As I watch a baseball player cross home plate and point to the sky or a football player kneel in prayer after a touchdown, I’m at a loss to say what would be a natural substitute; something they could do to show the feeling of happy humility as they give credit to god for their success. It’s a natural thing for people who don’t have another way to indicate that they feel great but don’t want to gloat. And with everyone watching, the act of showing thankfulness to the invisible supernatural giver of all good things leads us all to feel warm and fuzzy for the gesture, even though it makes no sense. What did god do, exactly?
So I’m forced to accept that this is a natural tendency where education would help us to know, is not logical. So — How much reading and education is typical of our sports heros? The answer is, not much. There are many educated athletes. But it’s not a requirement, and it’s not the norm.
So — if reading leads to disillusionment with the whole “everything is a gift from god” thing, and these role models do this kind of thing all the time, indicating that they likely haven’t read anything by Spinoza, or Hume or Hitchens, I realize that this is another factor contributing to the losing battle of Reason over Dogma.