Religion or Ritual? (Reading too)

Yes I was introduced to that jumbled up passage in July 2004, and at that time my response was:

ftiiaanncsg - is tihs pnllttaeioy cdcrroonittay s-staarms ssseux eecndive ?

For word recognition I think that the requirement is more than the first and last letters being in the same place, it's like you say, some of the syllables must be recognizable - my guess is that any syllable-based language displays this characteristic.

You wrote:

Humans have some inherent need to "be religious," I guess ... and they tend to impute necessity into rituals.

Now do humans have an inherent disposition to be religious or to be ritualistic? Looking in the playground I would say that it is the latter. Humans do have some inherent "need" or "desire" or "disposition" to be ritualistic. Now I wonder why this is so and what purpose it serves? Why do we do it?

John Lennon is quoted as saying:

Rituals are important. Nowadays it's hip not to be married. I'm not interested in being hip.

But he didn't say why he knew that rituals are important. Any ideas? One possible thought is that rituals align everyone to the same behaviour and thus cause a group to instantiate. A group is stronger than an individual, so each member in that group is more likely to survive when in that group than if outside of the group.