Religion has been talked about a lot on campus lately.In the wake of Blasphemy Day last week, students all over campus are talking about the benefits and drawbacks of faith. And much of the time, the drawbacks are getting a lot of play.Religion gets a bad rap sometimes, especially in institutions of higher learning. It’s hard to avoid the harsh reality the name of God has been used for terrible atrocities. Those who claim to work for a higher power often work for far less noble causes, and religion is often misused as a smokescreen to obscure scientific and social progress.Again, ignoring the fact stupid and horrible things have been and continue to be done in the name of religions would be naive. But that doesn’t mean the concept needs to be immediately discarded.Instead, religion should be viewed in a different light, so we can better appreciate the equally tremendous good it can do. The best way to do that is to use a metaphor, a practice well-established by almost every world religion.In this case, we’ll use the metaphor of college football.After even a cursory examination of this undeniably powerful influence on our regional culture, the parallels become obvious.Like most organized religions, the greater faith is fragmented into individual denominations, each swearing allegiance to similar but distinct incarnations of the same basic concept. Each faith puts together massive communal efforts to construct its sanctuaries in homage to its team — massive structures of breathtaking scale, rivaling great cathedrals that serve a similar purpose. Just like any religion, every team has fans of varying intensity. There are fair-weather fans, who stay with the team during the good times, come only to the big games, come late, sit at the back and get impatient if the game goes over the allotted time. Then there are the zealots, the hard-core fans who can quote statistics, player numbers and formations like chapters and verses, who whip themselves into an ecstatic, almost worshipful fervor every weekend — without fail. On the surface it seems ridiculous a public love for 11 men and their prowess in a game should approach something as serious as religion. But football means far more than the game we pay to see. Just like religion, it gives us something to be passionate about. When the average student sits through weeks of classes, cramming his brain and poring over books, there is something unspeakably wonderful about the release of yelling your voice out with reckless abandon. But more importantly, it gives us a sense of community. There are few more powerful experiences then rising to your feet and adding your voice to the almost 100,000 people screaming all around you, as the band takes the field and the teeming purple, gold and white river flows out of the gates and sweeps across the field.For my money, there’s something beautiful about our public religion. And there’s no better representation than LSU.We have the greatest hymns, even though our best is only four notes long. Our anthems shake our cathedral, and our celebrations shake the earth. When Florida comes to town this Saturday, when the lights wash over a seething mass of fans and the streets fill with revelers, when the eyes of the nation turn to us, it will be the highest of holy days for our congregation. Let us gather again in our great open-air cathedral, join our voices again in thundering hymns and come together to worship under the Louisiana sky.Amen — and Geaux Tigers.Matthew Albright is a 20-year-old mass communication major from Baton Rouge.  Follow him on Twitter @TDR_malbright.—-Contact Matthew Albright at [email protected]