Mount Rushmore is a good example. Ancestral leaders, mythical heroes, apocryphal stories. When we describe the cult of a dead Pharaoh of living roman emperor,

Mount Rushmore is a good example. Ancestral leaders, mythical heroes, apocryphal stories. When we describe the cult of a dead Pharaoh of living roman emperor, we're quite comfortable using terms like "cult," "rite," and such. When describing contemporary culture, we call it a political monument, a cultural heritage symbol or a national monument. To future archeology, it's all the same. Washington can be described in the same terms Nefertiti and the reverse. Visitors to the statue are pilgrims. Events taking place there are "performed rites." It's not wrong describe constitutional judges as a priests endowed with mysterious abilities to commune with spirits of the past to gain knowledge of constitutional mystery. These rites are not that different from the oracle of Delphi. Why/how isn't Christ the Redeemer a "ritual object." It's a statue of a god worshipped extensively by the people who live in Rio. It has artistic, religious & cultural meaning. Every day, millions of people cross themselves, say prayers, take mass or perform other christian rites. Why is Christ the Redeemer different to the Sphinx or Jupiter? You can replace "ritual object" with "cultural object."