerlo Level 8 July 7, 2019

Agree!

4

"Football is not a matter of life or death. It's more important than that"
Bill Shankly - football manager

I heard that comment on a commercial for a sports documentary on soccer called The Pitch. So, yes, some sports are obviously a religion to some people involved with them. In the US, college football is a religion in some southern states like Alabama, Texas, Georgia, and Florida.

4

I'm a sports fan. When I lived in one place which had a tv I watched NFL football all the way through the Super Bowl. Lots of fun.
The next year no tv, so I didn't watch, but followed it online, watched some online sports shows. Still fun. Could care less about individual athletes, just enjoyed the chess match. It's like a serialized movie or tv show.
Nothing like a religion. See no similarity whatsoever. Silly comparison.

They say the Super Bowl is America's biggest religious holiday.

"See no similarity whatsoever." I think you may need to look more closely. There are rituals. In-groups and out-groups. Even the article list is difficult to ignore: "Consider the vocabulary associated with both: faith, devotion, worship, ritual, dedication, sacrifice, commitment, spirit, prayer, suffering, festival, and celebration."

It is also clear to me that the Sandusky case plays out in exactly the same way as sex abuse scandals in churches.

4

No, sport is not a religion. Sport does not have a supporting body of myth and dogma, and it does not have a cult of priests selling the myth.

@dan325 Myths, yes. Total system ideological dogmas ,NO.

@wordywalt Couldn't a worship of "winning" be a dogma? Or that certain people can do no wrong, no matter what? Cults of personality? Fight songs are filled with elements that create in-groups and out-groups, and "a principle or set of principles laid down by an authority as incontrovertibly true" (the definition of "dogma" ).

It's difficult to explain the reaction to Paterno's firing outside of something like dogma (if not exactly like).

@greyeyed123 No. Religions have a total system ideology. That is, they purport to explain and include everything in life, in the world, in the universe.

@wordywalt Well, not all religions do all of those things. But even if that were true, certainly many, many superfans claim the object of their fandom is of supreme importance in life, the world, and the universe. (See the Vice clip above, where superfans created their own religion around their favorite soccer player. And it must be a religion because it offended Catholics. lol)

@greyeyed123 You describe a cult, not a religion.

@wordywalt I have family that call Mormons a "cult". The definitions of "religion" and "cult" are indistinguishable from the outside.

"a system of religious veneration and devotion directed toward a particular figure or object."

"a relatively small group of people having religious beliefs or practices regarded by others as strange or sinister."

(Both of those are for "cult", by the way.)

3

Absolutely. They are one in the same and members are just as fanatical as each other.

3

Unfortunately yes.

3

The article failed to point out the biggest similarities between sport and religion. In that it is tribal. The team you support is highly dependant on your family and location, does that sound familiar? In some cases, this will intertwine as in Glasgow or Northern Ireland, where sectarianism still runs rife. I suppose that it may be true in US sports too, I doubt that Notre Dame has many Presbertian fans?

@motrubl4u Glasgow is divided into Celtic = catholic and Rangers = Protestant. A Celtic manager Jock Steen was asked "If you had 2 great players on the market. One catholic and the other protestant. Which one would you buy?"
"The Protestant one"
"Why?"
"Because Rangers would never buy the catholic one"

3

Somewhere between religion and cult. Try telling someone that sports are an idiotic waste of time and money, the reaction is the exact same if you tell them religion is an idiotic waste of time and money.

EXACTLY!

@maturin1919 People insult things I like all the time. I've never reacted like they've kicked a puppy and burned down my childhood.

3

I think it might be better asked, "is religion a sport?"

3

Totally agree. You can't miss the game, you must wear icons of the team you worship and you need to loudly sing their theme song

@maturin1919 I've heard guys call Tom Brady a god. I guess we all have different levels of humour but that's ok.

@maturin1919 I think you are correct and I think that another thing about religion is that it controls your life and you also see that in people who take their hobbies and other things in their life and become obsessed with them

2

Teams are tribes worshipped for their names!

They never have all the same players year after year, trade the players like chattel!

The fans know everything about the team(s) statistics and scores they worship, yet can not name thier senators or Representatives on the federal or local level!

Most still think we are still at war with North Vietnam or that we have more than one moon!
LOL!

The teams are own by overtly wealthy who treat their teams like religious corporations, charming Local authorities by paying little or no taxes for the publicly paid for and built massive stadiums, they occupy for almost free at our expense!

So are sports and religion one in the same two many similarities to be anything else!

Hey get out of my brain! 👍

2

If sport is a religion I’m a devout Baseballian. Rangerist is my denomination. 😂⚾️😂

2

Riots Weapons and Madness. Yup Sport IS a Religion.

2

The object of Religion is a passing to a "better afterlife"... Sport is not a Religion but... a Fanatic may think it is... and can turn it into a problem with Chaotic Fanatic Behavior.

2

For some are sports are their religion. They worship them to extremes

2

Damn...is there nothing that just can't be enjoyed without guilt or over-analyzation anymore? Lighten up people!

1

The way some treat Athletes/Sportspersons as IF they were Gods,etc, I'd say defintely YES.

1

From what I recollect, sports do not have any required beliefs or prohibited beliefs. I prefer to use rational thinking I'm going out on a limb here and say no.

For starters the followers have to believe in the "meaningfulness" of the sport they follow. As I don't understand cricket I would quote this activity as one of the prime examples … Cricket fans would be the Mormons or JWs of sports. Rugby is closer to radical Islam and soccer is more like Catholicism.

1

You can say the same about anything. Music, movies, tv shows, comics, comedy, etc. You name it. Any hobby or something that someone enjoys doing is similar to millions of others doing it, and a lot of them seek these people out to have something in common with and fit in or fulfill a need of camaraderie etc. A lot of them congregate for these things at stadiums for concerts or comedians, comic con, movie theaters where people adore movie stars, theaters for Broadway musicals or plays, the opera, etc. The lottery! POLITICS!!!

The contention that sports fans are fairly religious is not some breakthrough point. Most of the world is religious. Most of America is religious. So of course most people that like sports are religious. It's a bogus correlation. Most people who commit crimes are religious. Most lefties are religious. Most people who have a nose are religious lol

1

When morality and common sense take a back seat to loyalty and fanaticism to the team, yes.
"In this town, God is Joe Paterno. But then Jesus would be Jerry [Sandusky]."

1

Sports is entertaining but if you are not going to be passionate about it then don't bother. That's fine too.

1

Kind of they do worship the heroes

bobwjr Level 10 July 7, 2019
0

I would say so. Obsessive sports fans scare me almost as much as religious fanatics.

0

I define a religion as any organization [yes it needs people] that goes through the process of reaching decisions and then making them as unchanging as possible because ' they ' [the elders,including mythical spirits] made them usually in the distant past. Their conclusion often change with time. Sport has a mechanism for changing rules by agreement with (almost) everyone, so this allows it to fall outside my definition . Sport is just a fantastic human activity. Get over it. One does not need a god to improve one's self.

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