Characteristics Of Secular Rituals

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Rituals are activities that we can either inherit or acquire through repetition that have some sort of meaning and significance to us. A ritual can be something as simple as eating dinner as a family on Sunday nights to a complex religious ritual. These rituals a usually symbolic and we make connections to larger things that we assign value to through them. Rituals can be meaningful by commemorating important events, places, and people or just be simpler, everyday routines. Because rituals can be such a variety of different things with different meanings and purposes for those who practice them, we distinguish between religious and secular rituals. Secular rituals would refer to the more “everyday” rituals such as bedtime stories, brushing teeth, Sunday dinner, watching a certain television show every week, and other activities similar to these. Religious rituals are often crucial components of certain religion traditions. These could include baptisms, burial rituals, sacrifices, daily prayer, and other religious activities. Both of these kinds of rituals have similar characteristics, including that they are socially …show more content…

Life-crisis rituals help restore balance, order and meaning when events in our lives threaten it. Life-crisis rituals can address accidents, illnesses, death, famine, and other unexpected events. Different cultures and religions have different rituals to address life crises. For example, a healing ritual could be as simple as saying a prayer for someone during a church service to something more complex such as changing someone 's name in the hope that they will be provided with a new life. The people who perform these rituals have hope and believe that these actions will have a positive effect. Most life-crisis rituals, whether they are religious or not, aim to provide comfort and restore balance and order to the lives ' of those who are impacted by an

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