Like many have written above, my wife and I are atheists and diehard football fans. She’s also into tennis, while I’m into hockey and soccer. And we like to play several sports.

I’m still on an Onion kick from the Footprints post, but these are short. And I think Hermand will really enjoy this first one:
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/31577

And insight on how god decides the victor:
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/31813

I don’t care if you like football or not, but please don’t call it a substitute for testosterone inspired violence, for it is much more than that. Like in most sports, brains are just as valid as brawn.

Absolutely true. And I have nothing personally against football or sports in general, actually. There’s a lot of thought, strategy and intelligence that goes into putting together a sports season – just like there’s a lot of the same that goes into winning a war. One only need be familiar with Sun Tzu’s Art of War to realize that.

And I should also add that my kids have learned excellent life lessons from participating in sports. I doubt either of them would have the confidence, poise, determination or compassion (yes, compassion!) they have now if they hadn’t been immersed in sports their whole lives.

Playing on a team teaches you teamwork and cooperation, of course, but it also teaches you not only to win, but to lose. It teaches you that most of the time you’re not the best player in the world, let alone the best player on the field. It teaches you that you can reach deep down and come up with what it takes to get the job done if you try hard enough. And if you fail, you learn to accept your limitations and try harder next time.

I’m grateful for all those things they’ve learned, and I’m also grateful that they learned them in the reasonably safe arena of sports rather than in the arena of warfare.

As for sports being a particularly American cultural phenomenon, I don’t see that. I can’t think of any country that doesn’t have its sports teams and its sports heroes. Give the poorest kids in the most marginalized society a round object and they’ll be organizing a soccer game within about five mintues.

And as a comedian once said:
Why don’t you ever hear a player say, “Jesus made me fumble”?

I don’t care if you like football or not, but please don’t call it a substitute for testosterone inspired violence, for it is much more than that. Like in most sports, brains are just as valid as brawn. Player “X” might not be the fastest safety on the field, but he’ll defend the best and fastest wide receivers better than anyone because he can read a route and pick a pass. Being able to run fast or hit hard hardly make up for the ability to read and react to a play.

I will keep everyone updated on this as the data rolls in.

Looking forward to crushing their playoff hopes in a couple of weeks.

And who says atheists don’t follow sports? Hemant: it seems like you’re buying into the nerd, depressed atheist stereotype. Or do I sense a bit of sarcasm?

A bit sarcastic. But in the several years going to atheist meetings, I’ve rarely had a sports discussion with anyone! It pops up everywhere else I go (work, friends, etc.) but only rarely in my non-religious world…

My theory, and I’m serious: The whole thing is a substitute for the testosterone-fueled, deep-seated need to go to war, vanquish an enemy and prevail on the battlefield.

I think you’re on to something there – though we shouldn’t also discount the sociological influence of our American cultural myth that meaning and self-worth are found through competition and defeating one’s opponents. I think there’s probably a little bit of both nature and nurture going on here.

I watch sports (mostly football: go Packers! — been a Packer fan since I was born!), and I agree that for many people (mostly men) they are a substitute for war. It’s a kind of tribal hatred. For me, sports are just a challenge, a fun competition that should be taken seriously but not too seriously. I think physical challenges are important for human beings. But I think intellectual challenges are just as important, if not more important. In a sense, an intellectual accomplishment is much harder to achieve than a physical accomplishment, because it requires you to actually think and work things out. Physical goals can often be had just by putting your body to work, like a robot. However, at the best of times, things like sports require both physical ability and intellectual ability, especially in the sense that physical accomplishments are often achieved by “mind over matter” — you need to convince yourself that your body can last longer, can do this or that. I pride myself in being a young man who is both good at sports and good at thinking, and can appreciate both.